A Journey to Vana'diel

Today is the first day of the Sunbreeze Festival !

Throughout Windurst the Tarutarus have set up beautiful platforms, like here at the fountain in Windurst Woods, home of my fellow Mithras !

Tarutarus are joyfully dancing the Rakapopo around the platform !

As night falls on Heavens Tower the drums of the festival music start beating...

... and soon the fireworks illuminate the night sky!

Soo beautiful ^^

Posted by Unknown at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

Just a very quick tip I found: by default similar items don't stack in your inventory, you'll have to use the auto sort feature to have them do so ! That's quite useful since as soon as I began hunting and fighting Goblins and Yagudo with Signet casted on me, my inventory would get completely cluttered with Yagudo Necklaces, Beastmen Seals and all crystals ! And since those can be auctioned in stacks, well better stack them in any case ^^

Posted by Unknown at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well the first time I went browsing the prices at Windurst Auction House I was like shouting aloud "the hell be of those greedy capitalists !" as everytinhg seemed (and still seems somehow) sooo overpriced !

Since you are very broke when you start, here are the first sources of income I could find:

1. The Teacher's Pet quest in Windurst Waters, 250 gils per trade
   
2. The Creepy Crawlies quest in Windurst Woods, 600 gils per trade
   
3. The Mandragora Mad quest in Windurst Waters
4. The Hat In Hand quest in Windurst Waters, but it gets quickly boring

Also for the first armor set I bought I noticed that the NPC shop is waaay cheaper than the Auction House.

Then on level 8 I had to get more gils to buy my first monk armor, so be sure to get familiar with auctions, that's where you make big money ^^ I was quite happy when I received my first payment from the Auction House at my Mog House, feeling like somehow I had finally started in business in Vana'diel !

Posted by Unknown at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

So this is the end of my trial period. I've tried different jobs and species, had a look at the main cities - Bastok, San d'Oria and Windurst. I played as a Hume, a Tarutaru and a Mithra, and got the first crude basics of the game. Now's the time to choose a final character as my avatar in Vana'diel !

As I'm a big cat fan and since I definitely felt like being a Windurstian citizen, I created my final character: Nyss the Mithra monk. Well yeah I'm a dude so I'd probably better play a male character, but Mithra is a very good race for monks, due to their agility. I could have chosen an Elvaan (stronger but less agile) but I definitely like cat girls after all ^^

Here are the first pictures of Nyss's travels:

Lvl 6, healing at Sarutabaruta West Outpost after defeating my first Yagudo (at least they look more fearsome than bees, Rarabs and tiny Mandragoras !)

He he just got level 8 ! I just purchased my first Monk armor set, Kempo Gi and all, and boy she looks good with it ^^

Punching Mandragoras yay !

Standing pretty near a Mana Orb Charger in Horutoto Ruins.

Oh and by the way, Nyss lives on the Bahamut server !

Posted by Unknown at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments

So it's done I finally gave up on my "never get addicted to a MMORPG" motto...

Well, having played for quite some years about any FF game that came out, I finally decided myself to take a journey to the world of Vana'diel. As the game's latest expansion pack, "Treasures of Aht Uhrgan" is released, along with the X360 version of the game, I hope that new players will be dragged in just like myself.

And so after a 2+ hours installation process, here I am, ready to enter this new world :)

I'll try to update this diary after my playing sessions, with screenshots and tips an tricks I found out while learning the game. Since FF XI is obviously a game that needs to devote some time to it, I wish to keep track of what I did while playing. Also I hope that my personal observations might be of use to players who begin in the world of Vana'diel, just like me.

Cheers !

Posted by Unknown at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments