I feel as though I’m playing less MMOs these days than at any other point in the last decade. And that isn’t the direct result of a lack of titles to play, on the contrary, there were more releases in the last year than I’ve seen since starting this channel.
And, admittedly, I’ve found myself playing games like the new Life is Strange game, Tales of Arise, Sifu, Elden Ring, and my most anticipated games of 2022? Granblue Fantasy Relink, Sea of Stars, Star Ocean: The Divine Force, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I wish Eiyuden Chronicle was releasing this year but.. oh well.
In all of this.. Final Fantasy XIV seems to be the one, single constant that I find myself regularly coming back to.
I’ve tried playing other MMOs – WoW, Guild Wars 2, BDO, Swords of Legends, PSO2 New Genesis, Lost Ark. And although I’ve put hundreds of hours into most of them, I just feel as though Final Fantasy XIV provides me the most rewarding experience for my time investment.

I started playing XIV back when Heavensward launched. I played for several patches before moving back to WoW. Came back for 2 patches during Stormblood – and stayed with it until Shadowbringers launched.
That’s roughly when Mrs Stix, my wife, started playing it with me. Towards the end of Stormblood, not Shadowbringers. We logged in every day. We leveled all the way from level 1, doing the main scenario quests, unlocking every single optional dungeon, every Alliance Raid we could. Ultimate raids, Savage raids. Extreme trials.
And if I lost you with all of this.. weird terminology, then – in essence, they’re progressively more difficult types of endgame PvE content in each respective expansion.
I believe I stuck with Shadowbringers for 6-7 months straight, and that’s when I decided to take a break and move back to WoW as I was interested in finishing Battle for Azeroth.
Mrs Stix, ever since beginning Final Fantasy XIV, has stuck with it, logging in every single day, pushing every Savage tier, Ultimate fights. She started with a green parse, and now parses purple.
And while I find that infinitely impressive – and I’m beyond proud that she’s doing so well, and has seen such a drastic improvement in terms of skill.. I’m quite the opposite. I’m average. A complete, utter, casual. The kind of player that you’d probably want to avoid for the most competitive forms of content.

And that’s the best part. It doesn’t matter that I’m a casual player. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have the best gear in the game. It doesn’t matter that I continue to forget my abilities because I spend half a year away from the game.
This game doesn’t punish you for absence. I can immediately jump back in at any point, continue with the story, run the most recent dungeons, the most recent Trials, Extreme Trials, 24-player Alliance raids. I can do everything I want to.
Granted, I might fail. Multiple times. But I learn from my mistakes, which is more than I can say about the majority of people that continued to mess up the first boss fight in Orbonne Monastery because they’d stand around wondering where the boss went.

This has never been more evident to me than when Mrs Stix and I decided we were going to stream our experience in 6.1. I had been out of the game since 5.3 – I left after completing 5.3, and came back a week before Endwalker to get through all of the content before it launched.
And while we ran into exorbitantly high queue times during the launch – as we played on the Gigglemesh server, and there was no way we were transferring off – our experience was incredible. Players everywhere. Gorgeous environments. Hilarious narrative elements. We saw you-know-who again. It was a dream come true in terms of an expansion.
Something I never thought I’d ever get to experience after Wrath of the Lich King.
But after finishing, after running everything I could at the time, I decided to step away and focus on slowly playing other games – other MMOs. That way I could make my way through them, and eventually do more dedicated videos on them. So while Mrs Stix continued raiding every week, I didn’t.

Fast forward to 6.1 – only a couple months had gone by, but I decided I wanted to come back every patch and play through them with my wife. That way I wouldn’t be stuck playing catch-up at the last minute again.
And.. it was like I never left. I picked up the story from where 6.0 had finished, I started pushing through it, did the dungeon that accompanied it, did the 24-player raid. And after everything was said and done, left once more.
That Alliance Raid though.. my god. That was ridiculous. That was probably one of the most gorgeous, infuriating fights – or, series of fights I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. It took us almost an hour and a half to complete it by the end.
We had entire teams repeatedly wiping. Everyone was running around having absolutely no idea what was going on. Players were struggling to learn mechanics, with no clue what did what or where we had to stand.
It was absolute, utter chaos. And by far the most fun I’ve had in the game since Orbonne Monastery. The NieR raids from Shadowbringers were fun in their own right, but this.. this was absolutely unbelievable.
And all I had to do to participate in it? Log back in and play the game. Gear you need to be competitive in end-game content you’ll be able to grind rapidly by doing the content available to you.

Having a game actually respect your time is something I’m not used to, and is definitely something that isn’t replicated very often in the genre.

Stating – claiming that Final Fantasy XIV is the best MMORPG is a contentious opinion that is going to be contested by fans of every other MMO. Guild Wars 2 fans, WoW fans, ESO fans.. everyone thinks their MMO is the best.
And at the end of the day, to each person, that very well might be the truth. We each have differences of opinions, and value varied aspects of our games.
But in my opinion, Final Fantasy XIV has been the best MMO for years now, and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future.
It’s a gorgeous game. Its combat is pretty slow and very limiting until much later in the game, but if you can manage to get over that hurdle, it’s significantly better than most of its competition.
It has an incredible narrative, spanning years worth of story. A stunning world to explore with dynamic events in the form of FATEs.
Very difficult PvE content in the form of Extreme Trials, Alliance Raids, Savage Raids, Ultimate Raids. And things that are there purely to drive you to the very limits of frustration like Eureka. Oh god, Eureka. I still have PTSD of the weeks, months spent in that place.

I love Final Fantasy XIV. It’s the one MMO I come back to every year without fail. And I hope one day there are other games in this genre that are capable of offering everything that this game does to make it such an incredible experience.

Man, what an incredible journey the last 4 days have been. Even more than that, what an incredible journey it’s been over the last several years I’ve spent playing this game.

Honestly, going into this I didn’t think there was any way they could top Shadowbringers.
To me, it just wasn’t a realistic expectation to have – Heavensward was such an upgrade over A Realm Reborn, Stormblood was a disappointing sequel to Heavensward, and Shadowbringers hit me as hard as Wrath of the Lich King back in 2008, going on to be one of, if not my favorite MMO expansion of all time.
Endwalker, though? When I started the expansion early Friday morning, and spent several hours running back and forth listening to cutscenes I felt like this was going to be a repeat of Stormblood. Slower–good, but slower.
What I came to realize though, was that Endwalker is just a slow-burn on the way to one of the most unbelievable conclusions in the history of the game.

With that being said, let’s talk about my general experience over the course of the first several days of Early Access.
The game launched early Friday morning for Mrs Stix and I. So we woke up early, set ourselves to log in, and were greeted by a queue of approximately 1,300. This wasn’t bad and we honestly expected pretty lengthy queues given we play on Gilgamesh.
After going for an hour walk and coming home, we were at around 300 people left in front of us in queue, so we showered, came back, and shortly after logged in.
We proceeded to play for 10 hours straight on Friday. There was no lag, there were no disconnects. Zones were filled with an exorbitant number of players everywhere. Since I main Warrior and Mrs Stix mains White Mage, we never had queue times for any content in-game.
Overall, the first day went over without a single issue.
Day 2? We woke up around 11:30 in the morning, got out of bed at around noon, went to log in, and were greeted by 7,000 player queues. Again, expected. That wasn’t an issue. We were glad to go work out, go to the grocery store, get some stuff done for a few hours.
Fast forward 3 to 4 hours later, we’re at around 1,700 players left in queue, and we get hit with an error 2002. We get kicked from the queue, proceed to log back in, and have a queue over over 7,000 again.
At that point, I was frustrated, but Mrs Stix NEEDED to get back in-game and continue playing, even if it meant we played until 5am the next morning. So we requeued. Several hours later, we get error 4004. Then error 2002. Then we can’t even connect to the game for the remainder of the evening.
We were slightly irritated by this, for sure, but we chose to play during such a congested period so that’s our choice.
This continued for part of Sunday and Monday, but after several hours of queueing repetitiously and getting repeated 2002 errors we eventually made it in.
Getting into the game proved to be a more challenging boss than any of the dungeons or trials. But once in-game, it ran flawlessly.

