Morning in Vana'diel: Raincloud

Morning in Vana'diel is your daily dose of FFXI and all things Vana'diel. Give us your thoughts on the interesting topics of the day! Today, Omoikitte wonders why?

So, Ring is elbow deep in a long post about "something" and I am currently lounging around at work waiting for the pre-concert buzz that invariably accompanies the start of any performance at Wigmore Hall. Since he is so mired in this other post he has asked me to write the morning topic today, although I am at a bit of a loss as to know why.

I am not even logging on to FFXI for around a month since the bureaucracy of dealing with BT over here is mindnumbing and slow and as a direct consequence I get screwed out of any internet connection for around a month, do I sound bitter? Good. Because I feel it.

I feel so out of it and disconnected at the moment it really seems as though I am staring at it through a very poorly made glass lens that makes objects appear much further away than they really are. A version update has been and gone, events still happen and the longer my absence is prolonged the less anyone will even need me back other than as a bard or a whm that shows up all the time. It is funny really, a month in real life is not particularly long, a month in game terms is a veritable eon.

*rambles on*

Being in this interesting position does allow me to reflect on what it is that the majority of us do online. How much we let it become part of our lives, the level of involvement and the attachments we net ourselves into. I can and always have appreciated that there are those who pursue an active real life with a game life intermingled, but certainly for myself there is very little else I do. If I wasn't playing FFXI, I would be playing some other PC game or console game. So I am not particularly worried that it is all I do.

After all it is what I do to fill in the hours of entertainment, I certainly do OTHER things, my days aren't completely immersed in gaming, but it is pretty much the biggest aspect of entertainment I garner. FFXI merely added depth to my gaming experience that I never really noticed was missing till I had to go without.

I don't particularly miss FFXI, after all it is a lot of the same old same old now after 5 years, but I DO miss the interactions with the friends I have made along the way. The humour on Vent, the sly innuendos and jokes in the linkshell as we mingle at our linkshell events. The shared triumphs and glories as well as the supportive moments where things are not entirely going your way. It really does become a complex social interaction, and I definitely feel bereft of it for my enforced month's seclusion due to some ridiculous system error.

What do you find lures you back to FFXI day after day?