Players of online games create amazing things when coming together to create art, as playwrights, performers, venues, and roleplayers in all sorts of games bring a unique sort of life to the virtual spaces they inhabit. Final Fantasy 14 is a prime example of this, with the sprawling community earned by its massive commercial success.
The latest effort to grace the world of Etheirys is a music festival based on the real-world Woodstock. Called Mogstock, this festival attracts music aficionados and roleplayers, and it spans the entire weekend of July 14-16. Mogstock will be held through the subdivision of Lavender Beds Ward 22 on Mateus, on the Crystal Datacenter. Several leaders of the three-day in-game festival sat down with Game ZXC to discuss the development of Mogstock, the scale of their festival, and the broader state of roleplaying and performing arts in Final Fantasy 14. The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Can you all introduce yourselves?
Lockheart: I'm Clayde Lockheart, I founded the idea of Mogstock, and I'm also a co-organizer of the event. I recruit most of the bards and bands that play, and also I host the show as we run in it in those three days.
Eno'traeh: Hi! I am Demytrya Eno'traeh, one of the original organizers and lead coordinators of Mogstock. Alongside Clayde and Viy, and then Tro, Lledwyn, and Minha, I would like to hope I have played a crucial role in bringing this extraordinary event to life. I have run large-scale festivals before in World of Warcraft and other games, so when we first conceptualized the event, I stepped up to manage festival logistics and design elements. I have been the point person in shaping the in-game aesthetics of the festival environment and out-of-game aspects of Mogstock such as Carrd design and sponsor organization, as well as sort of being one of the point people in speaking to everyone that gets involved with our festival each year.
You'll often find me leading up to Mogstock, talking with our sponsors, creating miniature venues for them to run and promote themselves during the festival, and getting with the people who run the supporting activities that make the festival stand out as unique including the information booth folks, the festival giveaways, how to get sponsors involved in meaningful ways if they aren't bards or performers themselves, etc.
Cohrvenn: I’m Mihna Cohrvenn, the newest member of the organization team, a 10-year Final Fantasy 14 veteran, and lead graphic designer for Mogstock as well as co-owner of our Carrd.
I’ve only been barding for the past year, but I absolutely love it. Clayde and I run an octet called Final Fantasia.
Moonrose: Hello again! I am Tromad Moonrose, I am one of the organizers of Mogstock, I have served in many roles in support of the team! I have been in the Bard environment since 2018. I eventually became a Macro dancer and then a DJ. I’m also part of the admin teams of Curtain Call Theater Company and Eorzea Dream Festival.
Q: What got you all into Final Fantasy 14?
Cohrvenn: I’ve been into Final Fantasy games since I was a teen—Final Fantasy 9 was my first and is still my favorite. I started playing Final Fantasy 14 during the ARR beta because a friend of mine was going to play with me. They ended up never getting the game, but I loved it so much I just never stopped playing.
Moonrose: I have always been a big fan of MMORPGs and Final Fantasy has always held a special place in my heart. I joined in 1.0 and uh… had to take a break shortly after. When I came back for Stormblood, I was much more impressed and stuck with Final Fantasy 14 ever since!
Eno'traeh: I've been into MMORPGs since their inception. From Everquest to World of Warcraft and many others in between, but what really got me into Final Fantasy 14 was the extraordinary world they have created and also the exceptional player-based mentality that they have under the lead of Yoshi-P. I initially came over with my writing partner, Lledwyn, who also I should add does the same logistics stuff I do that I mentioned above. He really has done some of the amazing Carrd and tech work that has always made us stand out as a professional outfit in terms of our festival.
Cohrvenn: Yes, I co-run the Carrd, but Lled did all the heavy lifting on it! I’ve just come on board to help keep it up to date. He is definitely the lead on that.
