To say that Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn is absent this classic MMO trait would be stretching the truth, but given the updated game’s refreshing variety of content, much of the friction of grinding has been smoothed out. However, there are still plenty of players who are comfortable buying their way to the top, and a growing market of gold farmers to provide them with just that service.
MMOs historically feature a staggering amount of content. Getting through it all can be a prolonged affair, and in some games brings new meaning to the term ‘grinding.’ For players who get sucked in, becoming a powerful character often takes long
hours, and these hours—at least, after a while — can start to feel a lot like hard work.
As someone who played in Final Fantasy 14‘s beta and early access period, I distinctly remember Final Fantasy XIV Gil firing up the game on its first official day of release and watching as the chat window began to fill with spam from mule accounts for websites selling in-game currency. Months later, I still take the time to blacklist each character filling the chat with promises of cheap Gil. When these messages do crop up, they come so quickly that the chat text is constantly moving, making it simultaneously difficult to get a bead on the character in need of blacklisting, and impossible to hold a text conversation with in-game friends. On rare occasions, I’ll even get private messages to buy Gil.It’s amazing how quickly these sites popped up, but as time has gone on and more people reach the highest points of the game, I’ve seen the market for these services really develop.
