I started playing Final Fantasy XI (hereafter I’ll just call FFXI) back in the fall of 2003. Initially, I hadn’t been very interested in it. I thought “There’s no way an online game could have a story worthy of being called a mainline fantasy game” In addition, my experience with online games up until then had been somewhat negative due to the internet speed where I lived.

Two things changed this assessment. The first was my admission to university where my internet connection woes would be a thing of the past (or so I thought) The second, and admittedly more influential, was that my best friend at the time, an online guy I knew named Eric, was planning to play it along with another mutual acquaintance of ours.

I met Eric initially during my teenage years in an IRC chatroom for the program RPGMAKER 95 (which ironically never talked about the program and was mostly just a hangout for awkward nerds who liked RPGs) I was naive and often taken advantage of, but Eric was surprisingly one of the good people who gravitated towards me and became a strong emotional support. Maybe in my next post I can go more into that (as well as my dark internet days) but let’s move on.

Eric was one year older than me, and because of that he’d already started college one year before me. While we still chatted with one another, I did start to feel a bit left behind. He would always tell me about the amazing time he was having. Undoubtedly partly to psyche me up for it, but mostly because he also enjoyed it.

Anyway, hearing about how he was going to play this game when I was about to enter college made me want to play it too. I thought maybe it could help us from drifting apart more than we already had. While I did have other online friends and relationships, he was the one I wanted not to lose the most.

I bought a physical copy of the PC version from Gamestop shortly after it’s US release and made my first character “Chronce” (A combination of Chrono and once) on the Carbuncle server where Eric and our other mutual acquaintance played. I started as a warrior because I was more anxious to get started than to try and overthink what job I wanted to play.

Unfortunately, or maybe it was some kind of divine intervention, while the connection at university was ridiculous efficient at pirating anime, for whatever reason FFXI would freeze up constantly. I think it had something or other to do with the university itself blocking certain ports for various reasons (One of which was probably ironically to prevent illegal file sharing) I don’t know, but it always felt funny looking back.

I tried several things to get it to work, including dealing with the freezes to try to play through the lag, but it wasn’t looking like I was going to be able to play it. That was until I went home one weekend and found that despite every other online game being unplayable on a 56k modem, somehow Final Fantasy XI ran perfectly.

That’s most likely because the game itself was designed to be played on a PS2 with a 56k modem connection to begin with. Though back then I had no inkling of that. All I knew at the time was it worked and I could play with my friends. I was pretty happy.

However, that weekend at home I didn’t actually play much with my friends. I ended up randomly getting invited to an EXP party where I ended up passing right by my friends. It wasn’t my intention, but I was excited I could actually play the game, and I got caught up with it. Not to mention that I met a few new people in game and given my lack of social aptitude back then, I really took to it all.

Eric and our mutual friend would ultimately end up not playing much more before giving up on the game. I can’t speak for their reasoning but I assumed Eric just got busier with real life stuff. It made me sad but I was already starting to form some new relationships with people on FFXI as well as having fun with the game.

The big problem was I could only play the game at home, and since I was supposed to be starting university, I could only play on weekends where I went home. For reference, home was a little over an hour away from where I went to university. That meant in order to play it, I needed to sacrifice time I could be utilizing at school to make real connections.

I had always looked forward to the idea of college. I didn’t have any real life friends at the time (apart from one who bounced in and out of my life) and Eric had always gassed it up as a place where life was going to change. Personally, I envisioned meeting a group of friends who liked anime and even fantasized about getting a girlfriend and a social life (The awkward nerd’s dream I guess you could say)

That said, I’ve always been a dreamer. Doing things was another matter. It’s not that I can’t do things, but I had such low self esteem and experience that it was almost impossible to force myself to do anything. Therefore whenever something difficult presented themselves, I would either get extremely frustrated and have a panic attack, or wherever possible, run away from the problem.

School presented a large number of challenges for a guy like me back then. I would probably have to write up a whole other thing to explain it (and maybe I will) Though even without going into my particular hang-ups, I don’t think it’s hard for most people to imagine that school can be a huge adjustment. It’s also probably easy to imagine what a person might do in a situation like this.

