Tomorrow (from the day this gets posted) is Final Fantasy 14’s first Fan Fest since I started playing. I tried to get tickets but was not lucky enough to get any. Three of my friends, though, coincidentally the ones I spend the most time with online, all got tickets. Which means that I’m going to be doing my best to catch the live streams of everything going on at fan fest (since that’s where FF14 makes its big announcements) AND that I’m going to be at a bit of a loss for who to spend time with this weekend. I’ve got other options, but it’s going to be a much quieter weekend than usual, I expect. Which means I should have plenty of time to wrap up whatever little chores and tasks I’ve got for myself to complete before the new patch drops next week, but I have to admit that I’ll be looking out at Fan Fest with a little bit of envy in my heart. It’s not often that I want to go someplace public with thousands of people, especially not since COVID entered the scene, but I’ve really enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy 14 enough that I wanted to go to the place where they’re celebrating it and the communities within it. I really wanted to get out of my comfort zone, try something new, and really experience what it’s like to be a part of some kind of community like that. But it was not in the cards. The live streams will help, of course, especially since I’ll still get all the news about what’s coming up in the future of Final Fantasy 14, but it just won’t be the same.

I’m glad my friends get to go, even if I’ll be a little envious and miss having them around this weekend. They’ll be meeting up in person, which should be fun, considering how rare that is amongst my FF14 friends. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it after the fact, along with whatever other fun stuff goes on at the convention, but I’m going to do my level best not to think about it too much. There’ll be a day of reacting to the news and then Roleplaying Wresting later that night, so I won’t lack for stuff to do on the first day, Friday, of the event. I’m not sure how much I’ll watch beyond the announcements, though. It’s not like I’m super interested in everything going on, or that everything happening will be streamed, but I’ll be at work that day, so my ability to watch while I do other things is either going to be completely non-existant or absolutely no sweat. Things are still very busy at work and while I’m sure I can get a little leeway for the major announcements, I don’t think I can expect a whole day of being able to quietly work in my office with my headphones on. That’s just not my life these days. Hasn’t been it in months, even when I haven’t been concerned about appearing busy tomy coworkers. So we’ll see, I guess.

Honestly, all of this has put me in mind of the incredibly varied reactions I’ve seen to the current (and wrapping-up) expansion to Final Fantasy 14. I mean, it definitely was no Endwalker, but Dawntrail wasn’t bad by any means. It wasn’t slow-paced or stodgy or annoying the way that ARR is (the “base” game these days) and it wasn’t as lingering as Heavensward was (which I know a lot of people love, but it was just fine to me, even if it had some really strong moments in it, because it feels like the patch content portion of it just won’t ever come to an end). Dawntrail had a lot of cutscenes and some areas were criminally brushed past far too quickly, but it was still relatively strong storytelling. It’s the start of a new saga, after all. It has to lay a lot of groundwork the way that ARR and Heavensward did. It has to establish a firm, if somewhat unexciting at times, foundation for future expansions to build on and I think it accomplished that goal. There are a lot of enjoyable fights that maybe don’t feel fresh but hardly feel boring, there’s some REALLY GOOD storytelling scattered about the main expansion and back-loaded on the currently released bits of the patch content, and at no point does it ever feel like it underserves the people and cultures it presents to you the way it did with the various “beast” socities around the main area in A Realm Reborn (the racism present there is still staggering at times, as is the number of people who uncritically just call them all “beast tribes” rather than adopt the less offensive “allied society” moniker that the game updated to using some time in the last few years). It really is just a massive cut above the early days and I think most of the people complaining about it are the ones who have been playing so long that they’ve forgotten what the early days were actually like.

Any time I’ve brought that up to people who are railing against Dawntrail, I’m typically met with some kind of dismissal along the lines of “well, you’re still new and not burned out like I am.” Which is patently false because I’m so burned out it feels like my soul is a charred and withered husk of what it was even three years ago (a time when I was also feeling horribly burned out because I had yet to experience the depths to which it can take a person). If I can still find joy in stuff, I’m sure you can, too. And besides, saying you don’t enjoy it because you’re burned out on a game is a very different thing than not enjoying something because it’s bad! If you can’t appreciate a story or even evaluate it with open eyes due to how burned out you are on a game, then you should stop playing the game! Being burned out on something makes it nearly impossible to enjoy that thing! Why would you expect to enjoy a nice macroni dinner if you’re forcing yourself to eat it despite being tired of eating nice macaroni dinners?? Unfortunately, I can’t raise that point without getting heated due to incredulity and the sheer lack of awareness it takes to say something like that, so these statements have gone unanswered. I mean, it’s not like most of them would go anywhere productive, anyway. These people are not looking to think deeply or reconsider their opinions. They just want to be dour. Which is why I’m probably not going to be joining most of my online groups for the livestreams of the announcements. I’ll be at work, anyway, so I’ve got a pretty good cover. I’ll just message people whose opinion doesn’t suck.