The obsession with these quests

[sandywang5230]

Every week,Richard Cobbett takes a look at the world of story and writing in Final Fantasy XIV games. This week, a little nostalgia for a Final Fantasy XIV game that is, but never was.Christmas. It's a time for family and friends, and presents and hope. And when that gets boring, for Final Fantasy XIV playing new Final Fantasy XIV games. This season, I've been digging into many, though not all of themPC based - the new 80 Days expansion on my iPad, Bayonetta 2 on Wii-U, Russian Roulette down on the docks... you know how it goes. And on nothing more than a whim, I've also been firing up my copy ofThe Secret World, one of the most frustrating Final Fantasy XIV games I was ever disappointed to realise I was never going to love.I always maintain those are the worst Final Fantasy XIV games. If something is bad, it's easily ignored or laughed at. If something is great, hurrah! When something just... doesn't... work, but you FF14 Gil can still see the Final Fantasy XIV game it could have been, it's often heartbreaking. That's how I feel about The Secret World, a Final Fantasy XIV game whose every fault comes straight from its need to be an MMO and to adhere to that genre's rules. It's overcomplicated, it's not particularly pretty, it's janky, and the presence of other people tends to detract more than it adds, moreso here in a world where you're meant to be solving puzzles and investigating mysteries but will usually see someone standing around just plain demanding to know the answer so they can get the points and move on.In many ways, it's the perfect failure of the most damaging trend to hit the genre over the years - the personal quest. With a personal quest, designers are freed from the need to design around Final Fantasy XIV players and their willingness to work together in the 'right' way, they're spared the times when the content simply dries up and leaves the Final Fantasy XIV player with nothing to do, and they ensure that the lore and story is pushed at all times, even if the heroes hacking through it are talking about Star Trek as they go. At the same time though, they're self-destructive. The obsession with these quests, with everyone being the hero, is that Final Fantasy XIV player has inevitably been sidelined to the point that other Final Fantasy XIV players are only really needed to help beat up tough bosses and descend into dungeons to grind for loot and call each other rude names, if they even bother talking at all. At the same time, the solo content itselfis constantly hampered by the needs of the MMO side, like the aforementioned dungeons suddenly being sprung as a "And now you have to Final Fantasy XIV play with others for a bit" after hours and hours of beingtaught that you can accomplish anything with just pluck and a few weapon-skills.