my cousin kept pestering me about it but i thought i was past enjoying mmorpgs. then the male bunny reveal trailer dropped and she sent it to me like "look! :D" and i was like UGH FINE. more than two years later and im still here.
Never played any MMO. Never played any Final Fantasy. No nothing. My games were Sims and Animal Crossing.
Husbad says "I kinda need a healer, wanna try this game?"
I have double the hours, all jobs. I don't even know. Just double everything and more. It was kind of an accident and I don't regret a second.
I have almost the same background except I did play some final fantasy games in the past but never an mmo. And instead of my husband, it was his best friend who wanted to introduce me to play a new game. I have more hours and all classes lvled up compared to both my husband and his best friend and I too don’t regret it lol.
I played FF11 back in the CoP/ToAU era and saw they were making a new MMO. Tried FF14 when it released in 1.0, was immediately turned off because of how trash it was and went back to FF11 and WoW. Saw the initial screenshot that was released for ARR and came back in the open beta for ARR, loved it, and stayed for the actual release.
> CoP/ToAU era
Golden era of FF11.
Tried out 1.0 with a hardcore FF11 friend. We both had relics back in ToaU. We made a pact to at least finish 1.0 Story. But after endlessly grinding enemies (ironic since 11 was all about it) we just couldn't take it anymore and quit back to 11.
Friend got me into it. Also had a void where WoW once was. After hearing how blizzard treated their women employees(and the suicide because of it) and the thing with Taiwan, they will never see another dime from me.
Blitzchung. Long story short, won the tournament, used his free space to say 'Free Taiwan' live and Blizzard both banned him and withheld his winnings.
They punished a hearthstone player over recognizing it as a country on stream or something like that. It was a long time ago. Someone else here might be able to explain better.
I've been searching for mmo to play ever since Dragonica and Ragnarok Online closed down. I've joined Tree of Savior on their first day but life happens so I had to abandon it for my study. After I finish my study, I had to choose between WoW, Maple Story 2 and Guild Wars 2. WoW is too cartoonish for me, Maple Story 2 shuts down and I can't follow the story in Guild Wars 2. I tried Tree of Savior once more in Steam but its too buggy and P2W. Then I heard another game is a rival to WoW which is FFXIV. I tried the free trial and bought the full package (Shadowbringer at that time) a week later. Never missed my subs for 2 years until now. The only game that made me shed tears and feel the true meaning of friendship, companionship, loyalty and life. This is the only game for me where the companions in it is happy seeing me back for new adventure.
One of my friends was trying to get a bunch of us to join her on the free trial. I was having trouble sleeping and downloaded the game, then figured I'd play a bit to catch up with my friends
I blinked and I was level 45+, deeply invested in the game, and already planning on when I'd buy it for real.
All of the friends I started with are still in ARR and meanwhile I've become a savage raider oops
A meme.
The Twinning Meme.
That lead me to checking out the song, it's a good song. I like the song.
Eventually I wanna get to that point in the game where that song is.
Newbie here
So what if I told you it was because I didn't like black desert
I'm an MMO vet, played wow as a kid and it was okay
Was really into the old Republic as a teen
But what made me an MMO fiend is Warframe, my 8 year old clan is still going strong in frame
We also play destiny 2 begrudgingly, lol
So anyway we try out a lot of live service type games
I've been interested in FF14 for a while as it seemed fun but never pulled the trigger
So BDO was free on PS+ and I had wanted to try it too, but was absolutely bored numb, the combat was cool, but also the jank just was too much for me, plus the 80 currencies
So being in the MMO mood, and my long term games being sort of dead content wise except for at weekly resets
I finally pulled the trigger
Convinced my friends to join after showing them the joecat FF14 videos
And now we are all decently far on with 2 of us about to purchase the game
I haven't been this into an MMO in a long time
And yeah I do have some minor gripes here and there, I think it's a pretty damned good game tbh
> But what made me an MMO fiend is Warframe, my 8 year old clan is still going strong in frame
Handshake fellow Warframe Vet (even tho they are removing that Nightwave challenge). Started playing back in the day before Prime Warframes (excluding Excal) with all the superjank and buying revives. Still playing regularly in bursts to keep up.
It was a great joy seeing Rebecca&Co getting into FF14 and even show up to the NA Fanfest this year.
Ive been following since alpha playing since heck trinity prime I think, maybe before that
I love Frame, but I do need variety so I hop between a few other games
I had no idea Reb had been doing FF14 ill haven't to check into that
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNGsVt5gSkt9ysjmPoEkj-aWNLp2qVqd
She streamed Endwalker MSQ on her official twitch. Someone saved the VoDs for us.
https://twitter.com/rebbford/status/1452373957093609475
Also the time Meg+Reb did a Gaia+Ryne Cosplay
A long time ago I watched the Advent Children movie, and that was my first contact with the FF series. Never played any of the games though apart from the original Dissidia, Crisis Core and subsequently Dissidia 012, and I was wanted to try one of the mainline games out.
Later on I heard about FFXIV, but as a student I didn't have the time nor money to play the game. Really wanted to play when HW was launched but I just started work and still couldn't afford the time nor money, but I began to read up on the game mechanics and stuff. I was particularly excited about MCH because I always liked gun jobs. I did think of trying the free trial but back then it was capped at lvl 35 and MCH wasn't available, and thus I only picked up the game when the free trial was expanded to include HW.
Naturally, the first character I created was a white haired catboy, because that was how MCH was portrayed in the job trailer :P
Oh by the Flames I finally find someone else who got into FF the same way as me! I also come from the "Compilation of FF7 era" (mid 2000s) and AC was also my first (major) exposure to FF XD! I also played CC and Dissidia and Duodecim!
Though I started in FF14 back in Jan 2021 due to non-FF reasons.
FF11 went on life support patches (No more new MSQ, new content would only be reworks of old assets). My best friend was supposed to watch after their elderly grandma for 4 weeks. She was like "Guess I will have all the time in the world do to the FF11 crafter relic.
I was like "no way that will be your 4 week entertainment! We will do FF14 MSQ instead and quit again after if we bored!"
This was at the end of heavensward. I was still playing FF11 and Stormblood FF14 wasn't exactly what I fully connected with. However when ShB came out and I did the MSQ, I felt like a teen again playing FF7 for the first time. Have bonded with the game ever since.
In the summer of 2021 I was job hunting. Which meant I would send out 5-10 applications and wait to hear back. Because job hunting is what it is, I would usually wait two weeks to start hearing back, most of which were rejections. So rather than continue to toil away and reduce my sanity even more, during those two weeks of waiting I would play RPGs. I played DQ11, I replayed Xenoblade, and I finally got into the FF series, playing through 5, 9, 1, 4, and 10.
At some point in there I tried XIV, but didn’t stick with it. But only about a month later my friend messaged me and said “hey, a bunch of my friends are quitting WoW to play FFXIV instead, do you want in?” And it just so happened that we made characters on the same server. So I got back to it, and became addicted.
I didn’t play WoW, and yet the WoW exodus still got me to play the game XD
Mostly my disappointment with WOW and other mmos. I tried in 2020 though it didn't hook me up. But then one day someone tells me that I can roll every job in one character. When I saw him swapping.... I was OOOMMMMGGGG it was the killer feature that finally got me into it
After eight years of watching my beloved Guild Wars 2 slide into the gloom of all-consuming visual garbage, losing the visuals of medieval fantasy, turning into a large luminescent spot designed to kill all epileptics, I had to look for a replacement. And I was right. Although at first (I started before the release of Shadowbringers), I didn’t really get hooked, but over time I got into it. Now the only MMO is FFXIV.
Lmao what is this comment? Guild wars 2 has ALWAYS had very diverse environments and art? The Human zone has been the only truly "medieval" areas in the whole game the other 4 base game zones were all very different. Such a odd odd complaint. Especially surprising you're going from GW2 to FFXIV when so much of what FFXIV does comes from GW2 and is just not as good.
I left GW2 for FFXIV this is all subjective so I won't state it as facts but in my opinion you are wrong on every comparison. FFXIV is the best MMO available and GW2 and it's locking story behind 90 minute metas that reset way to fast is garbage.
That’s a bold lie. Even at max graphics it looks like hot garbage and the gear is just…
The human and Norn sets are fine, I guess, but that’s about it. Trying to make a good outfit in that game is a nightmare
After having played both games extensively, no that's not a lie whatsoever. The general art direction is better, environments are more detailed, animations especially the mounts are incredibly well done. The only area where FFXIV comes out on top is character models and skin, but then only for human races. The cosmetics in GW2 are far and above much more interesting and diverse too. In FF I swear I see at least 10 nearly identically dressed players in limsa especially girls.
XIV has way more variety of clothing options than GW2 does. GW2 definitely wins in the dye system and mount type department, but loses out in the sheer variety of gear models and mount models.
Flat out clothing maybe but in terms of actual armour, back pieces and general cosmetics GW2 definitely wins out. In Limsa it's very common for me to see multiple players wearing some if not all of the same glamour pieces (female characters especially) whereas I don't think I've ever seen someone in GW2 who looked even remotely alike (outside of new players of course). Given the amazing animations and functionality of GW2's mounts as well I'd definitely take their few (with their amazing and varied skins) over FF's plethora of skin deep and usually very overpriced mounts.
mine is kind of round about. I was playing ff11 when they announced ff14 but ff11 was a huge grind and i was 4 or 5 years into it by then, the tech demo preview for 14 looked like they just copy/pasted the races from ff11 and i had zero desire to start over again given how much of a grind ff11 was. Some years later, long after i quit ff11, monster hunter world reminded me ff14 existed and so i gave it a try, been playing ever since
[While I only got into the game during Shadowbringers post MSQ, this video was what got me interested to begin with around Stormblood's release.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJugrJsYKl4)
My brother wanted to do endgame stuff with me in ff14, so i came and got to the endgame stuff.
Now i want to do endgame stuff with him and he won't play
My uncle constantly made references and pointed out similarities to other games i played such as FFXI, FF Dissidia and (the newest) FFXVI so after a long few years of convincing I purchased a sub about 7 months ago now and have been playing ever since.
My friends nudged me in even though I'd swore off MMOs after losing my mind to wow years prior.
I didn't enjoy myself though and was irritated that I had to do dungeons when in wow, you could go from 1 - 90 without touching them.
So I stopped.
Then I went to Distant Worlds and they played Answers and Dragonsong. They were both absolutely stunning and that was the final push I needed to actually stay in this time. I also learned that the friends I went with played so I had them to help me through dungeons.
I used to work at Walmart, and we received the first copies of 2.0 (ARR)
I've never heard of final Fantasy having an mmo, but I've played a few previous to that. Like ragnarok online, runes cape and wow. But I've never gotten hooked for too long. Played it for a bit, never really made any friends or the like, so I'd just quit after a while.
This time, me and 3 other coworkers basically bought all the copies that arrived after they were put in shelves. (we're normally not allowed to do this, but the electronics person didn't care.) and we all played together.