After getting into the game I noticed that whoever was in charge of quest-direction absolutely LOVED having you both escort your NPC Scions around every single new region, unable to mount lest they cease following you, but also.. the quests that have you slowly stalk NPCs embracing your newfound powers of stealth.
Something that I came to realize many people did not possess, as chat was constantly spammed with “I hate this quest,” and “why are there so many escort quests in Endwalker?”
Personally, I hated those. I know that escorting NPCs around gave valuable insight into the area, the quests and at times their personalities, but being forced into those scenarios repeatedly definitely got to be trying after a time.
Admittedly, while I do and I’m sure many players appreciate the additional depth to characters, I haven’t spoken to a single person that enjoyed having to do either.
Apart from those 2 quest types, I can say that every single facet of Endwalker was unbelievably high quality.
There were so many emotional scenes between characters new and old. The new areas looked beautiful. Some of the new areas looked better than anything present in-game up until this point, actually.
Unfortunately as I main Warrior – or tank in specific, I didn’t get the opportunity to experience neither the new Sage nor Reaper classes. They both look highly appealing, but I hate healing in games, and playing DPS is a no-go for me since as a tank if I mess up a mechanic, I don’t insta-die.
So it leaves room for mistakes. And allows for me to recover from them without bringing down the group.
I did get multiple new abilities on my Warrior, though, and feel like they gave me back some of the self-sustain I had pre-Shadowbringers.
I won’t talk about the Trials because… you kinda need to experience them yourself. Suffice it to say, though, the first one was a little difficult, clocking in at around 15 minutes to complete, the second trial took us 45 minutes and the third trial took us 18 minutes.
Now this is likely dependent on your group more than anything else, as different players learn mechanics at different rates. But man those were some absolutely sick encounters.
Dungeons were more or less what you’d expect. Fun, interesting, and a struggle to get DPS to not stand in telegraphed AoE circles.

And I know I said I wouldn’t spoil anything pertaining to the story, but I do want to talk about it overall. This is a game that people play BECAUSE of its story after all, right?
As noted, it started off very slow. It took hours for it to pick up and I was concerned for a little while because I saw no signs of it doing so.
After several hours though, and more so after making it half way through the game it does a complete 180 and turns into such a deep, complex narrative. Takes you places you never thought you’d ever go.
I mean this in the most complimentary way possible, but towards the end it felt as though we were playing through a Shounen Anime. Just one with a competent story.
I don’t recall Mrs Stix crying like she did during Shadowbringers, but the emotion you feel during the game – both happiness, sadness, is definitely triggered repeatedly.
I feel like Final Fantasy XIV – or more specifically both Shadowbringers and Endwalker have taken much more of a “JRPG” approach. They look and feel like they’re designed as JRPGs, and allow for hundreds of players to occupy the same space concurrently.
And personally? I couldn’t ask for a better direction for the game. Being an enormous fan of JRPGs and JRPG franchises like the Dragon Quest, Tales of, Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Golden Sun games and just.. so many more.
Some that never got sequels but deserved them like The Legend of Dragoon. Which to date is my favorite JRPG – or rather, RPG of all time.
Endwalker, though. This was something else. Shadowbringers, and then Endwalker have turned Final Fantasy XIV into what is arguably the pinnacle of the MMORPG genre right now.
These 2 expansions have allowed for Final Fantasy XIV to take the crown from World of Warcraft as the most popular MMORPG online right now.
It has proven that narratives in MMOs don’t need to be absurdly convoluted. Or, on the other side of the spectrum: Absent all together. That a story with a focus on a single “hero” can feature many “heroes” all occupying a world together.
That you can become enthralled in an online game, with online features and a focus on co-operative play.
We’ve grown attached to so many characters in this game – Hoary Boulder, that one NPC that happens to be confused as to whether cucumbers are fruit or not.. this game has become a part of our life.
Something that Mrs Stix plays every day, and has played every day for 2 years now. She has completed the majority of the Extreme Trials, Savage Raids and is working on finishing the final Ultimate fights.
I don’t have the capacity for that anymore, given that I have a Youtube channel to work on full-time every single day. And I’m proud that she’s achieved so much in what is arguably the first MMO she’s ever tried to tackle competitively.
Nevertheless, we play this game more often than any other – this has become, to us, “THE” MMORPG. Just as it has for many others.

Seeing the large surge in popularity over the course of the last year has been ridiculous. I know that’s partly in response to the criticism ActiBlizz received and people’s frustration with WoW.
Thankfully, Final Fantasy XIV is probably the closest “quality” title to WoW you can get, so this was an easy title to migrate on over to. And given the immense amount of coverage from streamers, Youtuber’s, social media influencers, it’s only natural that this would happen.
But if you think about it for a second: Even if people bring additional exposure to a game, if it’s a bad game, nobody will play it.

Seeing server queues in the tens of thousands, seeing all the error messages arising, seeing Square scurry under the pressure in an attempt to address everything they can.. while it’s easy to look at all of this and complain, it’s a positive sign.
It means there are that many more people interested in a game you genuinely love. More players equates to more money for the developers which means more money to reinvest back into the game.
I know it’s frustrating being in queues, I do. I’m also aware you may have taken time off for this – and you’re getting repeated errors. I know it’s easy to point fingers and say “But Square, you should’ve known better!”
But at the end of the day they’re doing what they can.

And likewise, at the end of the day, this was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in an MMO since back in 2008 with Wrath of the Lich King.
Endwalker, no. Final Fantasy XIV is the closest thing to a masterpiece you’ll get. Endwalker is an incredible expansion, and a fantastic follow-up to Shadowbringers.
I never expected to be as satisfied as I am by the end of the expansion, but man. Color me impressed.

It’s difficult finding an MMORPG to devote time to. Games either don’t live up to the unrealistic hype that other people create for them, or you happen across one you genuinely enjoy and it turns out nobody else does. The game’s empty.
And with so many MMOs having come out this year: PSO2 New Genesis, Swords of Legends Online, Bless Unleashed, Crowfall, Elyon, New World. Have the top 10 most played MMOs shifted? Is there something better out there that everyone is devoting their time to? Let’s find out. Together.
Especially given next month is the beginning of 2022, and you’re going to want something big to play, right?

Let’s start this off with the only Anime MMORPG in this list: MapleStory.
MapleStory released all the way back in 2003. This game has spawned a plethora of other titles under the same intellectual property: MapleStory M which was received with.. moderate enthusiasm, and a sequel, MapleStory 2, that shut down a year after launching.
Neither title truly managed to capture the quirky style that MapleStory employs. This is the only MMO in this list to utilize a horizontal graphical style – you move your character horizontally, left to right, across the screen. You can jump and climb, but the bulk of the game takes place on one level.
You take quests, you venture out, you group with other players, fight for control of the area, and… grind. This game is a grind. An unbelievable grind. Almost grindier than any other MMO I’ve played in the last decade. Thankfully it employs an incredibly fast, often chaotic action combat system to make up for the time you spend engaged in combat.
It’s got an adorable Anime-ish graphical style, and gets updated repeatedly over the course of the year, with new areas, new events and new classes. This brings players coming back to the game, and is what makes it one of Nexon’s highest grossing, most profitable franchises, averaging hundreds of thousands of players across all regions per month.
Yes, this list isn’t including specifically English-speaking countries.

Star Wars The Old Republic released back in 2011 as part of the greater “Star Wars” franchise. Movies, TV series, video games. And while The Old Republic – The MMO, never truly lived up to the potential of the IP, it still eventually found its footing, and allowed for Star Wars fans to channel their inner fan.
Now The Old Republic has had its highs, and its lows. With its low points lasting significantly longer than its high points, but that’s partly due to how the game has been handled up until this point.
This is an open-world MMO, with plenty of different regions – and as you’d expect, plenty of different, highly diverse worlds to explore at your leisure. The Old Republic has one of the deepest, most compelling narratives of any MMO.
And while that’s 2 for 2 thus far, its combat is much less impressive. It utilizes a fairly basic tab-target combat system that definitely looks and feels older than a 2011 MMO should, given RIFT, Aion and TERA.
Star Wars The Old Republic just released their latest expansion – which has garnered quite a bit of attention, and shot the game up to hundreds of thousands of players over the course of the last month. How long this lasts however is another question all together.

The Elder Scrolls Online released in 2014, a mere 7 years ago. It feels like it’s been out longer though, right? Much like Star Wars The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online is set within an already existing franchise: The Elder Scrolls. You know. Morrowind. Oblivion. Skyrim. Yes, I listed the 3 best in order of best to most overrated.
ESO has been pretty steady for the last couple years. It’s never really had any large peaks in terms of growth, but at the same time, it hasn’t sunk very far beneath what it had already established itself as.
The game has a fantastic narrative, a large open world to explore, action combat, a fairly extensive class system allowing you to more or less equip what you want in terms of weapons and armor, while giving you freedom to craft your class – in terms of skills, however you like.
Graphically, the game holds up well. It’s one of the better looking Western MMOs out there, with Guild Wars 2 being the only real competition.
ESO averages a couple hundred thousand unique players per month, and has been averaging roughly a similar amount all year.

Guild Wars 2 was released back in 2012, and has since gone on to become one of the most played free MMOs. More than that, it’s generally considered to have the friendliest community of any MMO online.
The main issue with Guild Wars 2 is that for the last several years, content has been released fairly slowly. This is due to NCSoft being incompetent, and inhibiting ArenaNet from truly making Guild Wars 2 one of the greatest MMORPGs of this generation.
And with slow releases, comes an expected decline in terms of player population. Although with the recent announcement of its latest expansion, “End of Dragons” looming on the horizon, players have come back in droves to play catch-up, and new players are jumping in to see what all the hype is about.
Guild Wars 2 is a gorgeous game with an incredibly large world. It has plenty of class customization, an active PvP community and one of the better narratives out there.
The game utilizes a very high quality hybrid action combat system, allowing for players to change their entire playstyle by merely altering the weapon they have equipped.

Now this one is a little different. See, on the one hand, Star Citizen hasn’t launched yet. It’s an indie MMO that has been in development for years, and has, over the course of its time spent in development, acquired hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding.
More funding than Final Fantasy XIV. More than World of Warcraft. And we’re still years – perhaps decades off from being capable of playing a fully realized game. However, that hasn’t stopped players from playing it in the form it’s available in.
This is a very incomplete game, with very few fully implemented features. Yet last year they reported that they had – at their peak, hundreds of thousands of active players. Which is some of the most ridiculous numbers I’ve ever seen for an unreleased title that is still so far off from being ready.

RuneScape is the oldest title in this list, releasing back in 2001. I’m not entirely certain how this game has retained the playerbase that it has, but I guess this is a testament to how good the game must be, right?
Now I’ve never dedicated much time to the game. I’ll be the first to admit that – not every person will enjoy every MMO, right? It’s asinine to believe that anyone would enjoy every single title in this list.
RuneScape is an enormous game, with more content than you can realistically dream of partaking of if you’re a new player. Sure, it’s very dated – both in terms of how it looks and how it plays. But that’s part of its appeal.
Even though it’s 2 decades old at this juncture, this game – these developers push out more updates than almost any of its competitors, paid or free.
Thankfully player numbers are public, so we can see that there are hundreds of thousands of active players at almost any point in the day. Even if some people claim that half of them are bots.

Black Desert Online released way back in 2014. Yeah, almost 8 years ago. Eight. Years. In all that time, not a single MMORPG released has come close to competing with the game’s dominance over the market in terms of graphics or combat.
To date, BDO is considered to be the “pinnacle of the MMORPG genre,” that one game that every MMO has to live up to. And I can honestly understand why.
Not only is this game absolutely stunning – the world itself, which is completely open, no loading screens at all. Entirely explorable without limitations, whether on land or sea.
But the depth of the character customization is unrivaled. Name one MMO with as good of a creator as BDO. You won’t find one. Couple that with some of the best action combat, and you have what should be the best MMORPG available, yet due to its horrendous pay to win, RNG and grind, falls short.
Pearl Abyss have confirmed hundreds of thousands of active players – on the higher end of the spectrum – which sets it above almost every other MMO in this list.

While New World is less than 2 months old at this moment, it is definitely worth noting that even with all of its issues, all of the exploits, the hacks, the duplication of items, of gold, the lack of endgame, Amazon’s poor handling of all of this, their choice to make the grind even longer in a recent update.. there are still hundreds of thousands of people playing this.
At the time of writing, there was still a peak of 132,000 players concurrently logged in, with likely over a million players still playing over the course of the last month – minimum.
New World features a large, open world – albeit the world itself seems to lack much in diversity – both with regards to the environment, and the monsters found within it.
It utilizes an action combat system that honestly isn’t bad but felt too limiting to me when I played it. There’s an extensive crafting system, a territory system and so much more that is completely overshadowed by how often new exploits are taken advantage of, repeatedly ruining the experience for everyone playing.

World of Warcraft released back in 2004, and up until 2020 was the most populated MMORPG. It was completely unrivaled. Nothing came close to competing with it, especially after WoW Classic launched.
Yet like everything, eventually things fall into obscurity. And while WoW is far from falling into obscurity, with the game still having over a million active players across both Retail and WoW Classic, it’s a far cry from what it once was.
This is evident by the premature end of Shadowlands, in their mad rush to push out something new to re-ignite the playerbase’ passion to play through something new and potentially exciting.
WoW is definitely a dated looking game – for most of it anyway. Newer zones are absolutely gorgeous, and the game features what is arguably the best tab-target combat in the genre. With the exception being maybe Aion or ArcheAge.
It also features more lore than almost any other game I’ve ever seen, but its story has become so disconnected, such a convoluted mess that it’s almost funny trying to keep track of what’s going on.

And finally, Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV released initially back in 2010, and was such a critical failure that they overhauled the game from the ground-up costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
This was the largest undertaking in the entire MMO genre, and has paid off, given it is now the most played, most popular MMORPG. And with Endwalker having just launched into Early Access, and both Mrs Stix and I playing through it, this is probably going to be the largest year for the game to date.
Final Fantasy XIV already confirmed they had hit their highest concurrent player numbers before the mass exodus of WoW players, and the combination of the those additions to the game with fans are going to make queue times unbearable.
Final Fantasy XIV features a large open world, with each expansion introducing even larger areas than the last. It’s a gorgeous game with an incredible narrative. Shadowbringers was by far the best storytelling I’ve seen in an MMO. And I’ve played almost all of them.
Its combat isn’t the best, but it’s good enough that it doesn’t bring the game down – doesn’t hinder it.
The amalgamation of everything that Final Fantasy XIV does right has shown continued success, with the game once being rivaled by Guild Wars 2, and now tripling, maybe quadrupling it in terms of active player numbers.
Nobody ever thought Final Fantasy XIV would dethrone WoW. They thought WoW would to that to itself, and Final Fantasy XIV would continue on the route it was. Boy were we wrong.

And that’s everything. They’re the 10 most played MMORPGs in 2021, moving into 2022. Were they what you expected?

I love World of Warcraft. This game has provided me one of the most unique experiences of my life – one I fear I’ll never have ever again. It presented me with a world to live in – an escape from the reality that we call real life.
I am legitimately sad to see the state that World of Warcraft has descended into. I have had an active subscription to this game since 2008 when I first stepped foot in Azeroth. This was back when Wrath of the Lich King had just launched if I recall.
I remember logging in for the very first time and seeing Sindragosa fly into frame. That was one of the coolest things I’d seen in an MMO in my years within the genre, and pretty much set the tone for not only the expansion, but my entire first year within the game. “It. Was. Epic.”

Now, there comes a time in every person’s life where you’ve just.. had enough. Of a video game. Of a TV series. Even of a person. And that can be for a variety of different reasons. At least pertaining to a video game..
Maybe it is unrecognizable in its current form. The developers have changed, the game has changed, and the charm the game once had is no longer there.
Maybe you’ve outgrown it. Aspects that you originally fell in love with just don’t appeal to you anymore.
Maybe something better came out. Something that captivated you in a way nothing ever had since.

I feel like for me, it’s pretty much all of the above, and then some.
I’m a long-time MMO player. I started with MMOs back in the mid-2000s with Tales of Pirates and Perfect World – but I’d first set foot in the massively multiplayer subgenre with Gaia Online. Yeah, I’m really that old.
I moved around from game to game, playing for days, weeks, maybe months at a time before growing bored with each new title. Ragnarok, FlyFF, RF, Fiesta, Silkroad.
But WoW just had something special about it. Something I know a lot of you can agree with. And that is that it was developed with care. Vision. It had substance. Sure, it took a lot of ideas that had already been done in the past, but this was a polished MMO. Something we weren’t really too familiar with. Or at least something I wasn’t.
Over the course of Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and Battle for Azeroth, I’d continue to keep my subscription active. I would typically return to the game every major patch to participate in all of the new content that would come with it.
Even if they gutted my main – the Arms Warrior – repeatedly. I know Bladestorm and Bloodbath were an OP combo, but c’mon, doing open-world PvP and Battlegrounds after popping the two abilities was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.

