as is kind of par for the course for people in compsci fields, i have experienced my first layoff. this naturally sucks but i'm lucky enough to know a lot of cool people who are helping me out with stuff like finding a job and paying rent and stuff like that.
i think i had more to say about this when i first created this file to start the blog post before getting distracted and doing something else, but anyway now we have more pressing matters to discuss. the day that i got laid off was, coincidentally, the ffxiv 7.1 patch day, which meant i suddenly had a lot of time to play the new patch, so i did the alliance raid day one.
it was really awesome, intense, stressful, and fun, which is exactly what i love from an alliance raid. as a healer, i won't be happy in an alliance raid unless there are 4+ party members dead at the same time at least once during the run. i got to do two delicious LB3s and bring my whole party back in this raid, which made me feel alive. the endwalker alliance raids didn't do it for me, but these... whoa mama...
but more pertinent to this post's main topic of discussion, the vibe and aesthetic of the raid, being that it's a ffxi crossover raid, immediately caught me, and i started getting the urge to play ffxi. i only tried ffxi one time two years ago, then got confused and gave up because i also didn't have much free time because it was school. but i did buy the complete edition of the game because it was $11 and i figured i'd go back to the game some day.
anyway, yesterday i finally got around to redeeming that code. it involved contacting squenix support because the link in the email from 2 years ago didn't work, and also a comical amount of download time considering the game is only 14gb, but i got it done eventually.
ffxi is awesome
this game is a genuine, true time capsule. it is clear that the update ethos has been largely unchanged for the last 22 years of service (this game came out in 2002), and it's seriously so awesome. i am certain that you could get this game running on a computer from 2002 and it would run smooth as the day the game came out.
to launch the game, you first need to go through a system called PlayOnline. this is, from what i can tell, almost like a proto-social media service baked into the launcher. friends you add in ffxi are saved in PlayOnline, and you can message people, edit your profile, and do all sorts of 2002 stuff from it, and from what i can tell it doesn't look like a single change has been made.
it makes noises when you click on things. the cursor is a chocobo. when you log in, it makes dialup noises. when you close the launcher, it makes a vault shutting noise. when you launch ffxi from it, it tells you to not let the game take priority over your friends and family.
the game is just like the launcher in the way that it's absolutely dripping with 2002. everything is in menus, the ui design is utterly 2002, you will spend 10 minutes trying to do something that is extremely different and simple in modern games.
it's seriously insanely impressive how much they have packed into this thing and how well optimised it is. one firefox tab is like hundreds of mb of ram. in a city with tons of npcs and a large area to explore, my game was clocking in at 172mb of ram. at the time, my discord was using like 600mb.
i've been using a guide when playing the game, and the guide i used mentioned handing in some item to an npc. naturally, i went to that npc and tried to talk to him. just some dialogue options, but no discernable way to hand in the item. confused, i google it. you need to use the trade functionality - the same trade functionality that you use to trade with other players - to TRADE the item to the npc. to be quite honest i would have never figured this out on my own.
but that's really the thing with so much of this. ffxi was really cutting edge at the time it came out - there wasn't nearly as much of a basis for any decision, there weren't really games of its scope and caliber to take notes from. they were using the technology they had at the time, and they had to make it work and run on that.
with the game design stuff, it manifests in the form of having different ways to do something from what is generally done nowadays, like the basic task of handing in an item to a quest guy. it's like a look at what could have become the norm for some game design paradigms.
with optimisation stuff, it's kind of like an indicator of how laissez-faire optimisation has become. who cares if your program takes up way more ram than it really should need to? most peoples' computers have at least 8gb of ram nowadays, if not 16gb or even more.
don't get me wrong, the game is not the most beautiful, intuitive, best game i've ever played in my life, but it's so fascinating. you are stepping into 2002, preserved in amber. you would absolutely be hard pressed to find any 3d game released in the last 10 years that uses nearly this little resources. i don't think it's actually physically possible for unity to export a game that uses this little ram.
i don't think that ffxi is for everyone, but if you like old games or are okay with a bit of tedium in your games, you should at least give it a shot. it's got a free trial. if any oomfies are interested, let me know because i can try giving you a gold world pass for the world i'm on (shiva).
i'm enjoying the game a lot so far. there is something so charming about the world of vana'diel. i'm not sure if i'll see the game through to the end of the stories available, but i know i'll have no regrets of the time i played.