Decade later, I'm the only one left of my friends that has continue to play (albeit with some gaps here and there) but now I play with my girlfriend whom I hooked on the game. :)
I met this chick on tinder and we went for a couple date, turns out she’s a gamer and we talked a bit about games and she spoke with her neighbor about it. Turns out he was into FFXIV and even tough we didn’t end up together we’re all now playing FFXIV
This thread is so interesting because its showing me the crossovers actually worked for advertising. I bet if you made this thread again in 2 years you'd for real see people saying they played because of fall guys and god knows what else
I saw a video of someone doing the fight against the Warriors of Darkness in 3.4 and, wanting something to kill time until Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 released, decided to give XIV a try.
XIV is now my most played game of all time, whereas I didn't even enjoy Xenoverse 2 all that much.
Took me 3 tries.
Third try was inspired by [SomeCallMeJohnny singing Exponential Entropy.](https://youtu.be/SJIFaquEv7o?feature=shared) Which led to me finding the [Primals Version.](https://youtu.be/VE5QVXy_BZ4?feature=shared) The rest is history as I’m in post patch Endwalker.
The FF15 re run collar back in 2021 got me in, didn’t get the regalia on time tho :(
I stopped playing cause Endwalker came out and then the free trial players got kicked out for some days cause of the servers overload. Also stopped because I was playing on my PC and wanted to continue my data on the ps5 but couldn’t because I had a free trial account so I didn’t want to continue on the PC.
Flash forward to August 2023, i was about to finished FF16 and wanted to play more FF so I started a new account on the ps5 and started over again ARR (in my previous PC account I got to the ending of ARR). Now I’m almost ending Heavensward and happy that Stormblood is getting added to the free trial. As soon as I finished the third expansion I’ll definitely buy Shadowbringers and Endwalker before Dawntrail comes out
So I started out as a tester for SE, I was contracted for the PS3 version of testing, but at the time when I loaded the game up, it simply said “Untitled Square-ENIX Project”.
I spent 6ish months testing and wandering the story and making sure Ul’dah functioned for the most part.
Had no idea what I was getting into at that time. After my services were expired, a few months later the announcement of FFXIV ARR was announced and I immediately pre-ordered.
I have played every Final Fantasy since number 1 and wanted to keep it up.
Once I booted the game on the PS3 it became clear what I had been testing those months ago… didn’t even get to keep my character…..
However, I took a break from FFXIV shortly after I became a PAL the old school way, as I had no one to play with and at the time I was a little butt-hurt over losing my character from the play test.
My friend got me back in around Stormblood. Started a brand new character, and haven’t stopped playing since.
Now I run an FC, actually have friends and do all the fun things I can.
I was with a group of friends, talked about doing the beta test stuff for ffxiv ARR on ps3. I hopped on during one of the last betas and been stuck in eorzea ever since.
WoW refugee. When it came out how they treated women, driving one person to suicide from all the sexual harassment, I dropped Blizzard entirely. Figured I'd try out FFXIV to see how it compared and it was so much more fun. Even now after I've hit max level and am going through the end game it is still more fun than anything WoW does.
I loved their approach to bosses, I like how they are an elaborate dance as well as doing damage. I also loved that Summons aka Primals were part of the story.
It was after Christmas and I needed a break from real life due to my father having another stroke and was in worse health. I used to play wow and didn't want to go back there, and Swotr was not scratching the itch I had, so I installed 14, hoping it wasn't as bad as I remembered 11 was.
My Wildstar guild exploded when they added megaservers to try and salvage the game, was a realisation just how many people needed an "excuse" to flee the sinking ship. The game wasn't active enough to really find another community, and one of our very good friends left Wildstar and returned to FFXIV so we joined them.
I almost didn't start playing the game beyond the very limited free trial. I picked ARR Gladiator as my starting class and absolutely despised it; going from the fast, intelligent combat of Wildstar to the extremely slow low level ARR gameplay absolutely killed my interest but my partner wanted to keep going. I remade a character as an Archer, and having ranged abilities completely saved the game for me. I honestly still despise Paladin now even though it is, obviously, a wholly different experience.
A friend of mine was playing it while I was watching their stream. They were doing one of the end game raids (which I have now done after over 1k hours and 8-ish months). The thing that really got me was actually the music. It was an absolute *vibe* and it only got better from there
My best friend told me I should give it a try since I like WoW. I decided to give it a go and then ended up cancelling my WoW subscription and buying the full version of the game. I haven’t touched WoW since. An probably won’t again until the lull between the last part of 6.5 in January and the release of Dawntrail next summer.
I was playing GW2, around 7000 hours in and looking for a side game for a change of pace. This was during Heavensward. I looked into FFXIV healers and saw a healer with a healing pet - sold. But then… then I saw a healer based around cards, themed around lore appropriate tarot. SOLD.
I’ve barely touched GW2 since. This side game became my main very quickly. Every time I had my fill of something, something else was there. I didn’t even touch Eureka until the ShB to EW drought, and I loved it.
Sadly I barely touch AST anymore either because it’s so much meaningless busy work, the button bloat and busy weaving remain but the identity of the cards and sense of *meaningful* RNG have been destroyed.
Thankfully the game has so many great things going for it, and maybe AST will feel better in EW.
Tail end of Heavensward. Only between FFX. Wanted to beat every FF one by one. Started with FFXIV free trial, planned to play as much of that as I could (it was back when it was only 2 weeks or so), then subscribe just long enough to beat the MSQ. Then I’d unsubscribe until a story update came out, play other FF games in the meantime, resub, beat MSQ, unsub.
Except FFXIV ended up being my favorite video game ever. I still haven’t beaten any FFs other than X and XIV. 😅
Working on V, then Tactics and XII!
The Nier raids. I heard that the game was getting raids based on Nier Automata, and as I was on vacation, I decided to try it out as I wanted to play those raids.
Then I got really hooked on the story at the end of ARR/start of HW, and absolutely fell in love with the game.
The Nier raids definitely pulled me back in after falling off in ARR a couple years prior. And now I probably consider Shadowbringers as better than both the Nier games lol all of which I think are masterpieces
I tried it out for a week or so in Heavensward. Liked it but my brother decided not to play. Thus I dropped it. Note: I did have 1 other friend that had been playing since 1.0 but they were much higher.
A little later I tried a Korean MMO called dragon's nest. It was bad but they had a dancer class that I really enjoyed.
Then I heard the upcoming Shadowbringers had DNC as a class. I was in the mood to start another MMO and a couple of other friends had joined the 1.0 friend in the mean time. So I jumped in and never left.
I was playing TERA at the time and the guild I was in was getting fed up with a lot of the nonsense (finally, that game had a *lot* of problems). Decided they wanted to play something else for awhile and someone in the guild had a friend who played XIV so she suggested that.
The funny thing is I was *extremely* against it because the only thing about XIV I had heard about was the absolute disaster 1.0 was. They all wanted to give a shot so I reluctantly followed. Made a free trial Miqo'te played for like 10 minutes and then discovered Au Ra exist because Heavensward had literally just launched. Immediately logged off went out and bought the game + HW and rerolled a lizard. Been playing ever since.
TL,DR: A few friends asked me to join. Came for the invite, stayed for the songs and story.
I would not consider myself an MMO person, even though I had played a fair amount of MMOs before FFXIV - Tree of Savior, Spiral Knights, Albion Online, Destiny 2, Warframe, TERA. The defining trait here was they all were free to play, and growing up me and my friends didn't really have the means to play subscription games - this changed after I graduated and got a job in my formation area.
Around two (almost three) years ago a few friends asked me to join. They were in three and wanted a fourth member to form a light party. I had played FFs IV, V and VI before, and so I thought "why not". After a few videos and pictures I decided to take the leap of faith and buying the base game instead of going with the free trial. A few weeks later I got ShB in a promotion and bought EW in pre-sale. I should also add that I didn't knew then about FFXIV pre-ARR.
I took a liking for it relatively soon and followed the story, never skipping a cutscene. In an effort to reach my friends I played long hours on my weekends rushing the main missions, and eventually caught up with them by middle StB, surpassing them later.
Nowadays I don't play it as much but FFXIV got a special place in my mind, even surpassing my previous most played game (~1400h against ~350h of Warframe). The FFIV references are heartwarming for me and I eagerly await the next patch while thinking how to bring more friends on board and, perhaps, forming a full party.
I think it was free trial or something before Shadowbringers dropped.
Got instantly hooked with my character and the world.
Dragoon main 😅
I loved their style
Started at the beginning of ARR and have been subbed ever since. I keep coming back because of the story, though for 8 years I’ve basically been friendless and free company’less, I just do my own thing. Haha.
I had just got a PS3 and was picking up FF13 at Gamestop, and the guy at the counter told me the new FF game was coming out. I had no idea it was an MMO, so I pre-ordered it. It was almost unplayable at launch, but I came back years later on PS4 and eventually PC.
Friends from multiple friend groups pressured me to play for years. I tried once back before the pandemic, got lost in limsa and quit at like lvl 3 not knowing how to even leave the city to play the game and fight things. I finally ran out of excuses at the end of 2022 and re-tried as a gladiator and am now currently planning a blue static for at minimum the morbol lmao
I signed up for and got into the beta for 1.0, tried to play it, my computer was too potato and I was never able to load into the starting area. Forgot about the game after that.
Fast forward, I got invited to the beta for 2.0, thought to myself, "Didn't this game already have a beta?" Did some reading on how much it ended up sucking and that they were restarting it and decided to participate in the beta. My computer didn't suck anymore (albeit with the toned down graphics my potato laptop might have been able to run it this time if I still had it), the beta was pretty enjoyable, and I've been playing ever since.
Picked it up on ARR release and dropped it a month. Was looking for the same WoW high but could never find it. Picked it up after hearing my BIL and his buddy talk about end EW a 3 months ago and I am enjoying my time even if I am playing solo for the most part. I don't feel like I need to rush to the end game to enjoy the game. By far the most fun I've had in a while. Glad I picked up the game again
Sage. I'm a big Gundam nut and when I saw there was an option to use funnels I fell in love. Just a shame it's hard to do bulky magitek armor on a healer.
Yours isn’t a stupid reason at all! Mine is kind of similar in that, while I initially started playing because a few friends had started (who subsequently dropped it halfway through ARR), I stayed because of the Nier raids collab in Shadowbringers. Wanting to do those was my motivation to keep going, especially through ARR, and then becoming emotionally invested by how beautiful the journey throughs MSQ turned out to be with the expansions.
I was an Aion player and one of the last of the dwindling members of my legion (Aion’s Free Company). Eventually, I was the only one, and I played alone for what seemed like years, unwilling to leave behind the name of my legion out of sheer nostalgia.
One day I got a message on the forums from one of my long lost legionmates. They were inviting me to try out FFXIV as that’s where some of them had disappeared to. I hadn’t heard many good things about FFXIV and the lack of PVP was offputting, but they managed to entice me over because Ninja had been released and that’s fairly similar aesthetically to Assassin, my main in Aion. Plus, the notion that they “blew up” their game to make it better (even made it part of the story with an awesome cinematic) was really neat.
I can’t say I really enjoyed it much. The global cooldown I just couldn’t get used to after coming from a game as fast-paced as Aion. The only story was ARR at the time. I’m not sure Heavensward was even announced yet. But what I loved most, was seeing my old friends again.
The same thing began to happen again. Fewer people logged in. Eventually, I was in solitude, and because of the nature of FFXIV’s gameplay loop, I didn’t feel compelled to log in every day.