I did an okay job of keeping up with school on the days I was there, but whenever I could, I tried to go home. Weekends, being sick, or just playing hooky. I’m a bit disgusted with myself looking back at it. Not because I ran away from difficult challenges (though I am disappointed with that) but because I couldn’t drive at the time and was constantly relying on parents and grandparents to ferry me there and back. I only now truly understand the sacrifices they made, and I still feel like I haven’t really done anything to repay those sacrifices (though I probably should just let that go at this point)

The end of my first semester I had one dropped class and mostly C’s for the the other three. Not great, but not bad. However, apart from the anime that I was downloading en masse at the time, there was nothing really making me want to stay there. All I could find myself wanting to do is play Final Fantasy XI. Thus I told my parents I wanted to take the next semester off from school.

They were supportive, as they’ve always been, but I could sense some apprehension when I told them. I can imagine now what they might have been thinking. Although I also can’t rule out that I was also probably oversensitive to the whole thing, and I probably shouldn’t have taken it as much to the heart as I did then.

However, I did take it to heart and upon taking my break from school, I dove even further into the world of FFXI.

Now that we’ve set the stage, so to speak, about what was going on in my real life, we can talk about my actual FFXI experience.

I started as a warrior named Chronce on the server Carbuncle as mentioned before. Initially I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be, but I was interested in both the story and meeting new online friends. I kept playing as warrior, even when I later unlocked the ability for other jobs, because I wanted progress in the game more than anything else.

It was hard. FFXI back then was built on the principle of playing together with other people. While you might think “duh it’s an MMO” if you’ve never played one before (or even if you have and just never had an issue making friends in games), I’d argue that it’s unreasonable to expect people to need others for everything they do in the game. At the very least, I’d argue the way FFXI did it was too much.

In FFXI, an easy prey monster (the weakest you can kill and still receive EXP for) would give you about 15 exp. You needed several thousand to level up and would lose several hundred EXP if you died. Despite being called easy prey, they were anything but once you reached a certain level (I hit a wall with my warrior at level 16 for example) You needed a group to level if you wanted to progress.

Story too required groups. You could only level past the content up to a point, but then certain things were either level capped (meaning if you were higher your level got adjusted) or were designed with a group of max levels in mind.

To put this in perspective, your days on FFXI would be spent logging in and either waiting around for a party to form and invite you for something (Looking for group) or making a party for something. The process which could take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on things like how in demand your job is (if you’re not a healer or a tank, it can be practically the whole day waiting) or how many people need a certain piece of content.

There wasn’t much to do outside of that. You could farm up super weak mobs and quests for money, but it was always a double-edged sword. Go out farming and you might miss a shout for a mission you need, or get passed over for an invite because there’s someone looking for group that can get there faster than you could.

A lot of time in the early points of the game was spent waiting rather than playing the game. Yet a lot of people put up with it for that thrill it gave you when you finally accomplished something. It was unlike anything else, at least for me at that time.

I managed to make friends in my early days as Chronce. The very first was during FFXI’s first Christmas event where Square-Enix spawned some ridiculously overpowered tree monsters for the servers to try and beat (By ridiculous, we’re talking like 9 digit hps when the most people could do were in the single to double digits) My server, Carbuncle, at the time was pretty hard to get others to try and help take them down (most ignored the event because it wasn’t productive to progression in the game) While Square-Enix eventually nerfed the trees and promised a special reward to servers who defeated it (To help motivate the players) we bonded as two of the few players who took on the challenge before that.

The shell he invited me to, Tarksintraining, was a Linkshell (guild) devoted to a Japanese player named Tark that helped people. As FFXI was very brutal and self serving, the idea behind the shell was to become players like Tark who selflessly help out others. A beautiful sentiment, although not one that I ever feel like I lived up to much.

Tark helped me unlock a bunch of the extra jobs, along with another player named Remium(Remnium? I forget how it was spelled) The two of us became somewhat closer with one another than we ever did with Tark or the guy that invited us. Eventually we both left the shell to pursue our own FFXI interests.

For me, it happened when I was leveling samurai. I met a character called Genchi who just traded me a linkpearl (item you equip to hear guild chat) out of nowhere to his LS NewEmpire. I put it on out of curiosity, but kept it on because it had about 5 x the amount of people that Tarksintraining did. Hungry for conversation, it soon became my primary hangout, and Genchi became a friend of sorts.

Genchi wasn’t the greatest guy. You’ll see this happen at quite a few points in my FFXI personal history, but I tended to attract some kind of assholish figures. Not that everyone was like them, but if I had a nickel for every time I’d have two nickels… Which isn’t a lot… but you know the meme (hopefully)

Anyway Genchi wasn’t the greatest guy, but I somehow was part of his inner circle. I guess because I was one of the few NA players who wasn’t playing the game casually (At this point in the game, most high level players were Japanese due to having the game a year early) I was one of the few who had progressed past the first couple leveling areas where most of NA were still fighting around in.

Eventually there came a point where Genchi wanted to make a new LS (linkshell). An LS focused on higher level players that had already finished the first level limit quest (There are quests you’re required to do every 5 levels once you hit 50, and the first one was a BITCH) Retrospectively, I recognize he had designs on getting an LS that would help him progress but not anyone else. However, at the time I was just happy to be a part of something.

Genchi discussed the idea with me and a few other people. I forget their names now, but we apparently came to the conclusion that Genchi should not run it and the leadership position somehow managed to fall to me. I both made and named the linkshell “CritcalChaos”

The shell was fairly popular for a bit. Though when it came time for people to start helping and the lack of help, especially from Genchi himself, it kind of started to fall apart. I also wont deny some responsibility for remaining wishy-washy and not taking firm stands. Though I was having a hard time of it myself.

You see at this point my warrior was reaching the 60’s. Not only was it somewhat unknown territory for NA players, but warrior was not a popular job then. Most people would dump warrior for an extra job like Paladin (if they wanted to tank) or Samurai/Dragoon/Dark Knight (if they wanted to do damage dealing) Very few people understood why warrior was good. They just thought we were a shitty tank (because we were honestly) and that we couldn’t DD (because most warriors were using the wrong weapons due to the game giving them a sword by default)

My invites to parties dried up, I couldn’t get help on my warrior specific quests, and CriticalChaos was falling out of my control. Considering I had also abandoned going to college to lead this life, I grew incredibly frustrated. I was at the point where I was physically crying about it.

Criticalchaos did eventually fold, and I did get invited to another shell by some people who were sympathetic to me. I even did get some help with my quests. Though at that point I was fried.

For a change of pace, I decided one day to make an alternate Tarutaru character. I wanted to try something new without the baggage of my old character. Wound up playing a black mage and getting invited to a party where I met this other Taru named Laneyl.

Laneyl had a bit of a mouth on him. I forget why, but he’d been telling people off in our party. I remember I stepped up to put him in his place (as being a high level NA player gave me some street cred I guess) We eventually ended up becoming friends and I would talk to him sometimes when I played on Chronce.

At some point though, I just felt like I couldn’t regain my enthusiasm for the game anymore. I told Laneyl this and mentioned I might be quitting soon. Later that day he ends up asking me what I plan to do with my character. I tell him basically I was planning to delete him.

He mentions then that his uncle, who also played the game, was interested in him, and wondered if I’d be willing to sell him. This was against ToS, but at this point I’d stopped caring that much about that. I figured “Well, I could maybe get the money I spent on the monthly fee back” I shot him a figure (It was somewhere between 100-200 bucks I think) and the guy agreed.

In retrospect, I wouldn’t have done it. Not only did I feel bad for leaving some folks behind without saying anything(who I can’t even remember now) The guy I sold it to told me he got hacked. He needed the original info to get it back, but by the time I saw this (it was like years later) apparently the hacked character had caused an uproar by snipe lotting an item from NA’s first victory against the mega boss of Dynamis (the end game content of the time)

I don’t really feel as bad about the second thing. Mostly because by the time I found out about it, the item in question wasn’t even that great. What bothers me is there were some people who assumed it was the same Chronce they had always known, and that the character I created should live on in infamy for something so dumb. While most will have probably forgotten him by now, it feels cringe that anyone who remembers him now will just remember that.

Chronce’s story ends there for me, but there’s more to the FFXI story (if I hadn’t made that clear) Though first we have to talk a bit about what was going on with me in real life.

I quit somewhere in the summer of 2004, a little less than a year from when I started. My thoughts back then were to reconnect with my friends online as well as try to enjoy other media again (I had stopped enjoying much since FFXI) I was well on the road of recovery, so to speak, but as it approached August, my parents started putting pressure on me to go back to school.

