Vana'dying in Vana'diel

[jsnlv]

A little more than 20 years ago, I started playing Final Fantasy XI. This was my second attempt at playing an MMO after Dark Age of Camelot, and it would soon be followed by the very unsuccessful The Sims Online. In all three games, I hated how long it took you to achieve progress. I just wanted to play a “regular” RPG with other players, rather than have the regular RPG format warped to require that other players assist you. For this perceived flaw, I swore off the entire MMO category.

TWENTYish YEARS LATER:

I spent most of January 1st jumping through the hoops to set up my service account, wandering through years-out-of-date text and video guides for how to improve the visuals and performance, modifying configuration files, tweaking interface behavior and keybinds, and finally creating a character and playing for barely an hour.

My character Terica is on the Asura server. I’m playing one of those long-armed elfs, and I started in Windurst in defiance of my racial bonus and vaguest memories of playing in Bastok. Over the past couple of days, I’ve leveled warrior up to 19, gained access to support jobs, leveled red mage up to 8, picked up trust characters in Windurst and San’doria, started the Echoes of Vana’diel quest, and dropped untold scores of crystals I couldn’t carry in my tiny, tiny inventory.

Maybe I never noticed this since I was playing in Bastok originally, but wow, the FFXI races have a LOT goofier dialects than in XIV. They’ve also eased up the death penalty since you no longer lose XP below level 30. I’ve allowed myself to die to teleport back to my home point on more than one occasion, just to save the 100 gil teleport fee.

[jsnlv]

(Topic title inspired by the fact that searching for FFXI on the forum only brings up our FFXIV topic and posts, so it’s a lot more productive to refer to the setting instead for filtering posts.)

In the “A Shantotto Ascension” add-on, one of the two tarutaru NPCs during the opening cutscene speaks (in text only) with a Ned Flanders accent.

I forgot that you have to buy most maps! There’s no mini-map (except through forbidden magics), nor is there any on-screen guidance toward objectives. Instead of a continuous coordinate system like we see in WoW and XIV, XI uses maps with a big grid overlaid, so instructions on the wiki will direct you to “G-10” and you’ll have to look around a bit in that area to see the exact location of the NPC.

[Tegiminis]

YAY SOMEONE ELSE WHO I CAN TALK ABOUT FFXI WITH

@jsnlv

dropped untold scores of crystals I couldn’t carry in my tiny, tiny inventory.

You can give these to a moogle in most crafting areas to bank them; if you intend to craft, ever, you’ll want to stock up.

@jsnlv

They’ve also eased up the death penalty since you no longer lose XP below level 30.

Even past 30 this is relatively a non-issue, as long as you aren’t dying like, 4 times in a row without killing a few monsters.

@jsnlv

Over the past couple of days, I’ve leveled warrior up to 19, gained access to support jobs, leveled red mage up to 8

Once you get access to the stealth spells from RDM/WHM (Sneak/Deodorize/Invisible) the maps open up a lot since you won’t have to pick fights with literally everyone. Also, when you’re mounted, enemies won’t aggro to you, so that’s another useful thing to know for field map exploration.

[parker]

I think I’m going to have to play this after DQX

[Tegiminis]

My character name is Tegimen on Asura. I’m a Galka

[Father.Torque]

@jsnlv

Instead of a continuous coordinate system like we see in WoW

In classic only an addon would do this. You had to follow written directions from NPCs Morrowind style… imagine reading quest text…

Brad McQuaid has a new mmo called Pantheon that is basically exactly Everquest with mildly updated graphics. Huge long channel timers for everything, no map, no mail, no quest icons over npcs…

[Tegiminis]

No quest icons is one of my favorite things about FFXI because you’ll just be wandering through town and you’ll talk to some random NPC and get maybe a little bit of fluff or maybe a 100s of hours side-content thing like Monstrosity or Dynamis. And if you progress your quests for a city, 50 hours later that fluff NPC turns out to be vital to a quest you hadn’t seen yet! Makes the whole game feel very interconnected. I love it.

[jsnlv]

@Father.Torque

imagine reading quest text…

I restarted XI with this mindset! It’s pretty playable this way!

I almost immediately turned to the wiki because I’ve already had the experience of losing patience with being lost in this game.

It’s such a weird combination of “too big” and “too small”. The limitations of the engine are such that the zones feel cozy even though they can sprawl for quite some distance thanks to sight-line limitations; when I consider the actual layout and amenities, the cities don’t feel much larger than their equivalents in FFXIV, but whenever I’m wandering around aimlessly, I can’t help but feel like they’re around 33% larger than they need to be. But then I find cute little obscure passageways in San’doria, and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a good balance.

I wish the text that appears whenever I interact with something was just a little snappier, though.

[jsnlv]

An unexpected windfall of starting to play right at the beginning of the year is that I happened to log in just before the conclusion of the latest daily log-in campaign. Once I realized I had points to spend, I purchased the cipher for Shantotto II and two other characters, which means that leveling is now a trivial process for me. I used my newfound firepower to finally get through Valkurm dunes and make the long trek back to Bastok. The journey took me through the Gustaberg region, which is a rocky wasteland I once spent a whole lot of time grinding for levels and marginal gil rewards in. I feel like a lot of my antipathy for zones like the Blasted Lands, Hellfire Peninsula, and Amh Araeng can be traced back to that period in my life.

[Tegiminis]

Shantotto II is fucking crazy for a trust, really lucky snagging her.

Also make sure to get your EXP ring from the Conquest Officer if you haven’t already. Empress Band gives the most bonus XP total (15k x 7 uses) while Emperor Band gives the most per use (30k x 3 uses). You can only buy one and you can only recharge it once per “conquest tally” (IIRC that’s a weekly thing? been a while). They dramatically improve your EXP gain, and stack with other bonus sources like login campaigns and monster chaining.

[jsnlv]

can’t even escape unjustifiably smug democrats in Vana’diel smh

[jsnlv]

By the time I signed out tonight, I had attuned to home points in all three of the major cities, both port towns, and Jeuno, to say nothing of the teleport books that flap around ever-so-slightly more than the adventuring guides. I got my chocobo pass and my riding raptor. I leveled warrior up to 30. Next, I plan to follow the main story missions far enough to continue advancing Echoes of Vana’diel, after which I think I want to take whatever steps are necessary to unlock corsair. I’ve heard they can increase their movement speed, and I am missing Sprint from XIV.

[idiot]

think about picking this up often but the installation / setup process seems even more convoluted than dqx these days

[Tegiminis]

I wish I could experience the main story again with fresh eyes… what a lovely journey.

[jsnlv]

I was kind of spinning my wheels for a while on the early Windurst missions—lots of struggling to find the correct passageways in tunneled ruins, plus a fair bit of guessing about which NPCs are the ones that the game wants you to talk with. Still, a story is definitely unfolding; I’m just starting on “The Three Kingdoms”.

Meanwhile.

[jsnlv]

Various events in other games have been distracting me over the past week+, but I finally got back to this last night.

Warrior 30/Thief 30/Red Mage 8

My current long-term goal had been to unlock Corsair. I saw that one of the steps in this process could be completed by a Thief of sufficient level with access to Thief Tools, so after my initial leveling spree to get subjobs and mounts, I’ve been working on Thief while completing Windurst missions. Between Thief’s weakness in combat and my failure to realize that I could have four alter egos deployed at once due to a recent upgrade, it had been slow going with a lot of unnecessary deaths.

The Windurst missions started out easily enough: run errands for gate guards, meet various ministers among the city’s institutions, gradually uncover one of the ministers as harboring schemes for the city’s “greater good”. Just as in the very early stages of FFXIV, this is too early in the power-curve to be characterized as any sort of destined savior, but that initial anonymity is undercut by the opening moments of later expansions, which you’re constantly invited to set in motion as soon as you happen to be in the right area and of sufficient level. One minute, I’m a lowly adventurer on an errand for my federation, then suddenly I’m being conscripted into a madwoman’s military. Then I’m privy to crystalline visions in the sky, and of all the witness, I happen to be the only one who can retain the memory due to my charmed fate. And then I’m waylaid by two different people in rapid succession who are each desperate to explain the details of two consecutive conferences between the nations (out of hundreds of such meetings).

