FFXIV: Living the Red Mage Dream

Things have slowed down a good bit since we’ve completed the MSQ for Stormblood. In fact, I haven’t done a whole lot aside from daily gathering turn-ins and a leveling roulette since Tuesday. Though I’ve got the quests to unlock the two Expert dungeons, we haven’t sat down and worked on that yet.

Despite that, Verity gear is very cheap and quick to get, so I’ve already started upgrading my accessories to give my ilvl a bump upwards. I know that my FC wants to start hosting learning runs for Omega this weekend, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the ilvl requirement, or the energy, to tackle a raid. We’ll see.

I did pick up the Manipulative Moggle Mogfoil for glamour, since it finally dropped below 2 mil gil on the market board. I’ve been watching the fluctuations in price and knew that late in the week would be the cheapest time to buy. I’ve also made quite a bit of gil over the past week, so I figured it was okay to splurge on something nice for my main.

Though I’m not usually a fan of the Mog weapons, I really love the music note effects of this one. It’s similar to the Songbird emote, and it drew my eye instantly.

A Dream Realized

I’ve probably mentioned this somewhere down the line, but having a Red Mage character fully kitted out in artifact armor was a dream of mine from many years ago.

I don’t remember the exact date I first picked up Final Fantasy XI. It was pretty close to launch, though, and before any of the expansions came out (so I want to say the summer/fall of 2002?). I remember being so excited to load it up on my PC… and learning that I’d have to download hours worth of patches for it on my slooow dial-up connection!

So, while waiting for the set-up to run its course, I decided to take a nap. Only, I was way too excited to nap… at the prospect of being a Red Mage! All I could think of was being a magic user with a cool sword, and awesome gear (especially the hat). Oh the dreams of innocent youth. 🙂

But once I started playing, the reality of the game’s design set in. It was a very time-intensive and group-required game. I wasn’t ready to handle a MMO with stringent forced grouping for almost everything. Just the thought of PUGing for leveling caused me a lot of anxiety. I spent hours and hours trying so hard to grind the game solo. I think I might have successfully reached level 20 somewhere down the line, mostly on my own. That was killing a LOT of sheep and crabs. 😀

It soon became very clear that I’d never see that awesome Red Mage in artifact armor in FFXI. Eventually, I gave up on the game, and swore off MMOs for a long time. It wasn’t until games became a lot more solo and casual friendly that I came back to the genre.

Fast forward to 2013, when FFXIV ARR released. I started hearing people say that the re-release of this game was very good. I also heard that it was a lot more solo friendly than FFXI… and that got me thinking.

I believe I was somewhat miffed at the direction that GW2 (my main MMO) was going at the time. So that discontent feeling, coupled with the good reviews, and the memories of how I’d failed to achieve my dreams in FFXI, all led to me giving FFXIV a shot.

And now? I have achieved that hoped-for Red Mage with artifact armor! Sure, it wasn’t a huge grind or a terribly difficult thing to achieve. But it’s certainly been a goal that was nearly 15 years in the making. 🙂

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