A new Netflix show about a kid playing the MMO Final Fantasy 14 with his out-of-touch dad totally nails the freaky and opaque behaviour of new players in MMOs.
FF14
Dad of Light is follows Akio, who lures his father into playing FF14 in an effort to finally forge a relationship with him. The catch: His father doesn’t know the cat girl he keeps encountering in-game is actually his son. A series of hilarious interactions ensues while Akio swoops in to save the day after his novice father picks fights with creatures he can’t beat.
Akio’s dad hadn’t played a video game since he covertly took over his son’s original Final Fantasy game late at night many years ago. So yeah, he keeps running into stuff:
Dad of Light
Dad of Light
The first time Akio’s avatar saves his father’s from imminent death, Akio tenderly approaches him, waiting for his dad to acknowledge him or perhaps say thank you. It was his moment to introduce his avatar to his father’s and finally get his dad to open up. Here’s what happens:
Dad of Light
Afterward, his father just runs away. It turns out that Akio hadn’t given him a keyboard. Is that why so many people do this to me in FF14?
After Akio finds his father grinding away experience points in a field, Akio’s FF14 friends convince him to start a conversation with his dad. Would he get that heartfelt thank you for saving him the other day? An invitation to play together? A rare moment of bonding? No. All he gets is “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…”.
Dad of Light
Then his dad runs away.
Dad of Light
It turns out that the keyboard he got his dad was stuck on the letter “A”.
Later on, Akio again saves his father from imminent death. This time, with a keyboard in hand, Akio will surely get that tender moment of bonding he’d been waiting for. And, yeah, he waits for it:
Dad of Light
Finally, an in-game day later, Akio’s dad communicates his first true appreciation for his son’s avatar. It just took him a long time to find the “kneel” emote on the emote list.
Dad of Light
As someone who’s accumulated many, many weeks (honestly, wow) of play time on MMOs, the behaviour of new players still baffles me. Who thought a Netflix show called Dad of Light would illuminate these great mysteries?
Comments
One response to “Final Fantasy Netflix Show Nails Weird Behaviour Of Rookie MMO Players”
These days I thought it would be more common that it’s the dad teaching the young kid how to play.
I went through the case in the article when I was around 18 and got my dad into Diablo 2 and then a bit later into World of Warcraft (told him it was like Diablo 2 but more direct control and other people were everywhere). It was pretty great, he played during the BC expansion and by level 68 he was still had horrendous mouse control and used the keyboard to turn. My wife (girlfriend at the time) found it amusing to hear my dad calling me from the other end of the house and saying stuff like “Where do I find the scouting report?” or “How do I do this quest? The murlocs keep killing me”.
Sadly he’s since passed away but the WoW days were a great time.
These days I’m going through the reverse process and teaching my 5 year old son how to play games. Oddly enough he started on WoW – I took a 5 years break and came back for Legion. So far he shows better mouse control than my dad ever managed. He also can’t read so no questions about where to find scouting reports but he does often get stuck on the terrain and come running to me saying he’s stuck in a hole.