General Gaming My husband's friends are lost to FF XIV

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I've never seen something so obsessive. Husband likes FF XIV and he's played it extensively with his buddies, but not the this extent. He's played all the main content, he'll sub when new content releases or whatever, but like a normal person, he does  get tired after a while and moves on to something else. His friends(3 of them) who we've known and had gaming getogthers for years, play the game constantly, though. They have raid groups set up probably on average of 4 nights a week, for 5-6 hours and are usually more active on weekends. He's hardly been able to get them online to play anything else for months.

 

Anyway, we haven't had a gaming weekend with them in a long while and it seemed like he was finally gonna get one set up the first weekend of Dec. Two of them live about 30 minutes from us, the other lives 3.5 hours away. One of their raid members was out of town that weekend or something, so they were gonna come over. Well, now they've apparently got a substitute raider, so those weekend plans are in jeopardy.

 

It's gotten to the point where the husband resents FF XIV. He can't socialize with his long term friends because they treat it like a job they can't miss a day of. I think it's the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. I can't wrap my head around it. Are MMO people usually THIS bad? I've never gotten into that genre and I really don't want to after all this.

[Keyser_Soze]

Do they play with @Bacon?

[XxEvil AshxX]

Sounds like his friends need to get laid.

 

The worst I've had it was for Elder Scrolls Online, which I still like to grind in every once in a while, but I've never felt like I had to do anything. In fact, I was kicked out of several guilds because they put the kinds of demands you're referring to (must play x amount of hours a day, must be available certain days of the week to run raids, etc.) I told them I'd rather have a social life, so they kicked me out. Fuck 'em. I play games because I enjoy them, but there's gotta be a limit.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

2 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

Sounds like his friends need to get laid.

I’m almost certain one is a virgin, one had a girlfriend years ago and nothing since, and I’m really not sure about the other, but I’m pretty sure ain’t nothing happening for him in the last several years. 
 

They’re all well into their 30s. 

[Slug]

I play FFXIV casually with some friends.  There's four of us and we get together once or twice a week to dick around in dungeons or do pick up raids of old content.  It's good for hanging out with pals because not all my friends are into like, shooters, or fighters or other online game types.  So FFXIV is just a really chill, laid back game we can all get on Discord and have fun and bust each others' balls while playing and not having to worry about being competitive/good.  That's it.  It's a fun game, but it's also easy mode RPG.  Like, Fisher Price: My First MMO.  It seems a weird thing to be hardcore like that about.

[Bacon]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Do they play with @Bacon?

I'm only subbed atm in hopes that I can win a house. I log in to do a few chores as well, but that's all. 

 

Today I'll log in and: check my retainers, run a dungeon, do custom deliveries (12 crafts), go get my weekly free 40k gil, and do part of my Wondrous Tales.

[Air_Delivery]

I had a childhood friend permanently ghost me I think due to FFXIV cause it was right after the Shadowbringers expansion came out. He literally just stopped responding to texts one day. Haven't spoken to him in over 3 years. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Tiffany Lockheart is kind of addicted to this game now too. I think it's the only game she's played for months.

[best3444]

My twin brother and I played this a lot but it would be 2 hour clips tops. We never got obsessed and just played it it casually. Your friends sound mentally insane and that's coming from someone who is mentally ill atm.  😆 

 

MMO's are honestly just a waste of time imo. It was cool back in the early 2000s-late 90s when online was new and still pretty amazing. Playing with other people online was revolutionary when I started playing Phantasy Star online on Dreamcast.

 

Over time it got old and most MMO's are just time sinks. I will say, FF14 is solid and very single player friendly. But people who obsess over it these days and it alters their everyday life, yikes.

[Bacon]

7 minutes ago, best3444 said:

MMO's are honestly just a waste of time imo.

Yep. That's what makes them so good for some people, like me. 

[best3444]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

Yep. That's what makes them so good for some people, like me. 

 

Well I will say FF14 is the best mmo I think ever with an amazing story. I never read that you’re obsessed with it but I understand why you love it. 

[Bacon]

Not obsessed fur shur, but it is my favorite way to kill time when I don't got something new to do. 

[Bloodporne]

Quote

They have raid groups set up probably on average of 4 nights a week, for 5-6 hours and are usually more active on weekends.

What the fuck...? Who has this kind of time!? 

[Paperclyp]

I am still working my way through Shadowbringer, but very close to the end of that. I should buy Endwalker since it's on sale (unless I missed it). 

 

I am literally 300+ hours into the game, have overwhelmingly played just the main story, and frankly feel like I haven't even actually played FF14 yet haha. I want to get through the main story so I can do some of the other stuff. It's a bit of a slog at times though. If I had a group of friends to play though content with tho? Man I'd be addicted too.

[Brian]

I always eye this game during holiday sales but I never bite due to the time commitment. I honestly never got addicted to a game but Wow and CoD (OG) came the closest

[Massdriver]

Sounds a lot like me over 20 years ago playing Ultima Online for several years. I was completely obsessed. Those were the days!

[Biggie]

I mean they don’t have wives. Or girlfriends. Or kids. What’s the problem here? Sounds like your husband needs to find more time for his incel loser friends. 

