Annoyed….

Annoying. Are people really this clueless to this game cycle still? We’re ending #6 now. Endwalker was great, post EW is fine for the phase it is – ending what was and moving the story on. People really forget how this goes? Its amazing how people feel like they want to complain about EVERYTHING and just decide everything is/was awful when a few months back even people were singing praises often with it being placed 1st or 2nd in people’s reported hierarchy’s of favorite expansions. Its annoying how fickle we become, and how our stories change just because someone else wants to complain.

Devils Advocate – I guess maybe because so many jumped onboard later, they don’t understand the flow because they worked through 3 expansions in one go and didn’t experience all of the expansions in real time. Still, as someone who had…. its rather annoying to listen to. The game is not supposed to be your life, just a fun hobby.

You’re lonely? and that is SE’s fault because they didn’t provide enough diverse content to keep your friends logged in 100% of the time so they are still available to you?

This is the feeling I get from watching some of these “Influencers” videos right now. Maybe you should instead of relying on the game to gather people for you…. maybe you should reach out to people yourself? Actually build real friendships and connections with people, and invest a little more in others??

Its super easy when new expansions come out, everyone is excited, everyone has new goals, there is new story to experience, new places to explore. Its simple to get people together and feel “social” however you have to understand that in reality the game is doing a good chunk of the work for you.

You complaining in essence that you are lonely now because the game isn’t good enough so enough people aren’t logged in constantly, I’m sorry but all that means is that your social crutch has been used up. So now it falls to you to put any effort outside of the game to maintain those “friendships”. In reality if you aren’t willing, then they weren’t actual friendships in the first place.

An “Influencers” reported experience is not everyone’s experience (honestly sometimes isn’t even their own). You’ve got to understand that their whole thing has a monetary end, and based on how creative they are with what situations they put together to film, that it matters more to them how many “clicks” and “views” they get. Psychologically speaking, negatives get them more attention. When they are having time manufacturing interesting content, they will either move on or lay blame to get those views. Honestly blaming the game that you claim to love… is the easy way out. Reality is that people pay attention more to negatives than positives. Think of the news right? There is an actual reason for the “magic ratio”, where it takes more positive experiences to offset any one negative one. Attention is attention, lets be real.

While people don’t like to admit it, especially in this day and age, people get a bit of an adrenaline hit from being inflamed. From becoming mad or being unhappy at something or with someone. While we like to blame society for using this tactic to influence us, or make money off of us, at some point we should be thinking a little more about why we personally are getting so charged so easily? Why we are allowing this source of manipulation to occur in ourselves. (This is a bit off topic – but I hope you get the point of what I’m trying to say)

I say all of this mostly as both someone who has played in real-time from the beginning, who has seen these “The game is dying”, “this expansion was awful” videos between each expansion…. and yet still observed all the hype and excitement in others (and myself) when the next one came out.

I’ve seen people focus a little to much on the game and not keep it as what it is, and become burnt, because they themselves aren’t being reasonable and treating the game as it should be. I’ve seen people use the game in ways that are unrealistic.

I’ve made some amazing friends in game, that we reach out to each other outside of the game quite often, ones that I consider to be real friends, and family, alternatively, I’ve also had some “friends” in game that ended up just being “topical acquaintances” (which is honestly fine too, as long as you aren’t lying to yourself about those relationships).

What I’m saying I guess… is that I’m getting old… lol… I’ve seen a bit in this community now.
I just hope at some point, people will dig through their own experiences a bit more, and be a bit more realistic about what they see. This game isn’t meant to do some needed things for you. If you are unhappy… there could be a bit more to that than “They aren’t providing me enough”…. it may be honestly that we aren’t doing enough on our own.