In case you missed it, Final Fantasy 14 had a bit of a moment this weekend. The game had an all-time concurrent player count on Steam, thanks in part to habitual World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold, who decided to try the rival MMO out for the first time. For the most part, it was a lovely little stream. Over 200,000 viewers tuned in to see Asmongold descend upon Eorzea for the first time, and he seemed to really enjoy himself.
But with all things in life, it didn't take long for some clowns to spoil the fun. As soon as Asmongold landed in the first public area, he was greeted by a mountain of other players. If you've never played Final Fantasy 14 before, some of the classes have pretty obnoxious animations (looking at you, Dark Knight) and certain unlockable mounts are massive. They can already be an eyesore on their own, but trying to get through a group of them can be a nightmare. Clusters of people can make it difficult to select specific NPCs or objectives, and large mounts or animations can easily obstruct your view.
Asmongold seemed to be a fan of the initial crowd, if not a little overwhelmed at the sheer clusterfuck, laughing off the chaos. But as time went on, it was clearly becoming more difficult for him to play and enjoy the game. "Listen guys, guys. I can't deal with all that, chill out," he told his fans while trying to sort his class quest out. "Chill out boys, chill out."
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The mounts and crowds were relentless for the entirety of Asmongold's 10-hour stream, only yielding for brief periods when his character would poof into an instanced quest or dungeon. The chaos continued into yesterday's 8-hour stream, with one character riding a gigantic whale mount being especially irritating. It was clearly an unwanted presence by Asmongold, and you can feel his irritation building through his second stream.
Thankfully, it looks like the game's GMs stepped in to help sort things out. A player claiming to be the whale mounter shared a screenshot over on 4chan, showing an email from Square Enix banning the user for harassment and disruption. The ban was then shared on reddit, with the majority of commenters agreeing it was well-deserved.
It's honestly a little frustrating watching Asmongold trying Final Fantasy 14 for the first time. I can't help but feel like having hundreds of stalkers following you around, killing your mobs and purposely hovering their giant-ass mounts over NPCs and quests would get tiring real fast. Asmongold said he's enjoying the game so far though, and hopefully the stream snipers will die off over time.