[BloodyHell]

MMO addiction is pretty common. I know a couple who got divorced over WoW (both were extremely addicted and she "met someone" while playing). For people who are depressed and without a social life, it can become their whole existence. 

[Dodger]

Same thing happened with EverQuest and WoW. Some people just get obsessed with it.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

3 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

What the fuck...? Who has this kind of time!? 

One of them just took a soft retirement from Airbnb at age 36. A decade in Silicon Valley made him rich. 
 

The other two just live it when they aren’t working. 

[ShreddieMercury]

While that kind of obligatory appointment gaming is indeed sad and somewhat pathetic, it's not too far removed from the general landscape of service games in general.  I feel like MMO's used to be their own sad little niche, but now that same sort of addictive but pointless and empty compulsory grinding is a core component of most mainstream games.  Even if it's not service games per se, most stuff is bloated beyond belief, swimming in in-game currencies, upgrades, costumes, etc.  Whatever will keep you "engaged" with the product.  It can become destructive, like any addiction, and stuff is so well designed now that it can be tough to get that same sort of stimulation elsewhere.

 

I guess I don't have much to add, just that I find the current state of games pretty depressing overall.

[best3444]

34 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 I find the current state of games pretty depressing overall.

 

What's depressing about them? Covid fucked things up but gaming is always getting better imo. 

[Paperclyp]

38 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

While that kind of obligatory appointment gaming is indeed sad and somewhat pathetic, it's not too far removed from the general landscape of service games in general.  I feel like MMO's used to be their own sad little niche, but now that same sort of addictive but pointless and empty compulsory grinding is a core component of most mainstream games.  Even if it's not service games per se, most stuff is bloated beyond belief, swimming in in-game currencies, upgrades, costumes, etc.  Whatever will keep you "engaged" with the product.  It can become destructive, like any addiction, and stuff is so well designed now that it can be tough to get that same sort of stimulation elsewhere.

 

I guess I don't have much to add, just that I find the current state of games pretty depressing overall.

While it’s undeniable a certain population of the audience can fall victim to the science-based attempts to keep people playing for large chunks, your post is quite assumptive and derogatory without much substance to back it up.
 

 

[Xbob42]

Sounds like you and the hubby gotta be more interesting! Can't even compete with months-old raids, for shame!

[eventide11]

This is actually part of the reason I never paid for a sub to this game. Too afraid of the pull it might have on my not that interesting life 

[Xbob42]

5 hours ago, eventide11 said:

This is actually part of the reason I never paid for a sub to this game. Too afraid of the pull it might have on my not that interesting life 

I actually think it's really unusual for people to get quite this level of hooked on the game. It's designed in such a way that trying to make it a "forever game" that you just play every day isn't really... interesting for most players? I've been playing it since it was in its terrible 1.0 state, and I always do the main story, do some of the raids, check out the patches and usually end up not really playing it for several months at a time.

It doesn't really do the WoW thing where you're doing the same raid every week for 19 months to try and get the legendary dagger of virginity. You might do the raids for a few weeks or maybe 2 months tops unless you just can't beat them. The Ultimate raids are a different story and are extremely difficult, often requiring non-top groups to pluck away at them for over half a year. But not like... every day for a half a year. Like, you might do 2 hours once or twice a week. Not this "we're not gonna see our friends because we found a substitute raider" insanity. Like, just raid on a different day? What the fuck are these guys doing? FFXIV is like the most flexible game out there for this kind of stuff. It has no mechanics or incentives to make you raid on weird set schedules.

 

Assuming everything as portrayed in the story is accurate, this is clearly a problem with the individuals rather than the game. The only people I know who go this hard on games that don't outright demand it are usually (based on what few people I know that'll even talk about it) trying to add some sort of structure and normality to their daily life, using it to fill in for all kinds of things. But as I literally know nothing about these people besides a one-sided story, I'm not interested in saying much more than that as anything I say would likely be wildly inaccurate bullshit.

 

Honestly I'd just confront them about it. Rip the band-aid off instead of just thinking of them as pathetic, that's just going to lead to unnecessary resentment. Gotta approach these things like adults, I think.

[Bacon]

Yoshi-P wants YOU to stop playing his game! 

 

 

FFXIV is notorious for content droughts with nothing to do. It is hard to be addicted to this game without some sort of personal issue. I'm only subbed to win a house. If it wasn't for the recent Data Center expansion, my World would have been out of plots like 4 weeks ago. As soon as PaissaDB shows no plots on my world, I'm out until either 6.3 or there is a plot for sale. It is stupid to only stay subbed for a house, but it is what it is. Housing is like one of the very last things I have to do. I still need to do Baldesion Arsenal, and I'd like to get the weapon and armor to +2. At some point I'll go for necromancer as well, but who knows when I'll do that. I would like to complete every major thing this game has to offer. I'm actually 90% of the way there. I won't do that last 10% anytime soon, and realistically, I'll never go for a real 100% as I have no interest in unlocking every achievement. Like, I do PvP every now and then, but I'm not going for any of those achievements. If they happen they happen. But, I'll never bother doing all the Grand Company shit for each grand company, or any of the fishing() shit.