a bit of rambling about final fantasy 14

I've been getting back into playing Final Fantasy XIV lately. I went through all of ARR through Endwalker from May to July this year, and then cleared through Dawntrail almost immediately when it came out. I took a pretty substantial break, but now apparently I'm back into that. I think it's so nice to see what people are up to in this game.

It's especially fun to open up the party finder menu and see all of these advertisements for RP houses and bars and clubs and the like. I swear, there's never a time I log on where there aren't at least 3 party finder entries about a roleplay venue being open for the night. Not to mention the fact that people work these venues. I'm not sure if they get paid, mind you, but they take it pretty seriously.

Honestly, I think it's beautiful. The way the community takes advantage of the different systems in the game and spins up their own stories with it. I met a player once whose roleplay persona was a bounty hunter of a sort from one of the Heavensward areas, and we talked in character for quite a bit. The community is known for its openness and positivity and kindness, but I think the roleplay scene gets a bad rep when most of it is fairly chill. Even the infamous Balmung Quicksand is mostly just an open chatroom, even if there's 100% odds of running into a TOS-violating miqo'te or three.

I hope the roleplay scene in this game never dies.