Oh Fuck. OH FUCK.

I've thought about it for years.  

I don't know much about it. 

I know its launch was abysmal.  I know it's had a ton of expansions and updates.  I know it's currently considered one of the, if not the best MMO in the world.  

And I know it's forty bucks, all in with all current expansions right now on PSN.  Canadian.  So it's probably thirty bucks for you, American reader.  

That's the base game (A Realm Reborn / Starter Edition), plus Heavensward, plus Stormblood, plus Shadowbringers - all up to date and current for less than I paid for that godawful Destroy All Humans up-port.  Bleugh.  Waste of cash, that was.  

Anyway.  This may be a colossal mistake.  It's kind of like saying "just a little heroin won't get me back on skid row."  Maybe don't risk it?  But in this case I'm gonna'.  

I have played 3 MMOs, I think.  I remember playing a Star Wars one my little brother had for like five minutes.  I played WoW for years and have bored the podcasting boys with my exploits on multiple occasions, but the first one was Final Fantasy XI Online, back during the PS2 gen.   That game had a Samurai class and I fuckin' loved it - but it was also so Final Fantasy and such a Japaneezy, grindy RPG timesink that I just walked away after a while.  Whateva.  

...but it's where I picked up the name Chance.  Chance is just the name of the Elvaan Samurai I played in that game, where I met awesome peeps like Doridorimonkey, Pinglou, Dance and God I know I'm forgetting so many.  And it was awesome.  And meeting up with the crew in WoW years later was awesome.  

I still remember.  

It's been 20 fucking years, and I still remember the caves just off the plains at like level 10.  I was 10 or 11 and I'd started a little party to kill some worms in a cave, and we got a black mage right quick and a hunter and a bard (wicked buffs) and I invited a level 8 white mage who was LFG.  And the black mage immediately starts going off about how the level 8's gonna' get us all killed and won't be able to heal, and I calmly explain that white mages are actually pretty rare and we're lucky to have 'em, and trying with his heals right now is a lot better than sitting around for an hour waiting for a level 10 to happen by. 

And the black mage was like "either he goes or I do," and I said "I'm cool with that" and removed him from the party.  Then, the bard said in party chat "you're like the coolest person I've ever met."

I don't hear that shit often, so it makes an impression.  I played that game for at least a year.  Played WoW for a lot more.  

And lately, what with the Covid shut-in-ness and all, I've been itching for exploration.  It's probably part of the reason I inhaled Ghost of Tsushima like I did.  And, again, I've heard a lot of good about XIV Online and I looked up how it plays with a Dualshock and got a bunch of articles about how amazing it is that Square actually nailed an MMO control scheme on a controller.  

And, heck, forty bucks is rather a pittance these days.  

And there's a Samurai class.  

Oh we're doin' this.  We're checkin' it out, at the very least.