Monday, November 08, 2004

 

A Night In The Desert

Sometimes I forget why I sink so many hours into Final Fantasy XI. I've averaged about 100 hours per month for the last year. (That's considered below average for FF XI players, by the way. Most of the players I know double that total routinely.) In 100 hours, I could play any of the single-player editions of Final Fantasy all the way to the end.

So why, why do I keep coming back? Because of nights like one we had a week ago.

My friend Hugo got his character Riloth to 43rd level about five months ago. Since then, he hasn't been able to level Riloth further for a variety of reasons. Now that my character has caught up with him, Hugo's been very eager to get Riloth higher in level. In FF XI, you can't level your character by yourself after about 15th level. You have to get a group of characters together, preferably six, that are all within one or two levels of each other. It can take a couple of hours to assemble such a group. During those couple of hours, it's easy to think, "if I were playing Final Fantasy X on my PlayStation 2, I wouldn't have to wait like this."

So we spent the usual two hours waiting that night, assembling a team so Riloth could go up in level some more (along with the rest of us). Finally, we headed out to the Altepa Desert to fight giant beetles. The first few battles, we fought a bit clunkily. We weren't sure what each other was capable of, or what everyone liked to do in a fight. Sometimes a party never figures it out, and no one gets much experience. This time, though, we quickly found out that these guys knew their stuff. Even better, our individual styles complemented each other. Within 20 minutes we were on a roll that would last for hours. No one said anything about it for a couple of hours, but we all understood that we had an outstanding team. Bedtime came and went, and no one said anything about the time, because we didn't want the team to split up.

As we mowed through beetle after beetle, with every person meshing perfectly, I was reminded of what keeps bringing us back to these online games. Basically, it's the difference between being a good tennis player and a member of, say, the Boston Red Sox. Playing alone, you can excel, and you might even have an audience, but there's not much to say afterwards. Playing with a team, you can receive the recognition of your peers. All those hours you've spent honing your skills pay off when your party tells you "good job." You know that they realize just how much work you've put in, and just how difficult it is to get that good.

There's a real camaraderie there, and in the best cases a mutual respect that is often lacking in real-life relationships. The respect may be based on a seemingly trivial thing--skill at a mere game--but it still valuable. I work on computer systems and networks at my job. It's a very solitary pursuit, and one that goes unremarked on unless I'm completely failing in my job. If I do a good job, no one notices. It's the nature of the beast. At times, that can be frustrating. So it's nice to be able to go online and do something that garners some small recognition.

Jefferson 10:07 PM

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