I found that with every expansion, the game continued to get progressively more beautiful.
Pandaria was absolutely gorgeous. And while Northrend had some stunning areas as well, I mean Howling Fjord and the Grizzly Hills were 2 of the most beautiful zones I’d ever seen in an MMO at the time, and watching Bambi’s mother get taken down by a hunter was probably one of the funniest–I mean horrifying moments in my entire time playing.
Seeing the dense Jade Forest or the incredible mountainous Kun-Lai Summit were just.. breathtaking. I mean say what you want about how bad Warlords of Draenor was, Nagrand, Talador and Shadowmoon Valley were gorgeous areas. Suffice it to say, the art team absolutely slay it every expansion.
And this was even more evident in the – is there a stronger more descriptive word than stunning? Brilliant? Sensational? Spectacular? Maybe.. Beauteous? zones introduced in both Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands.

This world was just so.. full. Of NPCs. Of life. You’d find little notes hidden out in the middle of nowhere that would start quest-chains. NPCs that would say some of the most outlandish things. And for a game like WoW.. that’s saying something.
But for as beautiful as the 2 most recent expansions were, I found myself… actually only playing during the launch, and pre-patch of each of the respective expansions. I haven’t touched Shadowlands since it launched, and have absolutely no motivation to return to the game right now.
Nothing about it seems remotely appealing to me. Not the story unfolding. Not the characters I grew to love. Not the world that was once so perfectly crafted.
I feel as though the game lost part of its soul – part of what made it such an amazing game. Which leads me to the first point listed at the beginning of this – “the game is unrecognizable in its current form. The developers have changed, the game has changed, and the charm the game once had is no longer there.”
So many developers that made WoW the absolute behemoth that it once was are no longer there. The passion is gone. The game is so far detached from what it once was – so watered down that returning to it no longer fills me with joy. Rather despair that such an incredible part of my life will never be the same.

I’ve had an active subscription to Final Fantasy XIV since 2014. Maybe 2015. And started really actively playing it during Heavensward.
I know, I know. “But Final Fantasy XIV is so boring and difficult to get into.” If you’re one of those guys, I get it. The game isn’t for everyone, no problem. But to me? While Final Fantasy XIV didn’t reignite that feeling I got from WoW, it led me to another revelation: A game didn’t need to be better than WoW.
I don’t need a replacement. I want something that will allow for me to create entirely new experiences. The fact that Final Fantasy XIV shares some similarities to WoW is just a coincidence.
I was a hardcore PvPer. I made it to.. and I know this isn’t necessarily going to sound all that impressive to some of you, but.. around 2700 in 2s years ago. Not in the top percentage of players, sure, but enough where I could say I was a pretty solid Arms Warrior.
I mean my Disc Priest also hard carried me but I like to believe I contributed a lot to our victories and achievements.
I participated in extensive amounts of open-world PvP, back when there were PvP servers. And equally as much after the introduction of War Mode.
I did Normal, Heroic and Mythic raiding. I did Mythic+ Dungeons. Although by that point, I wasn’t nearly as good, nor remotely as dedicated – I think the furthest I made it in Battle for Azeroth was Mythic+10?
Nevertheless, I was a highly dedicated, incredibly competitive player that spent a lot of my life pushing myself to be the best I could possibly be. And it amounted to…. absolutely nothing. Nobody from my home world even recalls who I am.

I think, after finally coming to the realization that I wasn’t going to go back to WoW, I was left.. a little depressed.
I’d played through Heavensward. I’d enjoyed my time in it, definitely. Then I proceeded to play through Stormblood, which was a noticeable dip in quality for me. Then I reached Shadowbringers. Mrs Stix and I played through Shadowbringers sitting side by side. We did every bit of content together.
Sat through all the cutscenes together. Watched the story unfold. Ran the dungeons. Did the Extreme Trials. The 24-player raids. Admittedly we both attempted the PvP and it was a huge letdown having come from WoW.
But every facet of Shadowbringers captivated us both. We were completely enthralled with the game at that point, and I realized I hadn’t actually thought about WoW in weeks. Weeks turned into months. And here I am. I played briefly during the middle of Battle for Azeroth, briefly at the beginning of Shadowlands, and that was it.
I’ve since come to the conclusion that while World of Warcraft was the first high quality MMORPG I’d ever played, while this game was my introduction to a world this full, this complete. To a cast of characters I cared about. To a selection of features I couldn’t do without.. I didn’t need it anymore.
Which leads me to my second point noted at the beginning of all of this: I’ve simply outgrown the game. Aspects that I originally fell in love with just aren’t appealing to me anymore.
The world feels much more barren and disconnected from anything before it. The characters are hollow shells of who they once were. I feel as though someone hired the writers from a CW show to write everything up post-Legion.

And finally, this ultimately led me to my final point: Something better came out. Something that captivated me in a way nothing ever had since.
Final Fantasy XIV isn’t for everyone. I completely understand that. Yet it is the only game in a period ranging from 2008 until the end of 2021 that has given me any sense of purpose.
I genuinely feel as though this game warrants time and dedication. Effort. Even coverage on this channel, which I do multiple times per year. As this has become one of my favorite MMORPGs of all time.

I don’t think there will ever be an MMO out there that gives me the same feeling that WoW did. It’s just not possible. Your first MMO is like your first relationship – it’s far from perfect. It’s sloppy. Messy. But you continue to think about it from time to time. It’s an ever-present memory and you’ll always find yourself comparing other MMOs to it.
WoW provided me so many incredible memories, and experiences. Fighting the Lich King. Learning Illidan’s history. And.. all of the cool things that happened before Battle for Azeroth, essentially. Except for that wait between expansions at the end of Mists of Pandaria. That was painful.
This isn’t burnout. I’m not burned out with WoW. I love WoW. Or, I love what WoW used to be. That is no longer the case.
It took a long time to find something that I can play long-term. It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that WoW is a completely different game now.
No amount of nostalgia will convince me that this incarnation of World of Warcraft is worth dedicating my time, let alone my subscription to. Sure, I’ll buy the next expansion, and clear the content in the first week or two just to see how it holds up.
But I don’t think I’ll ever dedicate any longer than that because it just isn’t worth it.

I know this opinion will upset a lot of current World of Warcraft players, I do. And to me? The most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO was in WoW from 2008 through 2020.
But it needs to be said. World of Warcraft is no longer the best MMORPG. It hasn’t been for a while now. And while Final Fantasy XIV might not be the best to some people.. there are other, better games out there now.

I know this might be a topic of contention, but, Final Fantasy XIV, as of June 18th, 2021, is indisputably the best MMORPG right now.
And I’m well aware there are going to be multiple of you that sit there at this very moment, jaw agape, in complete disbelief that I’d say something like that. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve stated this in previous years, and after having played Shadowbringers, it’s more evident than ever how high quality a title this is.
But at the same time, as no game is infallible, Final Fantasy XIV does have areas that need improvement. Aspects of the game that are missing.

Today, I want to take a little bit of your time and discuss what makes Final Fantasy XIV the best MMORPG to me. Not you. You might have an unadulterated, deep seething loathing for the game, and that’s your right.
But this is a game that has taken thousands of hours from me, and I don’t regret any of it.

Now Final Fantasy XIV is a pay-to-play MMORPG which is something holding a lot of you back from trying it, but, were you aware that they offer an expanded free trial that allows you to play through the entirety of the base game AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion all the way up to level 60 absolutely FREE?

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that little meme out of the way, where do I even begin? I’m quite the ardent JRPG fan. I’ve loved JRPGs of all my life. Breath of Fire IV, Dragon Quest 8, Suikoiden I and II, Final Fantasy VIII and IX, Star Ocean Till the End of Time, Tales of Symphonia and Phantasia, Xenosaga, Legend of Dragoon, Golden Sun. You name a JRPG and I’ve played it.
It’s only natural I’d find myself drawn to Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve been playing since 2.3? 2.4? A patch or two before Heavensward came out. I’ve had an active subscription for the last 5 years of my life, and have played during the first and last 3 months of every expansion.
Like a lot of players, when I first began playing I was confused by the combat. Naturally. I’d come from World of Warcraft – yes, I’m a WoW refugee. I’ve been playing WoW since 2008 and like Final Fantasy XIV, have had an active sub there for longer than I’d like to admit.
WoW’s tab-target combat is one of the best in the genre. Like or hate the game, you cannot deny that not only are the animations for characters and abilities top tier, but everything feels so smooth, so fluid, and the global cooldowns on abilities feel like they’re available much more frequently than in Final Fantasy XIV.
And early on, you really feel the impact of the longer global cooldowns. It isn’t until you get access to quite a few of your abilities, some of which are off the GCD, that you begin to realize that early-game was not at all indicative of late or end-game.
By the time you’re at end-game, which is where the vast majority of MMOs take place, the flow of battle feels entirely different.