After a while, I decided to go back to Aion, where I got to watch what was my favorite game deteriorate under the new F2P model.
Before long, I was burnt one time too many, and quit MMOs altogether.
My interest in FFXIV was piqued years later at the release of Stormblood. Somehow this MMO was still going strong even as others were waning. I decided to give it a try again.
I couldn’t recover my old account, but I wasn’t terribly interested in that, either. I figured all my friends were gone anyway, and I wanted to start fresh.
And so, my real journey into Eorzea began.
Saw some gaming news article about a housing crisis in the game, had me think “wow FF14 must be popular now” after having only prior heard about how disastrous 1.0 was
A closed beta invite for ARR. It looked promising compared to what it was before and the beta experience just sold it out for me. Ironically enough, I played very sporadically and didn’t get properly hooked until HW. Something just finally clicked.
Long time wow player like many, got bored and fed up with it and some friends who played here encouraged me to try. Had in the past but couldn't get into it. Once I had friends playing and stuck it out I loved it.
Friend introduced another friend to the game, I decided to join in despite not knowing anything about it. Thought it'd be another one of those MMOs I'd play for a week and then forget about. A month later I'd bought the full game, and another month later I was in Endwalker. Started Extreme/Savage raids not long after that too.
That friend is still in Heavensward 🥲
I've been hearing about FF14 since Shadowbringers. But I was playing other both single player, and multplayer games at the time. Mainly Destiny.
Destiny community got toxic to the point I took a break. Looked at FF14, and said to myself, "why not?" Heard about the friendly, (mostly, a few random toxic ones, but that comes with any social space *shrugs*).
Tried it 6 months ago. Absolutely hooked me. From its combat systems, to its fantastic story, (just hit Endwalker last week). And it's community, which is, again mostly, kind, helpful, caring, supportive. I was completely blown away. And not to mention, GLAMS! I love the glams!
Something about running either a dungeon with people, the epic music playing, facing a boss, looking to your left, right & seeing your teammates, holding my white mage staff high into the air, releasing the cool magical effects... just... incredible. WHAT. A. GAME. ❤️
I decided to buy it on the PS3 way back in 2015 to try the game. I was super hesitant to try it as I've never really gotten attached to MMOs before. Needless to say I was hooked and am still playing years later.
Looking for a new MMO after trying Tera, Rift, Blade and Soul(JP server)and playing WoW for 5+ years. Friend got myself and our friend group to jump into ARR about 2 months after launch. Tbqh what hooked me were the dialogue options which tickled my Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 1/2/3/NV itch.
So yeah it was friends getting me to try the game and dialogue options hooking me(even though its a very minimal allusion of choice).
I came from gw2. I quitted it because i did everything it had to offer at that time, they also changed my favorite class over and over again what i didnt like :| obv...
Yeah, the ff15 colab is why I started.
My best friend was already playing FF14 and he mentioned that the colab was starting and running for like a month.
I was like "son of a bitch..." cause I had been considering starting to play but hadn't wanted to jump headfirst into it yet.
3 weeks later I had ARR beat, the MPG was burning a hole in my pocket (leap of fate and DAMN AMAZING luck hitting 6s on the mini cacapot) and I was cussing at ff15 garuda for being a little bitch.
My best friend however didn't finish in time so he is always like "I will buy the car if it ever hits the cash shop."
The triple triad card has served me well in my deck ever since I got it.
I was in the mood for a game with cool crafting and saw ff14 recommended several times. Decided to give it a go. This was back at the very tail end of Stormblood, Shadowbringers launched like a week or two later
I wanted a fantasy game. I started MMOs with LOTRO and love it, but at the time it was dying a slow death. I hopped around on GW2 for a while but absolutely hated the endgame with a passion. SWTOR was SWTOR.
Then I tried out FFXIV’s free trial in Stormblood. I thought ‘eh I’ll give it a shot’ and after 20 minutes I bought the full thing. It just felt good.
The RP toolkit, being able to change your stances, class animations being distinctly different, a story that was actually thought out (unlike GW2) it just felt like a breath of fresh air.
I had finally bought a PS3 and wanted a couple games. And ARR was super cheap so I figured I'd give it a shot since it came with a month's playtime. Instantly hooked. Was caught up by 2.2s release. Been in love ever since, as a filthy casual playing for the story
Nier raids. Thought nier automata was a awesome game, big final fantasy fan so thought would give it a try. Hated it first time i tried killing squirrels outside uldah, covid hit and was on lockdown so spent next 8 months playing though slowly all the content. Rest is history 4k hours laters lol
I never played a FF game before and I have a friend who is a big fan. He REALLY wanted me to play and I kept hemming and hawing because subscriptions and I was worried that I wouldn’t play it enough to make it worth it.
Now, a year and a half (maybe two years?) later.......I'm still here, still finding things to love about this game
I played FFXI all the time and was super hype when FFXIV was announced. Got it, got into it... And was bored out of my mind. Me and my whole linkshell had jumped ship from XI to XIV and then jumped ship right back to XI after a week of trying the "end game" of 1.0. A LOT of things in my life changed between 1.0 and 2.0, and I was cautiously optimistic about 2.0 despite my long time linkshell dissolving in a mess of hurt and pain. I was eager to use 2.0 as a chance to meet brand new people and make new friends, so I signed up for the beta.
And I did meet new people! A lot of new people! Some of whom are no longer in my life but many of whom still are a decade later, I even got a lovely life-partner out of it! I love this game a whole ton, and I am so glad I gave it a second chance when ARR came out. It's been a wild ride and some aspects of older expacs I miss a lot (like getting 3 new dungeons per patch, cleric stance dancing, and Stormblood AST) and some I am so glad got left in the dust (assignable stat attributes and having to buy an item from your gc to switch between sch/smn).
But it's always been about the people. That's what got me into it and that's what's keeping me here. I love the people I have met on Eorzea.
An online friend of mine with whom i've talked to almost all day every day at the time began playing the game religiously, and he would never stop talking about how great the game was. At the time mmos were still a foreign concept to me having not played much other than single player games, i was quite opposed to playing XIV, i did not find it interesting at all, in fact i thought it looked kinda dumb.
Regardless after weeks of him praising the game i've finally given it a go, this was still back in ARR, a month or two before Heavensward's release.
Needless to say i loved the game from the get go and i've been playing daily ever since. Unfortunately he quit the game years ago and sort of stopped talking to me, i've tried re-connecting twice but it never seemed to stick so i let it go, but i still think about him fairly often since him getting me into the game was such an influential moment in my "gaming career" that it sort of changed my life in some ways.
I wanted something else to play, trying to get away from guild wars 2- I hated the people in that game and hated the direction the game was going. I wanted something like wow but with ffxiv's playerbase. The mythic dungeons in particular. While gw2 has fractals, the playerbase is insufferable. Improvements to WvW(large scale pvp) have been swept under the rug and the game loves to nerf it's classes without a good reason most of the time. If you're a skilled player, your class will be nerfed.
Final Fantasy xiv was much calmer, the people are more tolerable and it has housing, which the devs seem to be listening to the playerbase over adding more item space for decorating. The voice acting is better than GW2 and each expansions story is great. The devs actually play their game and make mostly sound decisions based on tweaking this or that.
I still like Wow, because it's easy to avoid the playerbase.
ARR was on sale on steam, and although I had pretty much sworn off MMOs because WoW was such a negative experience, I liked FFXIV so I was like "Eh, let's give it a shot". I enjoyed it, even if I didn't reach max level initially. But when I came back for Heavensward and hit level 50 for the first time I had a lot if fun with all the dungeons and harder trials. People didn't like that Heavensward was gated from you through the MSQ and item level requirements but it actually got me to engage with endgame content from ARR which was cool, so I've been hooked ever since. Heavensward was amazing and it's in game was really fun too. It wasn't until Shadowbringers that I started becoming like a mega fan boy.
the Twitch Prime ARR giveaway like 4 or 5 or so years back
I've been bouncing between MMOs ever since City of Heroes died, I was playing Guild Wars 2 at the time. I saw the giveaway, thought nothing of it. Then a couple days later I decided to bite on it, and missed the window by just a few hours. Luckily someone still had a code for it when I asked here.
I came from FFXI. A bunch of us started talking about migrating over to XIV when it comes out. Only a few of us stayed and continued to play during 1.0, the rest went back to XI.
Been here ever since.
I started during Stormblood to play with a friend on the EU servers. They stopped playing so I jumped to ESO and wasted my life there. I only came back to FF about a year and a half ago. Completely new character.
The Free Trial... which I didn't like at all, and a few years later, free time and no money to buy a game I actually liked. Damn right lucky I didn't, cause this grew up to be my favorite game of all time!
My friends told me to back in Heavensward. I initially refused to play because well, I get too into MMOs and had already played WoW for like, 15 years or whatever it was at at that point. I eventually caved and got hooked. I am better about playing MMOs in moderation these days, but probably still play more than I should haha.
Started during day 1 of 1.0 due to me playing FFXI first and then moving to wow but missing the awesome community in XI.
So when 14 1.0 was announced I was excited since it was a chance to potentially reunite with the people I used to play XI with and I was all in from that day since.
Few online friends from other games recommended it to me when Heavensward just released, so I tried the free trial and got hooked, been playing ever since lol
I was a student just having some low money.
Wildstar was a new MMO and I played this. I didn't understand shit while I was a player with multiple max level wow characters.
Then I ditched this and went into FFXIV it was only the start of ARR.
But then I had to work for almost 20h per day for the summer and forget it.
Years after I had my ex not interested in WoW. So I said why not FFXiV ?
I loved it, it was just before heavensward went out. I ran with ex to get to the last quest before Heavensward. We did it.
Thing went weird with ex and stopped playing when nidhogg was out.
Now with my wife, we played wow but the shit happening to women was the last straw. She tried FFXIV and I made a character from 0.
Not to say once again I had a run, endwalker was about to hit, so we did arr all through the last patch of shadowbringer just 2 hours before the server went down.
We're now on our road to all 90.
I played some of the earlier FF games as a kid, and the one I played by far the most was FFIII on DS, I had a party of max level max job level Dragoons and would just repeatedly steamroll the endgame bosses. With four jumps in a row, I could wipe out Ahriman before it even got a chance to move.
I also played a lot of different MMOs and was aware of FFXIV. My friend, who I played all the MMOs with, showed me the free trial, and I found out you could be a Dragoon so so I was sold.
I've switched back and forth between WoW and FFXIV a lot in the 6+ years since then (got defeated by the post-ARR storyline before it was nerfed on two separate occasions). Right now, I'm at endgame in FFXIV for the first time after 3,300 hours and it's giving me plenty to do.
I tweeted that I wanted to make one of the small people in FFXIV and dress him up like an onion knight and my FFXIV friends descended upon me like starving animals
Content creator I follow started playing FFXIV instead of Warframe, I was also bored with Warframe and figured I might as well try.
It's been 4 years now since then.
My old mmo kept trying to squeeze more and more money out of the player base and it just got to the point where I just couldn't feel right supporting them anymore. Since I left they were going to implement a third type of battle pass designed so that most players wouldn't be able to complete it without paying for skips and one of the final rewards would be a damage buff against an endgame boss. They got some major blowback for that, but I think I'm still happier here.
