FFXIV: RP Disconnect – Coming Clean
I’m quite happy with my Mudpie minion, pictured above — I’ve only seen it drop once and got the lucky roll to win it! Usually, I have no luck in rolling on minions, so I was stoked when I managed to snag this fellow.
A perfectly messy minion to talk about coming clean. Well, not that I actually have hidden my side-blog activity. I’ve actually linked to my RP Tumblr and discussed my move to the RP server and all the motivations behind it several times before.
But still, I feel a little guilty that this blog, which I’ve maintained for years, has slowly seen a decrease in content as a lot of my attention has gone towards my RP and creative endeavors. I have to admit that part of this is that due to whatever fluke, the response to my Tumblr writing has been quite strong.
In fact, since I first started seriously RP blogging in the last week of July, I’ve earned more followers there than I have all the years of WordPress blogging here.
Also, given that this blog has exactly 1,440 posts over its lifetime, it’s crazy to think that in just a matter of a few months, my RP Tumblr has 1,338 posts. Granted, what I write here is generally longer and more in-depth in terms of content, and some of the Tumblr content is just silly stuff, images or reblogs. But I’ve also posted some lengthy fiction pieces there, as well.
The Conundrum
The interesting thing is, I’m playing far more FFXIV since I got involved with my RP alt and I’m having a lot more fun doing it. Yet, I’m blogging about it less here, mostly because I don’t know if this kind of content belongs on this blog.
I feel like folks who read this blog might not be interested in RP fiction and think the whole thing is silly. Maybe I’m wrong about that, though. I mean, we do all roll up digital avatars in fantastical worlds as a fun pass time, right?
I’ve also just found myself playing my alt, Amon, more than my main. I’ve come to view my main as a progression character — the one who has all the stuff cleared and unlocked and is doing Expert runs for Tomes. She’s maxed out on leveling crafting and gathering and I’m slowly nudging her battle jobs up to 70.
But really, I’m still quite burned out on raids and dungeons in FFXIV. Gear progression doesn’t interest me much since it just gets reset every patch and washed away come the expansion. So as long as I have the ilvl to get things done, I don’t feel the need to work on gear. As much as I would have liked to try Eureka, I didn’t jump on the early train there, and I’m still only level 4… so the whole grind for the weapons and gear there passed me by this expansion.
While I have a few things I want to work on with my main, really, I have so much more I want to do with my alt.
For one thing, I ensured that Amon didn’t unlock anything I didn’t want to play. This means most unrequired dungeons will never be unlocked unless there’s glamour I want. It also means I’ll never unlock anything beyond Void Ark for Alliance because I still have no desire to run Weeping City or anything beyond.
Instead, I’m leveling gathering, and eventually crafting, all over again. I know that seems pointless, but I’m having fun doing it. I get to work through Namazu tribe quests again, something I didn’t do on my gatherers, and eventually other beast tribes as a whole.
The bottom line… I get to cherry pick only the content I have any interest in and throw the rest of it out the window. No raids. No unwanted dungeon runs. And instead, I can focus on things like housing, glamour, performing music, lore, connecting with the RP folks who want to write with me, and doing much more creative stuff.
I’ve been so much more inspired and have enjoyed the game immensely once I’ve broken away from the run-run-run mindset. Sure, I still do my share of roulettes, even on Amon. But I also know that there’s an ending point for him.
Once I’ve got the jobs I want leveled on him and he’s cleared MSQ… and maybe cleaned up a lot of the quests he’s outleveled (I hate leaving quest markers everywhere on the map)… Then he’s free to just be a creative outlet for me without the worry of needing to progress. And if I do choose to progress something else on him, well, it’s because I wanted to.. not because I felt pressured to keep up with anything.
There’s a certain freedom in that that I’ve been missing in FFXIV for many years.
So What Happens Here?
But that leaves the question of what I’m writing on this blog.
Doing less on my main means having nothing of real interest to share here. And while I’d never directly post RP on this blog (that really wouldn’t fit), I’m not sure if some crossover posts (such as links to the RP fiction) would be welcome?
Would progress posts on Amon be welcome? Or would it be boring to see me retreading the same ground on a second character?
I suppose I could talk about the face of RP as it stands in game and on Tumblr. But I don’t know if that is interesting to anyone, either.
If anyone has suggestions or feedback, I’m happy to listen! I really don’t want to see this blog go inactive, but I’m a poor judge of how much of the creative content would be acceptable to cross-post here.