While the combat was definitely slower than I would’ve liked, I was completely captivated by the story as soon as I stepped foot in the game. Story was part of the reason I enjoyed JRPGs as much as I did. Becoming enthralled in a world not your own – an escape so contrastingly different from the boring reality we live in was just so enticing to me.
Coming into this world for the very first time, seeing the enormous city of Ul’dah, seeing hundreds of players running around, Mi’qote dancing in the streets. I fell in love. I didn’t even need to see the other starter cities of Limsa Lominsa or Gridania to know this was going to be a gorgeous game filled with endless wonder.

So I created my character: Initially, I wasn’t sure what class I wanted to go with. I love playing Mages in games, but didn’t want to end up with DPS queues while leveling so was tempted to run with whatever the tank options were. After perusing my options, I ended up going Thaumaturge, which ends up becoming Black Mage at level 30.
Oh, right. For those of you that really have no knowledge pertaining to the Final Fantasy XIV, let me elaborate on how classes work in this game.
I know I’m saying “class” repeatedly, but Final Fantasy XIV actually refers to advanced classes as “Jobs,” which your base class advances into at level 30. I know it’s a little confusing, trust me, it gets easier.
The game utilizes the holy trinity: Tank, which consists of Marauder and Gladiator, Healer which consists of Conjurer and Arcanist, and DPS which consists of Pugilist, Lancer, Rogue, Archer, Thaumaturge and Arcanist.
Each base class, as discussed a moment ago, can advance into more powerful versions of their class with the Gladiator progressing into the Paladin, the Marauder into the Warrior, the Pugilist into the Monk, the Lancer into the Dragoon, the Rogue into the Ninja, the Archer into the Bard, the Thaumaturge – my class, into the Black Mage, the Arcanist into either the Summoner or Scholar, and the Conjurer into the White Mage.
Then we have expansion jobs like the Dark Knight and Gunbreaker as tanks, Astrologian as healer, Machinist, Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer, and Blue Mage as DPS, and finally, the two upcoming classes, the Sage and Reaper coming when Endwalker releases in November.
One aspect I believe Final Fantasy XIV really excels in is its freedom to play what you want, as you’re given the capability of swapping jobs whenever you feel the need. You can level every single job on a single character, meaning there is absolutely no need for alts within the game to enjoy something different.

That isn’t where this ends though, far from it. You’re also given the opportunity of leveling every crafting and gathering profession on a single character. Crafters are referred to as “Disciples of the Hand,” consisting of the Alchemist, Armorer, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Culinarian, Goldsmith, Leatherworker, and Weaver.
Likewise, gathering, referred to as “Disciples of the Land” consist of Botany, Fishing and Mining. Suffice it to say, there’s plenty to waste your life away pursuing, should you feel so inclined.

Now, backtracking a little: I ended up choosing to go the Black Mage route. I love playing with magic, and wanted to channel my inner Vivi. I mean honestly, who wouldn’t want to channel a little Vivi?
And so I began my journey that would go on to span months, years. A journey I’m still actively enjoying to this day. And while I initially started this game alone, I now have a companion in my travels across Eorzea and beyond – my wife, Mrs Stix. Who, actually is a much better player than I am at the game.
She has completed every single Savage raid as it was relevant, and is making her way through Ultimate content.
Our journey through the game was filled with quite a few emotions. I’ve never seen Mrs Stix cry in a video game up until she played Final Fantasy XIV.
While your introduction to the game definitely begins very slowly – as all JRPGs seem to, it continues to get progressively better the longer you stick with it and the more invested in the characters you become.
I know you’ve all heard tales how much of a “chore” the game can be to make it through, and honestly, I don’t entirely disagree with that sentiment.
There are various parts in the story that you just wish you could skip. They’re too slow. Too filled with menial tasks that really only serve to pad out the time it takes to level. And considering how long of a game this is, are 100% unnecessary.
Thankfully Square took note of this and removed a large chunk of these quests, further trimming some of the questlines down to a much more tolerable level.
But at the end of the day, if you’re a fan of JRPGs like I am, you’re no stranger to downtime. Parts of the game where you’re just not really doing much. While there were a few times, especially after clearing the base 2.0 game, with the patches necessary before Heavensward, that I felt I wasn’t really enjoying myself as much anymore, I stuck with it.
I’m not going to quit a game because I was a little bored for a period of time. And luckily Mrs Stix and I did, because we were greeted with one of the most engaging stories I’ve seen in an MMO since Wrath of the Lich King. Only exceeded by their most recent Shadowbringers expansion.
Now if you’re not a fan of narratives in your MMOs and would prefer to just explore a large sandbox world with the freedom to progress how you want, this definitely isn’t for you. Maybe something like Black Desert would better suit those needs.
Final Fantasy XIV plays like a single-player game that you can group up with and play with friends – or strangers, when or if you need to. A game that you can wander through enjoying the sheer beauty that the game offers.

But just because it has a large emphasis on the narrative, doesn’t mean it doesn’t also have a large, varied selection of content to consume outside of that.
Yes, the story is what captivates your attention. But it’s what you do in the game between the story that really keeps you there.
Leveling is pretty traditional. You take quests, you run from area to area fighting monsters, queue into dungeons, go about obtaining materials.
You fill up your Hunting Log by hunting monsters out in the field, you participate in F.A.T.E’s – which are large, open events that spawn randomly all over the map in every single zone. Okay, so not entirely traditional, but for the most part it feels familiar.
Then as the story progresses, you unlock the ability to run Trials, which put you up against Primals like Ifrit, Shiva, Leviathan, Ramuh, Bahamut. All names you no doubt recognize. These Trials are 8-player fights that require coordination, teamwork, an understanding of mechanics. You know, things a lot of us lack.
After your leveling journey is complete, you’re greeted with the endgame: Now there are two types of MMO player. The PvE player, and the PvP player. PvP players spend hours grinding through battlegrounds, arenas, and open-world PvP every day.
PvE players are the opposite. PvE players run dungeons, raids, and the most competitive type of content the game has to offer its playerbase, typically avoiding PvP as they have no interest in it.
Now I know I’m going to get some flack for saying this, but it’s generally considered common knowledge that the PvP in Final Fantasy XIV is… lacking. From someone who came from open-world PvP MMOs like WoW and Aion, I was severely disappointed by what was present within Final Fantasy XIV.
But you know what? All of the PvE content more than made up for the lack of e-peen measuring competitions I used to have. And honestly, if I felt the innate need to relive my days PvPing… I could just go back and play the games I enjoyed actually PvPing in.
Which is what I tell people all the time, yet is something a lot of people just can’t wrap their heads around.
Endgame for PvE players, though, consist of fashion and.. Well, fashion. That is 100% the true endgame for Final Fantasy XIV.
You also have things like Ultimate raids, Savage raids, Extreme Trials, 24-man Alliance Raids, The Bozjan Southern Front which allows for up to 72-players to explore and participate in simultaneously, Beast Tribe Quests and for fans of crafting, the Ishgardian Restoration.
If all that made sense to you, then congratulations, you’re a much more dedicated player than I am. If not, then you definitely have your work cut out for you as these are just what constitute the “main aspects” of endgame. That’s disregarding anything you choose to do by choice.
Mount farming, leveling all your jobs, obtaining every achievement. There is just so much to do at endgame that you’ll never feel bored. Or if you do, it’s because like me, you choose to only play casually. Yes, I’m a casual. But streaming 3 days a week and doing 7 videos for this channel – I don’t have the time to play MMOs competitively anymore.

I know content creators that don’t dedicate themselves to a specific MMO don’t often have the experience to talk about games they play with depth and precision of someone that devotes their very being to a game, but Final Fantasy XIV is one of 4, maybe 5 games I’ve played quite extensively for years at a time.
Eorzea and Azeroth are my homes away from home. They’re two worlds that I genuinely feel comfortable in. I know everything about them. I know everything about the two games that take place within them.
I’ve become so enthralled with the stories being told that every new expansion brings me back for months at a time, and I do nothing but waste away over several days breaking only for small potty-trips and the occasional cheeseburger if I can bring myself to stand given I’ve been sitting so long I can’t recall if my lower body is still attached.
This is a game that I can talk about almost endlessly. I’ve had so many amazing experiences within Final Fantasy XIV that I just haven’t had anywhere else.
Mrs Stix has met so many great people through the game, and every time we do a dedicated video like this it ends up bringing new people into the game that go on to tell us how much of an amazing experience they’re having.
Without Final Fantasy XIV, I don’t think this channel would have ever taken off. Without Final Fantasy XIV I don’t believe I’d even have a Youtube channel. This game has given me thousands of hours worth of enjoyment. It has given me something to actively play with my wife – to enjoy outside of movies and hiking.
And with Endwalker right around the corner, with the game coming towards the end of November if everything goes according to plan, I guarantee you we’ll end up lost within the world once more.

