I'm new to the game for a bit longer than a month and I found myself writing down my recent experiences in my first MMO (since MapleStory over ten years ago for a brief period) and I thought I'd share.
I'm an EN player on a JP server. I played the game like anyone else for a good chunk of time, alongside friends who had begun the journey alongside me. Before long, they weren't around anymore so I looked for something else to do. So I open the Party Finder. Well, the Japanese that I do know can't have been learned for nothing right? I spied an ad for a cafe... a pretend cafe in a game?
"That actually seems kinda fun".
I wandered into a room with a circle of chairs and two attendants beckoning me to one.
I had left the docks of Limsa and stepped ashore Kugane.
"What kind of place is this?" I ask.
"A flower garden in my head", she replies.
"You must have a big head", I retort.
I spent the rest of that night fumbling with the Japanese IME for the first time since Freshman Japanese (You'd think you'd use it more than you do) and having the longest Japanese conversation of my life thus far. Since then I've been interacting almost everyday with the Japanese playerbase and I've never had this much fun in an online game.
Today I'm at a café styled after the Showa era: the manager speaks with an elderly inflection, his sentences ending with jya. He's a little Lalaell dressed as an old butler.
He plays the role stellarly; ostensibly austere but with a sharp-witted remark wherever one is called for.
Two of us glitch into his fish tank. Today, old butler will be getting accused of having a penchant for trapping people in his fish tank. "Why would you trap me in here?", I cry. In a panic he desperately denies the claims and crumples to the ground. In not too long Mr Butler and I will be performing as an impromptu comedy duo. I'm the fool and he's the straight man.
Some days I burn the midnight oil watching people come and go through this bar. Sometimes they're bursting with excitement waiting to tell of their Nier drop, sometimes they just want to hear about someone else's day. The manager tells me she does voice work when only I and a 'staff member' are around. She doesn't want it to get out in game, she's quite a well known character for keeping the shop open late into the morning and it'd be too embarassing for her. Some days, the work keeps her back until 11. But the trains are still running and she's moved somewhere where the rent is lower so she can't complain. But if she could work in another field, it'd have to be something to help the community. "Hoho" her Rothgar companion remarks. Often she's asked if they're a married couple. Apparently they only know each in game. But that's a long story and one for another day she tells me. Instead she'll tell me about a secret café in an office building not far from the Tokyo Skytree.
One patron is intent on pretending to be a statue, standing in the corner, perfectly still, whichever establishment we end up at. I've come to calling him Figure-san. He calls me, a Miqo'te, the Hyuran with the Ears. I forgot to tell him Hyur have ears. One day, I playfully started using him as boxing bag. Light blue text on my screen: Figure-san fires a sleep dart into my neck.
Another day, I finish Stormblood. Finally a chance to get a Kamui. Except I'm hopeless trying to use the PT Finder. I meet a kindred spirit, and together we try to figure the web of Japanese Party Finder etiquette together. A more experienced fellow joins us. When EN players join, somehow, gee I wonder why, I end up as an interpreter, cutting down the langauge barrier between the two groups. "Geez gaijin are sure in a hurry" the experienced fellow says in response to a request to start undermanned that I translate. I try and change his mind. I'm a 'gaijin' too. We run Lakshmi 70 times, giving away 15 or so Kamui and getting ourselves and my kindred spirit one, him teaching the ins and outs of PT Finder etiquette along the way. The three of us are the core of the PUG Static that I play with, chatting over linkshell. "Again, sorry it has to be in JP time", he says. "Don't worry, I'm a vampire, the real deal" I assure him. "www"
After all that, I'm still fumbling with my IME, picking the wrong kanji for muzukashii, and checking a dictionary every 3-5 seconds. Yet I've never felt more welcome in a game. I never intended the community that I spend most of my time online with to be one that doesn't share my native language. Somehow though, I think it's working out. I came to the game expecting bosses, glamours, grinds and gear. I love them. But more than that, I love the little bits of humanity people will impart over packets of data. People meeting in a place with no goal in the midst of a new patch and new raids, there with only relaxation and fun in mind. People uniting across experience and language to get that one item you just can't get alone.
