Thursday, July 24, 2008

Happy Anniversary!

I can barely believe it's already been a year since I wrote "Three Years Running." That makes it four years of FFXI, and it's been a blast. I wish I'd made a progress report last year, but for my own use I'm going to jot down a few notes of Draconum's status.

Drac has 800 total levels now, spread across every job except Scholar (which remains the only job as-yet-unlocked). I've got two jobs capped at 75: Dragoon and Paladin. Three more jobs have reached the higher levels (65+) with a fourth, Monk, well on its way. I have complete Artifact Armor sets for Paladin, Dragoon, Bard, Thief, White Mage, Red Mage, and Monk along with 2/5 Warrior pieces. For Relic I have 3/5 Paladin, 3/5 Dragoon, and 2/5 for Beastmaster.



Summoner 08 was my 800th level:




As a citizen of San d'Oria, I attained Rank 10 quite some time ago. I don't have any plans to swap nations like many players do in order to rank in those missions as well. It'd certainly give me something to do but I'd feel too icky working for the 'other guys'.

The Rise of the Zilart expansion has its own set of missions. I have not completed all of the ZMs but I do have access to the area known as "Sky."

In Chains of Promathia, I am on the mission called "The Savage" which I have failed to defeat yet. I have to kill an Earth Dragon named Ouryu. I'm planning to work on CoP missions soon, incidentally.

As for Treasures of Aht Urghan, missions are fairly simple by comparison so far. I have recently defeated the "Black Coffin" mission; a few of my linkies and I are planning to run a mission or two each week until completion.

Wings of the Goddess apparently has some fairly interesting cutscenes related to its mission set, but I have yet to get very far into it. I ran into the Cait Sith creature and pretty much left off there. In Campaign Ops, I have completed two or three of the first tier of missions, but haven't put much work into it.

I can still recall with clarity the beginning days of my FFXI career. I was certainly apprehensive about an online Final Fantasy, but once I got on I was hooked quickly. I made friends right away while I was on my first couple of characters. I definitely recall Darion, Viagra, and a few others being in my first full party and running around learning the ropes. Before long, I met Debbie and Malachi, who were essentially my partners-in-crime for some time. To this day we keep in touch but they have moved on to other things.

My brother and I spent a few weeks of getting the hang of FFXI and then we decided we'd go at it full-force. We set up a second account for him under the character name Teepo and on July 24, 2004 I created Draconum and purchased a Linkshell, to be named TheSolonavi. We gathered many friends and had a lot of fun learning and growing with the whole crew.

Today, I have a solid team of members, most of which I have known for a couple years now. Former linkies like Ladyshy, Wilya, Dungeonwhipper, Sicfreak, Jared, and more are always missed but we try to enjoy the game and the social situation for what it is. I've known Encino, Galbatorix, Imacdeath, Sodako, Sorjorn, Supergirl, Valion, Fmtwo, Saruka, and a few others for years now. We know each other well and have a lot of laughs playing and helping each other out.

It's awesome how close I've become with people who live so far away from me, but FFXI definitely has a knack for its community aspect. I've played with the linkies for years and they are what keeps me in Vana'diel. I'm glad we can explore and adventure together and I hope it continues for some time to come.

I have been very relaxed with my goals, sticking to mostly leveling jobs. This upcoming year, however, will see more progress in other areas than I have seen for the most part. I've already leveled most of the jobs I really wanted to be, and I've got little else to do now other than missions and quests for the lackluster storyline. Should be interesting, and fun if all goes according to plan.

Cheers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed playing the game with you to its been fun. I hope we can all make more memories =D Sor and I enjoy having doing stuff with linkies I hope we can hang again. <3 thanks for all the fun times i hope we can all make more

thank you
Sg!

Anonymous said...

Happy anniversary Drac!
Today's one of those days I miss Wilya and Vana'diel. How I loved being a White Mage...

She still lives on inside me though, and in the fearing heart of Warchief Vatgit.

Please say hi to him if you can and other old friends too if you want.


Viva La Vida

Drac said...

<3