Since the last post here I’ve been mostly playing Final Fantasy 14, having joined the many in quitting WoW over Blizzard being… New Blizzard? Let’s not focus on that, and instead focus on why I’m back playing FF14.

In short, its basically the ideal themepark MMO. If WoW in 2004 refined the formula, FF14 comes along and basically perfects it. And then, rather then mess with said perfection, Square just kept adding more ‘stuff’ to the game without altering the basics. You don’t need a FF14 Classic because FF14 today is (mostly) the classic game, and then a lot more.

Which isn’t to say the game is perfect, it has its wrinkles, but for what I want out of a themepark MMO, it checks all the boxes. Plenty of solo content to tackle when you can play but don’t have others around. Group content (dungeons mostly) that is fun and scales well, so you don’t have to ensure everyone in the group is leveling at the same exact rate. Graphically it still looks great, the voice acting is nice, and it runs really well.

Not being a new game, it also has a ton of side content you can do, content that unlocks in fairly natural and easy-to-spot ways. There have been very few times I’ve needed to look anything up online.

FF14 does what I want in an MMO today (a topic for another post), and our group is having a good time with it.