Ode to Cactuar

Ode to Cactuar

Cactuar is a strange place and I love it.  This is of course the server a bunch of us play on in Final Fantasy XIV and compared to so many other game servers…  this one just seems to have a bizarre and friendly spirit to it.  There are a whole slew of us that have been practically living in Quarymill as we grind away at Palace of the Dead to level secondary classes and get a shot at tasty replica raid gear.  As a result Grace and myself happened to be milling around in town waiting for the festivities proper to begin that evening.  Grace pointed out that there were two people bouncing around on Big Chocobo mounts… and we both agreed something to the effect that we should both join in and make this happen.  So within moments of us joining the fray and bouncing around wildly on our giant chocos…  this happened.  Granted a few more guildies came over and joined in the fun but most of us this from just random people talking in /say as we bounced around happily.  This sort of thing is honestly an almost nightly occurrence on our server.  I cannot count how many times I have been in a major hub like this and a random pony party broke out, where everyone mounted up on their extreme primal mounts and started running around.  Sometimes it even evolves into a parade as we all run around throughout the zone.

Ode to Cactuar

Cactuar is a weird place and I love it.  There are so many times I have had to step afk and typed /mdance before leaving…  and come back to a whole bunch of other strangers there with me also dancing the Manderville and somehow almost perfectly synced up with me.  I have so many people on my friends list because they had an amazing outfit and we just struck up a conversation, and we /wave madly at each other anytime we pass out in the world.  Argent Dawn the server I play on in World of Warcraft has always had its bizarre streaks, but more often than not there was an undertone of malice there.  In Final Fantasy XIV folks just seem to be interested in enjoying themselves far more than bringing other people down in the process.  I am sure Cactuar also has its dark underbelly, but generally speaking folks are friendly and more than willing to join in the silliness if given a chance.  It is funny how a server develops a certain culture, which is honestly the main reason why I question games that are essentially server-less.  I know our server “feels” different than a lot of the other larger servers, and I am never quite certain how that sort of thing develops.  I mean I guess it could simply be because our server mascot is a half man half cactus…  which doesn’t exactly evoke feelings of being hardcore and brutal.  Although… anyone who has ever fought a Cactuar knows the score as they fall over after a 10000 Needles attack.

Ode to Cactuar

In other news I finally got to see the Sophia primal fight, as there were a bunch of us who had never done it.  I realize we are a few patch cycles behind on this one, but I have to say I really enjoyed it.  It was like all of the things happening with Leviathan…  but messaged far far better.  There are a lot of moving parts on the fight, but we largely winged it without having seen it and only the most vague description of the fight from those who had.  We single tanked it, and that role fell onto me…  since really I don’t have a well enough geared anything else to do big kid content on.  I had an awful lot of fun with the moving back and forth on the platform to avoid this ability or that… or the platform shift as the scales get out of balance.  We also did a one tank, one healer Ravana Extreme and that fight is still madness.  I would love to do that some more largely because I would really like to get my axe from there…  also of as a side note I would love to do some more Bismarck for the same reason.  I guess ultimately I really am a Warrior main, given that I didn’t swap at Heavensward and still have no plans to swap for Stormblood.  Of all of the gear I own… it is my Warrior gear that I end up enjoying the most.

New Beginnings

Turning A Bad Situation

New Beginnings

Yesterday was an extremely odd day, where a good deal of it I spent sifting through horrible IRS interface documentation, and then the rest googling phrases in said documentation to try and find better documentation.  That alone had me at the literal end of my wits… which we all know are of limited supply in the first place.  Then something happened… something that could have been extremely bad.  I had an interaction with with a player that I really do not like, that I finally had to distance myself from to keep from losing my shit.  Several years ago I wrote about the infamous “Bunny Incident” and I felt like I was nearing the threshold of unfocused profanities flying freely.  So I stepped away and went to lunch, then when I finally came back to a device I found out that apparently I was not the only one who had been feeling that way.  So what could have been a horrible incident… actually turned into something completely different.  I know I am vague-booking here a bit, but I don’t really want to drill too far into the who and what because that isn’t terribly important in the truth because I am focused on what happened afterwards.  For awhile now I have been back playing MMOs after what felt like a several month long break from them, but I have been back largely playing by myself.  I have been enjoying my time in Rift and ArcheAge, but enjoying things as a solo venture is just different from playing with a large group of people who seem to be equally happy to be playing with you.

So this negative event has seemingly acted as a bit of a catalyst, in a measure that I wasn’t sure was possible.  What happened last night is that a large number of us logged into Final Fantasy XIV and spent almost the entire damned evening running content together.  It was truly glorious, and was originally focused around the concept of getting people caught up in the storyline but eventually filtered into so many different areas.  So from the moment I got home from work, until about 10 pm I spent that entire time hanging out with friends and tanking various things that people needed.  I lost track along the way what all we ended up running but I was literally down for anything anyone needed.  I helped people get caught up in 3.2 story content, 3.3 story content, the Void Ark, Alexander four…  basically a bunch of stuff that folks didn’t want to do solo but were more than willing to tackle with friends.  The end result was this amazing blur of laughter and the best aspects of what can happen when you are playing with your friends.  Instead of letting one negative event pull us down, we have seemingly galvanized that one interaction into something that I hope will last past the one night.

In talking with my friends throughout the night it seems like we were all waiting for the same thing.  For the bulk of our original group to return to playing the game.  When you have spent a year and a half struggling together…  playing without those folks seems like a hollow proposition.  I am thankful for the folks who have kept the home fires burning in the Greysky Armada during this extended absence, because it means we have a free company to come home to.  The bulk of yesterdays strife is rooted in a simple miscommunication, like so many conflicts seem to be.  Namely there were ground rules set that were never communicated to those of us who had been returning, around what was expected.  So when the person in question gave some rather ham-fisted edicts and unfortunately we took them in the worst possible way.  I am not really ready to bury the hatchet completely here, and for the time being I really want nothing to do with that person.  However what happened as a result has reinvigorated my feelings about Final Fantasy XIV as a whole.  I am certain to keep playing Rift, ArcheAge and Destiny… but for a bit I am focused on trying to help my friends get back engaged in the game.  Last night really felt like we were getting the band back together, and it was seemingly noticed by the social structure of Cactuar.  Tam and I were both welcomed back with open arms by a bunch of folks that we used to interact with on a nightly basis.  Just like returning to Rift has felt very much like returning home… coming back last night and playing Final Fantasy XIV with my friends was also very much returning home.  There is a level of joy in gaming that I felt last night that I have not felt in so many months… and it was intoxicating.