Kanin Roth

The way you play Final Fantasy 14 fascinates me.

[kaninroth]

The Warrior of Light: A Retrospective

This is the research blog for @kanin-ond

I'll be posting longer stuff here such as terms and basic notes in regards to the project. The goal of this blog is to be approachable to non-gamers and hopefully make the case that digital 3rd spaces are important places that deserve in-depth research.

The "formal" notes will go up on my Carrd.

I eventually want to post individual discussions and stories, but that's a long way out into the future.

[kaninroth]

How To Develop Narrative Archetypes

How do you build a character? 

As a writer it’s a pretty common topic. How do you make a character that feels real? Even the most fantastic universes need characters that react in ways that readers recognize as reasonable. For new writers, the idea of character flaws and internal narrative can be daunting. You don’t want to write a character no one can connect with. Likewise, you don’t want your characters to let your story down. 

The thing that boring characters lack is internal logic to base their choices around. It’s why fanfiction works as well as it does. Readers know the behaviors of the characters they are writing about. It is also why AUs are so popular, the character’s actions and motivations are what interests a reader. 

For myself, personally, I use character archetypes as a jumping off point for all my characters, role play or fiction. I didn’t make it up or anything, I think that it’s a fairly tried and true method, characters carry franchises after all. 

PERSONA! Atlus, a Japanese video game company, has built many successful franchises by using archetypes that are repeated in each installment. 

Because I am a writer and therefore special, I came up with my own archetypes that tend to show up in everyone that I write. There are roughly 20 basic character archetypes that I’ve developed for myself mostly because I love making characters. If you’re struggling, maybe it will work for you. 

This turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, so I’m going to split it up into a writing exercise and then show off one of my more developed archetypes. It’s my hope that at least someone else gets something out of this method and I would love to see other people’s archetypes. 

The process that I use has 4 parts. Sometimes I don't need to do every step, but from a full character, this is my go-to process.

What role would this character serve in a narrative? <- UR Here

Who would they be?

Defining characterization features.

Flaw and virtue development.

Building a Character: What do they do for the narrative?

Before writing the character I think about the world and how this character will fit into it. Is this character the best friend? Are they a parental figure? What part of the narrative could this character carry? For this exercise, let’s make a mentor character.

What sort of mentor are they? Would this person be caring or gruff? Would they be permissive or punishing? Would they have their mentee’s best interests at heart or their own? What is their relationship with their mentee in general? Do they even want to be a mentor?

I think I want a self-serving mentor figure. Someone that sees their mentee as a means to an end. They want to be a mentor, but only because they get something out of it. For now, I think I will call them Bad Mentor.

What about you? What sort of mentor are you building? Spend time thinking about it, my next post is going to talk about who the character is for their world. This is going to include professions and their place in society.  Find the full exercise on Substack

[kaninroth]

Games Replaced by FF14

Another interesting thing that I got out of my first question involved the games that people had been playing before they started FF14. These are games that I was explicitly told that people have quit playing and not games that people are playing still.

These answers actually help a lot to illustrate the mindset that someone brings into FF14. The starting point of their new (or continuing in some cases) stories. How about you guys? Did any of you stop playing a game in favor of FF14? Is it one of these? Raw numbers below again, just like the my previous post.

What Game Did You Stop Playing To Play FF14?

Destiny / Destiny 2

Dragon Nest

ESO

Fortnite

GW2

HOYO

Runescape

SWTOR

WOW

Other (comments)

Voting ended onMar 6

What game did you stop playing to play FF14?

Destiny / (Destiny 2) 3 Dragon Nest 1 ESO 3 Fortnite 1 GW2 2 HOYO 1 Runescape 1 SWTOR 7 WOW 22

[kaninroth]

Poll: Why did you start playing FF14?

Thanks to you guys and your 190 responses in 2 days, I have a great starting place for the sit down interview questions. The poll below represents the 11 major reasons that people gave me for "Why did you start playing Final Fantasy 14?" Do any of these reasons fit for you? Is there another reason that you want to tell me about?

I included the raw numbers from the survey under the poll for anyone who is curious.

What is the main reason you started playing FF14?

Character or Race

COVID

Curious

Fan of the Franchise

FF11 Player

Franchise Collab

Free Trial

Friend or Loved One

Game Event or Feature

Influencer

Looking for New MMO

Other (comments)

Voting ended onMar 6

Raw Numbers

Total Responses: 190 | Reposts Only: 3 | Written Response: 187

These numbers won't add up directly because most people had multiple reasons for wanting to start the game.

Results: Why did you start playing Final Fantasy 14?

Character or Race 19

COVID 18

Curious 15

Fan of the Franchise 31

FF11 Player 4

Franchise Collab 5

Free Trial 11

Friend or Loved One 118

Game Event or Feature 6

Influencer 13

Looking for New MMO 32

[kaninroth]

Tagging Finished

I should have time to pull out some better numbers tomorrow and Friday. The plan is to use the buckets I made from Tumblr answers to make a multiple choice question that I can post to Reddit for a complete. But before then, some immediate things that have jumped out to me. I do not know what Sword Art Online did, but whatever it was it made a lot of folks angry. WOW, as predicted, shares a lot of players and many people were ex WOW players. I know what WOW did and so do they. I did not give Franchise Collaborations enough credit. A lot of people get curious after a collaboration event.

Some fun reasons why people started playing FF14 are in no order: Zenos Catboys/girls Buff Women Aymeric de Borel And, a personal favorite: Viera

[tearlunars]

And you? Is it really you?

HEART'S ABALAZE | NOTES/REMEMBER

[kaninroth]

WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME *SOBBING*

[kaninroth]

What's the Deal with MMORPGS?