And that’s not even getting into the initial Rhapsodies of Vana’diel story, which was designed as a post-facto bookend for all of the expansions and base content, threading these comparatively isolated storylines into an overarching narrative. I’d hardly started my foray into FFXI when I was bequeathed a time-travelling protegé from a dark future.

Anyway, the important thing here is that I’m having fun, and maybe I’ll settle down and focus on tracking down my missing ambassador in Jueno once I’ve got these jobs straightened out.

[jsnlv]

Time for me to post my weekly update: wandering up and down the tower accessible a short distance from the base of Jeuno finally brought me up to level 40 as thief. The guides said I should now be well positioned to take on the Ophiotaurus spawned by the Rhapsodies of Vana’diel mission I’m on, but A., thief is really hard to use for PvE solo content, and B., the quartet of trusts I’ve deployed have been melting pretty quickly. I have a bunch of login points I’ve earned this week which haven’t been redeemed for anything, yet, so I might go see if I can pick up more caster alter egos to see if taking this guy on with more ranged companions will make this more doable.

[jsnlv]

Almost immediately after posting my last update, I died to the monster again, and seeing a crowd of players whose names were crowned with stars, I asked for help. A max-level healer had me join his party and slowly destroyed the enemy with melee strikes. As I understand it, I am now caught up on Rhapsodies until I finish with the base game story missions.

Since then, I have become the most famous adventurer in all of Windurst. To accomplish this, I purchased as many mandragora horns as I could carry, and then I delivered them to the local mandragora specialist. I repeated this process three times.

Because I am now a (relatively) famous adventurer, I was able to secure an invite to the criminal underworld. To accomplish this, I repurchased one of the beastman keys I’d looted during my leveling journey, and I delivered it to a man whose audience I obtained by deliberately saying nothing during two separate conversations.

As a criminal affiliate in good standing, I am now eligible to take a ferry to the distant land of Aht Urhgan. On my first trip, I stumbled into combat with a sea creature by mistake, and I died. I had to take the next ferry, instead.

In my destination port, I involved myself in a series of misadventures with the local law enforcement. I must now find my way to a ship in a cave in the depths of the swamp. The cave contains a gate which can be unlocked with a key or with thieves’ tools. Because I didn’t investigate how easily one can obtain such a key, I leveled up thief to 42 to make this journey… only to realize that I will also need the spells Invisible and Sneak to avoid combat with the enemies, if I want to pursue this without first getting to high level.

Since I was already a level 8 red mage, I figured it would be trivial to level that up to 25. And it was! But during this process, I discovered that my experience-boosting ring was not the superior Emperor’s Ring, and when I tried to buy one, it said I was ineligible to do so: I already possessed an equivalent item. (The Chariot Ring? Champion’s Ring? I forget.) So, I did what I thought was the logical thing and got rid of my existing ring. Since nobody would buy it, I dropped it instead. I talked to the merchant again, and—I was still ineligible to make the purchase! Apparently you’re only able to buy such a reward once during each reward period. They say that the reward period resets on Mondays, but I’m pretty sure I had my last ring for more than a week. I’ll be very frustrated if I cannot buy the Emperor’s Ring in the next three days.

As I was leveling up to 25 with red mage, I cleared Delkfutt’s Tower, obtaining the key necessary to unlock any of its doors. I convinced myself that I hadn’t successfully obtained the key from the notorious monster on its tenth floor, so I warped out to ensure that I’d completed the previous step in the mission at the Windurst embassy. It was only once I was cleaning out my inventory there that I noticed that I had in fact obtained one of the keys after all, so I had to climb the tower a second time.

Since I’m still trying to unlock corsair, my next task will be to either level thief up to 50 (so I can use level 25 red mage spells), or level red mage to 30 (and actually pick up the key in the swamp, presumably). I’m going to do that right now.

[HOBO]

I love this thread so much. Making me want to play so bad. But I dunno if I’m strong enough to deal with play online again…

[Tegiminis]

You can also get invis/stealth/etc from a buff in the adventurer guides, as a heads up. Though you obviously can’t reapply it without visiting a guide again if you break it to do actions like opening doors or whatever.