For the record, I didn’t want to. At all. I felt FFXI had robbed me of a lot of my freedom and I was only just on the start of taking it back. I wanted at least another year where I could explore myself a bit and then I’d think about university again.. That’s what I planned at least.

I did, however, feel guilty and up until then I had never been strongarmed by my parents so much (well not in important life decisions anyway) I eventually gave in, but put in some conditions to my going back to school.

The main one being I didn’t want to live on campus. Now normally the school required freshman to live in the dorms, but that was easily circumvented with a note from the doctor I had at the time (I think we told him it triggered my migraines) Thus I was one of the only (if not the) freshman who was allowed to have an apartment.

This was a mistake for many reasons, but I wont go into all of them here. It’s just essential for setting the stage for my return to FFXI and the fallout after.

At some point, after setting up my apartment and starting my new fall school term, I get a message from an online friend asking if I still played FFXI. I tell him no, and he asks me if I’d be interested in playing it again with him. At first, I think “hell no” but he convinces me to want to give it a try again.

The problem is that while I still had the physical cds for the game, I no longer had access to the account that the came with the codes the game provided. I also didn’t feel like paying full price for another copy of the game. He then tells me that he has another copy that he’s willing to sell to me for 15 dollars.

(This is relevant because one time I lost my credentials to the account when trying to return. I had to call up Square-Enix support and essentially pretend to be him in order to get them to restore my access to it)

I started playing again. This time as a tarutaru BLM that I remembered having fun with when I was having difficulty with Chronce. I named him Diumis and started on the same server as that friend (Titan)

Diumis BLM career was cut short as soon as he switched to leveling WHM for his subjob. He became intoxicated by the amount of people inviting him to join a party. Where Chronce would sometimes go an entire day without a party Diumis could usually have one within the hour. Being able to rapidly level made me even more invested because it made me think “Hey maybe I’ll be able to do what Chronce never was able to”

I still hit some walls (my artifact armor was a bitch) but I did also make some good friends at the time. The players Krzyshng (who got mistaken as a RMT several times for not having vowels in his name) and Rinoastar (who eventually would end up getting with him, though that’s not pertinent to my story) They were there for me both in game with quests (even though they were often too low level for it) or emotionally ( I was always super depressed)

What really sucked me in, in those early days, though was a girl I met who went by the name Chainedalley

Someone I met in one of my first linkshells (along with Krzy and Rinoa) introduced me to her. I’m not sure how he met her, but he somehow convinced me to powerlevel her character (essentially heal her from the outside as she fights things) I’m not sure why I agreed, but I did and as I started powerleveling her, we got to talking

I don’t know what we talked about back then, but we had something of a rapport. Eventually that rapport turned into something more. I can’t remember who admitted feelings first but the other reciprocated as if it were only natural. At that point the game ceased to be about the actual content of the game and more of a vessel to interact with her.

She was very forward. Something I had never experienced in all my online relationships to that point (and yes at the time all my romance had been with people online) She was the first to make me feel sexy, and it even escalated into some saucy dms so to speak.

Now bear in mind, this is all happening when I’m supposed to be also going to classes.

Things get pretty hot and heavy and I was in the realm of thinking “I’m going to travel across the US and marry this girl someday” and then nothing. By nothing, I mean she just up and disappeared one day without warning. She didn’t come on the game and she didn’t even log into AOL instant messenger (The place we primarily talked)

This sadly wasn’t the first time something like this had happened in an online relationship, although it was the first time it happened with someone I felt so strongly connected with. It caused a depression so dark and so deep that my will to really do anything but play the game went out the window

I poured myself into the game. Half of me was hoping she’d just appear one day and we could go back. Half of me just wanted an escape. It was also there I had my two closest friends Rinoa and Krzy (Well I had close online friends too, including Eric who initially got me into the game, but they were the ones most familiar with what was going on) I just kept playing and abandoned everything else..

Which didn’t have great results, as one could imagine, on my academics. I failed a bunch of classes and eventually convinced my mom to let me come back home.

Over time, some of the wounds did end up healing. My WHM continued to climb higher than my warrior ever did and because of my coveted position, I was able to see a lot of the actual story of FFXI this time. I shot up to the max level relatively quickly and was inducted into my first endgame linkshell.

