As I’m starting this post, I’m struck by how often the phrase “_________ says it all” is immediately followed by a more expansive explanation that includes details that weren’t present in what “__________” was. All of which to say is that the title of this post is an accurate representation of its contents in summary. I got hired (me, personally) by the leader of my Free Company in Final Fantasy 14 to do some work to help make our company projects proceed more smoothly. I’m now the person trolling the markets for the materials we need in mass quantities that our companions haven’t been able to acquire by the time we need to start distributing materials. The leader sets a price cap and gives me the in-game money (plus a 10 percent commission that is meant to also cover sales tax) for however much of whatever material it is he needs and I run around the various data centers and servers buying it all up, keeping whatever money is left once that is all over. We negotiated the details of it over the weekend prior to me writing this (two weekends ago from when this gets posted) and I got sent on my way to buy fifty thousand each of two different things last night (as of writing this). I got my money, did my research, filled out my little tracking spreadsheet (that also calculates profit margins, my current pay total, and the quantity purchased), and spent about four hours buying it all. It was actually a lot of fun! I’ve been interested in how the game’s economics work, from a player perspective, and this was a very interesting glimpse into it that I couldn’t have gotten any other way. While I definitely still prefer to spend my time playing the game, I am kind of looking forward to the next time I get to do a shopping hunt like this one, and not just because it has been the fastest I’ve made a huge amount of money in my almost ten months of playing the game.
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I Can’t Imagine What Final Fantasy 14 Would Have Like Without My Free Company
Aside from my very first month of playing the game, I have not experienced what it is like to play Final Fantasy 14 without being a member of a Free Company (the FF14 version of player guilds). The friends who got me into the game were members of one already, so I was already predisposed to joining that particular group from the get-go, but the warm welcome I received while I was still a new player on a free-to-play account solidified my decision to join. Since then, I have not regretted my choice. Almost everyone in the FC has been a warm and welcoming person who has done what they could, sometimes at mild to moderate inconvenience, to help me out as I’ve gotten further and further into the game. From free level-appropriate gear when I was reached the tough middle of my crafting journey to tons of free collectibles (music for the in-game jukebox, minions, clothing items, mounts, and more) more or less constantly, I would not have made the progress I have without the support of this FC. Nor would I have made as much money since everything I know about crafting to make money has been learned from people in the FC and almost all of the money I’ve made in the game has been made via crafting and gathering jobs for the FC’s leader (often as part of deals he has brokered with other very wealthy players). Joining this FC immediately upon becoming a paying subscriber to the game has irrevoccably altered my experience in ways I rarely stop to think about now that I’ve adjusted to it.
Continue readingThe End Of A Game Is An Opportunity To Start A New One
After multiple months, my saga with the unfortunate sunday gaming group has come to an end. My time with the people who were part of my introduction to Pathfinder 2nd Edition has concluded. Despite my plans to give the group six full sessions to see if we could salvage the group, we only ever played five. Which probably sounds funny because I started talking about this group back in June, but we only got two more sessions in July and then one in late August due to scheduling issues, the GM catching Covid, and my grandmother’s passing. We skipped a lot of weeks, as it turns out, and apparently I wasn’t the only one who was on the verge of withdrawing for a while since I found out today, two days after I withdrew, that the whole campaign was shuttered (which saves my friend the trouble of figuring out how to gently break it to the group that they also weren’t interested in continuing to play). The GM has had some on-going health issues (which contributed to us skipping sessions) and one of the other players apparently also has some scheduling conflicts, so the GM sent my friend a message that he was shutting the whole thing down. I wish the group had been able to continue (since I know how much it sucks to lose a game because a group falls apart), but I got the strong sense that only a couple of the players were really enjoying themselves and since I’m pretty sure the GM is struggling with Long Covid, I really don’t think things could have ended any other way.
Continue readingI Miss Being a Part of Large Groups
I participated in an internal event at work the other day that involved talking to people as part of a demo for about eight hours straight. I had a bit of a break in there, for lunch and my usual daily walk, but I still talked more than I have in years. I’m fairly used to talking a lot for a few hours at a time, thanks to running tabletop gaming sessions (which sometimes wind up being very heavy on me talking if the players aren’t really in a chatty mood that day or we’re busy moving things along in a new environment), but yesterday was a strain on my voice in a way that nothing else has been since even before the pandemic. Even a couple days later, after taking care to stay hydrated and treat my throat with some soothing beverages, I still have a bit of an ache that comes and goes depending on how well I’m hydrated in the moment and how much I’ve been using my voice.
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