Greetings everyone!

The FFXIV Community team is back with another Community Spotlight! This time, we've reeled in a seasoned veteran in the world of all things fish. Presenting: Fruity Snacks!

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Community team: Please introduce yourself to our readers! Can you tell us your character name, World, race, and how long you've been playing FFXIV for?

Fruity Snacks: Hello! I am Fruity Snacks of Malboro. I'm a Viera and I've been playing since a little after Heavensward's launch back almost 9 years ago now. I am what many would call "a fisher main" or "that fish guy from Twitter." I host in-game fishing events and create guides on my YouTube channel on how to catch various notorious or notable fish in the game. I've written a 300+ page (and growing!) "book" on how to get started fishing in FFXIV, strategies for big fish, and instructions on how to catch close to 200 notorious or otherwise notable fish in the game. And on top of that all I'm a moderator of the Fisherman's Horizon Discord (aka Fishcord), and the founder and owner of the Eorzean Aquarium on Crystal!

Oh, I also own (at the time of writing) over 12,000 Momora Mora. Don't ask why.

Community team: What inspired you to be such a committed FSH player?

Fruity Snacks: I just enjoy catching fish and exploring the game. Fishing takes you everywhere, even into little nooks and crannies, and keeps you there so you can appreciate the environment. It's the type of content where you need to work with other fishers to get information - sharing "fish tales" so to speak; I like content that lets players build their own lore and "myths." It's also just a fun challenge! Trying to do things or find fish that haven't been seen or done before. On top of all that, I find it really relaxing.

But I think what made me stick with fishing this much - to host fishing events, make guides, and even make the Eorzea Aquarium - was the community. The FFXIV fishing community (even beyond the Fisherman's Horizon Discord), is one of the most open, helpful, and welcoming communities in the game. The community always amazes me with what they do and the passion they commit to it. It's an honor to be a part of it and to help them host events.

Community team: Why do you think fishing can be appealing to FFXIV players?

Fruity Snacks: It's a way to learn and explore the world of the game, as each fish tells a story about the area or zones it's in. It's also a challenging side-project, like I mentioned. Going fishing whenever you are free, figuring out strategies, or trying to get high scores when ocean fishing - there's a lot of things to do and challenge yourself with. It's also extremely unique and that alone is something that can be appealing - there's nothing else like it in the game. We joke that fisher was the first true "limited job" before blue mage was added and coined the term.

Community team: We'd love to hear about FishFest! How did it come to be?

Fruity Snacks: FishFest is an in-game fishing event in FFXIV that anyone - fisher or not - is invited to. I first thought up the idea of a FishFest with the idea of creating a big in-game event for fishers to come and just celebrate all things fishing in FFXIV. It would be a big keystone event for the whole fishing community to contribute to and look forward to. With the launch of the Eorzean Aquarium though, I had to shelve the idea because the Aquariums became a bit bigger than I was expecting.

It wasn't until a few months later when the Eorzean Aquarium hosted FOUR panels about fishing during LunarCon 2022 [a player-organized event] and the community memeing about a "FishCon" that I pulled the FishFest idea back out. In February of 2023 we hosted a pilot FishFest on Crystal, which was a two-day event with ocean fishing, fish panels, fish trains and more! It was a big success, but it wasn't as inclusive as I wanted it to be.

So in 2024, we went wider, and hosted FishFest events on NA, EU, and OCE servers because the fishing community isn't just on Crystal, and I wanted to start to build an event that could include as much of the global fishing community as possible. So, working with fishers from those regions we put together events and even localized as much as we could into four languages beyond just English. FishFest 2024 went well and we're planning to do it again in 2025!

Community team: We've heard some krill-iant things about the Eorzean Aquarium! Care to tell us the story behind its establishment and if there's a specific area you're particularly proud of?

Fruity Snacks: The Eorzean Aquarium started out as me wanting to make an in-game place for fishers to hang out, get bait and gear, or ask for help with a specific fish. Then I realized you could use FC rooms to get enough fish tanks in a single house to display every aquarium fish in the game. I jokingly mentioned this to some folks in the Fisherman's Horizon Discord and immediately had a ton of volunteers to help make that idea a reality. About a month later, 25 volunteers (including myself) finished the Eorzean Aquarium where we had every aquarium fish possible on display, structured like an actual real-life aquarium.

Since then, the Eorzean Aquarium (as a group) has continually hosted fishing events, tours, FishFest, and more. We've even made two more Eorzean Aquariums on Spriggan (EU) and Sophia (OCE) to support the local fishing communities there, AND because they all got to be so big, we made annexes which have special exhibits about fish lore and more that aren't typical "aquarium" set ups.

There isn't a specific "physical" area of any of the aquariums that I am not proud of. What I'm most proud about, though, is how folks have really taken to the Eorzean Aquariums. Each of the aquariums has its own distinct style and feel, defined by the players from that region.

They're not just a place to see fish now - fishers have turned the aquariums into unofficial fisher guilds. Players use our aquariums for FC events, date nights, and parties. Heck, we get visitors coming to celebrate getting Grandmaster Caster, Big Fish, and Final Fish titles. You ask a handful of fishers what they'll do to celebrate getting a fish that has been nagging them, and a couple will say "I'm going to the Eorzean Aquarium!" There are folks who have started fishing because of the Eorzean Aquariums, and others have decided to make their own aquariums as well.