This linkshell was run by a character named Station. Similar to Genchi from Carbuncle, he was one of those characters that had a bit of a bad reputation but somehow took to me. Though in Station’s case it made a bit more sense as I was a WHM who played the game a lot, and it was in his best interests to be close to me.

At first, I really enjoyed throwing myself at all the endgame content. It was a nice escape. My first real battle with the shell, the monster they killed dropped an item worth 20 million gil (Which made me lucky I guess) Then sometime afterwards they helped me get my own Noble’s Tunic (a high end piece of WHM equipment that used to cost something around 14 million back then) It wasn’t an especially reputable or good at the game linkshell, but I felt at home.

At some point around here, a year or so had passed since Chainedalley. I was just starting to feel over her when all of a sudden she came back. Acting as if nothing had happened.

I’m not sure I could put my emotions into words. Well okay at first when I saw her online again, my heart leapt. I thought “What’s going to happen?” Part of me hoped maybe we’d go back to how things were. Part of me hoped she could give me some closure. However neither of those things happened.

Why? Well when I asked her exactly that “Why?” “Why did you disappear” Her response was not any kind of answer to my hope or any closure to the events. She simply said “I just didn’t feel like logging in” Or something to that effect. You’ll forgive me as this was a long time ago.

Essentially she could have said anything else. She could have told me she actually didn’t like me or that she did it to get away from me. That would have stung, but I could internalize that (Note: I don’t think that way is productive nowadays, but back then I would think like that) But to tell me nonchalantly that she just didn’t feel like going online when we were supposed to have had a relationship, and to top it off act like we were still close..

The mixture of emotions… It was bad.

Somehow, I managed to get through it (thankfully with some mediation from online friends like Rinoa and Krzy) but it still left something up in the air. What was my relationship with Chainedalley? Truthfully, I still had feelings for her, and her lack of giving any kind of closure made me inclined to want to try again. I can’t say for sure if that’s how she felt at first or what was going through her head (I’m not going to try to speak for her here)

What I can say is we did get into a relationship again. This time was meant to be more than a simple online thing. I was in talks about coming to see her in the future. We even talked on the phone and yes things got heavy between us again.

However, as we got back together again, I learned more about the person she was than I had previously. The first thing I learned is that she apparently had a friend who was apparently her ex-boyfriend, and that she, while never having had sex with him, had apparently done sexual like things with him. At the time I took that as a “in the past” kind of thing and buried whatever insecurities that rose up in me.

Not healthy, I know now. Back then though, my only thought was about making it work. Here was a girl that loved me and had made me think things about myself that no other partner had. They made me feel desirable.

However, the insecurity caused a strain that was increased on a daily basis. She would be overly flirtatious (in my eyes at least) with other people online. She had gotten to know many new people through Station’s linkshell that I was regularly doing things in. That also put some strain on my relationship with the linkshell itself as I was constantly worried she might be getting to know someone a bit too intimately.

What worsened things came with her admittance, several months into our relationship, that she cheated. She did something sexual with someone in real life. I seem to remember it not being her ex, but I don’t know if that’s something I’m misremembering or not (I want to be clear this is how I remember and saw things and not try to be like “THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED AND I’M TOTALLY INNOCENT”) Either way, she admitted to me that she cheated by doing something sexual (although not actual sex) and sought my forgiveness.

I gave it a bit too easily. I gave it without it being my right to give, so to speak. Like I hadn’t really properly processed what she had told me. All I could think about was “She wants to make this work, surely you can be the bigger person and look past this” Any doubts I might have had, I quickly swallowed them.

Maybe because I was also somewhat hoping it was some kind of twisted test. I was hoping she’d say something along the lines of “I just wanted to see if you’d be supportive of me” Not a great thing for a person to put another through, but it would have given me some relief to find that out. No such luck though.

It actually ate away at me inside, but I kept it down.

In game, I started feeling sick of being in Station’s LS. Not only was Chainedalley now in it and talking to the other male members in a manner I felt was too provocative (stoking my feelings of jealous and insecurity) but I was starting to get sick of the amount the shell relied on me. I was one of a few WHM players and I was the only one who didn’t have real life commitments. Which meant whenever the shell wanted to do something, I usually had to be the one to be there. Even if I wanted to be doing other stuff in the game.

