I figured out that I should do harvesting and/or crafting for awhile in FFXI, gain some levels. My armor craft is 52 or so, and my mining 51, but none of my other Disciple of Land/Hand jobs is anywhere near high enough to do me any good in Heavensward. Gathering is the exact sort of brainless, mechanical sort of thing I could do while watching Hulu.
Having been informed that hard mode dungeons now gave experience, I almost took the plunge… but… there’s a new event going on! The Maiden’s Rhapsody. A mysterious traveler from a distant world has come to Eorzea to rediscover her mission, and her memories.
The world being Vana’diel, the game world of Final Fantasy XI. I played that for awhile. I’m sure I must have taken screen shots when I played back in 2004/2005 during one of my many breaks from EverQuest. I can’t find them, though. I don’t think I have loved and hated a single game so much. I finally quit to preserve my sanity. I can’t really explain it, but every FFXI player I’ve ever talked to knows what I mean by that. The game punished you so very much for every little thing. And then something would actually go right, and it was like the sun breaking through the clouds and warmth returning to the world. And then it would be three days trying to get a group for a BCNM. Or trying to solo the stuff needed for a level cap quest. Being begged to teleport people to groups, give them all three stealth spells (sight, sound, scent) to make it safely, but not being invited into that group. Etc etc etc.
Wow. The scars still seem fresh.
Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV have different game settings, but nonetheless have a lot of similarities. The races all have analogues in both games — storyline NPC Tataru seems to have given her name to the Vana’diel variety of Lalafell, the Tarutaru. The FFXIV Miqo’te lose most of their males and become the Mithra and… Yeah, the quest more or less revealed that Eorzea is a past version of Vana’diel, separated by several centuries and a few cataclysms.
Iroha, a samurai, the story goes, was sent back in time in order to find heroes to come forward in time to save Vana’diel. She made that backward hop, but she went further than intended. Not all the way to Eorzea, though. The trip to Eorzea, she did in her sleep. OR DID SHE? Since she can’t “wake up”. I just ran through the video I took of the quest (how do I always get the perfect screenshot? I record all the cut scenes). It is never firmly established that the worlds of FFXI and FFXIV are directly related, though they share some lore. I will just go forward insisting they are directly connected by way of something more substantial than Iroha’s dream quest for the power of Amatsu Kyori.
Since Iroha is stuck in our world, she decided to do some exploration until such time as her goddess allows her to return to Vana’diel. But, we know that Vana’diel is doomed. We can only hope that more NPCs make their way to Eorzea before the end of the month.
I wouldn’t mind if Iroha started teaching the lore of the Samurai. As long as some other teacher comes around the teach me the lore of the Red Mage 🙂
Picture is of my private room. Still decorated with all the Halloween stuff. The outfit is pretty nice. I’ll have to beg Kasul for some glamour prisms so I can wear this look for awhile 🙂 I have ilevel 135 crafted armor, but it looks so dull.