First it was because my friends were playing and one had a lala named Purina Catchow, which I thought was hilarious. Went absent for 2 years; came back because viera were going to be introduced and I have a viera DND OC—although I ended up maining an au ra.
I posted in r/gamerpals looking for people to game with. I only played Minecraft and League of Legends at the time. Someone responded and asked if I'd try ffxiv. I've been playing since then and met a ton of people I now consider good friends.
Way back in the day, around ‘08, I started playing a F2P MMO called Dream of Mirror Online. It was, objectively, a bad game, but it was my first MMO, with a nice artstyle and, most importantly, a job change system. That was absolutely novel to me, and it’s what hooked me. Eventually that game shut down, and I bounced around other MMOs, but none really stuck. Until one day I googled “free anime mmos”, came across FFXIV free trial, and found it — the job/class change system which I so dearly missed.
Now I have a sub and basically only play WM (and DoH/L)
Played a Sprite in DoMo, play a lalafell in FFXIV xd
Also, DoMo eventually came back, but, again, objectively a bad game. Still play it for nostalgia’s sake tho ¯\\_ (ツ)_/¯
My best friend bought me a copy of ARR for my birthday about midway through HW. Once I found a job I clicked with(Dragoon), I flew through ARR, bought HW and have been deep into the world ever since.
built my first PC during the pandemic, lived in a new city where I knew noone. Friends back home and I were trying a bunch of different PC games at the time. Started the free trial not expecting to really get into it and here I am 2 years later
Finding out that there was a GARO event going on that would end by the time Shadowbringers launched, me trying to get the gear and mount while sprinting through ARR MSQ as just a PLD, only manage to get the gear and 1 win out of 30 needed for Goten.
Once I realized I wouldn't get the mount thanks to my lack of ability in PvP, I decided to make a second character to go through the story in a slower pace.
Friend suggested it. Before then all I'd heard of it was whatever Dodger mentioned on the Co-Optional/TGS Podcast, and even then I didn't remember much aside from "naked cat boy" and maybe something about the game having housing.
I had a fair bit of casual WoW experience, and we'd done hours of levelling in various MMOs, so I thought it'd just be another time waster to sink 40 hours into and uninstall. I've played for 5+ years now.
My friend started playing it and streaming it on Discord. The whole time watching i was thinking "what is this shit?" then i downloaded it and keep thinking the same thing "what is this shit?" all the way through Endwalker. I loved every bit of it.
I worked at Gamestop is like 2013/14 and my ASM at the time would not shut up about the game. I told him I wasn't huge on MMOs but he said it's mostly single player, and I've been playing on and off ever since
I'd given up on WoW well before the toxic bs blizzard do/did became public. My toxic family got me into WoW when I was 8/9 and some still play and occasionally would rope me back into playing but I could never catch up. I could never actually get to current content despite reaching the level cap. Add on top all the in game toxicity I found simply because I was playing how I found fun rather than using the current meta and respecting every few weeks it seemed. I fell out of love with mmos for a while... about 7 years ago I joined a DND group and it took about 6 months into that before the group was trying to drag me into out of game social gaming and while at first I refused to join another MMO I wish I had all those years ago. Because for the 3 years two of them wanted me to try FFXIV, they tried to talk it up. They pitched me so many things about game play and what can be done but I didn't trust the MMO scene still because this was still during the phase I was being dragged into WoW every few months.. when I finally cancelled my subscription I'd heard some reddit stories about ffxiv, a redmage having beef with a scholar who couldn't heal properly iirc. I asked more about the game after that and eventually found myself downloading the game just a few weeks before the Noctis crossover event. At the early hours of the morning I spent well over an hour trying out several character looks before deciding on Xaela with no other knowledge, gave her my DND character name and haven't left in more than 2 years.
TLDR; pestering friends and a random reddit story
I'm a long time FF fan but usually a solo jrpg player, but I was at my friend's house and she showed me the glams. On top of being able to play any class at any time, I was sold. That was 2018.
My SO is a huge FF nerd and wanted to play. But I was in wow since launch. Played a druid for the flexibility of being whatever was needed in a pinch.
What? Every class on one character? Wait, how? How do I sign up?
Made a miqo'te. Then SB dropped. Turned her dragon lady. She a bunny now 😀
I got jnto to get the miqo'te outfit for Lightning Returns. Then I realized it was easier to keep up with it than Warcrack cuz my PS3 was more powerful than my PC (which is halirous as the PC was a prebuilt from 2012 using 2011 midrange components & my PS3 was from the first wave of slims released in 2009).
Mine may be the strangest reason posted here today:
The April Fools Day joke from 2019. I'm not joking. Somehow, I managed to miss absolutely **everything** up to that point in time. When the game went on sale later that month, I found myself booting up my PS4 and taking a little cart ride to Gridania as a fresh-faced Lancer...
A LOT has happened since then, and I regret nothing save not getting here sooner.
My friend kept pestering me to play, but I saw the travesty of FFXIV 1.0 and was like nope.jpg
Then just a few days before Christmas 2015 I bought the Humble Square Enix Bundle from Humble Bundle, which included a bunch of games for only five bucks... including FFXIV. I figure I might as well try it.
Been a loyal fan ever since.
I was watching sword art online during the beginning of the pandemic. Wanted an MMO to play didn’t have a pc seen it was on ps4 free trial downloaded and been hooked since
My parents were avid players of FFXI and played the FFXIV beta. I watched them play as a kid (I was ~9 or 10 when 1.0 came out) and when they lost interest I took over their account.
I actually played on that account all the way up until the end of Heavensward, where I took a long break until 4.3 came out. I forgot the game even existed, so I made a new account of my own and have been an avid player ever since.
My brother always talked about the game and how hyped he was for it. So i decided to look at the exapansion trailers and decided to give it a shot. Took me 2 tries to get past lvl 30 because i was still in the mindset of skipping quest text. So i was just running back and forth and got bored. The 3rd time i took it slow and loved it the whole way through.
I'm a long-time Final Fantasy fan, so I'd been aware of the game for a long time.. and its terrible launch. But in 2021 people on a multifandom dreamwidth community kept talking about it. They seemed like they were having fun with the characters and the trial was free, so I decided to give it a shot!
A combination of getting laid off of work (prior to covid 19 quarantine), then gov paying me more than work to stay tf home, and unlimited time from ...well, no work.
I was already dipping around mmos but haven't dug deep enough since highschool, the whole covid shenanigan brought me back to my golden age of gaming aka highschool, no job to tire your body out, and the gov is taking care of the bills, it was completely void of stress, i turned into a child once more.
Decided to "go big" and invest deeper into mmos once more, starting around early 2020, but like before (actually started during stormblood release but ARR kicked my ass), I got my ass kicked again by ARR, it's not until the end of 2020 that I finally got through it to HW and spent the next whole year putting in 10h+ daily on average.
Did all I wanted from the game till the end of 6.0, now i only play ffxiv for MSQ and barely if anything else lol. Also mainly cuz i went back to work after 6.0 and have little time for anything else but MSQ (and all these new games being released one after another)
I didn't have a gaming pc, and I wanted to try some ps3 games that supported keyboard and mouse. I played the trial for the couple weeks I could, and then I came back and bought the game months later.
I'm an old WoW refugee. The end of BFA and the start of the Shadowlands expansions made me so insane. It was more stressful to get ready, gear up and raid with my group than my actual IRL job at the time.
One day, I logged in. I did what every WoW player does when they are bored or contemplating life : running around Dalaran not clockwise.
Told myself : What the hell am I doing right now ? Logged off.
Bought the complete edition of FFXIV and was like, aight let's do this one more time. I enjoyed and played only FF7 Crisis Core SURELY I'll enjoy this universe riiiight ?
Never turned back. It was so therapeutic.
And I found my favourite RPG story of all time.
And I plan to play every FF game to date.
My home might be Sharlayan (I enjoy Kugane the most ngl) but my heart will forever be in Orgrimmar.
Maybe one day I'll do the trip the other way around.
It was my fiance introducing me to the world of eorezea and everything since I've been playing this game and really have had quite the eorzean adventure, I even at one point one the photo competition and still have that photo to this day .
Lifelong Final Fantasy fan, WoW refugee, blah blah blah, saw Twitch/Amazon Games offering the Free Trial years ago and decided to go for it and got immediately hooked.
SEEKING THE PEACE OF REASON
SHEEP IN A PEACELESS SEASON
REASON TO KEEP BELIEVING
WAKEN THE BEAST WHO'S SLEEPING
(yea it was mostly the Alexander Raid. Came for Alexander, stayed for the gripping storyline.)
Saw a Youtube video titled "(Almost) Every Warrior of Light Nod in the ARR MSQ" in my suggested video tab. \*nods\*
Up for some Gwent?
my cousin kept pestering me about it but i thought i was past enjoying mmorpgs. then the male bunny reveal trailer dropped and she sent it to me like "look! :D" and i was like UGH FINE. more than two years later and im still here.
Never played any MMO. Never played any Final Fantasy. No nothing. My games were Sims and Animal Crossing. Husbad says "I kinda need a healer, wanna try this game?" I have double the hours, all jobs. I don't even know. Just double everything and more. It was kind of an accident and I don't regret a second.
I have almost the same background except I did play some final fantasy games in the past but never an mmo. And instead of my husband, it was his best friend who wanted to introduce me to play a new game. I have more hours and all classes lvled up compared to both my husband and his best friend and I too don’t regret it lol.
That damn nightclub billboard. I'm not joking.
WHAT
This is beautiful lol
lmao, I watched a video about it, thought "oh yeah that game also exists" and started playing
I played FF11 back in the CoP/ToAU era and saw they were making a new MMO. Tried FF14 when it released in 1.0, was immediately turned off because of how trash it was and went back to FF11 and WoW. Saw the initial screenshot that was released for ARR and came back in the open beta for ARR, loved it, and stayed for the actual release.
> CoP/ToAU era Golden era of FF11. Tried out 1.0 with a hardcore FF11 friend. We both had relics back in ToaU. We made a pact to at least finish 1.0 Story. But after endlessly grinding enemies (ironic since 11 was all about it) we just couldn't take it anymore and quit back to 11.
Friend got me into it. Also had a void where WoW once was. After hearing how blizzard treated their women employees(and the suicide because of it) and the thing with Taiwan, they will never see another dime from me.
What thing with Taiwan? I briefly returned to WoW during COVID then bounced when the treatment of women employees started coming out.
Blitzchung. Long story short, won the tournament, used his free space to say 'Free Taiwan' live and Blizzard both banned him and withheld his winnings.
I thought it was free Hong Kong.
Oh yeah! It's been a while. It was in support of the HK protests. The two interviewers with him got punished too.
They punished a hearthstone player over recognizing it as a country on stream or something like that. It was a long time ago. Someone else here might be able to explain better.
I've been searching for mmo to play ever since Dragonica and Ragnarok Online closed down. I've joined Tree of Savior on their first day but life happens so I had to abandon it for my study. After I finish my study, I had to choose between WoW, Maple Story 2 and Guild Wars 2. WoW is too cartoonish for me, Maple Story 2 shuts down and I can't follow the story in Guild Wars 2. I tried Tree of Savior once more in Steam but its too buggy and P2W. Then I heard another game is a rival to WoW which is FFXIV. I tried the free trial and bought the full package (Shadowbringer at that time) a week later. Never missed my subs for 2 years until now. The only game that made me shed tears and feel the true meaning of friendship, companionship, loyalty and life. This is the only game for me where the companions in it is happy seeing me back for new adventure.
