The Arena

As Darth so eloquently stated at last week’s meeting, tomorrow we’ll be unleashed upon Final Fantasy XIV. How could it be anymore exciting than that?

After all those months of beta testing, reading complaints on the forums, attempting to submit bug reports, designing linkshell policies, meeting new faces (still looking forward to this one!), meetings, blog posts, and assorted other fun time-spends, I get to keep doing all these things but also play a video game. For me, this comes close to blissful. I have many passions in my life–my girlfriend, counseling, science-ficiton–and when it comes to gaming I feel the call quite strongly.

I’ve never been content just being another member. In my early career in FFXI, as just another member of various linkshell, I found it very difficult to stand by and watch linkshell leaders install stupid rules that made no sense, or only made sense if you were in their positions. This absolutely irritated my moral code. Everyday that went by under such reigns shaved away to the core of my good sense until I finally could not stand it anymore and would say something. This was very close to happening in Vengeance and eventually happened in IntoTheVoid. Later in my career it happened very early in Karasu, and I was already at my breaking point with shitty leadership, and took over the linkshell on M*ze’s request, but also because I wanted to try my hand at molding something.

When I came over to Aion, I took a big backseat role in both major legions I was in. I did this because I knew the game would not last. Maybe the talk influenced me, maybe I’m a psychic. In either case, the result was the same. I did not take anymore responsibility than I wanted to, but man did I come very close. While I was never approached about taking a leadership position, I was indirectly offered one at more than a handful of occasions, but each time by a leader who clearly wanted to pass the torch. Call me crazy, but I thoroughly considered the possibility of taking over my first major legion, but I knew there was absolutely nothing to work with but an unmotivated playerbase. That isn’t the kind of environment I wanted to jump into. Besides, I was waiting for FFXIV and I just needed something to both pass the time, and give me the opportunity to stay sharp and consider what I was going to do when the time came.

Now we come to it. All “my” hard work is seemingly paying off. The forums are ready to go, the members are set to dive in, and leaders know what they need to do. What else is left? Well, a lot. The subject of poetry has only one thing to say on this matter and it goes something like “we come to the end of one frontier and begin a new journey”, and that is what this feels like. The unknown world (OK maybe not entirely unknown!) lies before me and the troops. There are no doubts now. My mind is clear. I am ready for anything. Nothing is more thrilling right now than the possibility of meeting this new venture head-on.

Neutral Impact is ready to rock!