FFXIV is great... when I actually get to play it.

No, but seriously, I shit you not. FFXIV is awesome. It's just that you have to manage to get into the game first.

The first time I wanted to play, it was in those early funtimes, the ones that somehow still keep happening, when it just says, "This World is currently full. Please wait until an opening is available and try again." Then the message is over and you have to click through three menus to get back to try again. Eventually, I got a queue, realized not all hope was lost, and could play.

I logged in about three more times over the next two days, waited a day, and then that horrible message happened again. "This World is currently full. Please wait until an opening is available and try again." Could not wait around for it to fix, and the next day I was busy, so THEN, today, I tried again. After realizing my early access key had expired and I needed to enter my real product code, I did so, and then HOLY SHIT my character wasn't loading and I had just reached level 10! After panicking, I realized that the NA/EU servers weren't loading. Proceeded to spam reload, because I had plans, damn it. Finally managed to log in. Played for maybe twenty minutes before getting ganged up on by Diremites and some sort of raging firefly; died by Diremites, and then the game crashed. Not entirely convinced that my death wasn't because the game was lagging due to the crashing. Tried to log back in. And then-- "This World is currently full. Please wait until an opening is available and try again." All I want is a few uninterrupted minutes of game time. I don't think it's exactly fair to buy a game which you like and genuinely want to play, and then not even be able to play it because the company won't get their shit together. *oldmangrumblegetoffmylawngrumblegrumble*

Once I am able to get into the game, in those rare times that it's possible, it is precisely the kind of MMORPG I have been looking for all my life. We might be soulmates. We're considering promise rings, and maybe in a few years, a July wedding.

Being Final Fantasy, it is by nature my kind of RPG, and in truth, Final Fantasy is well set-up for an MMO. The player is an adventurer. Being an adventurer and even part of an adventurer's guild, there is a legitimate reason for all of those little fetch-and-carry/kill x amount of monsters standard MMO quests that I always hated, so they don't bother me. The reason, of course, is that adventurer is an actual job, and doing the job is why the player is doing all of these quests. FFXIV MMO-standard quests are particularly well-done to boot-- they provide bits of lore in them, and make the player genuinely more immersed in the game. The characters that give the quests to the player have bits of personality, and the quests are enjoyable even if they are fetch-and-carry/insert-arrow-here. There is a mission, a quest, and a calling. Like in many of the Final Fantasy games, the player may need to recruit help, but since it is an MMO, you might also be the recruited help yourself. In many of the Final Fantasy games, my favorite part was the idea that I could craft my own army of warriors-- this is, of course, referring to the older games and the handhelds, since I view the new, non-handheld generation as something of cinematic showpieces from about X on. Maybe even VII on, but I liked VII-IX, so. Not to say that I didn't enjoy X and X-2, but who wants to admit that, really? FFXIV takes this to a whole new level because every player is one of those adventuring, hireable work-force warriors. Your character can be meticulously trained to be part of a guild or free assembly, and that is awesome because in the single-player games, that wasn't necessarily the case. Consider the system in Tactics Advance, and then compare it to what I'm trying, and probably failing, to explain here. In Tactics Advance, the player controlled Marche, who headed a guild. Marche recruited warriors or they approached him to recruit them. They would be a certain class and race, and have their own skills that they brought into the mix. The reason this is special in FFXIV is that so many doors are opened up. Every one of those warriors is another player. That blows my mind because even if it makes sense for an MMO, it doesn't for a Final Fantasy game.

Like in 4 Heroes of Light (DS game, excellent, everyone should play it), the player can change class freely, though it's better to specialize in one or two if you don't want to spend hundreds of hours leveling everything up. Well, who am I kidding? Of COURSE you want to spend hundreds of hours doing that. That's fun. Or maybe that's just me.

(Oh hey, it's letting me log on again. Back soon. No wait, the cake was a lie, never mind.)

There is a VERY detailed crafting system. I believe this is also a feature of 4 Heroes of Light, or at least 4 Heroes had something similar, but things like Botany, Weaving, Carpentry, etc. are actually legitimate classes that you can level up. The interface is generally good. The map is excellent, with nice convenient markers for every quest. Being able to highlight one quest at a time would be nice, and there is some annoyance with how you have to shift maps around for different areas, but it's all very manageable. Tab-selection is a bit awkward in FATEs which are events that occur spontaneously like a certain type of monster mobbing a town, etc. The tab-selection, paired with multiple people attacking, can create awkward situations where you barely have time to select something before it's dead and you're left experience point-less. Which is sad, since that's what FATEs are for-- experience building.

Being an Elder Scrolls girl, I was shocked to enter an area with a level 45 monster. Little, brand new, level 9 me walked in innocently, thinking, Oh hey, new area. Is that a guard? Why is it so high level?

It hefted a sword as big as my five foot one character.

OH SHIT, thought I, before death occurred. Thankfully, I was level 9 at that point and not over level 10, since after level 10 is when the real KO damage occurs: your equipment takes damage and you have to get things repaired, which is what I will be doing if I can ever log in.

(Are we there yet? Nope. "This World is currently full. Please wait until an opening is available and try again.")

We all know by now that I am not the girl to go to if you want someone who likes MMOs. I enjoy The Secret World, but to be honest, there aren't enough swords and arrows for my taste. (Medieval Cthulhu setting would be made of so much win!) I am willing to handle it because of the frankly killer story, dialogue, voice acting, and generalized awesome that is The Secret World, but Final Fantasy XIV rocks my socks, guys. Rocks 'em right off. In fact, the last time I saw the opening movie, I teared up it was so terrific.

(Seriously. Can I please play now? No? Well, at least I know I can complain with everyone else about it. Is that what people like so much about MMOs? You can all share your pain when the servers won't load and you go through withdrawal?)

But seriously, Ivi'lea'hi Rhiki, level 11 Miqo'te Archer, Goblin server. Look me up, if I can ever log on.