I think how the aquariums have inspired and grown into the fishing community has made me the proudest, something that wasn't really in the initial plan, and nothing I really ever expected to see. I'm truly amazed and shocked by the response.

If you want to visit your local Eorzean Aquarium, you can check them out at these addresses:

Eorzean Aquarium Crystal: Lavender Beds, Ward 16, Plot 59, Malboro, Crystal

Eorzean Aquarium Spriggan: The Goblet, Ward 20, Plot 34, Spriggan, Chaos

Eorzean Aquarium Sophia: Lavender Beds, Ward 1, Plot 58, Sophia, Materia

Community team: Can you tell us about your community's challenge to catch every fish during the cloud data center stress test?

Fruity Snacks: The Fishing Derby was an impromptu event the Fishcord did when the cloud beta server stress test was happening. The cloud servers created this really unique opportunity for fishers to all start from the same starting point with the same resources, and it was suggested the Fishcord do some sort of challenge event with it. So, a few folks decided on the idea of a Fishing Derby that wasn't just a competition, but a challenge to see if - as a community - we could catch every available big and legendary fish up to and including those released in Shadowbringers. It was 247 Fish in a week that had to be caught, and... we did, in only a few days, surprisingly.

To have a bit of a competition though, we also set up a secondary challenge to see who could catch the most big fish during the week. I went through all 249 big fish (minus the ones that weren't available during the test) and gave them point values. At the end of the test, fishers submitted images of their fishing guide to show what big fish they caught, and then we'd tally up their points. Some folks got really into this and a couple caught 242 of the possible 247 big fish available during the test - all in a single week. To anyone who fishes, you know getting even 100 fish in a week is a challenge. It was a ton of fun and I hope that in the future we get an opportunity to do something like it again but include Endwalker fish as well!

Community team: How do you go about creating a guide for a specific fish? Is there a lot of trial and error?

Fruity Snacks: Initially when making guides, I'll look at fish that are similar to the one I'm making a guide on, then base the fish's guide's strategy off that. The community works together to share data and strategies so a lot of trial and error is spread out across a lot of other fishers. That said, I always test the strategy myself, and when I record or write a guide, I always make sure the guide is clear enough that basically any fisher is able to follow it, whether it's their first fish or their last. Depending on the fish, I'll be able to make a guide using just my first catch, but there's been a few times when I needed a few catches to make sure the presentation was clear enough for any fisher to understand. It can take a lot of time to make a guide, especially if the fish isn't biting!

Community team: Which fish evaded your line for the longest, and are there any fish left you haven't caught?

Fruity Snacks: I have caught every fish in the game, but I haven't tracked tribe quest fish (since they aren't in the fishing log), so I may be missing a few of those. Of the fish in the fishing guide though, I've caught every one at least twice, maybe three times - some probably hundreds of times!

I don't think any fish stood out as taking longer (than I expected it to) more than Pearl Pipira. Caught in the Red Chalice in the Rak'tika Greatwood, this is a fish that I was angling for as soon as it was added, primarily looking to be the first (ever!) to catch it during what the fishing community calls "Discovery period." Discovery period is a community event whenever new fish are added to the game and the fishing community works together to determine the conditions for catching those fish (because the game doesn't tell us!). A lot of people (myself included) will forgo doing MSQ or new content for days because we just want to find all the new fish added first.

Anyways, I was primarily spending my time narrowing down when Pearl Pipira wasn't catchable (it was a lot of failed windows). I never did catch it first, nor did I catch it during the discovery period. It took me maybe another 20 windows before I finally caught Pearl Pipira, and is no-contest the longest it's taken to get a single bite from a fish. Even the really rare fish like The Second One, Cinder Surprise, or Ealad Skaan were less shy and more cooperative.

▲ POV: You are a fish about to be caught

Community team: What advice would you give to a player picking up fishing for the first time?

Fruity Snacks: Fishing in FFXIV is not like fishing in any other game. Fishing is slow! Fishing can take time, especially if you're hunting specific fish. Fishing is also something where you get out what you put in. If you go into fishing expecting a bad time, you'll most likely have just that; so have fun. If you're ever stuck or confused on something, ask another fisher! The fishing community is super welcoming to new fishers and is always willing to answer questions.

Community team: Finally, do you have any tips for all our fishers out there that could be helpful?

Fruity Snacks: Do your job quests! Not only are they great for leveling, they also teach you a lot of fishing mechanics, and are actually pretty good (props to the writer and localization team for those!). Quests also will unlock new skills that help you catch more fish, get collectables, and even score more points in ocean fishing.

Read your skill tooltips! While sometimes they are ambiguous, they are somewhat clear cut on what they do and don't. Like the skill Patience and Patience II, they help you land large-sized fish (not big fish) and get Angler's Art stacks - so if you're mooching a lot, they're really useful skills to use.

Beyond that, have fun with it. Fishing is one of the very few things in the game that intentionally puts you in spots off the beaten path during rare times when you wouldn't usually be there. You'll see zones at different parts of the day, or during rare weather (which, yes there is "rare" weather!). Every fish tells a story, either about the zone or the world. If you enjoy FFXIV as a game, fishing will help you enjoy the world of FFXIV.

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Did that hook you? Follow Fruity Snacks and his fin-tastic adventures on X and YouTube!