Summary: Finishing the tutorial event. My first death. Into the labyrinthine Zeruhn Mines.
Bastok Market
-lol a moogle vendor here tells me he’d starve to the streets in San d’Oria to free adventurers from inventory frustration, offering to sell me a bag at the cost of more than I have.
I’ll have to remember this guy. Reminds me a bit of the desperate vendor race in Wildstar, the clones in the Protostar Corporation.
-Although I couldn’t buy the bag (I have just over 2k gil and it costs almost 10k gil), he gives me a free Scroll of Instant Warp. I used it, thinking it would teach me the Warp spell.
It did not. It warped me back to my “home point,” which… is actually pretty convenient! My home point is in North Gustaberg, on the border of the Konschtat Highlands, where I was heading anyway and a long walk from the city. Thanks, moogle!
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Konschtat Highlands
-I see the white tent-like thing I have to get to on the map.
-Found an enemy who I can’t check on. I mean, I can check it, but when I do it says “Ghillie Dhu’s strength is impossible to gauge!” Maybe that just means “it’s SUPER HARD and it could kill you with a sneeze.”
-I reached the Crag of Dem, my target.
It’s HUGE! No way that’s a natural structure.
-I keep getting messages that I don’t meet the requirements to obtain stuff, like “insect wing” and “pot of honey.” Am I too high level?
-Got the Dem gate Crystal. There are enemies in the area, but nothing I can’t kill. I was expecting, like, giants and higher level stuff to dodge.
-HI CHOCOBO!!!!!
IT’S SO CUTE!! LET ME SNORGLE YOU PLZ
-The person tending the chocobo says I need a chocobo license and a high enough job level to ride. One day, little friend. One day.
-I spoke too soon. One of these Mist Lizard enemies that I was beating before cast Petrify on me and beat me into oblivion.
My first death.
-But I got what I came for, so it’s time to head back to Gulldago, the guy in charge of the tutorial event.
-By the way, to give you a sense of this game’s scope: I just ran back across two newbie zones, North Gustaberg and South Gustaberg, to return to the city. That trip took ten minutes, not stopping to fight. TEN MINUTES.
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Bastok Market
-Gulldago tells me that the Dem gate Crystal can teleport me to the telepoint I retrieved it from. THAT’S AWESOME!! Just as I was thinking how long it takes to run from place to place, I learn that the thing I was sent to get acts as a shortcut.
-My reward for completing this series of quests is a set of three free chocopasses. Huzzah!
-Moved to another tutorial person, Isakoth. Teaching me about “Records of Eminence.”
ISAKOTH: “Adventurers need to give it eighty-thousand percent at all times if they want to uphold justice!” uh. Wtf is a record of eminence tho?
-Ah! This is about achievements somehow. I can get achievements and turn in tokens to this dude for rewards.
-My achievement tracker is a SUPER FUCKING CREEPY DOLL, called a “Memorandoll.”
-lolol Isakoth says he has no idea how the Memorandoll works. “As my mentor always said, ‘When you don’t know the answer to a question, distract the person with a joke.’” Pretty wise.
-So this first “Records of Eminence” objective is to kill 20 beasts. I see how this works. I’ll probably get some of these challenges/quests through the game.
-Interesting! I logged out after that last comment, logged back in the next day, and saw that I had a new challenge in PLACE of the old one. Now I have to use magic damage to kill 20 enemies.
So these quests are more like dailies.
-Getting a whole bunch more spells. Bio, Poison, Aero, Water, Stone, Cure2, Paralyna (cures Paralyze)…. Whoops. Never mind. I can’t actually use that. Only white mages and scholars can. Same with Poisona, which I also bought.
-BTW CHECK OUT HOW ADORABLE THE WHITE MAGIC VENDOR IS!!!
*hugs*
-So I have a few options. I can go out and kill 20 enemies with magic, but…I’d rather do some of the missions in town.
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Zeruhn’s Report
-I have to head to the Bastok Mines for this. Haven’t been there yet. It’s an area south of the Bastok Market. Dunno if there’ll be enemies here, but I’m supposed to fetch a report for someone.
-I reach the mines. No map here. Feels… dungeony.
-There’s a survival guide here, a floating book near the entrance to the mines. From the “Adventurers’ Mutual Aid Network.”
-I can pay gil to travel to these books in the future.
-There’s another book here telling me to defeat 3 Ding Bats. It’s a “Training Regime.” (Probably should be “regimen,” but c’est la vie.)