Final Fantasy XIV is an amazing MMORPG. It’s absolutely gorgeous – sure, it might not necessarily hold up graphically when compared to newer games developed with modern tech, but there’s no denying that this is a stunning MMO.
The combat becomes much more difficult at endgame, requiring active micromanagement of every aspect of your job: damage mitigation, instant casts, regens, heals, aggro. Yes, there are tab-target combat systems that are better, but trust me when I tell you this feels more than sufficient.
The world is expansive. Every expansion adds in a surplus of new zones that are more exquisite than the last.
The narrative spans so many years worth of content, with it finally ending in Endwalker, and beginning a new storyline for the first time in a decade.
There’s just so much content to consume that you’re never at a loss of where you should go or what you should be doing with your time.
I know some people will argue that there are plenty of MMOs out there that offer these very same things. And you know what? I’m not saying they don’t. Guild Wars 2, The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft. They’re all very high quality titles within the genre.
But to me? Personally? Final Fantasy XIV is better. It just does everything right. It offers me – as an individual – everything I want out of an MMO, and because of that, I can say with 100% certainty that this is the best MMORPG in 2021. And with Endwalker coming, it will likely be the best MMORPG in 2022 as well.

I’ve always been an avid fan of Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve been playing it since way back in 2.0 – when it relaunched under the “A Realm Reborn” title. I’ve played through every expansion and played through a plethora of the different classes available. And here I am, year after year equally as excited as the last, anticipating every new patch, every new expansion.

So when it was revealed that Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker would be launching in Fall 2021, you can bet I’d opt to cover it right away.
Endwalker brings with it 2 brand new classes: The Sage, a shielding healer, and an undisclosed melee class that players are speculating wields a scythe. There will also be alterations made to both the Astrologian and Scholar, with the Astrologian being turned into more of a main-healer and the Scholar being turned into a shielder, much like the Sage will be.

There are going to be a number of other changes to the game such as an increase in level cap from 80 to 90, a brand new story, new regions, new beast tribes, a Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon inspired farming simulation side-activity, new housing, Data Center travel and most importantly.. a PS5 release with a Closed Beta scheduled for April 13th 2021.
And this is just information released alongside the teaser, there will be much more to come during the digital fan festival in May.

If this doesn’t get you excited.. then I honestly have no idea what will.

I’m not sure how they did it, but the most recent patch for Final Fantasy XIV – Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal – is probably the most impactful patch of the entire Shadowbringers expansion thus far – not just Shadowbringers – in the entire game up until this point.
Spoiler alert for those of you that haven’t played through the expansion or through the patch content yet – you’ve been warned!

So, 5.3 marks the end of the Shadowbringers storyline. Patch 5.4 and 5.5 are going to transition between the Shadowbringers expansion and the expansion slated for release in the middle of next year.
An expansion that would have actually been announced already if not for the situation going on in the world right now, but I’m content knowing the team over at Square – the team working on Final Fantasy XIV are safe and still hard at work to the best of their abilities.
This is probably one of the most satisfying finales to a story-arc I’ve come across in an MMO. While I didn’t cry – I didn’t, guys, c’mon. Seriously! We got a touching final moment with the good ‘ol Crystal Exarch, managed to save the Scions as they were on the brink of death, and make it back to The Source. All in one piece!
And with a brand new addition to the team: G’raha Tia himself, and oh my god is he the most precious character I’ve ever seen in the entire franchise thus far.
But it wouldn’t be an end to a patch without our buddy Zenos making an appearance, looking as sombre as ever. And we get a guest appearance from the eccentric new rogue Ascian Fandaniel – who I’m highly anticipating watching evolve into a very interesting character. I mean c’mon, listen to this guy.

While the patch brought an end to the Shadowbringers story arc, it brought quite a bit more with it.
That’s right, the most important new feature added was the extension to the free-trial. Originally, you could play until level 35, and then you’d be locked out of any further progression.
As of patch 5.3, you’re now given hundreds of hours worth of the game completely free – providing access to the entire base-game, and then the entire first expansion pack, Heavensward – allowing you to level all the way up to level 60, gain access to the Au’Ra race, the Dark Knight, Machinist and Astrologian classes, and all the subsequent patch content that came between Heavensward and Stormblood, with Heavensward being the point in the game that players generally considering the “turning point” where the game gets considerably better.
Players who had an impression of the game after playing the first several hours on the way to level 35 are now going to be given the opportunity to really invest time and effort into the game. And let’s be honest: If after completing Heavensward, you’re not a fan of the game.. Stormblood definitely won’t change your mind.
And now’s the perfect time to jump back on in. They revamped the leveling experience, removing quests and other clutter from the main scenario – making it faster for players to clear the mess that is the post-A Realm Reborn patch content.
That content has turned off many a player, and is not in any way representative of the content we get literally as soon as you’re done with it and begin Heavensward, which is why you often find people saying “stick with it, it gets better.” I know how it sounds, but trust me.. it really does.
Honestly, I wish World of Warcraft would take a note or two from this and provide more of the game for free than it already does. This is going to provide an even larger boost to the active playerbase and breathe so much more life into the game. Not that it needed it.

As per every patch, we got a brand new dungeon, which honestly wasn’t as exciting or aesthetically appealing as other dungeons introduced throughout Shadowbringers, but we also got the second NieR Automata 24-player raid, and let me tell you.. once again, spoiler alert ahead – but holy crap I didn’t expect to ever see 2B in Final Fantasy XIV.
Lord have mercy on my poor soul. The raid itself was a lot of fun, although not as mechanically difficult or demanding as the Orbonne Monastery – that remained, or remains, actually, one of the most difficult raids to get through with a full party of players making mistakes because they can’t follow directions or don’t know what they’re doing!
I love that Yoko Taro has a hand in the 24-player content in this expansion along with the story that accompanies it. It’s refreshing to see little sub-stories that have no relation to the main story taking place and being equally as appreciated and populated.
And don’t get me started on the outfits you get from each of them. Yeesh, they’re too much for my heart.

Then came the introduction of the new Shiva Unreal trial – which I was surprised to see people found as easy as they did. I know that the mechanics were the same as the original Shiva, but man, did we have trouble back when running Shiva the first time.
We definitely didn’t have a day one clear, but then I’ve never been a day-one progger anyway. I also found it weird that while Shiva Savage was current content, we’d have Unreal Shiva as our new content as opposed to something else like Ravana.
That would’ve been a fun Unreal Trial to tackle! Going forward they plan on rotating which boss gets upscaled to our level, so it’s a safe bet to assume we’ll get to see every previous Trial as current content at one point, but it may be quite a wait considering how many different bosses there are in total.

I’ve never been a crafter in MMOs, and although it looks fairly engaging and like quite a bit of fun in Final Fantasy XIV, I still can’t see myself ever getting into it.
I just cannot for the life of me dedicate time to the art of crafting, I’d rather pay people to craft for me and reap the rewards of not putting in any effort! Okay that came off poorly. I’d rather pay people for their hard work and efforts. Yeah, there we go.
As you can expect – we are talking about crafting after all, there were updates to crafting. There were New Game+ updates, there were new mounts and minions added into the game, an expansion to the Ishgard Restoration, the new Resistance Weapon quest.. well, actually, that’s slated for Patch 5.35 so we got a few weeks to wait on that.

There’s just a ridiculous amount of content that Final Fantasy XIV releases regularly. More content than I’ve ever seen any other MMO push out in the timeframe that Square does with XIV.
Don’t get me wrong. The Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, Black Desert Online, even World of Warcraft pushes out tons of content. But not with the same flavor, the same variety. Not with the same level of detail, the same depth, and that is one of the many reasons this game has been steadily on the incline.
Where all the aforementioned MMOs have slowly declined in terms of active players over the last couple years, Final Fantasy XIV has shown that not only is Shadowbringers its most popular expansion to date, but they’re repeatedly hitting new highs in terms of concurrent active players and total players alike.
If you watched my “Most Populated MMORPGs in 2020” video over the weekend I went into more detail regarding how they’ve had several million new players register for the game this year and how they claimed over 1.2 million active players as well, closing in on the 2 million active that WoW has.

