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.
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Familiar Disappointments Still Sting
Today (the day I wrote this), was the day that tickets for Final Fantasy 14’s Fan Fest went on general sale. I’d signed up for the pre-sale lottery (to get a chance to buy tickets early) but struck out there and then struck out again when I queued for tickets and got assigned the 8000th (and change) spot. I was not able to get tickets. Which, on one hand, is going to save me a bunch of money. On the other hand, I didn’t realize how excited I was about the idea of going to the convention until I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do it. It was a pretty heavy blow. Much, much heavier than I expected, to the degree that losing out on this opportunity has cast a bit of a pall over my day. After all, I don’t really have a lot of stuff to look forward to, most of the time, so any time one of those things gets taken away, it hits harder than it ought to, and there’s been a lot of it lately. A lot of stuff has not been working out. lately. Siblings cancelling plans, friends getting sick and needing to cancel, missed opportunities, and so on. All I’ve really had that’s dependable is my gaming, work, and the inevitability of bills. It feels silly for this to be hitting me as hard as it has been, to rather completely sidetrack me for multiple hours today, but I have spent a large portion of the last couple years not planning stuff because of how often people flake on me or cancel last minute and I’m probably just a little overly sensitive to this kind of disappointment. I just wanted it to work out, despite all the evidence it wouldn’t, and now I have move on from this. Eventually.
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