FFXIV – Struggling to Stay Interested Until 2.1 (6 Days to Go)

Avid MMO players are sure to relate with the feeling I’m about to describe:

That one feeling where you desperately want to play your favored MMORPG but find ourself logging in, getting bored, and logging out. As time passes, you find it more and more difficult to log in, and eventually you just stop trying.

This is where I am with Final Fantasy XIV, almost.

My walnut bread has gone stale.

After fighting for Eorzea for hundreds of hours, I have found it increasingly difficult to push forth over the past few weeks as A Realm Awoken draws near. Every day in Eorzea, for now, is nearly identical for the standard combat-oriented player. Get your tomes, run Coil, maybe craft, and log out.

I probably don’t need to address the current state of the game, which is fine if a bit lacking in endgame content variety. That lack of variety has done to me what it has done to many others before me: discouraged me from continuing to play.

Yoshi-P and his team over at Square Enix know this is an issue and can only develop so quickly because of Final Fantasy XIV‘s cross-platform nature. From a logical standpoint, I really can’t complain. I’m just eager for the 2.1 patch to come and deliver us from this tedium — to deliver me from spending my money elsewhere.

I love this game. I am bad at waiting.

FFXIV‘s biggest pull, to me, is its unique setting and feel. Did you think it was the crafting? Pfft, joke’s on you. I primarily wrote all those guides to help out my fellow FFXIV fans. I love the crafting, but the overall feel and look of the game really pulled and held me in. It continues to do so, even today.

I suppose as someone who has openly declared my love for the game and spent so many hours writing about it, I feel disappointed that I have reached this point as if it were something new and unknown. As if my reason for getting up in the morning just suddenly *POP* disappeared — but it didn’t, it’s still there. I just can’t bring myself to look it in the face until December 17th.

I know I am not the only one in this boat, as evidenced by the game’s community scurrying about the official forums and various corners of the internet. I can only hope that my friends, being in a similar situation, make the choice to come back on patch day as I do.

My hype for FFXIV 2.1 is in orbit, but until then I feel like a lost puppy. 6 days to go.