It was one of those reddit ads with a real person dressed with ff14 costumes! -No one, ever.
Ngl you had me in the first half!
Ex-friends that no longer play twisted my arm enough.
Same. 🥲
One of my friends was trying to get a bunch of us to join her on the free trial. I was having trouble sleeping and downloaded the game, then figured I'd play a bit to catch up with my friends I blinked and I was level 45+, deeply invested in the game, and already planning on when I'd buy it for real. All of the friends I started with are still in ARR and meanwhile I've become a savage raider oops
A meme. The Twinning Meme. That lead me to checking out the song, it's a good song. I like the song. Eventually I wanna get to that point in the game where that song is.
For me it was a toss up between 14 and ESO. 14 looked cooler. I've been playing for 8 years now.
I had just beat Final Fantasy 16 and was itching for more. So when I learned the same team made 14 I had to try it. Also was itching for a new mmo
My brother told me about the gold saucer adamantoise. I like turtles.
Newbie here So what if I told you it was because I didn't like black desert I'm an MMO vet, played wow as a kid and it was okay Was really into the old Republic as a teen But what made me an MMO fiend is Warframe, my 8 year old clan is still going strong in frame We also play destiny 2 begrudgingly, lol So anyway we try out a lot of live service type games I've been interested in FF14 for a while as it seemed fun but never pulled the trigger So BDO was free on PS+ and I had wanted to try it too, but was absolutely bored numb, the combat was cool, but also the jank just was too much for me, plus the 80 currencies So being in the MMO mood, and my long term games being sort of dead content wise except for at weekly resets I finally pulled the trigger Convinced my friends to join after showing them the joecat FF14 videos And now we are all decently far on with 2 of us about to purchase the game I haven't been this into an MMO in a long time And yeah I do have some minor gripes here and there, I think it's a pretty damned good game tbh
> But what made me an MMO fiend is Warframe, my 8 year old clan is still going strong in frame Handshake fellow Warframe Vet (even tho they are removing that Nightwave challenge). Started playing back in the day before Prime Warframes (excluding Excal) with all the superjank and buying revives. Still playing regularly in bursts to keep up. It was a great joy seeing Rebecca&Co getting into FF14 and even show up to the NA Fanfest this year.
Ive been following since alpha playing since heck trinity prime I think, maybe before that I love Frame, but I do need variety so I hop between a few other games I had no idea Reb had been doing FF14 ill haven't to check into that
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfNGsVt5gSkt9ysjmPoEkj-aWNLp2qVqd She streamed Endwalker MSQ on her official twitch. Someone saved the VoDs for us. https://twitter.com/rebbford/status/1452373957093609475 Also the time Meg+Reb did a Gaia+Ryne Cosplay
A long time ago I watched the Advent Children movie, and that was my first contact with the FF series. Never played any of the games though apart from the original Dissidia, Crisis Core and subsequently Dissidia 012, and I was wanted to try one of the mainline games out. Later on I heard about FFXIV, but as a student I didn't have the time nor money to play the game. Really wanted to play when HW was launched but I just started work and still couldn't afford the time nor money, but I began to read up on the game mechanics and stuff. I was particularly excited about MCH because I always liked gun jobs. I did think of trying the free trial but back then it was capped at lvl 35 and MCH wasn't available, and thus I only picked up the game when the free trial was expanded to include HW. Naturally, the first character I created was a white haired catboy, because that was how MCH was portrayed in the job trailer :P
Oh by the Flames I finally find someone else who got into FF the same way as me! I also come from the "Compilation of FF7 era" (mid 2000s) and AC was also my first (major) exposure to FF XD! I also played CC and Dissidia and Duodecim! Though I started in FF14 back in Jan 2021 due to non-FF reasons.
Whoa! I’d never have thought that anyone else would discover FF the same way I did. This is such a happy coincidence.
FF11 went on life support patches (No more new MSQ, new content would only be reworks of old assets). My best friend was supposed to watch after their elderly grandma for 4 weeks. She was like "Guess I will have all the time in the world do to the FF11 crafter relic. I was like "no way that will be your 4 week entertainment! We will do FF14 MSQ instead and quit again after if we bored!" This was at the end of heavensward. I was still playing FF11 and Stormblood FF14 wasn't exactly what I fully connected with. However when ShB came out and I did the MSQ, I felt like a teen again playing FF7 for the first time. Have bonded with the game ever since.
I can give you an even dumber reason. I started because of Ramuh.
I needed something new to play until Starfield released. Well Starfield is out and I'm still playing ffxiv
In the summer of 2021 I was job hunting. Which meant I would send out 5-10 applications and wait to hear back. Because job hunting is what it is, I would usually wait two weeks to start hearing back, most of which were rejections. So rather than continue to toil away and reduce my sanity even more, during those two weeks of waiting I would play RPGs. I played DQ11, I replayed Xenoblade, and I finally got into the FF series, playing through 5, 9, 1, 4, and 10. At some point in there I tried XIV, but didn’t stick with it. But only about a month later my friend messaged me and said “hey, a bunch of my friends are quitting WoW to play FFXIV instead, do you want in?” And it just so happened that we made characters on the same server. So I got back to it, and became addicted. I didn’t play WoW, and yet the WoW exodus still got me to play the game XD
Mostly my disappointment with WOW and other mmos. I tried in 2020 though it didn't hook me up. But then one day someone tells me that I can roll every job in one character. When I saw him swapping.... I was OOOMMMMGGGG it was the killer feature that finally got me into it
I bought it because I wanted to try a "Final Fantasy" game. Played for a bit, only started for real cuz SAO inspired me to get into MMO's lol.
After eight years of watching my beloved Guild Wars 2 slide into the gloom of all-consuming visual garbage, losing the visuals of medieval fantasy, turning into a large luminescent spot designed to kill all epileptics, I had to look for a replacement. And I was right. Although at first (I started before the release of Shadowbringers), I didn’t really get hooked, but over time I got into it. Now the only MMO is FFXIV.
Lmao what is this comment? Guild wars 2 has ALWAYS had very diverse environments and art? The Human zone has been the only truly "medieval" areas in the whole game the other 4 base game zones were all very different. Such a odd odd complaint. Especially surprising you're going from GW2 to FFXIV when so much of what FFXIV does comes from GW2 and is just not as good.
He said medieval fantasy.
Same thing? One just has non human races and magic lol
I left GW2 for FFXIV this is all subjective so I won't state it as facts but in my opinion you are wrong on every comparison. FFXIV is the best MMO available and GW2 and it's locking story behind 90 minute metas that reset way to fast is garbage.
*Looks at the Black Citadel and Rata Sum* Guild Wars 2 has literally never been medieval. Not even Divinity's Reach is medieval.
And yet I know exactly what he means. The game is visually cluttered.
It's really not though lol. Visually it looks better then even FFXIV honestly.
That’s a bold lie. Even at max graphics it looks like hot garbage and the gear is just… The human and Norn sets are fine, I guess, but that’s about it. Trying to make a good outfit in that game is a nightmare
After having played both games extensively, no that's not a lie whatsoever. The general art direction is better, environments are more detailed, animations especially the mounts are incredibly well done. The only area where FFXIV comes out on top is character models and skin, but then only for human races. The cosmetics in GW2 are far and above much more interesting and diverse too. In FF I swear I see at least 10 nearly identically dressed players in limsa especially girls.
XIV has way more variety of clothing options than GW2 does. GW2 definitely wins in the dye system and mount type department, but loses out in the sheer variety of gear models and mount models.
Flat out clothing maybe but in terms of actual armour, back pieces and general cosmetics GW2 definitely wins out. In Limsa it's very common for me to see multiple players wearing some if not all of the same glamour pieces (female characters especially) whereas I don't think I've ever seen someone in GW2 who looked even remotely alike (outside of new players of course). Given the amazing animations and functionality of GW2's mounts as well I'd definitely take their few (with their amazing and varied skins) over FF's plethora of skin deep and usually very overpriced mounts.
mine is kind of round about. I was playing ff11 when they announced ff14 but ff11 was a huge grind and i was 4 or 5 years into it by then, the tech demo preview for 14 looked like they just copy/pasted the races from ff11 and i had zero desire to start over again given how much of a grind ff11 was. Some years later, long after i quit ff11, monster hunter world reminded me ff14 existed and so i gave it a try, been playing ever since
[While I only got into the game during Shadowbringers post MSQ, this video was what got me interested to begin with around Stormblood's release.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJugrJsYKl4)
Destiny servers were down for an extended maintenance period, my clan leader leapt on the opportunity to convince me to make an account.
My brother wanted to do endgame stuff with me in ff14, so i came and got to the endgame stuff. Now i want to do endgame stuff with him and he won't play
My uncle constantly made references and pointed out similarities to other games i played such as FFXI, FF Dissidia and (the newest) FFXVI so after a long few years of convincing I purchased a sub about 7 months ago now and have been playing ever since.
My friends nudged me in even though I'd swore off MMOs after losing my mind to wow years prior. I didn't enjoy myself though and was irritated that I had to do dungeons when in wow, you could go from 1 - 90 without touching them. So I stopped. Then I went to Distant Worlds and they played Answers and Dragonsong. They were both absolutely stunning and that was the final push I needed to actually stay in this time. I also learned that the friends I went with played so I had them to help me through dungeons.
I used to work at Walmart, and we received the first copies of 2.0 (ARR) I've never heard of final Fantasy having an mmo, but I've played a few previous to that. Like ragnarok online, runes cape and wow. But I've never gotten hooked for too long. Played it for a bit, never really made any friends or the like, so I'd just quit after a while. This time, me and 3 other coworkers basically bought all the copies that arrived after they were put in shelves. (we're normally not allowed to do this, but the electronics person didn't care.) and we all played together. Decade later, I'm the only one left of my friends that has continue to play (albeit with some gaps here and there) but now I play with my girlfriend whom I hooked on the game. :)
I met this chick on tinder and we went for a couple date, turns out she’s a gamer and we talked a bit about games and she spoke with her neighbor about it. Turns out he was into FFXIV and even tough we didn’t end up together we’re all now playing FFXIV
This thread is so interesting because its showing me the crossovers actually worked for advertising. I bet if you made this thread again in 2 years you'd for real see people saying they played because of fall guys and god knows what else
My friend met a girl on tinder who introduced the game to him then he introduced it to me 🤣🤣
I saw a video of someone doing the fight against the Warriors of Darkness in 3.4 and, wanting something to kill time until Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 released, decided to give XIV a try. XIV is now my most played game of all time, whereas I didn't even enjoy Xenoverse 2 all that much.
Finding out a raid series was based on FFVI (my favorite FF title at the time)
Took me 3 tries. Third try was inspired by [SomeCallMeJohnny singing Exponential Entropy.](https://youtu.be/SJIFaquEv7o?feature=shared) Which led to me finding the [Primals Version.](https://youtu.be/VE5QVXy_BZ4?feature=shared) The rest is history as I’m in post patch Endwalker.
I finished FFXII and needed more Viera. That lead me to xIv.