This growing frustration with Station’s linkshell eventually came to a head when one day Chainedalley relayed some conversations she and others had apparently had with Station about me. Again, it’s been so long that I don’t remember the specifics, but what it essentially came down to was some players in the Linkshell apparently had issues with my ability to play WHM.

Now a bit of an aside.

I worked hard on my WHM.

Chronce, my WAR from Carbuncle, I wouldn’t call a slacker, but I also wouldn’t say he was a particularly good warrior either. I knew enough, by reading on forums like allakhazam and Killing Ifrit, that the best weapon for him was a Great Axe and I tried using that. However I didn’t always have the best gear since I was cheap and never used the AH for selling stuff (I mostly NPCd) I also didn’t keep a fully leveled subjob (essentially a job that’s half your level of main that you can draw abilities from)

I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with Diumis. I poured over countless WHM threads about best practices and gear. I put my all into being the best I could be.

Now if I felt I truly felt I was the best, I might not have taken much issues with criticism (either undue or not) However, I had plenty of insecurities about it. I can’t even begin to describe the guilt I would feel anytime anyone would die. It always felt like a failure on my part

To have that all confirmed by people I thought were my friends.. It was too much for me to take. Station said something about knowing it’s because my connection was slow, and maybe it was my connection (though 56k is supposed to be fine to run it) But what I also think is that they put too much pressure on me (again because I was the only WHM who was a no-lifer)

I exploded at the shell and left. Chainedalley came with. I’m not sure what happened with the shell itself, although I don’t think it stuck around for very long afterward. I do feel bad that there were probably a number of innocent people that got caught in the crossfire.

Things were a bit better for me after I left. I was finally allowed to play the game again and I got to talk to and spend time with Chainedalley more. However that would soon turn out to be a bad thing.

Talking with Chainedalley more got us talking about more and more intimate stuff. Specifically she started mentioning things she used to do with her EX. It wasn’t the most comfortable topic for me to begin with, but I’d tell myself “It’s in the past”

Then at one point she tells me this story, and something about it sticks out. I ask again for clarification. It’s about when this apparent event took place. She says it again, and I think back.. Wait we were supposed together then, what the hell? Maybe it’s the time she told me about… No that happened a different time.

The creaking dam finally burst and I got upset. Never in my life before and never in my life since. Everything just exploded there and I just couldn’t hold back the insecurities anymore. I wondered how many other times she had cheated on me and whether she’d ever stop. I couldn’t trust her and I threw out a bunch of emotions that probably needed to simmer first.

We got into huge fights. I had lent her a lot of my WHM gear at the time to help her get situated in the game, which she ended up keeping (including my nobles tunic) She scrawled my number on the stall of some grocery store bathroom somewhere. I would say a lot of mean and probably hurtful things. We were both really immature.

I’ve had several occasions in the years following to talk with her. I eventually found out we don’t see eye to eye politically and that it probably wouldn’t have worked out too well. I do acknowledge we were both immature and that we mishandled things (Especially me who forgave without really understanding what forgiveness is and carrying around a lot of the strain before I let it burst)

Anyway, believe it or not, this isn’t even all my FFXI story. We got a bit focused on the Chainedalley stuff, and to be fair she had quite an impact. However there’s more FFXI stuff that comes after this. For right now though, I’m going to cut it off here. Which works because I pretty much quit the game for my second time around this point.

There’s also a few things I know I forgot to mention that I’ll add in the next post (mostly because they become more relevant then) Until then, stay tuned

These past couple weeks I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XI again. If you’re not aware of my history, it basically dominated much of my early adulthood 18-20s. My addiction got so bad that I not only failed a term of university and lost some online friends (from generally not engaging with them), but it also kept me away from my family when my grandfather was dying.

I’m not going to claim it’s the game’s fault. It’s entirely mine. I was going through a period where I wanted familiarity to escape to, and having some genuinely good memories of it, FFXI offered the perfect escape. I should have recognized and stopped myself from doing so before things ever spiraled out of control, but that’s something I’ve beaten myself up over more than enough at this point.