More than anything, I love that, across oceans, I get to be a part of that too.
submitted by /u/radioremixes
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...
I'm an EN player on a JP server. I played the game like anyone else for a good chunk of time, alongside friends who had begun the journey alongside me. Before long, they weren't around anymore so I looked for something else to do. So I open the Party Finder. Well, the Japanese that I do know can't have been learned for nothing right? I spied an ad for a cafe... a pretend cafe in a game?
"That actually seems kinda fun".
I wandered into a room with a circle of chairs and two attendants beckoning me to one.
I had left the docks of Limsa and stepped ashore Kugane.
"What kind of place is this?" I ask.
"A flower garden in my head", she replies.
"You must have a big head", I retort.
I spent the rest of that night fumbling with the Japanese IME for the first time since Freshman Japanese (You'd think you'd use it more than you do) and having the longest Japanese conversation of my life thus far. Since then I've been interacting almost everyday with the Japanese playerbase and I've never had this much fun in an online game.
Today I'm at a café styled after the Showa era: the manager speaks with an elderly inflection, his sentences ending with jya. He's a little Lalaell dressed as an old butler.
He plays the role stellarly; ostensibly austere but with a sharp-witted remark wherever one is called for.
Two of us glitch into his fish tank. Today, old butler will be getting accused of having a penchant for trapping people in his fish tank. "Why would you trap me in here?", I cry. In a panic he desperately denies the claims and crumples to the ground. In not too long Mr Butler and I will be performing as an impromptu comedy duo. I'm the fool and he's the straight man.
Some days I burn the midnight oil watching people come and go through this bar. Sometimes they're bursting with excitement waiting to tell of their Nier drop, sometimes they just want to hear about someone else's day. The manager tells me she does voice work when only I and a 'staff member' are around. She doesn't want it to get out in game, she's quite a well known character for keeping the shop open late into the morning and it'd be too embarassing for her. Some days, the work keeps her back until 11. But the trains are still running and she's moved somewhere where the rent is lower so she can't complain. But if she could work in another field, it'd have to be something to help the community. "Hoho" her Rothgar companion remarks. Often she's asked if they're a married couple. Apparently they only know each in game. But that's a long story and one for another day she tells me. Instead she'll tell me about a secret café in an office building not far from the Tokyo Skytree.
One patron is intent on pretending to be a statue, standing in the corner, perfectly still, whichever establishment we end up at. I've come to calling him Figure-san. He calls me, a Miqo'te, the Hyuran with the Ears. I forgot to tell him Hyur have ears. One day, I playfully started using him as boxing bag. Light blue text on my screen: Figure-san fires a sleep dart into my neck.
Another day, I finish Stormblood. Finally a chance to get a Kamui. Except I'm hopeless trying to use the PT Finder. I meet a kindred spirit, and together we try to figure the web of Japanese Party Finder etiquette together. A more experienced fellow joins us. When EN players join, somehow, gee I wonder why, I end up as an interpreter, cutting down the langauge barrier between the two groups. "Geez gaijin are sure in a hurry" the experienced fellow says in response to a request to start undermanned that I translate. I try and change his mind. I'm a 'gaijin' too. We run Lakshmi 70 times, giving away 15 or so Kamui and getting ourselves and my kindred spirit one, him teaching the ins and outs of PT Finder etiquette along the way. The three of us are the core of the PUG Static that I play with, chatting over linkshell. "Again, sorry it has to be in JP time", he says. "Don't worry, I'm a vampire, the real deal" I assure him. "www"
After all that, I'm still fumbling with my IME, picking the wrong kanji for muzukashii, and checking a dictionary every 3-5 seconds. Yet I've never felt more welcome in a game. I never intended the community that I spend most of my time online with to be one that doesn't share my native language. Somehow though, I think it's working out. I came to the game expecting bosses, glamours, grinds and gear. I love them. But more than that, I love the little bits of humanity people will impart over packets of data. People meeting in a place with no goal in the midst of a new patch and new raids, there with only relaxation and fun in mind. People uniting across experience and language to get that one item you just can't get alone.
More than anything, I love that, across oceans, I get to be a part of that too.
submitted by /u/radioremixes
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...