When you play Final Fantasy XI, you have to put up with a lot: The rude. The obnoxious. The immature. The uninformed. The annoying. The bossy. The know-it-all. The counterproductive. The weasely. Imagine a work place environment, in which nobody knew each other, and everybody was wearing a mask so nobody could be positively identified.
I think that is an accurate way to describe how players interact in Vana’diel.
It’s an environment that is really not very conducive to developing friendships, or for that matter, getting to know people. However, everyone all has the same objective in mind: I want shit. I want the big pointy hat that gives me +10 accuracy, +10 evasion, and +10 ranged accuracy. I want the armor that makes me look all pearly white. I want the big-ass scythe to harvest people with. I want to party until it’s stupid o’clock and I’ve earned 40 White Castle Cheeseburgers worth of experience points. I want to go fight the giant unicorn on the sky island for three hours and maybe get some kind of drop that might be worth something. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, who plays FFXI wants shit. And they need other people to help them get their shit.
I do not mean your average run-of-the-mill shit either. No, that pair of Crimson Scale Greaves is not enough. I have to get the Crimson Scale Greaves +1, which offer +1Dexterity and +1Agility more than the regular Crimson Scale Greaves. If you’ve got just average shit, that means you’re an average player. Nobody wants to be an average player. The want to be the uber. The more uber you are, the more… uber you are. While your uberness aura doesn’t start to permeate from your character, you certainly do get bragging rights – and who doesn’t love to brag?
So when people ask me why I play FFXI, half of the reason is that I feel Entitled to Shit(tm). I deserve a Joyeuse, a sword that occasionally attacks twice. I am entitled to my set of Relic Armor – a cooler looking version of Artifact Armor. Why am I Entitled to Shit(tm)? Because I had to put up with people whom they thought were Entitled to Shit(tm). Some would say it’s a vicious cycle.
The other half of the reason is that I have 3 IRL friends whom I play this game with. If they weren’t playing this game, I would have quit much longer ago. They’re what makes this game bearable. But that’s another post for another day.
My friend Keith informed me that “why?” does not come up in the auto-translator. The rest of the question words, however, do.