beginning of the end

Back in civilization, I learned that the Endwalker launch has been a hot mess. There are hours-long queues to enter the game. Square has apparently stopped sales of the game because they can’t handle the volume of players.

Good thing I bought the expansion before the embargo hit. At the time of the move, I still hadn’t finished the Shadowbringers MSQ. I wasn’t even that close to the end; I was midway through patch 5.4. “You’re a year behind!!” said Dante. To be fair, I had been planning to catch up before Endwalker, but then I was away from home for several months due to a fire, so here we are.

Over the weekend, I finished Shadowbringers and began Endwalker. By Sunday night I got through the Tower of Zot (the first dungeon). It helps that I basically ignore all optional content except raids. The others are really into the optional content—all the sidequests, beast tribe quests, crafting, hunt trains for tomestone farming, S rank spawning, etc. I enjoy being around them; it’s always fun hanging out while they do stuff. But I’d never do it myself. I’m just here for the plot and team activities.

When you think about it, Emet-Selch is a very modern villain. He’s a richly developed character with sympathetic motivations. At the end, we understand each other’s goals, yet history and circumstances have put us irrevocably at odds, and isn’t that sad? (I’m being somewhat flippant, but Emet is legitimately my CotY 2019. Geez, has it really been that long?) Anyway, Fandaniel doesn’t go for any of that. He’s an old-school villain. He just wants to fuck up shit because he can. In a way, it’s refreshing. But he’s also an obnoxious twit, so there’s that.

We didn’t raid this weekend because we’re all doing Endwalker content, and the queue times make coordinating an eight-man activity a total mess. It’s also not clear who will be on the team going forward. KJH and Tiro seem interested in joining. Silver hasn’t said anything, but it feels like he’s wanted to drop for a while. If he leaves, who’s our second healer? numbers, maybe? (He healed for us during Thordan, which we still haven’t beaten.) newbie has been training his astrologian, but HGR recently told him, “If you bring your AST to UCOB I am going to jump off a building.”