In many ways, I am entering a new world with respect to Friday's announcement of Dawntrail because I've never been caught up with Final Fantasy XIV before. It has already been an interesting journey since 6.2 or so looking forward to content from the next patch that I just cannot play yet, and I love being able to read all the patch notes. (For the record, I love detailed patch notes.) Now that we stand on the precipice of a whole expansion coming out, the journey already promises to be both exciting and perilous.
It's worth mentioning that I don't regard Final Fantasy XIV too critically. I unabashedly love the game, and there are parts of it I don't enjoy, don't engage with, or both. The story is a vehicle of emotion delivery that almost always succeeds, so the missteps in the story beats or narrative rarely inspire me to write analytical essays about them. I have written analytical essays about other games, but Final Fantasy XIV is just different for me. Perhaps, it just feels like there is too much game to process that my brain just overloads. It could also be that a lot of my enjoyment of the game is mechanical since I only experience the story once, New Game+ notwithstanding.
While the overall aura or vibe of the Final Fantasy XIV community is positive, every now and again, I read or hear a criticism that makes me think I am playing a different game. To be fair, that isn't untrue; we all have projected our individual desires onto a game that has a lot going on, so it makes sense that in some way, someone is playing a different Final Fantasy XIV than me, especially if they are playing content I've chosen to ignore.
But it does surprise me when people act as if the game is nigh hideous without mods, for example. I think the game is both beautiful and showing its age, but my biggest complaint about the graphics is the one being addressed in 7.0: lighting. I'm really excited to get deeper contrasts and highlights because some dark scenes and environments are washed out. That said, I've never played with mods because it hasn't seemed particularly necessary. I do love seeing everyone's gpose creations with the mods, but I wonder how many mods you can turn on before you are intentionally playing a different game than me. (Coincidentally, I am a purist about grilled cheese, too. Once you add a primary protein or a certain number of ingredients, it ceases to be a grilled cheese.) Of course, mods for exposed genitalia and sexual emotes are a different game for which Final Fantasy XIV is just a foundation, yet I wonder how many mods are more presumptuous expressions of immutable stances that the game should have included their features or that players are even owed these things.
Digression aside, what I mean to say is that I don't have a lot of projections on Dawntrail. I want it to be a fun and emotional journey in a beautiful new environment (more beautiful than the existing ones until 7.X apparently). Given that I will soon be done with leveling up all jobs, I'm excited to be getting a new magic job, less-so for melee, but I'm keeping a positive outlook. I love new dungeons and trials and raids and stuff. Aside from the lighting, my only other wishlist item was Krile getting a new job and becoming more involved, which the producers have already addressed (I think). But if that doesn't happen, I certainly will not decry Square-Enix for it.
I do not have a ton of innate concern for cultural appropriation in the new setting, Tural. For sure, in an attempt to make the land generic across a continent and a half of real-world cultures, there isn't even a definition of "perfect" that can be formulated. They will get some things wrong and some things right. But I am not an expert in any culture really (though I hold opinions about some I belong to), so it is not and will never be my place to assess how well Tural represents whatever culture(s) it attempts. Of course, I can cringe at how well they handle certain concepts or themes, but it is likely that I won't or that it will be brief. As is always the case, the majority of the player base for any game just isn't vocal, so even as the critical essays come out, they will not be representative of any unanimous viewpoint. I'm definitely interested to see what those opinions will be, but it likely will not impede my enjoyment of the game.
Anyway, given a year (or more) to wait, I have plenty of time to develop more feelings about it. Until then, I'm just looking forward to the last Alliance Raid!
What are you looking forward to?