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Some years ago, I went to a restaurant when a co-worker. During the meal, he said,

"Just wait until you pass 30. Once you pass 30, your waist line will keep expanding. I have been there. It is an one way street."

I didn't know why he said that to me. He was way passed 30, but he wasn't fat in any measure.

I never have a weight problem myself either. In theory I can say I eat whatever I want. But the truth is I am used to eat normal meals. So usually I have normal diet with a bit from each food group. Then l naturally get full at some point and rarely really over-eat.

I didn't think much about it until Covid hit. We went into a lock down, and I have to work from home. I suppose it is when I started eating a lot of comfort food. With the delivery service now, it was convenient. Then there is no need to move a lot at home. I don't even need to walk to the train station. I suppose it was very bad for my health. A year and half later, my BMI hit the overweight line and so I need to lose weight.

I went on fasting, because I hate restriction on the type of food I eat. it was quite uncomfortable at first, but then I get used to it. A few months later I often just do 1 big meal a day, often having huge potion of roast in midday. Keeping that kind of diet requires getting used to a new schedule. Once I get used to a new meal time table, it wasn't too bad.

So what does it has to do with the queue in FFXIV?

This is what we face this expansion:





Whether your queue is 5k or 7k, in the end it translates to roughly a four hour queue time. So if you work in a normal job, get out of work at 6pm, get home at 7, four hours later is 11pm which is roughly bed time. People would say you can sleep at 7, then wake up at 11pm and game. Since at 11pm there is not much of a queue. Or if you like, you can sleep from 7pm then get up at like 2-3am and start gaming.

Sound legit? Well, assume you can actually fall asleep at 7pm.

Not only so, then you have to stay awake at some ungodly hour. For me personally, changing my schedule drastically mess up my diet. Thinking about it now, it actually makes sense. Our primitive self allure use to seek food for what any physical and psychology discomfort we feel. We don't just eat because we are hungry. We eat when we are sad, or bored. Food helps us to stay awake and somewhat focus.

So why do I talk about my diet first? When changing play hour to avoid queue is a legit move, it is more difficult or sometimes just doesn't work some people. I think other people has more legit reason than mine. I just feel that my normal sleep cycle is messed up, my diet messed up, and I feel exhausted every single day. All for the sake of a video game.

Did I manage to adjust my life to log into this game at launch? Yes.

Does it worth it? I have my doubt.

Even after you login, you can still get weird stuff.



It is worse in the weekend, because once you know you login, you don't want to log off. Because if you ever log off, depending on what time in the day, you could face another 4 hours of queue.

I think Alphinaud accidentally summarizes the situation.




Of course, hindsight is 20/20. There are actually three ways to solve this queue problem, from good, bad to really dumb.

Good way: On the launch day, transfer to a server in different time zone. So while you play in normal hours, for them it is either midnight or early morning. Your PF queue will be slow if you play dps, but it doesn't matter given MSQ gives a lot of exp, FATE and Trust all give a good amount. For me, it will either be the US East coast server or JP server. If you raid, come back to your original server the day before savage.

Sure this cost you $36 on server transfer, but you have no stress, no need to make any adjustment in your life.


Bad way: Hack, adjust your life. Mess with your health, sanity. Go to bed at 7pm and come back to the game at some ungodly hour with no queue. In the weekend, login before 11am and never logoff, until you have to pass out. Take some days off from work so you can play all day.

The upside of this solution is it costs you nothing money wise.


Really dumb way: Do none of above, but start a post on reddit, forum, lodestone, FB to bitch about this situation. When there are 7000+ people queuing in a server, you bet no one in SE notice? And if they have extra servers, you bet they are hiding them under their mattress? Supposedly anger help speeding up your queue, so be as angry as possible. Do whatever, but the queue will STILL be four hours.


Well, whatever happened happened. We should be looking into the future. I guess the suffer will be a bit longer because the extra play time Yoshi-P has given us. I will be unsubbing, and in the coming year, my target is to sleep better, eat better, have a healthier lifestyle in general.