The topic of conversation is thusly changed to quitting FFXI - however unspeakable of a thought that might be - and Wyn relates to me, "Some people see real life getting in the way of the game, but it's more like the game getting in the way of real life. Some people have stuff to take care of, and that's your thing - you gotta take care of it." During his span of almost two years, he has taken a break or two, confident that others can administer to the guild in his absence.
But it seems clear enough to him that just I don't get it, and so he pushes FFXI to the background in order to show me a commemorative video made by some members of a different, now-defunct FFXI guild. Despite the initial oddity of watching a bunch of gameplay footage set to Coldplay's "The Scientist," the emotion conveyed is painfully clear, and Wyn and his brother have ceased paying attention to me in favor of pointing out old friends and recounting war stories. Finally, the video culminates in a goodbye ceremony, fireworks appear around all the players' avatars, and the leader discards the pearl that represents the clan, forever deleting the Linkshell from the server's binary consciousness. It is a solemn moment, certainly no less grave as learning that Darth Vader was Luke's father or helplessly watching Aeris get impaled.
And so Wyn looks back at me, and I think he sees something he didn't before, because he tells me, "Every time I see this video, I wanna cry, man. The leader just drops the pearl. That's the end." No doubt he is thinking of what will happen to his own pearl, one day, when his TeaStation comes to an end and the daily bantering and porn jokes and coordinated events are no more. But the preparations are complete, after an hour or so of waiting, and off TeaStation goes into the wild blue yonder of San d'Oria.
The rest of the evening is pretty uneventful - the hectic melee that I'm watching on the TV is far beyond my comprehension, and before long it is time to go, so we pile into our borrowed Honda Civic and leave Wyn to his own devices. He's got me thinking, though. While the rest of the gaming population writes off online RPG gamers as escapist addicts (which may be true) that are addicted to running the level treadmill (which, no doubt, many are) it seems a little bit less fair to do so.
No, Wyn will not leave FFXI with a degree, nor will he obtain the kind of work experience he can cite on his resum
