Taya

So the first three weeks of my time off were lovely, a nice mix of relaxing and productive. Then Dad came home, and a few days later I had covid for the first time and spent the rest of the month going back to bed. At least after the first couple of days of fever it was mostly just a really bad cold, but my heartrate was up and my energy levels were way down.

Got me an extra week off work though, so that's something. And a month later I'm basically fine other than the occasional tightness in my throat and chest, and even that's eased off a lot from what it initially was.

Unfortunately, all that set my cleaning back rather a lot, and since Dad's still home until he and the neighbour have finished building the fence I haven't really been able to get back into my own schedule to get things sorted out again. He's hoping only a couple more weeks and then he can head south again.

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I've also started a new character in FFXIV, because apparently I never want to actually ever finish the MSQ.

This one is... basically a challenge run? I want to at least attempt to do the endgame content for the base game and earlier expansions - in particular anything I can solo with a higher level class - and try to do it at somewhat relevant points in the MSQ. So for example, the Binding Coil of Bahamut stuff happens after the end of ARR but before the thing with the Crystal Braves, although I already know I can only solo the first Coils, and that was at... level 70 or so? And currently my paladin is at level 56 so a bit more work needed there.

Just need to remember to try to grind up levels on the paladin instead of doing MSQ, with nothing actually available at an appropriate level. I keep wanting to do MSQ so I can get to Ishgard and get the classes there, but the whole Coils thing is supposed to be the priority...

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And I finally started getting caught up on Dracula Daily, although I missed the start of it with emails and haven't gone back through the site for them, so even when I get through October's entries so far I'll still not technically be caught up.

I remember the first time I actually read Dracula, with no idea what the story or characters were like (I don't think I've even seen any Dracula adaptations, just modern vampire stuff) and watching Tumblr's reactions to it all very much reminds me of that feeling. And the chronological nature has its own charm that I'm greatly enjoying, and has given me many thoughts about the nature of the narrative pacing.

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But this has now taken at least half an hour, and it's almost 5am, so I'm going to try to get some sleep before work.

I'm trying to think of a polite way to put it but basically... the game thinks an awful lot of itself, at least in terms of the story.

So on Monday I got my main character to the point in the story where there's a big dramatic storming the castle to restore the rightful king etc and so on. Of course the size of the battle and the speed of it is all a bit ridiculous, but I'll pretty much always forgive that because that sort of thing is hard no matter what.

But then afterwards there's all sort of dramatic speeches and long camera shots and it's all very celebratory. Which on the one hand sure, these people have just reclaimed their kingdom from an evil regent. But on the other hand...

I don't know these people. I don't know this kingdom. I sided against the regent because he was an asshole, not because I cared about the other guy. The game presented this as some big momentous occasion but I was just doing another quest. And while I was trying to watch the cutscenes I realised I didn't even know when the story turned into this whole kingdom saving thing, so that's a thing.

It doesn't help that afterwards the game goes "Here, have all the things. So many things. New systems, new places, have a stronghold, you already picked up gathering right, so much stuff, hope you've got the patience to read through all this with no idea what it all means or why you want it."

Look I'm trying not to compare it to Final Fantasy XIV - and Black Desert Online, for that matter - but it's hard.

Also, would love to know if the class starting story thing had any relevance to the story at all, or if that's just entirely fluff.



Then again, I've had it a week and put 36 hours into it, so it can't be that bad. I do appreciate that the stronghold seems to be for all the characters on the server, which is something I wish FFXIV would do for its housing system. (Seriously, "oh woe there's so much demand for housing" just let us share with alts why is that so hard)