The last time I went back to FFXI, it was to replay the story on a new character. That generally went pretty well, but I ended up quitting again when I saw the amount of time investment that would be required to do the stuff I would need to do after that. It didn’t help (or maybe it did in the sense it helped me quit) that at that time everyone I know who had played the game had quit and doing anything at my stage still required people to help.

This most recent time I came back mostly from the nostalgia of seeing people mention it on Twitter. Mostly from people who had never played it discovering that it was actually a really good game. It got me thinking about wanting to revisit, and just as it happened, there was free week coming up. I thought I’d hop on for a short week and see what had changed and then stop.

That was the plan at least. The plan changed when I found out how to automate some of the game. For those unfamiliar, FFXI introduced a system that allows you to play content with NPCs that helped me do a lot of stuff by myself the last couple times I’ve played. However, the stuff I’m talking about is the unofficial stuff. The things people use to bot the game.

Botting used to be heavily frowned upon when the game was still in its prime and bots like fishing bots were screwing up the player economy. Now that the game has advanced to this stage though it’s pretty common to see people botting certain things with multiple characters. Well, I say that but you’d be surprised to learn that a lot of the tools people use aren’t easily findable.

Hell, the stuff I found was nothing more than a six year old tool that didn’t work entirely and a buggy Windower plugin (Windower is a third party program for FFXI that adds some QoL stuff) It wasn’t as nice as what it seems other people used, but it was efficient enough to help you play the game. At the very least, it was helpful for playing other characters, which allowed me to multibox.

I already had my first character, the second I made to redo story, and a friend’s character that I had taken when they quit the game. While you couldn’t do the most cutting-edge content with three, most of the stuff I left undone due to there being no feasible way suddenly became doable. Thus I got sucked back into this game with the plan of saying goodbye to it on my own terms by accomplishing the things I left undone.

Though as my title says, farewells are never flawless. While I did get much accomplished and I did have quite a bit of fun here and there, I noticed the effect it was having on both my mental and physical health. I was waking up groggy and I felt that heaviness that often accompanied my deepest depression when I played in the past. I also found myself doing less of the stuff I was doing before or paying less attention than I probably should have (like my Japanese studies)

I even went as far as to spend money on the game. Not just the subscription fees themselves (for four characters even) but I bought gil again (Against the games ToS) Not great, and probably another thing that cemented my fate of getting sucked back in.

I did accomplish some things and it did look like I could do what I wanted to eventually do. However, thinking about all the stuff I’d need to sacrifice to make it happen, over time, really wore me out. I thought “Is this really worth it?” Ultimately, right this moment, I decided no and canceled all my accounts again and logged off.

A bit sore that I’ll be feeling the effects of the money I spent for a while, and there’s a part of me that’s saying “It couldn’t hurt to play out the rest of the month you bought” However, I know that if I let those things sway me, I’ll just be right back at it again. In fact, I know this to be true because it actually happened a few days prior when I thought about quitting.

I guess the next step now is to uninstall everything. The whole “talking the talk and now walking the walk” thing.

I do have a post that I was writing about my time in FFXI. Initially I planned to post it to justify my decision to come back. Now I think I’m going to post it to explain the hold the game had on me.

I’ve stopped feeling any purpose in updating this site weekly with my adventures. Partly because after a long streak of nothing happening, it’s felt rather pointless. Partly because I’d rather use this space to talk about other things for a while. Thus I stopped updating, and with this post cleared out my previous posts (standard practice for my blog)

I do intend to write still, and I will still mention what I’ve been up to here and there. However, my posting schedule will probably become more irregular. The content of my typical post will also change from the “in the moment” to the “reflection of my life” style of content.

Admittedly, it could be I’m more depressed and less motivated, and I can’t ultimately say it’s going to be a good thing overall. Though I also think there’s an argument to be made that there’s value in the past. Just as long as I’m not dwelling in it. I think maybe if I write it out with the intents of cutting away the negative, it might not only help me mentally more, but it might also be more interesting for people to read (and if I could be so lucky, help someone who’s in a similar state)

We’ll give it a shot for a couple months at least. If it looks like I’m sliding too far backwards by the end of the year, I’ll just nuke everything again. Hopefully I’ll also have a new format I want to do, or I might just end my blog outright. Who knows. That’s tomorrow’s “me” problem. Today’s me is going to start working on the first real post.