This column’s title is not a typo: I have been writing about Final Fantasy XIV in a weekly column for… at least 13 years now. Back during 1.0 is when I started, and I kept that up every week, and then the reboot happened and… same but different. There was a very small break in there when AOL tried to kill us, but even that wasn’t long. For all functional purposes, I have been at this for 13 years, once per week, and that’s a lot of columns.
How do I keep doing this? How does anyone keep doing this?
If you’ve never wondered about that, then… well, I’m sorry, this column is possibly not going to have a lot to interest you. That happens sometimes. But nearly 700 columns is a lot, and unlike some games FFXIV does not feel the need to post something every single week to keep itself in the news cycle no matter what. So how is this a thing? How is it that after all this time we’re able to find something new to write about about every single week? What is up with that?
The short answer is that it can be difficult. But that’s not a satisfying answer; it’s more of a deflection. And let’s not pretend that sometimes it isn’t easy. Patches give me enough to chew on for a couple of weeks, easily. Fan festivals give me material, patch previews, rumors, all of that stuff. There’s a lot to talk about because the game has a lot of stuff, so I try to take an active hand in most of it, and between lore and opinion, there’s usually a good chunk of topics right there.
So that is my first port of call: Whenever I’m thinking “what am I going to talk about next” and we don’t have patch previews, patches, or whatever, I turn to relevant lore or mechanics that are worth talking about. On some level, I could probably write a lore post every single week, but I don’t really want to just be rewriting fan wikis.
Assuming that’s not the case – and often it isn’t – I usually turn to whatever recent things have occurred that could tie into something interesting or are on my mind. Usually I have a handful of those topics to draw upon, some mixture of job considerations, franchise connections, or just speculation about existing or old content.
But there’s a catch insofar as there are only so many of those columns to write. For example, I’ve mentioned the weird doors in the North Shroud surrounded by Dullahans, but there’s not really much more I can say about them at this point. By all accounts we’re just never going to find out more than we already know about them. Has anyone noticed the Shroud has a weirdly high concentration of voidsent?
But topics alone aren’t going to fill in the real question. It might not seem like it at a glance, but 13 years is a long time to keep playing the same game at the same intensity. There is a lot of stuff in FFXIV, and unlike the people who try to claim that “anyone still fond of the game hasn’t done everything because they’re too new,” I am… not too new. I have every single job at max level. I own a mansion. My Blue Mage spellbook is missing five spells. I have all of my Variant dungeon mounts, I have multiple relics, I have several Splendorous tools, I have my Firmament titles (three times, in fact!), I have all my tribal reputations maxed. There is a lot of stuff in FFXIV, and I have done… almost all of it!
So how do you keep being interested in the same game for 13 years? Part of it, sure, is that I really love it. But part of it is being willing to take breaks without being mad at the game about it.
You might think that’s weird because if you take a long break your house goes away, but that’s the thing for me. “Taking breaks” doesn’t mean “I will not log into this game again for two months,” although there are definitely days when I don’t bother. It’s more about the fact that sometimes, I am logging in for ten minutes to set a couple ventures going and then logging back out. Takes half a moment and then I’m done; I’m playing something else.
This is not unusual to me; it’s always felt quite natural. There are times when any one of my hobbies is going to be more vital than another. Some days I can spend hours happily watching movies; some days I don’t want to at all. Some days I really like to read; other times I’d rather do other things. I don’t count days when I log in, do a couple quick things, and then log out to be some kind of failing.
And I think that’s a crucial part of enjoying the game and still loving it after all these years: realizing that there are going to be times when you aren’t that interested and not expecting it to be my everything.
2023 has been a really difficult year for me, something I have alluded to in this column. Remember when I skipped a couple weeks because of that? No, you don’t. Because I kept writing. Granted, I did write a column that was a departure from normal in the thick of it, but it was a really good thing to have a familiar game with people I liked to sink into after my workday was over during one of the darkest moments of my life. And I’ve spent the rest of the year building myself up, establishing a new normal for myself, getting back together, and while I’m hyped for Dawntrail, I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do right now in the game until 6.55 drops.
And that’s fine because I have tons of other video games to play, other books to read, other things to do. Does that mean I’ve somehow moved on from the game? Heck no. Do I spend weeks not logging in? Of course not. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from more than a decade writing about the same game, it’s just that giving it a break sometimes leaves me happier to come home again.
FFXIV is a reliable game. Oh, sure, each dungeon has its own character and its own feel, and they don’t run together in my mind, but the game has 90 of them just counting four-player dungeons. I do not imagine that the 91st is going to be something more than a comfortable new spin on a familiar formula, and that’s great. There is a space in my world for that, the comfort and regular pleasantness of a new spin on something I already like. And I’m not going to be upset when that pleasant familiarity is there exactly as I expect.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, with just three more weeks of this column until the next fan festival reactions, I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before in the history of this column. What am I hoping to not see in Dawntrail?
The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.