Before I begin, don't worry if some of these terms don't make sense quite yet. If you have questions ask them. I really am seeking a dialog here.

MMO/MMORPG stand for Massive Multiplayer Online / Role Playing Game. They aren't interchangeable terms, though folks will argue about what game is what exactly. I'm less interested in arguing over a genre than I am discussing the substance, so for my purposes here, MMO includes games like Fortnite or other non-story heavy multiplayer experience. Competitive E Sports sorts of thing.

MMORPGS are games that require you to play a role (shocking) These games are more like tabletop RPGS than they are like football. They typically require you to commit to long hours and include sweeping storylines that can span over a decade. It requires a deeper investment from the player. If you're anything like me then the idea of an MMORPG was pretty daunting. I loved the Final Fantasy series and considered myself an above average gamer, but I resisted my friend's requests to join their free company. These are people who played with Final Fantasy influencers and have been ranked top in their server. These folks can play the game and they play it at a very high level.

I'm not a competitive person and I don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. I'm by my nature, very independent. This is why I avoided MMOs to begin with. That time commitment is something I am extremely respectful of. I didn't want my admittedly sometimes lackadaisical approach to gaming to ruin anyone's fun. So I did what anyone who had an encyclopedic knowledge of Final Fantasy Lore would and told my friend that I'd join the game when male Viera could be a playable race. Due to the lore around the race I was sure I would be free and clear. Then they added male Viera and now I'm running higher end current content and making a whole social media account to discuss it as a digital 3rd space. What was it that hooked me?

I'm a sucker for a good narrative and banging music. As a fan of the franchise, the little nods and call backs to past installments made me happy. I'm not too proud to admit that this story has made me ugly cry. I maintain that Endwalker was so good they could have killed the player character and I would have been satisfied rerolling. I'm glad they didn't as I've grown attached to my 5'6 bunny boy, but it would have been a fitting end.

To tell the truth, the solo player experience is pretty damn good for an MMORPG and I think it's a strength of the game in general. It caters to your playstyle and reminds you to take breaks if you need them.

But that's only half the magic. MMORPGS have stories that are released on a cycle. Between those cycles the player experience varies widely in fascinating ways. For me, what keeps me coming are the people I meet. That free company that intimidated me so much has given me some of my closest friends. They're trusted companions not only for Kanin, but me as well.

They were excited to have someone else get that "first time" experience with the story, they stood beside me and helped me get better at the game. To be honest, their passion for the story was infectious and even when we complain about what we'd like to change in the game, we're still here to play together.

As an aside, I wonder if that's a common trait among people who would fit the term "nerd"? I've lost count of the amount of times I've watched reactions to something like some scenes in expedition 33.

It isn't just friends, either. It's the life of the game. Would Ada Limsa be the same without dancing Walugi? I think not. Would crafting be the same without the lizard head patter? (my wife says hi if you read this, Au Ra head patter.) And that's the deal with MMORPGS. It's a chance to experience emotional highs and lows with other people. No AI could ever give us that connection. At least, that's what it is to me.

[kaninroth]

Tell me about your WOLs?

The way you play Final Fantasy 14 fascinates me. 

It’s not the statistics of your parse or the class you main as much as the how/what/where/when/why questions about your playtime. As a lifelong solo gamer who only recently (past 3 years) got into the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, the way people interact with the game has always felt special to me. On the face it’s a mishmosh of styles and disparate musical themes but experienced it’s perfectly copsetic. Final Fantasy 14 manages to unite us while ratifying our indivuality at the same time. 

Gaming has always been a third space activity because it’s social. Even a solo game is a purely human experience; it’s saying something to you. That something doesn’t have to rock your world or hold deep meaning to be fun. The sorts of people that love games the most are usually deeply curious and seek out diverse points of view. The way I see it, that voiracious drive to experience something outside of your physical self is part of the human experience. 

Final Fantasy 14 is one of my all time favorite games. As a solo experience it’s pretty peak in a lot of places. Canonically there is only one Warrior of Light. The question that I’ve been obsessed with long enough to make a social media account is “If we’re the only hero in canon, why don’t we say ‘I’? 

In the trailers the Warrior of Light is dipected as a hyur (human) man with brown hair and eyes. Collectively we all know that he is our stand-in and on the whole, we’ve come to love John Fantasy. When the newest trailer came out it included a lot of graphical updates. There were countless posts about “our” glow-up. “We” got hotter, what a badass “we’ll” be. John Fantasy is not us, he represents us and the fandom as a whole has embraced that. We are as individual as we are a collective. 

The conciet of the game is that we are all collectively adventurers travelling the world. You’re never alone on the streets of Ul’dah and there’s always someone ready to hit the routlettes with you. I’m not saying it’s not sometimes slow, we’ve all experienced the lie “less than five minutes”. But by-in-large there’s a robust playerbase. 

When there’s group content to be done, our super power is literally phoning our friends to come help us. We interact with each other outside of this group content as well on a more individual basis. You have your raid static, rp group, and free company that you interact with through the game along with outside applications. You are the hero power fantasy and yet we can all exsist comfortably. 

Headcanons for this game vary wildly. You can find someone whose character is a thousand year old vampire hanging out with a character who grew up as a farm hand. This I think, is a massive boon to the game and one of the reasons it can span from high fantasy to high tech and no one really bats an eye. 

I’m looking to understand you, Warrior of Light. Tell me about yourself, your characters and what got you into the game. What is it that unites all of our stories while we are all so different? 

I’m not a researcher. I’m honestly not much of anything other than a person who thinks a lot about what “person” means. If you’d like to share your experiences, I’d love to read them. I’ll keep anything private you want, I’m just really curious.