An Update at the End of a Quiet Month (Patreon)

Heya folks. If you haven’t noticed, it’s been pretty quiet around here lately at First Five, and that’s largely because I’ve been grinding through a larger-than-usual project. We’ll get into that in a second, but the most important news upfront: fair’s fair, I haven’t put anything out, so no charge for this month. But I will still be putting together a reading list!

Now for those interested, an update on the current project I’ve spent this month working on: I mentioned in my last post that I’m tackling Final Fantasy XIV, which is, uh, a much larger game than I usually cover. Specifically, I’m talking about how the game is fundamentally structured differently from any other MMO on the market in one very important way: it is not designed to siphon as much of your life as possible from you, and this difference in priorities can be noticed at every level of play in the game, whether you’re just starting out or playing through the endgame. It’s less about what makes the game good and more about what makes the game accessible. It’s a very First Five video for a decidedly not First Five game.

And shockingly, I actually got the time required to complete the project pretty close to spot on — I know this game pretty well and I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to say going in. What I didn’t get quite right in trying to plan this project out was how much time I would get to work on it. When I made that last channel update, I mentioned how there’s a lot I’m juggling right now in my life including some pretty heavy familial responsibilities, and those responsibilities grew a lot this month. And these days, I’m happy to even get a four hour work day in, but at this point, we’re getting pretty close to finished. The script’s rough draft is done, almost all the footage is finally gathered (there’s a lot), and that means I just have to actually put the thing together.

I’ve considered doing reviews for other games to try and at least get something out on the channel in the meantime (certainly plenty have come out this past month that are in my wheelhouse), but I want to publish this one while it’s still timely. I’ve seen what happens to projects when I just sit on them and promise myself I’ll find a random spare hour between the reviews to work on them. The last big project I tried to do like this has been languishing as a half-finished script since last November, and I didn’t want this project to turn out that way.

So! I know how disappointing it can be when the creators you back don’t have anything to give back, but hopefully that does a little to explain where I’ve been all month. Rest assured, I’m not a ghost and I’m certainly still working wherever and whenever I can, but this one needs a few more weeks in the oven, and then after that, we’ll be getting a few more reviews out before we get that Descent video wrapped up.