Something we may have neglected....Follow

Thank you for relating this well written story.
I /sniffed and /smiled and then sat down for a while and reflected.There is soooooooo much about this game I don't know and SO much to explore.

This is my first MMORGP actually my first real video game of any sort.When I first started playing my husband Grandlethal had already beta tested and explored and by the time I got around to playing I had his linkshell and never really got the chance to explore.

My first day on I pick my name and my job and wow I was in windy (i still get lost but least I can kind of walk and look at a map.....kinda ;P)
GL had to go to work so he showed me how to fight where to fight and tolf me to just keep fighting and leveling making my way up to the river.

Well I was already Equipt with his linkshell (great bunch of people BTW) and I was PWl'd (only from like 7-10) I had no clue about armor and was taught and even loaned some :) but I was always told what to do when to do it and where to do it. So I never really explored.

I think now might be the time to go and explore...I haven't been to Norg or anything past the typical lvling places....
I think I am going to start that tomarrow and see what new things I can farm see and do! I'm on Midgardsormr so if anyone wants to tag along with a 36 WHM / 18 RDM (slowly lvling BLM)
then send me a /tell.

As far as I know I have a lifetime to finish this game.I think I am going to slow down and make better use of that time :)

whoops, I posted twice because it didn't appear one time for some reason. Sorries people ^-^

Wow, that was a good story and made me think. I'm feeling really down since my tanking job went bad a few hours ago, someone died, and now the entire pt is angry at me save for my ls friend who understands that a War can't use provoke just because someone wants me to (it's a 30s skill, not a kicks-in-when-the-mob-moves one, damn it! Unless you see my 'provoke ready' message before you ask for it, don't catch an attitude and scream at me).

After reading this I realized that those people were just hungry for leveling (when people don't even let you say sorry you know they have it bad... unless you did something extremely dumb). Then the more I thought about it the more I realized I was a little like them. Sure, I had the right to be angry at them for shifting all the blame on me like that, but to almost quit the completely just because of a few people's feelings towards me is ridiculous. If I (or anyone) can let trivial things like that get to them in such a way, they don't need to be playing the game at all simply put.

This is a game that promotes (read: brutally forces) you to work in groups, but the way people are starting to act is making everything fall apart, which in turn forms a horrible environment to play in and will eventually drive away players. At least I can say that even if my LS usually can't level together, we do other things like getting together to fish or help another member with missions or something (hmmm Kazham key hunting).

Don't you miss the wonder and excitement of the first time you explored new places in the game? Or was this game just a xp grind to you from the begining?
People can feel a sense of loss even for a game, a book, tv show or movie. It is about the experince, and not the xp type.
This story has a lot of people thinking about thier first experinces and thier first friend they made, and how things are now compared to then. And I for one am happy it was posted.

i remember the first time i saw a rainbow in the game, it was one of the best things i saw that year.

Thanks for posting that story. It actually reminds me of the person I started playing FFXI with. Everything in game seemed so new and so exciting to us and we stuck together whether it was questing , leveling , or farming. Several more of my friends started playing and I invited them into my linkshell. I proceeded to help them get started and for a time it appeared that we'd have a static party of close friends. Promises were made to not level past the others and things were good. We helped each other out as best we could. One day I log on to get a tell from the friend that I met from the start and had stuck together with for so long informing me that he was suddenly a good 20 levels higher than the rest of us and had been invited into a more populated linkshell. I admitted that things had been going slow with us all and wished him well as he was a good friend that I discovered FFXI with.

I would still get tells from him after that about how much higher he'd leveled , what rank he was now , and which jobs he'd unlocked. Often times he would brag how the higher levels helped him do this or that. About the time he hit somewhere in his mid 40's he started trying getting back on the linkshell. At the time I was working on my new main job White Mage , and also helping another good friend get started. I don't know if he missed the closeknit feel of the small LS of friends or if his higher level LS was shunning him. He would message me asking if I wanted to go level this or that , or if I would go help him do this quest or that. Of course I had already promised my help to other members and had to turn him down time and time again. Anytime I had to turn him down he would just shrug it off and make a comment on how one of his new LS's uber high level whms would help him. Seemingly though they never did as he would ask for the same help later on.

Time passed by and some of the other Linkshell members became openly agitated with him as his requests for help became more along the lines of whining and his brags of high levels helping him more along the lines of arrogance. Through all this I never booted him as he was my friend and I tried to help him when I could. Out of the blue, whenever I or one of the LS members couldn't help him he suddenly started apologizing needlessly for outleveling us. Despite what I and the others told him he continued to keep the attitude the others were mad at him for leaving us behind. Which wasn't the case at all. Strangely , he lost that feverish speed leveling and he played less and less. Finally he just stopped playing at all.

It saddened me that he had quit , seeing as how we'd been through so much in game together , and had become such good friends for a time. My Linkshell isn't large. Right now we stand at 5 members. All close friends. We do quests together. We do rank missions together. Although we don't level all together , we do stay in the same level range. I've been playing since Janauary and I'm only level 37 on my main job , whereas most people that started playing around the same time as I did are well ahead of me and my LS in levels and rank , but that's how we enjoy the game. In the end I think my friend realized this was how he enjoyed the game as well. He may have reached a much higher level than we did , but he didn't have the same kind of close friendship he had in our small group.

Thanks again for posting that great story. I'm sure all of us have been through similiar. Its a great reminder of old friends and good times. :)

Wonderful story, big rate up for posting it. ^^;

I really don't know what to say, This story makes me just want to sit in Sandy and just help out new people that are lost, and show them the way. I can't count the number of times that I have seen a ? over someones head in town and stopped to talk to them for a while, I have probably spent 10,000 gil in my game life buying a bow and arrows for a new warrior, or buying marguite (the flower for the mog exit quest in Sandy) and showing people the little girl who you get the quest from. All the while knowing that it could be just someone starting a mule, but I don't care.


This game may mean many things to many different people. Some play just to play a game, no different then any other, others like myself have no idea why I play. I used to have a real reason but I havent for about five months now :(

I have been playing since about January and still my highest level job is only 31, as a matter of fact the LS that I am in now (which is awesome by the way) had a couple players right around my level when I joined and now they are much higher than I am, not to mean anything bad by that , they are both very nice people and would help me in a second if I needed it.

Well I really dont have a point I am trying to make, guess this thread has made me think a little, I am assuming that this was just a story that someone has written and not a true story, but either way I thought it was great.

This may sound kinda dumb but if there is anyone new to the game on bismarck and is interested in doing something like this sent a /t my way, I would start a new character in a second.

A very moving story. It has definitely resparked my interests in adventuring once again. I've been busy level grinding lately and been neglecting to stop and smell the flowers. I'm impressed with people who see more in the game than just madly competing with levels.

Wow....I think I'm going to update my siggy now...

Wow, this brought a lil tear to my eye.

For me too, so many people on my friend's list that I used to party with are long gone and leveled further. I only started in February and my highest lvl is 56. I took an entire month off from leveling to fish and craft each day. I play a ton of other jobs for fun during the week and only static with my white mage.

Now I'm blessed to be in a great LS and have made lasting friends. I did feel the excitement and wonder this week when stepping onto Xarabard for the first time ever. Three of us stumbled upon a big old dragon. We of course had to see if we could kill it lol. Going there makes me excited to be able to start doing more rank missions so I can visit and explore other places.

Sure, AF coffers have been getting me down lately and a lack of gil due to large spell purchases. But meh, gil will flow again, coffers will be found, and more friends will be made helping others.

This isn't a race it's an adventure. ^^