Sometimes you get that feeling that you need to do it. You need to take on that one monster that is in no way nipping at your heels. You can avoid him all you want. Abandon the quest and never look at it again, because it is completely optional.

You tell yourself the first time that you’re doing it for fun, to humour a friend. But then the beast beats you down, over and over again. The morale is down, you have 9 minutes to go, but you still find yourself getting up.

You have to do it, you have to beat it.

Out of all the primal fights in FFXIV, I could never enjoy titan. My reflexes aren’t as good as they should be sometimes, which is crucial to the fight. One wrong move and you’re flying over the edge into the lava pit below.

It’s been a hate filled relationship in which each battle I’ve ever had (even when winning) met my end about halfway through. It’s enough to make a person feel useless, though I only play the monk class so I’m sure I’d have been a bigger burden to the team, if I wasn’t there to heal or tank.

Why the hell am I trying to beat Titan extreme?

I ask myself that all the time. It’s two parts, bene jokingly inviting me to do it and there is a quest giver handing me this quest so it’s obvious that I have to. I suppose If I’m also getting an achievement out of it, is another reason to act so begrudgingly.

So we’ve done it two nights in a row with very little (albeit no) success, and it’s grown on me. I’ve developed a need where I have to see it through, because we’ve found inches of success with every attempt made.

I’ve come to understand why people do these kinds of things in MMOs. When you get a good team together that is incredibly well coordinated, then it actually becomes fun. Shouting at Titan, and mocking him as I punch his heart for the 7th time. dodging plumes, landslides and bombs every which way, was more fun that I ever felt willing to admit.

But here we are.

One day Titan, I will have my vengeance.

For the most part, my days have been about nothing but chopping trees and carpentry. Two job classes that happen to compliment each other, so that’s all I happen to be doing with the majority of my time. I suppose it’s good to get gil out of it, but the process takes much longer (especially when it comes to crafting.) as I don’t want to go the quick and easy route of buying stacks from the market place. I would much rather waste a couple of minutes here and there warping to all the places that have the necessary materials and then wasting even more minutes gathering them.

The bulk of my game playing experience revolves around tedium, which is how I enjoy most games anyway. Though I’ve found a good balance of tedium and dungeon runs/raids with friends. So yeah, FFXIV is still pretty alright.

Another thing that I’ve gotten a kick out of, is just being in the environment. They have all these seats and tables around, yet I rarely see people sitting in them and hanging out. Well I guess adventurers have more important things to do, but what about that downtime.

I guess I’m a bit of a dork to think “Let’s hang out at the adventurer’s guild in Ul’dah instead of standing around with hundreds of others. So Bene, Dolphin and I sat around a table and just hung out, toying with the emotes and watching the characters talk as we typed something.

Then a miniature crowd came our way.

We regaled takes of bagged milk from the lands of Canada, and the ridiculous debate of “Peach vs Daisy”. Y’know, the normal stupid shit that people just type into their Free Company chat boxes. There was just something about giving it a physical scene, that was really fun to do.

Maybe deep down I’m a RPer. Given the kind of things I like to write about, I suppose it’s no surprise. (that, and early days of the internet... that's a story for another time) But that whole experience has given me the idea to do something with that amphitheatre in Old Gridania. I just wonder how well a stage-play in a video game is going to fare, yet I feel like the sheer novelty of it is what'll make it exciting.

Here's to more weeks of FFXIV, I ought to play as much of it as I can, until school calls my name and I forced to take up all that free time with learning.