Eno'traeh: Anyways, I digress - the point is, I've never seen an MMO that has been so incredibly focused on the detail work that Final Fantasy 14 has been in such an all-around and inclusive manner. When getting friends to come join us in the game, we would often go on about how just when you thought you beat the game you could suddenly discover and tackle some whole new element of the game to get you excited. It literally is a game with just about anything for every person. PVE, PVP, roleplay, crafting, unique elements such as barding and housing. It's hard to imagine a more robust game to be able to create virtual worlds with friends in.
I think it's fair to say the very first night we conceptualized Mogstock, we wanted it to reflect the diversity of the game and all it has to offer.
Lockheart: I started playing Final Fantasy 14 when ARR was first introduced. I was heavily into MMOs and wanted to try what Final Fantasy had to offer. I lost interest after a bit and didn't really pick it back up until 2017 when I discovered that Final Fantasy 14 had bards that could play instruments. I soon started learning all I could about music and how to make music work in-game, since music has always been a passion of mine. I did covers of songs and tried to get them to sound as best I could. After realizing one bard wasn't enough, I then transitioned into a duet, to a trio, and then I met my partner Mihna where we came up with our octet, Final Fantasia.
Q: Outside Mogstock, what do you all do in the broader Final Fantasy 14 community?
Moonrose: Outside Mogstock, I assist Curtain Call Theater Company with logistics and head the Eorzea Dream Festival which happens every four months. I also run my RP venue the Blue Miqo’te and DJ for a variety of events within Final Fantasy 14. I have been also discussing returning to Macro Dancing to get back into the creative side of Final Fantasy 14.
Eno'traeh: Lledwyn and I co-lead a large RP FC called the Eternal Star and run RP venues such as the Elysian Springs Spa and The Covenstead, but we also sort of made our mark in the Final Fantasy 14 community as housing designers. Coming from World of Warcraft where we had the bare minimums of housing, we longed for the ability to make the vibrant worlds we were writing about in our stories and RP come to life, so we were heavily focused on that element of the game (and still are). It's how I initially met most of these folks here–we designed their venues. We've designed over 100 venues and homes for Final Fantasy 14 players across the Crystal data center and into the other DCs as well.
We also do a good bit of work with other RP groups and are big into helping create immersive and continuity-oriented stories within the Final Fantasy 14 roleplay community.
Cohrvenn: I’m actually a fairly private person and not really active in big communities in general—I tend to just stick with my friends and my Free Company. Most of the organizers are from worlds on the RP data center and I play on a data center that doesn’t RP–it was actually a huge culture shock the first time I traveled to Crystal!–so that may also be part of it. But I’ve been visiting Crystal a lot more over the past year doing bard shows with Clayde, and it’s been a really fun experience.
Q: What data center are you from, Mihna?
Cohrvenn: Primal. It’s been pretty fascinating to see just how different the culture on different data centers is. On Crystal, people are openly RPing in public areas all the time. You never see that on Primal. And just so there are no misunderstandings, I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all! It’s just a totally different experience from my data center. I’m still not completely used to it. Sometimes I feel like I’m intruding on someone’s private conversation, even though they’re talking in public chat! But I think it’s really great that Crystal has such a welcoming RP atmosphere that people feel comfortable enough to show that side of themself publicly.
Lockheart: I try to perform for venues when I can. I sometimes will just randomly hop into a venue or a restaurant that I notice doesn't have a bard or band playing and will ask if they want some free entertainment (Tips are appreciated, not needed). I always like to help out the community as best as I can, and it's how I met Demytrya and offered my assistance there for free. We've been good friends ever since, and without that interaction, Mogstock would've never become a thing.
Q: Aside from the obvious Woodstock inspiration, where did the idea of Mogstock come from?
Eno'traeh: You just want us to talk about TinyClub so Demytrya gets kicked out, I can see the devious plotting behind that question!
Moonrose: Too late, TinyClub was already revealed! How can I keep it a secret now? I’ve kept it for so long.
Cohrvenn: First rule of TinyClub!
Eno'traeh: It's a long-running gag of ours. You don't talk about TinyClub. It's literally the first and only rule (sort of, we make some rules up as we go) of TinyClub. Honestly, Clayde and Viy were both friends and Tromad also was a friend of ours. It came from late-night conversations where we sort of talked about the things we did. We'd literally sit in Maggie's Tavern, which is ironically one of the venue features of Mogstock, and we'd discuss cool things we could do or chat about interesting things going on. It was more this little seed that grew to what it is now as the conversations and our big pie-in-the-sky ideas started to happen throughout multiple conversations. Eventually, we stopped talking and started acting. We decided it needed to actually be a thing.
Q: What makes Final Fantasy 14 a good medium for music?
Moonrose: From my perspective, it’s the ability to gather people from around the world into either a venue or concert area. It's easy for folks to travel around the community to visit their favorite performers and venues. In real life, it could take hours of travel. In Final Fantasy 14? Less than five minutes. There’s also the variety of music and performances. Performers come from all over the world with their experiences and cultural favorites.
Cohrvenn: It’s such a satisfying experience to spend hours on a piece and then perform it in-game. That satisfaction is increased tenfold when you play it for a crowd of glowstick-waving people who love hearing what you’ve spent so much time on.
Eno'traeh: Music tells as many stories as roleplay or books can. It's just a method of communicating emotions and joy in a way that everyone can relate to.
Cohrvenn: There’s just no feeling like playing for a crowd like that. It’s a rush.
Eno'traeh: For instance, when Lledwyn is annoyed at me, instead of saying 'Look, Demy, I'm really annoyed with you talking about things you shouldn't, like–ahem–clubs!' instead, he'll play Yakkity Sax.
Lockheart: I think Final Fantasy 14 makes a good medium for music because of the community. This community has been the best I've seen in any MMO, and I've played plenty in the past. Mostly everyone is willing to cooperate, and I met so many who just want to listen to the music we bards play. Yes, there are some constraints to the music we play, but we try to make it sound to the best of our ability. We also have a community that wants to just check out the RP and venue scene, and with that comes the entertainment we bards can provide.
Cohrvenn: People just love music. You can plop down in any city-state and start playing, and you’ll always attract a crowd.
Eno'traeh: A celebration of one of the most amazing tools we've been given in an MMORPG environment. The ability to make and play music.
Cohrvenn: Part of the challenge to barding is the constraints like Clayde mentioned. Some of the satisfaction is working on a song to make it fit those constraints and having it sound great in the end.
Q: What limitations does the game present for an event like Mogstock? Both in terms of performance and sheer scale?
Cohrvenn: One issue is loading. The game will “remove” characters from your view if an area is too congested, which can mean you may have band members vanish if you’re not close enough, meaning you’ll be missing parts of the song. Minions and summons affect this too, which is why Mogstock staff will ask players to dismiss them if they’re in the area. But I think the way we have the bands set up helps avoid this issue. They play on small islands, so the standing room is more limited, and you can get closer without crowding because the whole thing is more crowded than a large public stage.
Lockheart: I think one of the biggest limitations to the game is sound channels and the way only so many notes on a bard instrument can be played at one given time. It makes adapting music a real challenge, and some songs seem just impossible to sound correct.
Eno'traeh: Really one of the biggest limitations is server capacity and hoping we don't crash the zone or end up not being able to play due to lag. I'd also say that it's scheduling - we have people that come to play from all over - getting up at 4:00 a.m. their time to make a set that is happening on server time (Crystal is PST based). It's also organizing what amounts to dozens of different groups coming together and wanting to be involved in performing, sponsoring, and just helping us make it happen, because they have appreciated the vision we had for Mogstock enough to want to throw their hats in the ring and be involved.
Q: What acts are you most looking forward to?
Cohrvenn: We have three headliner acts, each closing the show on different nights: The Songbirds, The Wiggles, and Broken [W]ings. Our Carrd has a section dedicated to the headliners!
Moonrose: I hear there’s this DJ Luna K [Tromad’s own DJ name] I’m really interested in seeing perform.
Cohrvenn: Oh yeah, I hear Final Fantasia, the best band ever, is playing. Run by some pretty cool people named Mihna and Clayde.
Lockheart: There are so many acts to choose from, I can't just choose one! Not from just music, but we do have a few artists who chose to dedicate time to Mogstock and draw fast sketches of characters! Zhalar Soulsong does it every year, and I don't know how he does it. He has a long line that stretches from one end to the other.
Eno'traeh: Headliners aside, there's so much to highlight about Mogstock. The bards and the music are the themes of the festival, but we also have all sorts of sponsors that are roleplay venues which we've created spaces for in-game that are absolutely lovely. People can walk their characters up to Camp Cloudtop in between watching performances and roleplay getting ice cream with friends, or going and getting a beaver burger or pizza. They can go dance at the Honky Tonk or talk to representatives from the Ishgardian sponsorship contingent. They can win prizes by keeping an ear out for the prize giveaways run by one of our sponsors, or stay late and play Ballafel or get into sparring matches hosted by fight clubs. Or go soak in the spa up the hill.
It's really important to emphasize how much these other communities truly help make and boost this festival. We wanted it to be an authentic festival experience, not just sitting and listening to a bard group play and leaving. It's a full-on immersive festival experience.
Cohrvenn: Disclaimer: Original festival experience. Not Woodstock ‘99 experience
Q: Mogstock is three days long. What made you decide to do such an expansive festival?
Lockheart: I wanted to follow the event that sprung up the idea. Woodstock ‘69 had three days of peace and music, and I wanted to bring that same idea to Final Fantasy 14. The Flower Power, hippie movement, and just the vibe and music of the whole show. Everyone coming together with peace, especially after the traumatic time we had during COVID-19.
Eno'traeh: The three-day idea was, I believe, mine. Having run a similar large-scale festival on WoW, Lled and I knew that in order for it to be immersive and hit on all the high notes we had all been talking about, we needed to make sure it would have the appropriate amount of time to do it. Plus, festivals like this usually do run the length of a weekend, so it made sense to do so. It allowed us flexibility and the opportunity to offer involvement that wasn't limited to the scope of a four-hour time frame save the date.
Moonrose: Three days gives us enough time to use up all the ice cream from the parlor and avoid heavy taxes on leftover dairy products.
Q: Did settling on a three-day event pose any challenges?
Moonrose: Absolutely. Mogstock is my third of five events for July. Please help me. My body and mind are breaking down. They chained me to the desk in the Mogstock back office.
Cohrvenn: This year, Mogstock is the first of three events I have had in three weeks. Mogstock is the biggest by far, though.
Lockheart: I think the biggest challenge was convincing others to do an event on such a wide scale, and also to do it for free. Most communities expect pay for anything they do in the game. Getting others to believe we can do that and actually cooperate with them, it's a huge ask. I think once people realize everyone else is doing it as volunteer work, they understand it more and just want to be a part of Mogstock.
Cohrvenn: I think one of the biggest challenges is the same one you run into with any multi-person event: It can feel like herding cats sometimes. You have multiple people signing up for the event, and you need specific info from all of them, but everyone has different schedules and frequencies they can check their DMs, so often you have to chase things down and don’t receive a lot of info til the last minute. Sometimes I feel like an octopus–all spread out trying to get everything I need from so many people.
Lockheart: I also can't stress it enough, if Mogstock wasn't all volunteer work, the event wouldn't be nearly as big as it is with all the help we receive. So many venues, staff, and sponsors are willing to donate their time and in-game gil to the event just for the love of the festival.
Eno'traeh: It's something that we really try to make sure all sponsors, performers, and creatives know in advance. That they won't likely get any gil out of it, but they will get what it is that the game has to offer, which is really expensive and immersive fun that is safe for work and just an all-around heck of a good time.
Cohrvenn: Yeah, most of the people donating services usually charge (and many aren’t cheap either). The fact that everyone is willing to donate their time and work really speaks to the character of the event.
Eno'traeh: For me, while it meant more work, it also meant that the festival would be able to really flourish and have the grand scale that we truly wanted it to have. For it to not simply be an 'event', but rather a looked-forward-to destination that people would walk away from with really great memories and hopefully a lot of new friends.
Cohrvenn: Mogstock definitely feels more like a destination than just a show. It takes over so much of the ward, from the bands to the venues. You can walk around and still be at the festival. It’s a really immersive event. Being in a RP data center really benefits it.
Q: Roleplaying has been mentioned a lot. Are you roleplayers?
Cohrvenn: Not me. Tried long ago, but it just never really clicked for me. I think it’s a really cool way to experience the game, though. People get incredibly detailed with their character backstories, relationships, etc. It’s really impressive.
Eno'traeh: How to answer that? One of the running jokes about me among friends that raid and PvE is that I'm to RP and housing design what really good raiders are to raiding. Savage mode! I absolutely adore writing collective and shared narratives and spend way too many hours doing so, which I probably should put to actual writing a book time or some such. That said, I'm a literacy/English teacher in real life, so RP is an ardent and passionate hobby of mine, and I can speak for Lledwyn on this and say his as well.
Moonrose: I am, I used to be heavy into RP. My character had a full backstory. In fact, that's how I came to know Demy and Lled. I came to join their FC because of the people and RP storyline. My RP has taken a more casual approach the last year, but I still try and keep the Blue Miqo’te an RP-centric bar and stage.
Cohrvenn: I’ve seen people accuse bards and RPers of not playing the game “right” because they don’t really battle or do story. But this game has SO much to offer—from crafting to gathering to fighting to just playing around—that there is no “right” way to play. If you’re having a good time, then you’re doing it right.
Eno'traeh: Right now the current project is creating soundbits for Carrd pages, and we might even be adding them and using watch2gether in our Fens set.
Lockheart: I've tried in the past, but I can't go as deep into character as others do. I try to play the part of being a bard and being one of the leads in Final Fantasia as well as being a solo musician. I think getting renowned for being a well-known artist is all I need to keep doing what I do.
Eno'traeh: We sort of do an RP immersive musical set where we tell stories before each song. Last year our whole story was about the Fens and how they came to be. Our characters are from the Tramdine Fens, which is known for the Vieran 'Witch of the Fens' story. This year we're broadening it out and speaking of the Vieran Journey into the West.
Q: Do you think Square Enix is supportive of the roleplaying community?
Eno'traeh: Absolutely. I think they see us as somewhat like adorable pests. We ask for a lot, but what we ask for tends to only enhance–and I secretly suspect, inspire–them.
Moonrose: I think SE is. They give us a lot of tools such as emotes, outfits, and housing items that help us play out our own stories. RPers also keep the game alive.
Eno'traeh: They also seem more inclined to answer questions and have some clarity regarding lore. Sometimes it gets a bit hazy, but they will offer broad responses to our questions that allow us to feel comfortable in our shared stories. And Tromad is exactly right–when content gets stale, writing is always there. Our stories continue on and evolve.
Cohrvenn: I can’t speak for RP specifically, but I can say that it really does feel like the Final Fantasy 14 team cares about its player base. It can be extremely difficult to listen to such a large number of people, but they really do hear us and make a lot of changes based on what we ask for. You don’t usually get that sense about a company running such a big MMO. I think that’s part of the reason you have so many people who have played for years and years.
Lockheart: One thing I want to point out is, we've had some trouble in the past with trolls trying to interrupt Mogstock, and they have taken action against them. For that, I think Square does support RP, as well as in-game events we hold. We've had a troll–giant roe just on the biggest mount possible–blocking a band. We told them constantly to move away. He got reported, and I'm pretty sure Square did away with them.
Q: From both the perspective of RPers and venues, what is your view of community content at the moment? What trends are there? You mentioned writing being there in content droughts, what writing is fueling Final Fantasy 14 right now?
Eno'traeh: For the community Lled and I run, personally, exploring Vieran culture and what it means for a group of people affected by a diaspora to have to come and merge into 'western' society that is dominated by the Grand Companies. There's always adventure and artifact or relic hunting, too. There are tons of communities out there running all sorts of stories, and I think we really tried to see that represented in Mogstock. We have adventuring companies, Project Ishgard that does RP stories based on Ishgardian politics and intrigue, restaurant owners, performance clubs, fight clubs–really you name it. I think the more intricate stories tend to spawn when people come together and begin the process of shared or collaborative writing.
Cohrvenn: How do RP fight clubs work, out of curiosity? Is it RPing with emote fighting? Or is there an actual battle aspect to it?
Eno'traeh: Emotes and dice.
Cohrvenn: Makes sense! As someone who doesn’t RP, the logistics of some of these things aren’t immediately obvious to me.
Eno'traeh: In a nutshell, they have a system set up that allows players to roll against one another to spar/fight. There are initiative-type rolls for those aggressing, and then defensive rolls for those countering. They do the rolls and then emote their responses based on who won the roll for any given set of interactions. Writing an appropriate response our outcome is based on the notion of being a shared narrative and the honor system.
Moonrose: From a RPer standpoint, there isn’t a lot of actual content. Most of what you see are clubs and there are a handful that actually have some kind of story for the evening going. But none that I have seen that have a continuous story. Demy’s FC and a few specialized RP groups keep the scene going, it feels like.
Eno'traeh: There are a lot of void themes out there right now, in reaction to the story we were given in Endwalker–people questioning what it means and how the Atomos play into it all, and what in fact are void creatures and the stories that build them.
I'd say Endwalker was super well received, too, so a lot of the roleplay you will see out in the open world has elements of that as players begin to weave their knowledge of the world and how it shifted into their stories. It was a bit harder with Shadowbringers due to it happening on the first. People were very excited to be able to begin delving into Sharlayan RP, as a counterpoint to Ishgardian RP.
Q: I’m also interested in your perspectives on the performing arts community in Final Fantasy 14?
Cohrvenn: I haven’t been to many performances myself, but I’ve seen some footage and people just blow me away with their creativity
Eno'traeh: Oh, there are some amazing groups out there doing things that just blow the mind. Tromad got us involved with this amazing group of movie content creators that make little mini-stories for YouTube and actually do full on scripting and directing of characters. Then there are groups that do full-on plays in their mansion–Boon and Kate's group–my brain is ticking on the name of them, but they do seasonal performances of plays. We went to watch their performance of the movie 'Clue', though they actually redo the scripts to fit into Eorzea. I know they have done productions of things like the Princess Bride, too.
Then there are groups that run smaller, more freeform 'get involved' activities such as storyteller circles, where characters are invited up on stages to go and tell the stories of their adventures.
Cohrvenn: We have some crazy levels of talent in this community
Moonrose: I am a huge fan of creativity. I love encouraging it, developing it. There is so much talent in the community tucked away in little corners and in some cases right in front of us. I think it’s important we foster that growth with the understanding that we are all in this together to create a world we can all enjoy. And when that world shuts down, I want to be able to look back with fondness and do something new with all my friends.
Lockheart: I saw a Phantom of the Opera Final Fantasy 14 event once, with full on music done by an orchestra. Was really cool how they turned off the lights and moved objects around to switch scenes.
Q: All right, last question! Is there anything else you'd like to add? Anything for readers to know?
Eno'traeh: Just to come and be ready for fun. We've worked hard and so have countless others in making this happen, and it's the sort of event you don't want to miss out on. There are lots of crowds, but there are plenty of ways to get into quiet areas when you need breaks, so that you can experience the full scope of the festival. And a massive thank you to the community for supporting us!
Cohrvenn: I can’t think of anything else I haven’t already said, just reiterating that this is a huge community effort, and it wouldn’t be possible without everyone’s very appreciated help and support!
Lockheart: I will say this is the biggest project and best project I've ever been a part of. Every year we try to improve and make it better. My only hope every year is that it's better than the last.
Eno'traeh: That's the dream. So far so good!
[END]
Final Fantasy 14 is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5.
