I dipped back in to FFXIV today, spending some time following the main story questline. At my low level it doesn’t seem to be terribly different from the non main story quests, or at least the objectives aren’t. One had me handing out exactly four treats to starving children, another dealing with precisely three bad-guy Lancers. Meanwhile the side quests were more or less the same - collect eight ribs, investigate four bits of ore on the railway tracks.

The main difference was that there were occasional cut scenes (still unvoiced), and the reappearance of the Handsome Stranger. I faced down a gigantic animated clump of boulders, and a mysterious black robed figure marvelled at my apparent skill in defeating it. So there is the hint of something larger brewing, though it’s hard to follow exactly what that is.

Not so handsome now

I found it quite hard to stay motivated, though it’s hard to say whether that’s the game or I just wasn’t in the mood for MMO style gaming. While I enjoy the open world of an MMO, sometimes the tight confines of an on-rails single player game can be more absorbing, or at least more distracting.

The other thought I had was that it would be more fun to be doing this in a group. I found the same thing in GW2 and SWtoR, where I would have fun playing solo to a point but then drift away and never complete any characters.

In SWtoR it was often because it seems a waste missing out on the group conversation options, which is one of the underrated features of the game. Playing in a group allows you to independently choose the dialogue option you want, and then a random roll determines which choice ‘wins’. It makes questing much more interesting as you often get to see responses you wouldn’t otherwise have chosen. In GW2 I think it was more the same kind of problem I’m feeling in FFXIV, namely uncertainty about exactly why I’m doing all this if I’m not playing with friends, or heading to an endgame where I could.

The thing that makes me question that theory is WoW, where I will more often quite happily play completely solo, working on alts or grinding out reps and rewards on my main. The difference being that there’s a group of us that noodle about every so often, and with who I had a brief and vaguely glorious period of raiding, and one day might do so again.

I wonder if were I a GW or FFXIV veteran instead of a Warcraft one I would find WoW had the same issue. Or, more likely, I’m just having an off day and I’ll be back in the chocobo saddle tomorrow.

#Blaugust17