Game Intro
-I was told that the intro is not in fact spoilery, but rather just provides backstory. Time to watch it.
-Unfortunately, I can't take screenshots from the in-game version, so just gonna watch on YouTube.
-It all began with a since-vanished “sentient stone, enormous and beautiful.” Definitely sounds like the huge crystal I saw in that “Rhapsodies of Vana’diel” cutscene.
-The light of the crystal brought forth gods and other awesomeness. So it’s a creation myth thing.
-Eventually the gods went to sleep, but the world was called… ooh! “Vana’diel.” I had been pronouncing it like “vuh-NAH-dee-el,” but it’s pronounced “va-nuh-DEEL.” The “va” pronounced like “bat.”
-There was a war in the 863rd year of the Crystal Era. An invasion of the “shadow lord and his hordes of beastmen.” Very FFII. The three cities united against the invaders. Well, the three starting cities plus somewhere new, the “Grand Duchy of Juno.”
-The scene switches to a battle where what look like cave trolls from the LotR movies are attacking.
-This is very Siege of Gondor.
-Well, the Siege of Gondor didn’t have badass Tarutaru black mages dropping meteors on the enemy!
Go you li’l Tarutaru!
-The fight’s not going well for the good guys.
-OH SHIT, BEHEMOTHS!!
THEY LOOK FUCKING INCREDIBLE!!
-A brother and sister pair are trying to escape. The sister is trying to save the younger brother, trying to help him escape the city. The brother is named Aldo.
-The brother gets out, but the sister is about to get her shit wrecked by cave trolls.
-yup she’s dead. I mean, we don’t see her die, but it’s certainly implied that she died.
-The sister is Emalynn. Aldo runs.
-The good guys got wrecked hard. Aldo walks out alone through the ruined city, amidst burning flags.
-20 years later, we see Aldo grown up, looking back on the destroyed city from before. Only this time he’s got friends with him.
-The camera slowly pans out and we see many different races and classes (jobs I suppose). An army behind him. (Fitting for an MMO.)
-End intro.
-So that was pretty awesome! It sets the stage a bit. There’s some main Big Bad, the shadow lord, with armies. The main races are all in relative harmony with one another, so more like “Lord of the Rings Online” than, say, “EverQuest.” Aldo might be a main character I follow, and his sister Emalynn may or may not be dead.
I mean, she sure as hell looked dead, but until I see her body I’ll avoid assuming.
-The good guys got their asses kicked, but are back in strength.
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Tutorial Event Continues
-Went to the auction house. Even put up some honey I looted for bid, but I have no real hope it’ll sell.
-Even if it does sell, the game says the money would be sent to my residence. I don’t have one yet, but maybe someday.
-Different “bands” (Chariot Bands, Empress Bands, Emperor bands) can increase my experience per kill. I can buy them with Conquest Points.
-Bought a Chariot Band, and now I have to level up to 4.
-Went outside the city again, hit level 4, and back to Gulldago the tutorial guy.
-BOOOO!!! Talk about something I don’t miss from EverQuest. When I die at level 31 and beyond, I lose experience. Fjdklshdjklsfhdjkls
-However, there are items like Raising Earrings that cast Reraise on me, giving me the option of getting back up with less experience lost.
-Next step is to head to North Gustaberg and kill a beast. (The area I’d been fighting is South Gustaberg.)
-Aw! This Rock Lizard I’m fighting is really cute.
Reminds me a lot of [SU spoilers] gur ebnqehaare-rfdhr trz perngher va "Xvaqretnegra Xvq."
-Running into turtle soldiers here called Quadavs.
-It dropped a chest, but unlike some others, this one was locked. I thought I’d have to be a thief to pick it, but no! It was a puzzle. One that relied on luck, but I could narrow down the window of possible lock combinations. The clues:
One of the digits is 5. Second digit is odd. Combo is greater than 35 and less than 64. First digit is odd.
