Season's greetings one and all, this is the Community team!

For our next community spotlight, we'll be focusing on a creator who has become a driving force for the OCE player community ever since Materia was added to FFXIV in 2022. Though many--especially denizens of the Data Center Down Under, or those who tuned into the Who Wants to be a Gillionaire stage show at Fan Festival 2023 in London--would already be familiar with this name, we nonetheless are excited to introduce: SarahJane! Please, take the stage! ❤︎

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Community Team: Thank you so much for joining us for an interview! To kick things off, could you introduce yourself to our players and tell us about how you got into FFXIV?

SarahJane: Hi everyone! I'm SarahJane, but feel free just to call me Sarah or SJ! I've been a FFXIV player since 2015 and a content creator since 2018.

In 2021, I decided to switch from creating FPS content to streaming my all-time favorite game FFXIV. I got into FFXIV from seeing advertisements for Heavensward, and being in awe with the sneak peek we got for Au Ra. I just knew I had to try the game and create a character for myself! The graphics for FFXIV really captured me as well, I'm a strong believer that FFXIV is still THE best-looking MMO out there!

Community Team: We'd like to thank you for all the amazing work you've put into building such a welcoming community for Oceanian players! Did you always have the goal in mind to build this network, or did it emerge organically as you played?

SarahJane: It was a coincidence that I started to stream FFXIV at around the same time the OCE DC was announced, I sort of saw the opportunity and thought to make the most of it.

As soon as Materia launched, we created my Free Company "Black Cats Parade" as soon as we could! We encouraged my OCE audience to jump in and join us for our new adventure together. We all shared the same goal of wanting to make sure players had the best experience possible playing FFXIV. So here we are today, still going strong and helping out players in-game and in Twitch chat as much as we can. We have also been encouraging my international viewers to jump over to Materia to help out when they can!

Community Team: Did the opening of cross-region data center travel to Materia have any influence?

SarahJane: Cross-region data center travel came about quite some time after, but it has given us so many more opportunities to run events together and help out filling groups in Party Finder.

Community Team: You've been playing since before the implementation of the Materia data center - is there anything interesting different you've noticed between your previous data center and Materia, for example, server cultures and habits? Are there any interesting idiosyncrasies you've noticed?

SarahJane: I think the biggest difference from when I used to play on Siren - Aether to now playing on Sephirot - Materia, would be how we use Party Finder [PF] to help out with all types of content. PF is mainly used for high-end duties on NA, where on Materia you'll find PFs for MSQ trials, Raids, Alliance Raids and everything in between. This has led a lot of mentors and end-game players to log in just to specifically help out players in PF. It's something I also do often in stream, and it's extremely rewarding to help people get through the content they need help with!

Plus, we get to experience older content all the time, thanks to this system we have developed. This has also encouraged new Materia players to do the same thing for our newer sprouts.

Community Team: Can you tell us about any recent community highlights or fun anecdotes?

SarahJane: Recently, we have run some current extreme trials with the community (first clears & mount farming). I find extremes to be a good entry point to high-end raiding. We like to try and build up confidence for people who haven't done high-end content before. We try to teach players the ins and outs of raiding and try to build up their confidence to do more raid content!

Something else we also do as a community is put together FFXIV Clips YouTube videos! This allows the community to submit their own gameplay (funny & exciting moments) to the Discord or Reddit for me to react to! It's a lot of fun seeing what everyone gets up to in the game and highlighting the community on my YouTube channel!

Community Team: Do you have any activities planned for you and your community in Patch 7.4?

SarahJane: I am SO excited for all the incredible content coming in 7.4. Firstly, we MUST host a glamour competition! The requirements will be to have each gear slot from a different job. We will also be running parties for the new raid tier (can't wait to hear "Everything Burns"!!)

Community Team: If a player on Materia wishes to get involved, how can they get in touch?

SarahJane: The easiest way to join the community is to join my Twitch live stream (twitch.tv/sarahjane) or through Discord (discord.gg/sarahjane). We always love meeting sprouts and experienced players, everyone is welcome and I'd love to meet you :3

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That's all for this spotlight, thank you so much to SarahJane for sitting down with us and thank you, Warriors of Light for keeping us company! With plenty to be getting on with during Patch 7.4, we hope that all of you, whether you're a Materia resident or a wandering visitor, can enjoy the new content to the fullest.

Until the next spotlight!

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While you're here, be sure to check out our other Community Spotlights below!

Angelus Demonus | Fruity Snacks | Elunia Arlana | Hector Hectorson | LittleJem