I started playing FFXIV after being pretty moved by noclip's documentary on the death of 1.0 and development of ARR. I'd been meaning to for a while but the doc was so awesome i felt like throwing money at Yoshida immediately (i didnt know him before and after watching, i think his work managing XIV is straight up legendary. That has to be the craziest development story of all time.) and i did throw money at them by getting it on ps4 pro then realizing my pc could hold 1080p60 maxed and getting it on the steam sale lol
A lot of my time is spent doing usual MMO stuff but it just feels so cohesive and immersive to me in a way other MMOs haven't. And when the main story progresses and the events of the last game are referred to, I get super psyched for it. I think if I didnt know the whole back story, it wouldnt be eliciting these feelings, but as far as I'm concerned the real life events surrounding development and the game's story are inextricable. It feels less like a Final Fantasy theme park (as ive heard it described before) and more like a just very fleshed out and well realized mainline FF game. 100x more NPCs, more detail and lore than I can handle, and maybe because it has all that room to grow, it doesnt feel like its just throwing random nouns and uneven story beats at you at too fast of a pace. I havent played XV, so I'm thinking more of XIII trilogy and its batshit disregard of... everything (but before it sounds like I'm complaining, I've actually come around to loving that trilogy for all of its many flaws and questionable but interestingly experimental design decisions. It's adorably fucked up and a good monument to S-E's FF development last gen, but thats a story for another time.)
Anyway, thats my story. Hopefully it stays this impressive.
And if you somehow missed that doc, start here:
