There’s much to be said about making a fun experience even easier for people to enjoy. It’s been a running theme for the tech of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn to find ways to give newer players a way to either catch up to established players or otherwise find other ways in which they can enjoy themselves.
Whether it’s weddings, organized PVP, or even an in-game roleplaying event hosted by an adventuring guild, FFXIV knows it can deliver fun on all these fronts, so why not give people something that might make setting up those events even easier?
Enter a recently released tool on the Lodestone for players to take advantage of: The Event and Party Recruiter.
Remember the Lodestone?
While a good number of US and EU players likely use the forums, Reddit, or some other external forum to organize events and adventures, I’ve heard that there’s a contingent of Japanese players who regularly use the FFXIV Lodestone for their socialization needs.
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This may be Square Enix’s attempt to expand the usefulness of the Lodestone to increase adoption of the site beyond its exhaustive database of information, its blogs, and its regular news updates.
To that end, think of this new tool as a means of helping Lodestone lovers inform others of upcoming events, as well as serving as an invitation for people to come join them.
Operating the “Virtual Duty Finder”
Much like the existing in-game duty finder, users of the new tool can basically say they they’re looking for a party for an in-game event.
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They can set the number of participants to scale to the event (up to a maximum of 24), though this becomes less of an issue if you’re hosting a sort of Final Fantasy Quiz Night under the lighte of an Aetherite Crystal.
The cool thing about this virtual duty finder is that you can even use it to inform people of events that may be happening out of the game.
Got a Final Fantasy themed pub crawl happening in your area? Use the Event and Party Recruiter to let people on all the servers know you’ve got a party!
Found the love of your life and are planning to profess real-life vows of matrimony? You can also set the information to be used among friends to inform them that you’ve got big plans happening.
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A Waste of Resources? I Think Not!
“Now Victor,” some of you may want to ask, “why would Square Enix waste resources on the Lodestone when there are perfectly functional avenues for this to occur online or off?
Personally, I don’t quite know. But I do like the effort put in to make a tool to help its userbase, even if it’s not directly going to benefit me in the immediate future.
I find it’s the same treatment some may have for a tablet version of FFXI. I think they bothered to “waste resources” because they want to take risks, even small ones, if they see it can be of use to a subset of users or prospective users.
My reasoning is that if there are some folks out there who want to play the game, but aren’t well-suited to exploring other online territories like the Reddit or a forum for whatever reason, then the Lodestone can be a safe space for them to operate.
Hopefully, the new Event and Party Recruiter can help some folks out there who love the Lodestone to find new friends and start grand new adventures!
