Final Fantasy Online: How Game Design Influences Community
Final Fantasy Online: How Game Design Influences Community
Final Fantasy Online: How Game Design Influences Community
By Marck Harris
December 20, 2022
Summary
As Eorzea's busiest city, Limsa is a living showcase for the diverse, thriving community of Final Fantasy XIV. In one corner, a hulking Hrothgar dressed as a chicken, playing Metallica on the harp.
For how little I actually interact with them, they may as well all be NPCs. Final Fantasy XIV often asks players to team up, but rarely requires them to communicate.
Unlike the focus on instanced content in Final Fantasy XIV, experience points in Final Fantasy XI were typically farmed by camping in groups, somewhere out in the open world.
After filling the chat log in Final Fantasy XI with enough text to make War and Peace blush, I kept waiting for Final Fantasy XIV to give me reasons to connect a keyboard to my PlayStation.
Final Fantasy XIV Online is among my favourite single-player Final Fantasy titles.
Much like how slow world traversal in Final Fantasy XI created a culture of respect for the time of others, players of Final Fantasy XIV understand the grind of unlocking content alone and are generally enthusiastic in offering guidance and support to keep new adventurers motivated.
With their two successful Final Fantasy MMOs, both Square Enix as developers and myself as a player, have explored game design with ramifications at drastically different ends of the social spectrum.
Reference
Harris, M. (2022, December 20). Final fantasy online: How game design influences community. SUPERJUMP. Retrieved January 18, 2023, from https://www.superjumpmagazine.com/final-fantasy-online-how-game-design-influences-community/