Mrs Stix has played through quite a bit more than I have. I’ve never been a competitive progger in Final Fantasy XIV. She however has cleared Savage Shiva – which I’m incredibly proud of, mind you. Proud husbando right here.
She worked ridiculously hard to achieve that, and you guys can imagine how difficult it is working with other players to tackle some of the most challenging encounters in the game, especially with all these entitled self-proclaimed “pro players” judging you and every little mistake every player makes.
I think the toxicity in the “endgame raiding community” is probably the only instance I’ve found of toxicity in the game. Generally, I’m of the opinion that Final Fantasy XIV has the nicest community of any MMO community. Until you get into raiding, then everyone turns into WoW players.
And don’t take this the wrong way – I’m sure it’s just the vocal minority, but you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it either! I’ve had players actually stop raiding competitively because they can’t handle all the stress and insults they get over making small mistakes while learning the fight. It’s honestly disheartening.
And is also one of the reasons I don’t raid competitively anymore. Not because I can’t handle criticism – I mean nobody will ever be a larger critic of me than.. well, me, but just how rude and harsh people can be to one another when we’re doing this for fun.
But this affects a very small number of people so while it isn’t technically an issue, I just wanted to bring it up here because I think it begs discussion, even a little bit. Have you guys ever witnessed this and if you have, what would you recommend we do about it?

I’m eagerly anticipating the next expansion. I’m also eagerly anticipating kicking Zenos’ ass once again, hopefully putting an end to him once and for all.
I’m looking forward to completing the third and final NieR Automata raid, and I’m excited for.. well, the continued success and growth of Final Fantasy XIV.
It has continued to improve in every form over the course of its life, and with the success it’s had recently, I don’t see that slowing down any time soon. I mean it’s definitely plausible for it to pull a “Wrath of the Lich King,” and spiral downward after Shadowbringers but I highly doubt that.

There are so many reasons why Final Fantasy XIV is still the best MMORPG right now that it’d take me 20, 30 minutes to go through and I know you guys aren’t interested in that.
But this patch – Patch 5.3 has solidified for me what I’d already known all this time, and has given me even more hope for the future.
Hopefully with the new extended trial, more of you can get in-game and give this marvel of an MMO a chance and fully experience the intricacies of what makes it the titan it has become.
And I honestly hope to see you all in-game eventually as well. We play on Gilgamesh and go by Mr and Mrs Lentus.

Otherwise, that’s pretty much all I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to go over Patch 5.3 and also wanted to kind of interject my thoughts on why I believe Final Fantasy XIV is still the best MMORPG by using this patch as an example.

Players that actively play and enjoy Final Fantasy XIV might have a ton of new players interested in the game once patch 5.3 goes live on August 11th, 2020.

Currently, players that participate in the Free Trial for Final Fantasy XIV have a level 35 limitation. This means that upon obtaining level 35, you cannot level any higher, you cannot participate in any additional content, and are essentially locked from any form of progress. However, as of August 11th, come Patch 5.3, players are going to have that limitation lifted, providing access to the entire base game, along with all of the post-patches, and in a surprising turn of events, Square Enix are also going to be providing access to the entirety of their Heavensward expansion completely free. This is going to provide players – all players with hundreds of hours worth of content – content that they would never be able to access or participate in otherwise. They’ll have access to the Dark Knight, Astrologian, and Machinist Jobs added in the expansion, and the Au Ra class as well, but the remainder of the limitations such as access to the market board will remain in place. Every player will have access to this content, and every player that is in possession of the Starter Edition will also have their accounts upgraded.

This is incredible news, and a fantastic step in the right direction – something that even World of Warcraft has yet to do with their very limited, very outdated Free Trial. I hope you’re all ready for a large influx of new players!

I know some of you guys have seen the title and are already prepared to ardently defend your favorite game.
This isn’t an attempt to diminish other games, but rather to talk about why I find Final Fantasy XIV to be as good as it is.
Every person has their own preferences, their own likes and dislikes – and as such it’s impossible to cater to every player.
However I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV on and off since the beginning of 2015.
I typically play for the first 4-6 months of an expansion so I can experience all of the content as it’s fresh and current, then come back periodically throughout the expansion, settling back in towards the last 3-4 months so I can complete everything that came out over the course of my absence.
This allows for me to gear myself ready for the next expansion. So while I’m in no way claiming to be an expert at the game, I’ve played more of Final Fantasy XIV than any other MMO aside from World of Warcraft.

I grew up with JRPGs: Legend of Dragoon, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy, the Tales of series, Star Ocean, Suikoden. You name a JRPG and I bet you I played it.
One of the things I enjoy about the JRPG genre is the story-telling. Yeah, at times the plot can drag along and can be a little generic. However, I’m a sucker for story, and that’s one of the things that Final Fantasy XIV really does right.
If you’re the type of person that skips through the vast majority of the quest text, then there are probably better games out there for you. Because this is, at its core, a Final Fantasy game.
Sure, the base game has a slew problems with regards to its pace – something that Square Enix have taken note of and are aiming to fix with coming patches.
But after making it through and upon reaching expansion content you begin to see why people speak so highly of the game. The story really comes together in Shadowbringers – the most recent expansion – with many players claiming it has one of the best stories told in recent Final Fantasy history.
And honestly, Shadowbringers’ story, before the additional patch content was incredible. I’ve never been as captivated as I was during my journey through it.
Shadowbringers was actually the very first time I’d played an expansion during its launch. Mrs Stix actually took several days off so we could play through the launch of the game together and neither of us have regrets.

Story is merely one aspect of what makes a compelling MMO, though.
To a lot of players, combat is an integral part of what makes a game worth playing or not, and I agree.
Final Fantasy XIV is a tab-target MMO. The games I’ve played through the most, Tales of Pirates, Perfect World, World of Warcraft, and even Final Fantasy XIV are all tab-target MMOs.
I feel like I’m in the vocal minority, but general majority when I say that combat definitely takes a little getting used to.
If you’re beginning the game for the first time, you might feel as though the combat is slow, you have a lack of skills, and the global cooldowns eat away at your patience.
However, as you make progress through the game and your hotbars fill up with a plethora of skills, both on and off the global cooldown you begin to come to the realization that combat is much more intuitive than you may have originally thought.
I agree that Square handle this a little poorly during the leveling experience, though. Making lower level gameplay as slow as it is can deter people from playing early on, just like the fetch and retrieve quests as part of the main scenario.

Speaking of the leveling experience, there are quite a few methods with which you can utilize to hit end-game.
Whether you enjoy the main scenario or not, you’re required to continue with it to make progress through the game.
However, there are so many other methods of obtaining XP for your current job: FATEs which are open-world events that spawn, quests, your job’s hunting log, Palace of the Dead, dungeons, raids, job quests, guildhests, daily roulette, guildleves, the challenge log..
Seriously. Leveling should never be difficult, nor should you ever feel as though it’s a repetitious grind because, honestly, there’s just so many options to pass the time.
Since Mrs Stix and I always go tank/healer, the fastest method for us is to just stick with the main scenario quests while leveling through our daily roulette since it’s instant for us.

All of the aforementioned activities are PvE-oriented, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t PvP available for players interested. It just isn’t a very focal part of the game as – and I don’t mean to offend anyone by stating this – but Final Fantasy XIV fans just aren’t that into it.
What they are interested in are the raids: Savage-tier 8-player raids, 24-player Alliance raids, Ultimate-tier 8-player raids, and even Extreme-tier 8-player trials.
I’ll admit, I’m definitely not a hardcore raider. Mrs Stix does the most difficult content in the game and I see the mental toll it takes on her and the sheer time investment to push that kind of competitive content.
In the few hours I have each day to play MMOs – or games in general – I like to tackle it more casually. Back before I started this channel I did Mythic raiding in WoW, but that took up so much of my free time there’s no way I could ever see myself getting back into it.
I know, I know. Laugh all you want. But at least I can admit that I’m a filthy casual!

