As we dove into Week Two of our journey in the world of Vana’diel, we decided to tackle what every Final Fantasy XI player should do as soon as they can, our Chocobo Licenses. This consisted of us working up the money to purchase 4 clumps of Gausebit Grass and then sitting for around 5-6 hours next to a Chocobo until it would finally let us feed it. Needless to say, it was one of the most boring things I’ve done in the game. However, it was 100% worth it as Chocobos, as any fan of Final Fantasy should know, can get you around much quicker than your feet and also help you avoid battles.
Along with getting our Chocobo Licenses, we also had another member of the ELB Staff join us in our endeavors. Our Community Manager, John “Smurgen” Soto, jumped right into the group seamlessly with his Tarutaru Warrior. Alongside him, an old friend Hyrina joined us as well, also as a Tarutaru. When John first got back into the game, he ran into a new player. John tried to explain to him how to make his character kneel down to heal but he was just not understanding how to click his left stick (he was playing on an Xbox 360). He just ran around saying, “no this is how I move”. A few days after those two joined, we were introduced friend of John’s that we will just call Spoony (not Noah Antwiler).
Erik decided that this week, we should take a dive into the Campaign Missions and start getting into some of the main game’s story. We did not do too much of the missions but we did defeat the Black Dragon and unlock Rank 3. The story is actually kind of interesting and involves the resurrection of a great evil that was banished long ago. Kind of cliche, I know, but interesting none-the-less.
The hands down funniest thing that happened this week, however, took place during one of the earlier missions. While we were trying to find the tombstone in King Ranperre’s Tomb we ventured into a hidden dungeon. Erik, who was using a level 87 at the time, suggested that we try to venture deeper into to see what boss lay in wait. We barely made any headway into the cave before we ran into a giant level 75 scorpion. Erik figured he could take it on but nope after about 2 hits we were high tailing it out of that cave hoping to get to safety. We zoned out of the dungeon and took a deep breath and just as we did that…we saw Alfred take a hit and go down. The scorpion had teleported out of the dungeon and killed Alfred. This lead to us running as fast as we could to try to get away from the imminent death behind us. This lasted until Erik was killed, the scorpion disappeared and I was all the way across the map cowering in fear.
Another great stride we made this week was we began to level sub jobs. I ended this week with my Warrior at level 10 and my Thief at level 14. Alfred leveled his Black Mage up a good bit as well. Along with sub jobs, we also started to dabble into advanced jobs. Me and Erik did our Dancer quest to unlock that job and Alfred and Spoony unlocked their Summoner class. After unlocking Dancer, I quickly fell in love with the job and have decided to make it my main with Monk, now level 40, as my Sub Job. By the end of the week, my Dancer had reached level 24.
The last of the big news from the week is that John created a Link Shell for us, called Empty Lifebar. It was just me, Alfred, Erik, Hyrina, John and Spoony for a while but Tuesday night we added one other person, Valmordo. Interestingly enough, Val is a fan of the site! Stranger, though, is that he hadn’t seen the “ELB Takes On FFXI” article from last week so it wasn’t even like he was actively looking for us, we just kinda ran into him. It turned out he is a veteran on the game. He took me around showing me some NM spawns, taught me how to fish and even showed me how to get the Mog House Exit Upgrade which is the one of the most helpful things ever. He fit right in with our weird group of players as if we’d known him forever.
Meeting one of our fans for the first time
As you can tell, this week was actually pretty eventful. You never really know who you might run into when playing MMOs. If you happen to be on the Ragnarok server, don’t be a stranger! We can generally be found around San d’Oria and you can always send a Tell to me, Mingledorffx.
I’m so glad that I got to meet and play with you guys. It’s a real treat.
I don’t suppose you guys are looking for another…?
We are always looking for more people to play with! Next time you are on, send a tell to Nyokuku, Mingledorffx or Dokendoken! If you want to join the Linkshell, just let us know.