During the summer I started playing Final Fantasy XIV. As some might already know I was completely pulled into this game and barely played anything else for weeks. It was just such a refreshing take on the MMO genre for me that I didn't want to play anything else, apart from the games I were recording for let's plays.
Not long after starting I set myself a goal. I would finish all of the main story quests from all the expansions before the new expansion called Endwalker would release. This requires somewhere between 200 and 300 hours of playtime if you do only that and no side content. A daunting task to say the least but not an impossible one.
At the same time I didn't want to just burn myself out by running nothing but the main quests. I wanted to play the game at my own liezure while doing what I want to do. That includes things like optional dungeons, farming out mounts, pets, glamours and even hanging out at the casino and funhouse called the Golden Saucer. Basically just having a good time and not stressing it out.
The last few weeks I've been on a bit of a break while playing other games as well as dabbling a bit with NFTs. However while browsing Twitter yesterday I saw a tweet saying that there's only 26 days until Endwalker releases. That's not to far away at all.
With my leisurely tempo I've managed to finish the story of the base game content called A Realm Reborn and I'm currently working on the post-story content of the second expansion called Heavensward. That means I have the whole Stormblood and Shadowbringers campaign to go still. I'm basically halfway there after close to four months of playing and now I have to do the other half in 26 days if I want to get there in time.
Damn. I'm probably not gonna make it but I'm sure as hell gonna try. The story in this game is so damn awesome that I don't mind playing it for hours on end at all. The story is really well written with a good diversity in content. One of the biggest points of critique FFXIV get is that there's to much dialogue and to many cutscenes but I don't mind this at all. I would have hated it if the story wasn't good though.
Luckily for me the two expansions that remain are shorter than the two before. Their main quests are a bit more streamlined requiring less travel time between each quest NPC as far as I've been told. The first two expansions, A Realm Reborn especially, has you traveling long distances back and forth just to talk with people and this makes it a bit of a drag. In the later expansions there's less of this which should also lessen the playtime needed to finish the story.
I'm also perfectly ok with not making it. This story is to good to be rushed. If I don't make it Endwalker will still be there when I reach it. I just won't be able to experience it at the same time as everyone else. It just means I have to stay away from any FFXIV related social media as to not get spoiled.
I'm gonna jump back in there right now to finish up some quests and get some progress in. Hopefully I can finish Heavensward in the next few days so I can get started on Stormblood.
Thanks for reading and see y'all around!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.