Final Fantasy XIV is celebrating its tenth anniversary since the Realm Reborn relaunch, and the MMO seems keen on making us a bigger part of the decision-making process. So far, we’ve seen in-game events like The Rising celebrate some old favorites, but now Square Enix is asking what we want to see.
More specifically, they’re asking who we want to see. The new FFXIV survey inquires about all the important personal details, like favorite mounts and minions, how you describe the game, and so on. Then there’s a question at the end about which characters you’d like to see receive short stories. And y’all, I love those short stories.
On my end, Square’s survey prompted a flurry of frantic Discord and Slack messages urging everyone within direct messaging distance to go answer. Some of those conversations are to my delight, others I’m ambivalent over, and some have me scrunching my face like I’ve sucked a lemon.
So here I am, arguing with my coworkers and giving Discord friends the stink eye after hearing their responses. Square Enix accidentally set me off for the afternoon, endlessly badgering everyone I know with some product survey I’ve turned into a friendship and/or potential partner litmus test for the masses. That’s my solid, completely serious life advice. Use this Q&A to judge everyone.
You can check out the FFXIV survey for yourself, but if you’re interested, I’ve kind-of included my answers below.
An FFXIV Survey turned OKCupid Q&A
Anyway, forget respecting opinions and all that jazz. I hope you’re cartoonishly enthusiastic about my Leofard Myste ramblings and can accommodate my weaknesses, like tanking. We can’t all queue into the four-man as a healer; that’s silly. And if you get pedantic over that, we would never get along anyway.
As for the questions, Square Enix phrases these like the million others I’ve filled out before, but I’m fielding the FFXIV version better than questions about my medical history.
“Do you have a history of playing MMOs?” I prefer not to disclose. “Do you have a history of playing other Final Fantasy games?” Yes, all of them, but I’m still enchanted by IV, VIII, IX, and X. They don’t actually say it like that, but they should.
There’s the less important points to hit, too. I’ve been playing since A Realm Reborn’s beta, and no, it wasn’t thanks to the free trial meme. My roommate at the time talked me into it, and originally I resisted because I hated my whopping four or five hours logged in Version 1.0.
There’s some pretty important stuff there, though. Like, critical level I-need-to-know facts, such as: What’s your main Job? Your favorite home point? Any favorite minions? Mounts?
Myself? I’m a Scholar main. Originally, I played Dragoon (my static claimed it wasn’t “helpful” of me to stay dead in the wall). Right now, I play a ton of Astrologian and Machinist because I have issues with showing myself a sliver of kindness — but historically, I’m a Scholar.
As an Estinien and dragon enjoyer, I probably spend most of my time in Radz-at-Han and Ishgard. And one of my darkest secrets is that I love collecting in-game junk, so I’m only missing about 10 minions. Usually, I’ve got the Sand Fox from Faux Hallows paling around with me, and my favorite mount is probably Aeturna from Eureka Orthos (it looks like a Zoid) or the Blue Mage’s Morbol reward.
Those are your basic, fielding-them-out questions. The most important of those are at the bottom, and I’m scrutinizing the hell out of your answers.
“Who or what would you consider your most formidable foe?” is the first. Go ahead and judge me for poor comprehension skills, but I automatically assumed it was asking to list favorite villains. It’s not, but when I told our guides editor Timothy Monbleau the Zenos-likers wouldn’t vibe with my taste, we broke out into the Slack equivalent of a fistfight. Tim likes Zenos, I guess.
There’s an option here for every expansion, and if we were to lament on about actual favorite FFXIV villains I’d deliver a PowerPoint presentation on Nidhogg, Emet-Selch, and Hermes. But we aren’t, so I’ll just say Shadowkeeper Savage in Shadowbringers — say that three times fast — was my “most formidable foe” because I can’t tell left from right.
As for the really, really important one, the FFXIV survey demands, “Choose ONE character whom you would like to be featured in a side story.”
First of all, that’s asking me to pick a favorite child. Second of all, Lord Speaker Aymeric de Borel. I was gonna say Estinien, but he’s got plenty, and I don’t know where Aymeric’s gotten off to post-Garlemald role quests. I’m assuming he’s still caged up in that office, doing whatever Lord Speakers do.
My answers ruffled some co-worker feathers, despite me being very right. We broke out into further debate, arguing about why our favorite was the favorite (even though no one was fighting for anything you could really disagree with). The conversation somehow wound up with senior editor Eric Van Allen declaring he was leaving to go live amongst the Au’Ra from Stormblood. I told him he was boring and my Warrior of Light would rather spend time fixing Emet.
When reached for comment, Eric said “y’all can catch me in the Azim Steppe” and immediately set an out-of-office responder.