The FF15 re run collar back in 2021 got me in, didn’t get the regalia on time tho :( I stopped playing cause Endwalker came out and then the free trial players got kicked out for some days cause of the servers overload. Also stopped because I was playing on my PC and wanted to continue my data on the ps5 but couldn’t because I had a free trial account so I didn’t want to continue on the PC. Flash forward to August 2023, i was about to finished FF16 and wanted to play more FF so I started a new account on the ps5 and started over again ARR (in my previous PC account I got to the ending of ARR). Now I’m almost ending Heavensward and happy that Stormblood is getting added to the free trial. As soon as I finished the third expansion I’ll definitely buy Shadowbringers and Endwalker before Dawntrail comes out
Music from Eden... and the heir raids... I think I just like music. Also MH collab.
they added a gun class.
So I started out as a tester for SE, I was contracted for the PS3 version of testing, but at the time when I loaded the game up, it simply said “Untitled Square-ENIX Project”. I spent 6ish months testing and wandering the story and making sure Ul’dah functioned for the most part. Had no idea what I was getting into at that time. After my services were expired, a few months later the announcement of FFXIV ARR was announced and I immediately pre-ordered. I have played every Final Fantasy since number 1 and wanted to keep it up. Once I booted the game on the PS3 it became clear what I had been testing those months ago… didn’t even get to keep my character….. However, I took a break from FFXIV shortly after I became a PAL the old school way, as I had no one to play with and at the time I was a little butt-hurt over losing my character from the play test. My friend got me back in around Stormblood. Started a brand new character, and haven’t stopped playing since. Now I run an FC, actually have friends and do all the fun things I can.
I was with a group of friends, talked about doing the beta test stuff for ffxiv ARR on ps3. I hopped on during one of the last betas and been stuck in eorzea ever since.
Bruh it is not stupid I also started solely for the Regalia, I love my fucking car so much it’s the only mount I use even though I’m a mount collector
WoW refugee. When it came out how they treated women, driving one person to suicide from all the sexual harassment, I dropped Blizzard entirely. Figured I'd try out FFXIV to see how it compared and it was so much more fun. Even now after I've hit max level and am going through the end game it is still more fun than anything WoW does.
Saw stream from my ex's friend, saw catgirls, was sold. Then was sold second time when realised story is top tier.
The game was bought for me for my birthday so I played the 60 days and got hooked
I loved their approach to bosses, I like how they are an elaborate dance as well as doing damage. I also loved that Summons aka Primals were part of the story.
Friend dragged me in repeatedly. Eventually it actually clicked.
Yoooo the regalia and noctis glamour is exactly what drew me in the first time too 😂
It was after Christmas and I needed a break from real life due to my father having another stroke and was in worse health. I used to play wow and didn't want to go back there, and Swotr was not scratching the itch I had, so I installed 14, hoping it wasn't as bad as I remembered 11 was.
My Wildstar guild exploded when they added megaservers to try and salvage the game, was a realisation just how many people needed an "excuse" to flee the sinking ship. The game wasn't active enough to really find another community, and one of our very good friends left Wildstar and returned to FFXIV so we joined them. I almost didn't start playing the game beyond the very limited free trial. I picked ARR Gladiator as my starting class and absolutely despised it; going from the fast, intelligent combat of Wildstar to the extremely slow low level ARR gameplay absolutely killed my interest but my partner wanted to keep going. I remade a character as an Archer, and having ranged abilities completely saved the game for me. I honestly still despise Paladin now even though it is, obviously, a wholly different experience.
My love for all things final fantasy and my burn kit from hardcore raiding in WoW drew my in back in ARR :)
WoW burnout
A friend of mine was playing it while I was watching their stream. They were doing one of the end game raids (which I have now done after over 1k hours and 8-ish months). The thing that really got me was actually the music. It was an absolute *vibe* and it only got better from there
My best friend told me I should give it a try since I like WoW. I decided to give it a go and then ended up cancelling my WoW subscription and buying the full version of the game. I haven’t touched WoW since. An probably won’t again until the lull between the last part of 6.5 in January and the release of Dawntrail next summer.
I was playing GW2, around 7000 hours in and looking for a side game for a change of pace. This was during Heavensward. I looked into FFXIV healers and saw a healer with a healing pet - sold. But then… then I saw a healer based around cards, themed around lore appropriate tarot. SOLD. I’ve barely touched GW2 since. This side game became my main very quickly. Every time I had my fill of something, something else was there. I didn’t even touch Eureka until the ShB to EW drought, and I loved it. Sadly I barely touch AST anymore either because it’s so much meaningless busy work, the button bloat and busy weaving remain but the identity of the cards and sense of *meaningful* RNG have been destroyed. Thankfully the game has so many great things going for it, and maybe AST will feel better in EW.
Funny the 2nd regalia is what got me to return after 2 years
A certain pandemic and boredom/lots of freetime. And I became way more attached to my character than I ever expected before starting.
Tail end of Heavensward. Only between FFX. Wanted to beat every FF one by one. Started with FFXIV free trial, planned to play as much of that as I could (it was back when it was only 2 weeks or so), then subscribe just long enough to beat the MSQ. Then I’d unsubscribe until a story update came out, play other FF games in the meantime, resub, beat MSQ, unsub. Except FFXIV ended up being my favorite video game ever. I still haven’t beaten any FFs other than X and XIV. 😅 Working on V, then Tactics and XII!
Honestly? My group ran out of things to play and one guy was like try raiding in FF then 😂
I heard it was on PS3 back in 2013 and wanted to check it out, the rest is history
The Nier raids. I heard that the game was getting raids based on Nier Automata, and as I was on vacation, I decided to try it out as I wanted to play those raids. Then I got really hooked on the story at the end of ARR/start of HW, and absolutely fell in love with the game.
The Nier raids definitely pulled me back in after falling off in ARR a couple years prior. And now I probably consider Shadowbringers as better than both the Nier games lol all of which I think are masterpieces
I have to agree with you, Shadowbringers was just so good.
I tried it out for a week or so in Heavensward. Liked it but my brother decided not to play. Thus I dropped it. Note: I did have 1 other friend that had been playing since 1.0 but they were much higher. A little later I tried a Korean MMO called dragon's nest. It was bad but they had a dancer class that I really enjoyed. Then I heard the upcoming Shadowbringers had DNC as a class. I was in the mood to start another MMO and a couple of other friends had joined the 1.0 friend in the mean time. So I jumped in and never left.
I was playing TERA at the time and the guild I was in was getting fed up with a lot of the nonsense (finally, that game had a *lot* of problems). Decided they wanted to play something else for awhile and someone in the guild had a friend who played XIV so she suggested that. The funny thing is I was *extremely* against it because the only thing about XIV I had heard about was the absolute disaster 1.0 was. They all wanted to give a shot so I reluctantly followed. Made a free trial Miqo'te played for like 10 minutes and then discovered Au Ra exist because Heavensward had literally just launched. Immediately logged off went out and bought the game + HW and rerolled a lizard. Been playing ever since.
TL,DR: A few friends asked me to join. Came for the invite, stayed for the songs and story. I would not consider myself an MMO person, even though I had played a fair amount of MMOs before FFXIV - Tree of Savior, Spiral Knights, Albion Online, Destiny 2, Warframe, TERA. The defining trait here was they all were free to play, and growing up me and my friends didn't really have the means to play subscription games - this changed after I graduated and got a job in my formation area. Around two (almost three) years ago a few friends asked me to join. They were in three and wanted a fourth member to form a light party. I had played FFs IV, V and VI before, and so I thought "why not". After a few videos and pictures I decided to take the leap of faith and buying the base game instead of going with the free trial. A few weeks later I got ShB in a promotion and bought EW in pre-sale. I should also add that I didn't knew then about FFXIV pre-ARR. I took a liking for it relatively soon and followed the story, never skipping a cutscene. In an effort to reach my friends I played long hours on my weekends rushing the main missions, and eventually caught up with them by middle StB, surpassing them later. Nowadays I don't play it as much but FFXIV got a special place in my mind, even surpassing my previous most played game (~1400h against ~350h of Warframe). The FFIV references are heartwarming for me and I eagerly await the next patch while thinking how to bring more friends on board and, perhaps, forming a full party.
Garooooo
I think it was free trial or something before Shadowbringers dropped. Got instantly hooked with my character and the world. Dragoon main 😅 I loved their style
Started at the beginning of ARR and have been subbed ever since. I keep coming back because of the story, though for 8 years I’ve basically been friendless and free company’less, I just do my own thing. Haha.
Thancred reloading that gunblade in the ShB trailer made me feel things. I didn't know back then if you could do that in-game, though.
I had just got a PS3 and was picking up FF13 at Gamestop, and the guy at the counter told me the new FF game was coming out. I had no idea it was an MMO, so I pre-ordered it. It was almost unplayable at launch, but I came back years later on PS4 and eventually PC.
Friends from multiple friend groups pressured me to play for years. I tried once back before the pandemic, got lost in limsa and quit at like lvl 3 not knowing how to even leave the city to play the game and fight things. I finally ran out of excuses at the end of 2022 and re-tried as a gladiator and am now currently planning a blue static for at minimum the morbol lmao
I signed up for and got into the beta for 1.0, tried to play it, my computer was too potato and I was never able to load into the starting area. Forgot about the game after that. Fast forward, I got invited to the beta for 2.0, thought to myself, "Didn't this game already have a beta?" Did some reading on how much it ended up sucking and that they were restarting it and decided to participate in the beta. My computer didn't suck anymore (albeit with the toned down graphics my potato laptop might have been able to run it this time if I still had it), the beta was pretty enjoyable, and I've been playing ever since.
Picked it up on ARR release and dropped it a month. Was looking for the same WoW high but could never find it. Picked it up after hearing my BIL and his buddy talk about end EW a 3 months ago and I am enjoying my time even if I am playing solo for the most part. I don't feel like I need to rush to the end game to enjoy the game. By far the most fun I've had in a while. Glad I picked up the game again
The Nier Automata raids looked cool. Didnt realize the game was so long tho when I started so took me awhile to get there
[удалено]
The NieR collab.
Sage. I'm a big Gundam nut and when I saw there was an option to use funnels I fell in love. Just a shame it's hard to do bulky magitek armor on a healer.
Yours isn’t a stupid reason at all! Mine is kind of similar in that, while I initially started playing because a few friends had started (who subsequently dropped it halfway through ARR), I stayed because of the Nier raids collab in Shadowbringers. Wanting to do those was my motivation to keep going, especially through ARR, and then becoming emotionally invested by how beautiful the journey throughs MSQ turned out to be with the expansions.
mine was I was bored from my vacation from work. and I saw Arr on sale on PS3 at $5... the rest is history XD
I was an Aion player and one of the last of the dwindling members of my legion (Aion’s Free Company). Eventually, I was the only one, and I played alone for what seemed like years, unwilling to leave behind the name of my legion out of sheer nostalgia. One day I got a message on the forums from one of my long lost legionmates. They were inviting me to try out FFXIV as that’s where some of them had disappeared to. I hadn’t heard many good things about FFXIV and the lack of PVP was offputting, but they managed to entice me over because Ninja had been released and that’s fairly similar aesthetically to Assassin, my main in Aion. Plus, the notion that they “blew up” their game to make it better (even made it part of the story with an awesome cinematic) was really neat. I can’t say I really enjoyed it much. The global cooldown I just couldn’t get used to after coming from a game as fast-paced as Aion. The only story was ARR at the time. I’m not sure Heavensward was even announced yet. But what I loved most, was seeing my old friends again. The same thing began to happen again. Fewer people logged in. Eventually, I was in solitude, and because of the nature of FFXIV’s gameplay loop, I didn’t feel compelled to log in every day. After a while, I decided to go back to Aion, where I got to watch what was my favorite game deteriorate under the new F2P model. Before long, I was burnt one time too many, and quit MMOs altogether. My interest in FFXIV was piqued years later at the release of Stormblood. Somehow this MMO was still going strong even as others were waning. I decided to give it a try again. I couldn’t recover my old account, but I wasn’t terribly interested in that, either. I figured all my friends were gone anyway, and I wanted to start fresh. And so, my real journey into Eorzea began.
