Yesterday, a man named Ross O'Donovan logged into Final Fantasy 14 completely unaware of the events that would follow. Perhaps he logged in as part of the renewed interest in MMOs that has accompanied the game's new patch and massive free trial. Perhaps he is simply a long-term player.

He innocently, perhaps naively, logged in expecting to play an MMO. Instead, Ross O'Donovan spent over an hour eating digitally boiled eggs. He tweeted at 10:04 p.m. PST, "Logged into FFXIV and some guy gave me 999 eggs and asked me to eat them."

He quickly gained an audience. This was because for a very long time he just stood there and ate the eggs. He tweeted videos of his progress, and his audience grew ever larger.

He continued. Despite later tweeting that his "hands hurt," he continued for almost 20 minutes after that. Why did he do this? Because the eggs were there.

His ordeal ended at 11:03 PM, exactly one hour after his initial tweet. If my math is correct, he had been doing this for 20-30 minutes prior to this tweet. O'Donovan's experience reminds me of all that is good about MMOs. The game is important, but it's not a game, it's a community. It's literally the friends you meet along the way and the guys you eat eggs with.

I've never played FF14, despite years of friends recommending it... But now I want to. Thanks, eggs.