-The second page of the book is a training regimen to take out 3 River Crabs in the Zeruhn Mines. Each of those is intended for level 1-4. Too low for me (currently 14), but again, my main interest is in exploring.
-I tried killing the Ding Bats (lol), but the tome didn’t acknowledge I completed it. Still said “0/3 Ding Bats.” Must only work if I'd get experience killing them.
-A little bit into the mine, I see a gate barring the Korroloka Tunnel. The guy lets me through.
-Went down a long tunnel, that took me to a new zone. Korroloka Tunnel.
-Targeted some bats here, and they “seem incredibly tough,” with high evasion and defense. No thanks. I shouldn’t be here. Back to the Mine.
-Went a bit off in the mine and found a Colliery Bat. It is also “incredibly tough,” so I don’t engage and turn back.
-Came to another gate. A Gelka named Drake Fang says this gate leads to the Palborough Mines, but has been closed off since the Quadav (those turtle dudes I’ve met) took Palborough. I’ll bet that’s a tougher dungeon – or heck, maybe even a raid zone. Idk.
-Found a miner in basically his underwear named Alaric.
That name rings a bell to me, and I can’t figure out where I heard it before.
-A man named Rasmus knows I’m looking for this report, and says I should go find it from Makarim deeper in the mines. Hm.
-Ok. I’m gonna risk going down into the area with the incredibly tough bats and hope I don’t have to fight anything.
-Ooh! A glittery “Mining point.”
If I had a pickaxe, I could mine it.
-Starting to get a bit lost in these tunnels. The lack of music and the echoing footsteps combine for a creepy atmosphere.
-AHA! Found her.
Lots of wandering and feeling a bit lost in these tunnels, but found Makarim.
-Now I have to bring the report to Sir Najj, a musketeer near “The President’s Office.” Dunno where that is.
-Before leaving, I checked the page in the Adventurers’ Mutual Aid Network (AMAN) on field support. It seems when I complete (on-level) tasks like killing bats in this place, I get points, and I can spend those points to either return home or get a buff like invisibility.
-After I left the mine, I talked to a random NPC Gelka named Gerbaum. He gave me a quest: “Minesweeper.” To collect three pinches of Zeruhn dust from the mines. I already had two from killing bats and crabs in there, so I went back and got a third. 150 gil. Nice!
-CID NAME DROP!! A Gelka, about the apparently crappy new president: “He shouldn’t meddle with things that don’t concern him, and let Chief Cid do his job. Doesn’t he realize he’s just a figurehead anyway?”
-One of the NPCs makes it seem like the Metalworks district has the administrative buildings. Maybe that’s where the president is.
-Whoops, this isn’t it… this is…
WAIT OH SHIT THERE’S PLAYER HOUSING??? This is my home, a “Mog House.”
My very own welcome moogle!
-The moogle here offers to tell me about a bunch of stuff. Most of it seems housing related, but he only has one topic I want to ask about now: “changing jobs.”
MOOGLE: “Changing people’s jobs is a secret ability only we moogles can use, kupo! And… the rest is a secret, kupo!”
Hey! Fuck off, kupo!
-FINALLY. Found the Metalworks, which is the administrative district.
-Naji takes the report…then someone named Sir Lucius, who seems important, butts in.
-The report says that more and more Galka are starting to believe in their “Talekeeper’s return.” Could be a spiritual figure.
-Yup. The Talekeeper is from Galka myth, but Sir Lucius says the Talekeeper is already among the Galka again. Weird.
-That was like a mini-cutscene. I wonder what kind of figure the Talekeeper is. Benevolent? Savior? Rebellious leader? The hume, Sir Lucius, didn’t sound super psyched that the mining race of the Galka have him back. Hm.
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Next time: Back to Port Bastok for more missions.
p.s. So this was my first week with FFXI. I was really nervous at first about whether I'd be able to play FFXI and write it up as I go like I'm used to since it's so different from all my prior games.
I'm no longer worried.
It'll probably never be as exciting to read alongside as the games where readers who've played the games know what's coming, where there's a main single-player storyline. I'm okay with that. I also know it's a weirder and more disconnected reading experience than the more normal games, so there'll be fewer of y'all, but that's okay too. That's always been the case depending on whether the games I've played have been more popular (e.g. FFVII) or less (e.g. FFIII).
I'll be back to those normal types of games soon enough with FFXII or Tactics. But now with these first four posts under my belt, I feel comfortable that I can play FFXI and enjoy it and write up my experiences as I go.
Thank you for reading. :)
