What Players Dream...

There is actually a very adventurous and social aspect behind the game of Final Fantasy. You have your gamers that just love playing it for the community of friends, players that just want to level every job they have until they have completely beaten the game, and players that want to make as much money as possible from the game. All of these types of players, I would say enjoys the game, but has different motives behind it. Most of the players are driven by their status in the community, meaning that they have played so long that they couldn’t dream of giving up something that has taken them so long to achieve.

Social experience is bar far the most interesting part of the game. You’ll find those rare friends in the parties that you join that will talk about anything under the sun, and others parties won’t be so enjoyable because you have that one prick leader that either doesn’t know what he or she is doing and killing everyone or just a simple prick for no reason. Parties and linkshells are where the fun starts. You’ll always want that party where everyone talks about anything and has huge amounts of fun, otherwise you’ll find yourself drooling on your keyboard from staying up so late in a party that is giving you great experience but bores you to sleep. It is always great to have a party that you always level with, because you’ll know that you’re going to have fun that night and you know that when you have to leave they will also understand. Even when out of the party, you have a friends list to talk to anyone that you’ve met and usually it gets filled with so many people that you have to take off old friends. I remember Mark Stephen Meadows said something along the lines that the community will build itself once the space is provided. This is what really happens. You have people talking in linkshells about their lives and what happened to them today in school, and on ventrillo talking to each other about how to improve themselves in game and outside the virtual world. Your community is as enjoyable as you build it.

The success of being L337. Nothing strokes a gamers’ self-satisfaction than to have his character being among the top in the world. In Final Fantasy, you really only have one character, just different jobs that you can be. Of course you have those players that stay at home, eat chips all day and eyes literally glued to their monitor or television screen for several days straight because they want to find the best party to level from 71 to 75. They probably have missed a day or two of work because they were getting too much experience and almost reached the maximum level of 75. These are the players that have about 7-10 jobs mastered, and mind you, it takes a extremely long time to level a job in Final Fantasy due to the fact that not everything goes as perfect as you want them to be online. They also have the rarest items, and make sure they have plenty of time to play, to gain as much as possible.

On the other hand you have the avatars that other players scorn, the money makers. They farm their little hearts out only to gain something real out of the game. They treat this game as an opportunity or an investment to make something bigger out of it. You have your gil farmers, who camp rare monster spots and receive the rare loot. They sell the item on the auction house and sell they gil for money in real life. You’ll always see on eBay, that someone is selling 1 to 10 million gil because they have made a business out of it. They enjoy the game up to the fact that they can play, and make money out of it. Honestly, it seems like another job.

The players that dream, are the ones that are in the middle of all these other types of characters. They want to be the best, they want to be socially known, and they want to make lots of money but not to sell on eBay. These are most of the people that make up the game. They have played for many years and only play that same game because of the time they have invested into it. The more you play the harder it is for someone to give up, because of their relationships, their goals, and their success. That is what drives the average avatar. Some people that do not play MMOs do not understand the reason why people play these games, and it is the simple fact that everyone, in the back of their minds, wish that they could be something or someone else at some given point in their lives. They may have seen someone famous on television and said “gee I wish I could be as successful as him,” not knowing that probably that same guy said the same thing when he was growing up listening to the radio to another guy. I remember Mark Stephen Meadows saying something like avatars give us an opportunity to take a break from our daily lives and gives us the chance to practice another. Though with this practice, the players never knows how exhilarating and fun it can be to be someone else. To walk in someone else’s shoes, seek out an adventure that you could only possibly dream about, read in books, or see in movies and television shows. They are about living out a fantasy for the most part and secondly, finding others to live out that fantasy with you.