Oh! I can’t believe I’ve neglected to talk about classes and races this entire time. The class-system is one of the best parts of the game, after all.
There are 9 base classes total: Arcanist, Archer, Conjurer, Gladiator, Lancer, Marauder, Pugilist, Rogue, and Thaumaturge.
You play one of these classes until reaching level 10 I believe and obtain the ability to change to another class at your leisure, or continue to level 30 where you gain access to your advanced job.
There are 18 jobs total as of March 2020. Astrologian, Bard, Black Mage, Blue Mage, Dancer, Dark Knight, Dragoon, Gunbreaker, Machinist, Monk, Ninja, Paladin, Red Mage, Samurai, Scholar, Summoner, Warrior, and White Mage.
Other than the quite large selection of classes to choose between, which are actually labeled as Disciples of War or Magic, there are Disciples of the Hand – which, you guessed it, are the crafting professions. If you didn’t guess it correctly, no problem. I don’t judge you for not paying too much attention at this point.
Unlike most MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV requires you level these crafting professions up like you would a main class: It’s a slow, but very satisfying journey leveling your crafters.
These consist of the Alchemist, Armorer, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Culinarian, Goldsmith, Leatherworker and Weaver.
Honestly I’ve never been much of a crafter myself, traditionally purchasing everything I need from other players, but I both understand the importance of and appreciate players that take the time to level them.
Since you’re capable of changing your job at any time, this means there is absolutely no need for alt-characters. You can level everything on one single character – and can switch jobs on the fly.
This makes it easy to adapt to the task you’re undertaking, and as an altaholic, prevents me from having 10 Human characters all identical in appearance but a different class like in WoW.
Then we have our selection of races: The Hyur, Elezen, Miqo-te, Roegadyn, Au Ra, Viera, Hrothgar and finally, our potato overlords, the Lalafell which, if after the main scenario doesn’t convince you that they’re a bunch of scheming evil masterminds.. you’re likely a Lalafell.

I know it’s important to have things to do outside of traditional PvE and PvP activities, though.
Thankfully while yes, crafting professions are definitely a thing, as is gathering, Final Fantasy XIV has a giant amusement park in the form of the Gold Saucer.
There are a plethora of different mini-games you can play, you can raise and race your Chocobo, participate in the Triple Triad, which is probably the only card game I’ve ever taken the time to learn.
But if that isn’t of interest to you there’s also a housing system in-game. Player housing is very extensive, and is one of the most sought-after features available.
This is due to there being a limit on housing lots, meaning regardless of how much Gil you have, you might not be lucky enough to acquire a lot to actually build the mansion of your dreams on.
And if, for some reason neither of these are of interest to you.. then there’s always Glamour: The end-game of Final Fantasy XIV.
Much like in Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV has so many gear-sets you can unlock via dungeons, raids, quests and a ton more through events and the Mog Station.
This provides players an outlet to express themselves in their characters. Well, I guess player housing also provides players the ability to express themselves. But that’s besides the point.
You can ask anyone: Glamour is the most important thing in the game. People are pushing for the highest item level gear? Pffft. Half the playerbase is still actively trying to get that set of boots that released a month ago.
Plus, let’s be real: Looking good in an MMO gives you a DPS bonus anyway. This is a secret that not many people are privy to though, so make sure you don’t tell anyone.

Final Fantasy XIV is a pay-to-play MMORPG. This means that to play the game, you’re required to purchase the game and then pay a monthly subscription fee to continue to play.
I know a lot of players, especially right now with all that’s going on in the world can’t afford to purchase the game, let alone the subscription fee. And considering they release new expansions every 18 months or so?
To me, it’s totally worth it. You’re paying for a game that is constantly updated with content that you can easily digest at your own pace.
You can stay subscribed for a month, participate in all of the current content for an expansion, come back a year later, subscribe for a month or two, finish all of the content available to you, then come back for the next expansion.
All in all, you might spend less than $100 every 2 years, total to play months worth of a game of this caliber.
I know Yoshi-P has talked about the game adopting a free-to-play business model in the future – or rather, he’s discussed the likelihood of it happening.
And honestly, I don’t think the game should ever adopt a business model other than what it has right now. It promises a certain level of quality that would definitely decline otherwise.

Final Fantasy XIV is an incredible MMO. The further you get through it, the more this becomes evident.
It has an absolutely gripping, fantastic story that I’ve not seen done to the level it has been done here in any MMO.
While the leveling experience, with regards to combat can definitely be slow and an arduous process to get through at times, it gets so much better if you stick with it.
Graphically, the game, and especially the zones are amazing to move through. The expansion content looks absolutely stunning.
The soundtrack, like most Final Fantasy games – and especially during Trials and Raids is.. out of this world. Like, go to Youtube and search for any Trial’s background music. You won’t regret it.
This is probably one of, if not the highest quality MMO I’ve ever played. I’ve had an active subscription to the game almost since the day I began without letting it cancel. That’s how much I support it.
Again, this doesn’t mean other games aren’t amazing in their own right. This is merely my subjective opinion of the game.

Hopefully, during all of the free time you have off right now this helps you decide whether or not you should play the game.

Lali-ho!

So I finished the main story for Shadowbringers 5 days after Early Access. I was there at launch and both my wife MrsStix and I took a whole week off work to play it.
Neither of us have ever been there for the launch of an expansion so this was a first for us.
We’d expected a lot of downtime, a lot of lag, errors, crashes and y’know, what you’d generally expect out of an expansion’s launch but honestly.. with the exception of a few hiccups, it went pretty well.
Kudos to Square Enix for making last week worth it.

Now to preface this entire thing I am going to say that I will do my utmost to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV for 7 months now and have enjoyed every moment of it. I even went as far as releasing a video titled “Final Fantasy XIV Is The Best MMORPG Right Now.”
As of recording this, that couldn’t be any more true. I- I literally cannot express how amazing Shadowbringers has been.
I played A Realm Reborn about 6 months before Heavensward released, and then dabbled in Heavensward somewhat around 6 months after its release, but didn’t play it full-time as a main game until 7 months ago.
I know that the base game, AKA, level 1 through 50 can be a little tedious to get through, especially with all the subsequent patches, but without playing through the story you won’t fully understand what’s going on.
I mean as an example… Ilberd’s fate is only satisfying if you know the history of the game and how he, along with certain other characters relate to the current story!
I know some people might pay to skip content or complain that the game sucks due to a lack of patience or understanding, but trust me, the development you see across the course of the game, especially moving into Shadowbringers is pretty incredible.

I didn’t think I could be this moved by an MMO. I played through Heavensward which had a fantastic story. Then I moved through Stormblood which was admittedly a little slower to start up but finished at peak hype for me.
So moving into Shadowbringers I expected it to start off slowly and build up over the course of the game and subsequent patches, but boy was I wrong.
Not only have I never been moved to this extent by an MMO, I would have never guessed it was possible to tell such a deep, rich, compelling story in the form of an expansion for an MMO!
Natsuko Ishikawa, you truly outdid yourself.
You have told one of the most amazing stories in a Final Fantasy game since the franchise was released, and the Reddit thread thanking you is proof that a lot of people agree with this sentiment.

Of course we wouldn’t have been nearly as moved had the voice acting not been the quality it was and the music.. Masayoshi Soken, you sir are a musical genius.

The leveling experience has been an absolute blast. There has been so much content to consume, so much voice acting, so much emotion and at the same time – so many laugh out loud moments.
Each and every area has been packed with what seems like an endless supply of players. Every single FATE that spawned had upwards of 20 people participating in it.
People were just.. everywhere. Doing every single thing you could think of. It was unreal.
I know that due to the release of the Gunbreaker class queues for Tanks have been quite.. okay, significantly different to what we’re used to but thankfully MrsStix mains a White Mage, and healers are currently in demand.
That allows for tanks like myself to skip through to the front of the queue and get right in to what I need to do!
I’ll admit that I was a little taken aback by not only how beautiful the world was, but how beautifully crafted the dungeons themselves were.
We’re quite the dungeon-whores in this family. We love grinding outfits, we love grinding gear, part of the journey to us is the grind so seeing how detailed each and every one of them was.. Man.
I swear, and this is no joke, that we’ve run each level 80 dungeon at least ten times now to almost fully fill us out in item level 440 gear.
That way we can begin running the Extreme mode 8-player raids we’ve been looking forward to without dragging down our teams.

I could say so much about Shadowbringers. It is by far the very best incarnation of the game to have existed – for me – thus far.
The world that they built is beautiful. I ended up not wanting to go back to The Source at the end because I just fell so in love with The First.
I will admit that at first the pruning of my skills concerned me and I found it a little difficult to acclimate to the new style of Warrior, without having my “Oh shit, I’m dying, pop self-heals” button.
But I’ve gotten used to how this plays and I’m still in the process of learning. MrsStix on the other hand loves White Mage right now and doesn’t want it to change, even though healers will probably see a small nerf in the future.
I couldn’t have thought of a better story to be told. A better villain to grace our screens. A better end to another chapter.

I know that the following patches that lead us back through The Source and to our ultimate enemy will be good, but I don’t think they’ll be as good, honestly, as what we’ve had the pleasure of playing through.
So while I plan on playing Final Fantasy XIV indefinitely going forward into the future, I would like to say thank you to the team behind the game. You’ve made it into something amazing and I hope for the continued success of the MMO.

What do you guys think of the expansion? Of the villain? Of where we’re at in the story right now?