-I guessed 55 and was RIGHT!!!! Could’ve been 51, 53, 55, 57, or 59, but 55 was it. Got some equipment. What a cool system. [Later edit: and it comes up a LOT. Many enemies drop these chests.]
-Went there, killed some stuff. Let’s see if I did enough.
-I did. Next, I have to kill something in Konschtat Highlands, past North Gustaberg.
-I’m worried that this tutorial quest is meant to just make me grind farther and farther away, without diving into how spells work or story quests or stuff around the city of Bastok. Let’s see.
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Smilebringer Boot Camp
-One the way over, I see a guy who tells me he wants to improve the “training and conditioning of smilebringers.” Sounds cultish af.
-The guy, Wandering Cloud, is super creepy. “We need no more than the thought of a child’s laughter to spur us on! Zoom zoom!” He wants me to race around the area, talking to nearby smilebringers as checkpoints.
-Never mind. It costs 600 gil to participate. I don’t have nearly that much.
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Tutorial Event
-Got an awesome new cloak that makes me look a bit like Dagger in FFIX, and now I’m really cooking with gas.
-ok, quick question: WTF IS THE FFIX VERSION OF ATOMOS DOING IN A NEWBIE ZONE LIKE NORTH GUSTABERG?
-The target is listed as Cavernous Maw. Must be a portal to somewhere.
-I should leave it alone… lol naw.
-Dang. Tried interacting with it, but “Nothing happens.” I’ll come back later.
-Wandered through the zone a bit, but found myself blocked from reaching my goal of the Konschtat Highlands by a vast cliff. I have to find another way.
-But first!
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Bastok Market
-I was running out of inventory space, so I came back here to sell stuff.
-And buy stuff! Bought a sword to replace my dagger, a xiphos. (Not a weapon-type I’d heard of before.)
-Also bought two spells. Cure and Protect. Really starting to feel like a red mage now.
-I’ve started to see the other job names on items and at the auction house, and there are SO MANY!! Dancer, Rune Fencer (whatever the hell that is), Dark Knight, Ninja, and on and on.
But I already know which I want to switch to eventually. Blue Mage.
I don’t know how I’ll do it, when I get it, or whether I basically have to restart from level one, but wherever blue mage happens to be, I want to find it.
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Tutorial Event Continues
-Found my first Bomb type enemy.
-Long walk to the next zone, but eventually made it after lots of fighting.
-WOOHOO! Found a Brass Xiphos on the ground, a strict upgrade over my current Xiphos weapon. I just need one more level to equip it. Will kill stuff here for one more level.
-Found something on the ground called a Planar Rift. A fiery jet shooting out of a black hole. Hm.
-And another Atomos appeared suddenly. Still can’t interact with it. Probably an endgame thing.
-Killed an enemy in the green and misty Konschtat Highlands and went back to Gulldago in the Bastok Market.
-He tells me that if I kill an enemy too low, it won’t give me xp.
-The next quest is to hit level 10. Well… I’m already level 13, so I complete that one immediately!
-Interesting! He starts to tell me about agro radius. Most will agro when I enter their line of sight, but some will agro if I make a sound in their radius. (So even if I’m behind them, they’ll hear and attack me.)
-Some arcane-type enemies can detect magic being cast, and even scarier, undead enemies often can detect me and attack if I have low hitpoints. The lower the hitpoints, the farther the distance that they can detect me from. I have to remember if I’m fighting in an undead-heavy zone to stay at high health.
-The next quest is to go back to the Konschtat Highlands and find a “large, white, almost otherworldly structure.” The Crag of Dem. There are enormous crystals there called telepoints. I have to examine one and bring back my findings, a Dem Gate Crystal.
-It sounds like the main challenge of this mission is in avoiding dangerous enemies, avoiding detection by beastmen and others.
-That’ll be my last mission in this Gulldago chain.
*waves*
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Next time: Sneaky time.