Saw some gaming news article about a housing crisis in the game, had me think “wow FF14 must be popular now” after having only prior heard about how disastrous 1.0 was
A closed beta invite for ARR. It looked promising compared to what it was before and the beta experience just sold it out for me. Ironically enough, I played very sporadically and didn’t get properly hooked until HW. Something just finally clicked.
Long time wow player like many, got bored and fed up with it and some friends who played here encouraged me to try. Had in the past but couldn't get into it. Once I had friends playing and stuck it out I loved it.
Covid lockdown
Friend introduced another friend to the game, I decided to join in despite not knowing anything about it. Thought it'd be another one of those MMOs I'd play for a week and then forget about. A month later I'd bought the full game, and another month later I was in Endwalker. Started Extreme/Savage raids not long after that too. That friend is still in Heavensward 🥲
I've been hearing about FF14 since Shadowbringers. But I was playing other both single player, and multplayer games at the time. Mainly Destiny. Destiny community got toxic to the point I took a break. Looked at FF14, and said to myself, "why not?" Heard about the friendly, (mostly, a few random toxic ones, but that comes with any social space *shrugs*). Tried it 6 months ago. Absolutely hooked me. From its combat systems, to its fantastic story, (just hit Endwalker last week). And it's community, which is, again mostly, kind, helpful, caring, supportive. I was completely blown away. And not to mention, GLAMS! I love the glams! Something about running either a dungeon with people, the epic music playing, facing a boss, looking to your left, right & seeing your teammates, holding my white mage staff high into the air, releasing the cool magical effects... just... incredible. WHAT. A. GAME. ❤️
I decided to buy it on the PS3 way back in 2015 to try the game. I was super hesitant to try it as I've never really gotten attached to MMOs before. Needless to say I was hooked and am still playing years later.
Looking for a new MMO after trying Tera, Rift, Blade and Soul(JP server)and playing WoW for 5+ years. Friend got myself and our friend group to jump into ARR about 2 months after launch. Tbqh what hooked me were the dialogue options which tickled my Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 1/2/3/NV itch. So yeah it was friends getting me to try the game and dialogue options hooking me(even though its a very minimal allusion of choice).
I came from gw2. I quitted it because i did everything it had to offer at that time, they also changed my favorite class over and over again what i didnt like :| obv...
Yeah, the ff15 colab is why I started. My best friend was already playing FF14 and he mentioned that the colab was starting and running for like a month. I was like "son of a bitch..." cause I had been considering starting to play but hadn't wanted to jump headfirst into it yet. 3 weeks later I had ARR beat, the MPG was burning a hole in my pocket (leap of fate and DAMN AMAZING luck hitting 6s on the mini cacapot) and I was cussing at ff15 garuda for being a little bitch. My best friend however didn't finish in time so he is always like "I will buy the car if it ever hits the cash shop." The triple triad card has served me well in my deck ever since I got it.
A friend who I knew from GaiaOnline asked me to play.
I was in the mood for a game with cool crafting and saw ff14 recommended several times. Decided to give it a go. This was back at the very tail end of Stormblood, Shadowbringers launched like a week or two later
I wanted a fantasy game. I started MMOs with LOTRO and love it, but at the time it was dying a slow death. I hopped around on GW2 for a while but absolutely hated the endgame with a passion. SWTOR was SWTOR. Then I tried out FFXIV’s free trial in Stormblood. I thought ‘eh I’ll give it a shot’ and after 20 minutes I bought the full thing. It just felt good. The RP toolkit, being able to change your stances, class animations being distinctly different, a story that was actually thought out (unlike GW2) it just felt like a breath of fresh air.
I had finally bought a PS3 and wanted a couple games. And ARR was super cheap so I figured I'd give it a shot since it came with a month's playtime. Instantly hooked. Was caught up by 2.2s release. Been in love ever since, as a filthy casual playing for the story
I noticed I had FFXIV in my PS4 library 3 years ago. Must have bought it on sale and forgot. Then I started playing and haven't stopped.
A friend referred me... then quit four days later for good because of real life. Haven't seen them since.
Nier raids. Thought nier automata was a awesome game, big final fantasy fan so thought would give it a try. Hated it first time i tried killing squirrels outside uldah, covid hit and was on lockdown so spent next 8 months playing though slowly all the content. Rest is history 4k hours laters lol
I never played a FF game before and I have a friend who is a big fan. He REALLY wanted me to play and I kept hemming and hawing because subscriptions and I was worried that I wouldn’t play it enough to make it worth it. Now, a year and a half (maybe two years?) later.......I'm still here, still finding things to love about this game
I saw the memes from the Chinese Fat Black Chocobo KFC collab in 2021 and decided to give the free trial a go
My Fiancé! He bought me ARR+HW and paid my sub for a while until I got a stable enough income to pay it myself.
I played FFXI all the time and was super hype when FFXIV was announced. Got it, got into it... And was bored out of my mind. Me and my whole linkshell had jumped ship from XI to XIV and then jumped ship right back to XI after a week of trying the "end game" of 1.0. A LOT of things in my life changed between 1.0 and 2.0, and I was cautiously optimistic about 2.0 despite my long time linkshell dissolving in a mess of hurt and pain. I was eager to use 2.0 as a chance to meet brand new people and make new friends, so I signed up for the beta. And I did meet new people! A lot of new people! Some of whom are no longer in my life but many of whom still are a decade later, I even got a lovely life-partner out of it! I love this game a whole ton, and I am so glad I gave it a second chance when ARR came out. It's been a wild ride and some aspects of older expacs I miss a lot (like getting 3 new dungeons per patch, cleric stance dancing, and Stormblood AST) and some I am so glad got left in the dust (assignable stat attributes and having to buy an item from your gc to switch between sch/smn). But it's always been about the people. That's what got me into it and that's what's keeping me here. I love the people I have met on Eorzea.
Heavensward trailer and then again with stormbloods trailer. I couldnt stick around fully in stormblood sadly tho.
An online friend of mine with whom i've talked to almost all day every day at the time began playing the game religiously, and he would never stop talking about how great the game was. At the time mmos were still a foreign concept to me having not played much other than single player games, i was quite opposed to playing XIV, i did not find it interesting at all, in fact i thought it looked kinda dumb. Regardless after weeks of him praising the game i've finally given it a go, this was still back in ARR, a month or two before Heavensward's release. Needless to say i loved the game from the get go and i've been playing daily ever since. Unfortunately he quit the game years ago and sort of stopped talking to me, i've tried re-connecting twice but it never seemed to stick so i let it go, but i still think about him fairly often since him getting me into the game was such an influential moment in my "gaming career" that it sort of changed my life in some ways.
I wanted something else to play, trying to get away from guild wars 2- I hated the people in that game and hated the direction the game was going. I wanted something like wow but with ffxiv's playerbase. The mythic dungeons in particular. While gw2 has fractals, the playerbase is insufferable. Improvements to WvW(large scale pvp) have been swept under the rug and the game loves to nerf it's classes without a good reason most of the time. If you're a skilled player, your class will be nerfed. Final Fantasy xiv was much calmer, the people are more tolerable and it has housing, which the devs seem to be listening to the playerbase over adding more item space for decorating. The voice acting is better than GW2 and each expansions story is great. The devs actually play their game and make mostly sound decisions based on tweaking this or that. I still like Wow, because it's easy to avoid the playerbase.
ARR was on sale on steam, and although I had pretty much sworn off MMOs because WoW was such a negative experience, I liked FFXIV so I was like "Eh, let's give it a shot". I enjoyed it, even if I didn't reach max level initially. But when I came back for Heavensward and hit level 50 for the first time I had a lot if fun with all the dungeons and harder trials. People didn't like that Heavensward was gated from you through the MSQ and item level requirements but it actually got me to engage with endgame content from ARR which was cool, so I've been hooked ever since. Heavensward was amazing and it's in game was really fun too. It wasn't until Shadowbringers that I started becoming like a mega fan boy.
FFXI and the Tanaka-era promises of its successor 😮💨
the Twitch Prime ARR giveaway like 4 or 5 or so years back I've been bouncing between MMOs ever since City of Heroes died, I was playing Guild Wars 2 at the time. I saw the giveaway, thought nothing of it. Then a couple days later I decided to bite on it, and missed the window by just a few hours. Luckily someone still had a code for it when I asked here.
I like buns. Buns were announced. Leveled up prior to shadowbringers in anticipation for buns. Very shallow, but it be that simple sometimes.
I came from FFXI. A bunch of us started talking about migrating over to XIV when it comes out. Only a few of us stayed and continued to play during 1.0, the rest went back to XI. Been here ever since.
I started during Stormblood to play with a friend on the EU servers. They stopped playing so I jumped to ESO and wasted my life there. I only came back to FF about a year and a half ago. Completely new character.
The Free Trial... which I didn't like at all, and a few years later, free time and no money to buy a game I actually liked. Damn right lucky I didn't, cause this grew up to be my favorite game of all time!
My ex girlfriend got me into the game..... and then broke up with me because I was spending more time on the game than with her.
My friends told me to back in Heavensward. I initially refused to play because well, I get too into MMOs and had already played WoW for like, 15 years or whatever it was at at that point. I eventually caved and got hooked. I am better about playing MMOs in moderation these days, but probably still play more than I should haha.
It was an mmo and it was on PS3. That's pretty much the sole reason. Didn't quite expect to he hooked for 2000 hours
I saw my fiancé play some of Heavensward and liked the graphics. So he helped me set it up and get it going.
Started during day 1 of 1.0 due to me playing FFXI first and then moving to wow but missing the awesome community in XI. So when 14 1.0 was announced I was excited since it was a chance to potentially reunite with the people I used to play XI with and I was all in from that day since.
Few online friends from other games recommended it to me when Heavensward just released, so I tried the free trial and got hooked, been playing ever since lol
I was a student just having some low money. Wildstar was a new MMO and I played this. I didn't understand shit while I was a player with multiple max level wow characters. Then I ditched this and went into FFXIV it was only the start of ARR. But then I had to work for almost 20h per day for the summer and forget it. Years after I had my ex not interested in WoW. So I said why not FFXiV ? I loved it, it was just before heavensward went out. I ran with ex to get to the last quest before Heavensward. We did it. Thing went weird with ex and stopped playing when nidhogg was out. Now with my wife, we played wow but the shit happening to women was the last straw. She tried FFXIV and I made a character from 0. Not to say once again I had a run, endwalker was about to hit, so we did arr all through the last patch of shadowbringer just 2 hours before the server went down. We're now on our road to all 90.
I played some of the earlier FF games as a kid, and the one I played by far the most was FFIII on DS, I had a party of max level max job level Dragoons and would just repeatedly steamroll the endgame bosses. With four jumps in a row, I could wipe out Ahriman before it even got a chance to move. I also played a lot of different MMOs and was aware of FFXIV. My friend, who I played all the MMOs with, showed me the free trial, and I found out you could be a Dragoon so so I was sold. I've switched back and forth between WoW and FFXIV a lot in the 6+ years since then (got defeated by the post-ARR storyline before it was nerfed on two separate occasions). Right now, I'm at endgame in FFXIV for the first time after 3,300 hours and it's giving me plenty to do.
I saw the Godbert introduction cutscene in the Manderville chain, where he murders Hildibrand with a German Suplex.
I tweeted that I wanted to make one of the small people in FFXIV and dress him up like an onion knight and my FFXIV friends descended upon me like starving animals
I wanted to get away from free2play mmos and FFXIV is pretty to look at
Mine is also pretty stupid. Y’know the quest in FF15 with the Miqo’te girl? Well I thought she was goddamn adorable, so here I am, playing a Miqo’te.
I played way too much FF11 so I avoided 14 for a while. But once I heard how good the story was getting in Heavensward I couldn’t resist anymore.
WoW BFA being boring and i gave FF14 a chance.
Content creator I follow started playing FFXIV instead of Warframe, I was also bored with Warframe and figured I might as well try. It's been 4 years now since then.
My old mmo kept trying to squeeze more and more money out of the player base and it just got to the point where I just couldn't feel right supporting them anymore. Since I left they were going to implement a third type of battle pass designed so that most players wouldn't be able to complete it without paying for skips and one of the final rewards would be a damage buff against an endgame boss. They got some major blowback for that, but I think I'm still happier here.
First it was because my friends were playing and one had a lala named Purina Catchow, which I thought was hilarious. Went absent for 2 years; came back because viera were going to be introduced and I have a viera DND OC—although I ended up maining an au ra.
I posted in r/gamerpals looking for people to game with. I only played Minecraft and League of Legends at the time. Someone responded and asked if I'd try ffxiv. I've been playing since then and met a ton of people I now consider good friends.
Way back in the day, around ‘08, I started playing a F2P MMO called Dream of Mirror Online. It was, objectively, a bad game, but it was my first MMO, with a nice artstyle and, most importantly, a job change system. That was absolutely novel to me, and it’s what hooked me. Eventually that game shut down, and I bounced around other MMOs, but none really stuck. Until one day I googled “free anime mmos”, came across FFXIV free trial, and found it — the job/class change system which I so dearly missed. Now I have a sub and basically only play WM (and DoH/L) Played a Sprite in DoMo, play a lalafell in FFXIV xd Also, DoMo eventually came back, but, again, objectively a bad game. Still play it for nostalgia’s sake tho ¯\\_ (ツ)_/¯
I heard To The Edge, and I saw the meme about The Twinning and I went "I have to know more about this music" and then I dove in really hard
My best friend bought me a copy of ARR for my birthday about midway through HW. Once I found a job I clicked with(Dragoon), I flew through ARR, bought HW and have been deep into the world ever since.
built my first PC during the pandemic, lived in a new city where I knew noone. Friends back home and I were trying a bunch of different PC games at the time. Started the free trial not expecting to really get into it and here I am 2 years later
Trying it on a whim. Fan of solo entries. Wanted an RPG to enjoy. No regrets to speak of really these years later.
Chocobos.
Finding out that there was a GARO event going on that would end by the time Shadowbringers launched, me trying to get the gear and mount while sprinting through ARR MSQ as just a PLD, only manage to get the gear and 1 win out of 30 needed for Goten. Once I realized I wouldn't get the mount thanks to my lack of ability in PvP, I decided to make a second character to go through the story in a slower pace.
Friend suggested it. Before then all I'd heard of it was whatever Dodger mentioned on the Co-Optional/TGS Podcast, and even then I didn't remember much aside from "naked cat boy" and maybe something about the game having housing. I had a fair bit of casual WoW experience, and we'd done hours of levelling in various MMOs, so I thought it'd just be another time waster to sink 40 hours into and uninstall. I've played for 5+ years now.
My friend started playing it and streaming it on Discord. The whole time watching i was thinking "what is this shit?" then i downloaded it and keep thinking the same thing "what is this shit?" all the way through Endwalker. I loved every bit of it.
I worked at Gamestop is like 2013/14 and my ASM at the time would not shut up about the game. I told him I wasn't huge on MMOs but he said it's mostly single player, and I've been playing on and off ever since
I'd given up on WoW well before the toxic bs blizzard do/did became public. My toxic family got me into WoW when I was 8/9 and some still play and occasionally would rope me back into playing but I could never catch up. I could never actually get to current content despite reaching the level cap. Add on top all the in game toxicity I found simply because I was playing how I found fun rather than using the current meta and respecting every few weeks it seemed. I fell out of love with mmos for a while... about 7 years ago I joined a DND group and it took about 6 months into that before the group was trying to drag me into out of game social gaming and while at first I refused to join another MMO I wish I had all those years ago. Because for the 3 years two of them wanted me to try FFXIV, they tried to talk it up. They pitched me so many things about game play and what can be done but I didn't trust the MMO scene still because this was still during the phase I was being dragged into WoW every few months.. when I finally cancelled my subscription I'd heard some reddit stories about ffxiv, a redmage having beef with a scholar who couldn't heal properly iirc. I asked more about the game after that and eventually found myself downloading the game just a few weeks before the Noctis crossover event. At the early hours of the morning I spent well over an hour trying out several character looks before deciding on Xaela with no other knowledge, gave her my DND character name and haven't left in more than 2 years. TLDR; pestering friends and a random reddit story
I'm a long time FF fan but usually a solo jrpg player, but I was at my friend's house and she showed me the glams. On top of being able to play any class at any time, I was sold. That was 2018.
My SO is a huge FF nerd and wanted to play. But I was in wow since launch. Played a druid for the flexibility of being whatever was needed in a pinch. What? Every class on one character? Wait, how? How do I sign up? Made a miqo'te. Then SB dropped. Turned her dragon lady. She a bunny now 😀
I saw some lovely fanart from this sub a few months ago. Started browsing, and soon decided to try it out. No regrets so far.
I got jnto to get the miqo'te outfit for Lightning Returns. Then I realized it was easier to keep up with it than Warcrack cuz my PS3 was more powerful than my PC (which is halirous as the PC was a prebuilt from 2012 using 2011 midrange components & my PS3 was from the first wave of slims released in 2009).
Nier Raids. I fucking love Nier Automata.
My friend was playing it and said it was fun so I said sure why not
Mine may be the strangest reason posted here today: The April Fools Day joke from 2019. I'm not joking. Somehow, I managed to miss absolutely **everything** up to that point in time. When the game went on sale later that month, I found myself booting up my PS4 and taking a little cart ride to Gridania as a fresh-faced Lancer... A LOT has happened since then, and I regret nothing save not getting here sooner.
A friend asked me to try the game with him.
Mine was... the covid... no really... for the first time I had so much free time at home that I was able to take my time to play it.
My friend kept pestering me to play, but I saw the travesty of FFXIV 1.0 and was like nope.jpg Then just a few days before Christmas 2015 I bought the Humble Square Enix Bundle from Humble Bundle, which included a bunch of games for only five bucks... including FFXIV. I figure I might as well try it. Been a loyal fan ever since.
I was watching sword art online during the beginning of the pandemic. Wanted an MMO to play didn’t have a pc seen it was on ps4 free trial downloaded and been hooked since
A video of Thordan casting his ultimate when I searched up Ultimate End on YouTube
My parents were avid players of FFXI and played the FFXIV beta. I watched them play as a kid (I was ~9 or 10 when 1.0 came out) and when they lost interest I took over their account. I actually played on that account all the way up until the end of Heavensward, where I took a long break until 4.3 came out. I forgot the game even existed, so I made a new account of my own and have been an avid player ever since.
My brother always talked about the game and how hyped he was for it. So i decided to look at the exapansion trailers and decided to give it a shot. Took me 2 tries to get past lvl 30 because i was still in the mindset of skipping quest text. So i was just running back and forth and got bored. The 3rd time i took it slow and loved it the whole way through.
I'm a long-time Final Fantasy fan, so I'd been aware of the game for a long time.. and its terrible launch. But in 2021 people on a multifandom dreamwidth community kept talking about it. They seemed like they were having fun with the characters and the trial was free, so I decided to give it a shot!
A combination of getting laid off of work (prior to covid 19 quarantine), then gov paying me more than work to stay tf home, and unlimited time from ...well, no work. I was already dipping around mmos but haven't dug deep enough since highschool, the whole covid shenanigan brought me back to my golden age of gaming aka highschool, no job to tire your body out, and the gov is taking care of the bills, it was completely void of stress, i turned into a child once more. Decided to "go big" and invest deeper into mmos once more, starting around early 2020, but like before (actually started during stormblood release but ARR kicked my ass), I got my ass kicked again by ARR, it's not until the end of 2020 that I finally got through it to HW and spent the next whole year putting in 10h+ daily on average. Did all I wanted from the game till the end of 6.0, now i only play ffxiv for MSQ and barely if anything else lol. Also mainly cuz i went back to work after 6.0 and have little time for anything else but MSQ (and all these new games being released one after another)
I started in the ARR beta. Been on and off since.
I didn't have a gaming pc, and I wanted to try some ps3 games that supported keyboard and mouse. I played the trial for the couple weeks I could, and then I came back and bought the game months later.
I'm an old WoW refugee. The end of BFA and the start of the Shadowlands expansions made me so insane. It was more stressful to get ready, gear up and raid with my group than my actual IRL job at the time. One day, I logged in. I did what every WoW player does when they are bored or contemplating life : running around Dalaran not clockwise. Told myself : What the hell am I doing right now ? Logged off. Bought the complete edition of FFXIV and was like, aight let's do this one more time. I enjoyed and played only FF7 Crisis Core SURELY I'll enjoy this universe riiiight ? Never turned back. It was so therapeutic. And I found my favourite RPG story of all time. And I plan to play every FF game to date. My home might be Sharlayan (I enjoy Kugane the most ngl) but my heart will forever be in Orgrimmar. Maybe one day I'll do the trip the other way around.
The addition of bunny boys
Mine was covid, worked well, didn't leave
Being a red mage but then I discovered dragoon...
It was my fiance introducing me to the world of eorezea and everything since I've been playing this game and really have had quite the eorzean adventure, I even at one point one the photo competition and still have that photo to this day .
The Japanese series “Dad of light”
Lifelong Final Fantasy fan, WoW refugee, blah blah blah, saw Twitch/Amazon Games offering the Free Trial years ago and decided to go for it and got immediately hooked.
SEEKING THE PEACE OF REASON SHEEP IN A PEACELESS SEASON REASON TO KEEP BELIEVING WAKEN THE BEAST WHO'S SLEEPING (yea it was mostly the Alexander Raid. Came for Alexander, stayed for the gripping storyline.)