FFXIAH Linkshell Ni

Try to imagine a game that doesn't have autosave or save points. Every time you wanted to stop playing and save, you were given a code called a "mantra" which you would later enter back in...

This game kicked the *** off of pumping quarter after quarter into games like Pac-Man and Yie Ar Kung-Fu at the arcade because you could play forever and it never cost anything!

My friend and I spent an incalculable amount of time beating this game (because we are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE) and of course, like all games before FFXI, at the end the game, you win and it just rolls credits...

and I remember thinking... wouldn't it be nice if they came out with a sequel and you could enter the Final Mantra into it and you would get something cool for all the effort you sunk into the previous game....

Jump forward a couple decades and the closest they ever came (that I am aware of) is a crappy weapon for beating the prequel in Ratchet and Clank 2.

Well at least they did something....

Some people have figured out a way to get something tangible out of playing video games (RMTs as an example) I am not that smart, I have never been able to figure it out.

But I have spent the last thirty + years wishing and dreaming and hoping for these strange things because that's what I do I don't actually do anything, I just pretend to do things in video games.

Call me lazy, call me what you will...

Anyway, cue the FFXI music! So I get this game used in the discount bin at the store in like 2006/7 or something and the guy that works at the counter says it's his friend who was a blm and he has seen it, it's cool and everything, but nobody plays any more.... because it's online only, which I didn't understand at all...
So after several minutes hours of him trying to explain it to me, I gave up and bought it anyways....

And I don't know what to expect or what the hell I am doing but along the way my family and I meet some cool people that helped us along this journey. However, I have never expected anything to come out of playing this game other than the joy of playing it at the time. Wished/hoped/prayed for? sure, but never expected.

I knew eventually we would beat this game and then move on to the next one.... which of course brings us to the problem.

Now, there are five fundamental flaws FFXI will probably never beat without a time machine.
1.) The game has no end
2.) they called it "11" meaning there was going to be a 12 and a 13 and 14 and a 15 etc.
3.) WoW has been laughing at them all the way to the bank for so long many of the executives have committed sepaku to remedy their shame.
4.) they have the worst marketing and distribution in the known universe.
5.) the name Final Fantasy is kinda "gey" (or whatever you kids use to replace the word gay now that they outlawed calling gay things gay)

So I won't bore you with the thousand other reasons why WoW works and FFXI doesn't, it doesn't matter. But at the core is this whole idea of it being "11 of ???" and not "the game" and our meal ticket for the next fifteen to twenty years...

The main problem being SE thought they would come up with something better by now... and they can't figure it out. The new game is either too much like XI or too much like WoW or not enough like either one.

They can't win just like we can't win FFXI it's KARMA taking a huge bite out of their collective ***!

Let's face some facts here. 1.) If we put the time we have invested in FFXI as players into a minimum wage job we would all be $100,000.00 richer right now. 2.) We are too lazy to start doing that now even after figuring that staggering fact out. 3.) at some point SE will probably go bankrupt, they will cut the power to the servers and everything but the RL friendships we have gained in and our memories of FFXI will be lost forever.

This is all you get. For all your countless hours sweating away in your favorite chair staring at the screen. Are you ready?

/my electronic hand reaching across the atmosphere to rest on your shoulder and tell you, I know that feel bro, just let it go...

There you go. Now you can be like me the rest of your life, pumping quarter after quarter into video games to watch the lights blink or go out there and be somebody! You know either way kid there's nothing at the end but a cold box in the hard ground. I don't think you even get a credit roll with music. I rely heavily on, and strongly endorse alcohol to get through...

But what the hell do I know! Nothing! Perhaps there are new and wonderful things just beyond the horizon I can't see because I am old and need new peepers. I'm sure you'll be fine /backslap

How long will I hold a grudge against SE? Probably forever!!! It's been 24 years and I am still mad at Faxanadu for not coming out with a sequel I could use my mantra on...those lazy ***!

And so in closing I would like to wish you, a warm welcome to the League of Unextrodinary Old Vidya Game Playing Codgers! Which your post made you a member of! /fanfare /little plastic confetti popper noise /single balloon floats halfway to the ceiling and then glides sadly back to the floor

The whiskey is over there in NI in the medicine cabinet....
/fanfare peters out and trails off

Whiggity-whiggity-whack!

Whiggity-whiggity-whack!