There is something completely cathartic about my memories of Final
Fantasy XI. It’s not that I have rose colored glasses about that
wonderful, frustrating game. I remember the highs and the lows. I remember
reading James Mielke's blog post about the game. It filled me with such wonder
and awe that somebody could love and invest themselves into an MMO like that.
Final Fantasy XI was a great game and an experience I am not likely to ever see
again. The industry has largely moved away from the grinding, party heavy MMOs
of yesteryears and that’s a good thing, still it leaves me with some
melancholy. Those days of sitting in an XP spot grinding out levels with a good
party, shooting the breeze about nothing in particular are over. Guild Wars 2
has been a fresh breeze of delight in recent days. I’ve often been helped
by and helped a passerby kill a boss or revive themselves; good deeds are not
only customary, they are rewarded in Guild Wars 2.
It’s a small thing maybe, but MMOs in general, and online gaming
in particular has a rather nasty reputation for bringing out the worst of
people. Like alcohol in real life, people will say and do things online
they’d never dream saying or doing in real life. There’s a line in
The Secret World, where a character says "If I truly want to understand
humanity, I need only read the comment section on YouTube" and then
follows that up with “I hate the internet”. I laughed when I heard
that but there is a truth in those words that is a sad indictment on humanity.
It’s one of the reasons why Guild Wars 2 hits the spot. Time and time again I’ve
seen people help each other out, stop what they were doing and revive somebody
who bit off a bit more than they could chew; it’s like a world full of
good Samaritans and no lawyers. I’m joking about the lawyer part, surely,
maybe, probably.
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