There won’t be any direct spoilers for the final plot points of Final Fantasy XIV’s A Realm Reborn in here, but I’ll be gesturing at it broadly. It’s not a surprising twist or anything, but I felt I should at least disclaim that, even if I’m writing about stuff nearly a decade old at this point. After all, I just started playing the game and would have wanted to avoid spoilers, so maybe you would too. Anyway, skip paragraph three if you want to avoid spoilers (this is paragraph 1).

Last night (as of when I started writing this, anyway, even though I finished it later and you’re reading it even later), I finally finished the “A Realm Reborn” set of Main Scenario Quests in Final Fantasy XIV and moved onto the first expansion. I also bought the full game, spent some time figuring out how to make all the “new” features work, hung out in world with my friends well into the night as a means of solace after watching how everything played out, and developed complicated feelings about the rest of the world in this game. It took a bit longer than anticipated, to load into the world as a full account holder. There was a lot to download, some backend things I had to do in order to actually claim the full account and expansions, and I almost lost myself in the Real Money Emote and Clothing store online. Thankfully, I had my friends to keep me from getting lost in the sauce (who also gave me a bunch of nice in-game gifts to celebrate finishing the first chunk of the game and upgrading my account) and to invite me to their Free Company (which is the Final Fantasy XIV version of “guilds” or player unions or whatever else they’re called in other MMOs) so I could officially join the group I’d been on the periphery of this whole time. I sent my first private messages, bought a room that is completely empty except for a chandelier, and spent some time just hanging out at the beach with my friends to decompress with some cheerful music and sun after all the dark and gloomy plot.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the plot and how everything shook out during the (at least) forty-five minute long cutscene and in all the long cutscenes after it as I wrapped up A Realm Reborn and officially took my first steps into Heavensward (complete with a new voice actor for at least one familiar face). There’s a lot of interesting symbolism there, having to do with one of the characters, but I’m not sure how much is me reading into it too much and how much of it is actual plotting and storytelling work on the side of the writers of FFXIV. I mean, I absolutely called most of the major beats of this final bit of plot–corruption, betrayal, planted evidence, naive characters, inactive main character, and feckless world leaders abdicating their responsibilities to act–some out loud to my friends and some that I’ve been silently ruminating on this whole time, but most of that was a mix of small parts of foreshadowing and larger parts identifying the themes and tropes the writers were using to set up the next major chunk of the game. I’m pretty sure this could be counted as successful writing, with them leaving out enough evidence for me to put together the plot, but I’m not entirely willing to completely shrug off the idea that maybe they were just a little too boring in what they chose to do. After all, Minfilia gets kidnapped so many times that it is incredibly clear that the writers on this were scrambling at times to flesh things out enough for your character to stay involved since there’s little that you directly do or is directly done to you other than when you show up to beat down whatever major threat has reared its head. You never act to drive the plot forward, really. Just to resolve it.

Anyway, complex narrative feelings aside (and, you know, also setting aside the potential that there’s some interesting symbolism work done in there that I will have to probably wait a long time to see it pay off or not), I’m ready to move into something new. To make use of my full account. To spend hours upon hours gathering materials and crafting and occasionally dipping into the main story rather than chugging it as swiftly as I can. A more relaxed and calm approach, for the time being. Some chill gaming. And, now that I can actually hold a decent amount of money, some wealth generation. I’ve got plenty of people to show me how its done now, so all I need to do is set aside the time and put in the work to figure out how everything works. Slowly but surely, I’ll get more and more immersed in the game. I’ve barely scratched its depths, after all. There’s so much more yet to do. So many expansions. So much stuff yet undone. So many quests to pick up and do for piddly little rewards and the minor vexation of unreasonable and inefficient NPC tasks. So many currencies to accrue for reasons I’m sure will become clear in time. This is what MMOs are about. Endless cycles, social connection, and, for FFXIV at least, a decent amount of immersion. It’s a very rewarding experience, taken all together, and once I’d recommend to anyone who has the time for it.