In many ancient (and even contemporary) cultures, festivals and celebrations were done in times of peace. Indeed, many of them were celebrating because of peace and prosperity.

Thinking along those lines, celebrations and festivals that involved gifts rarely included anything related to war (kind of goes against the celebration of peace idea). Gifts were usually toys, food, decorations, clothing, or something temporary like flowers. And the overall theme is usually one of "enjoy it while it lasts".

These celebrations and festivals were meant to draw a community together in a time of peace. Why? Because a tightly knit community where everyone knows their neighbor, and treats them with respect and kindness, becomes a much stronger community. And the bond that is formed between people is what helps them through times of war, death, famine, plague, etc.

So it's not about some item that helps you kill the enemy. It's about turning to the person next to you, whom you didn't know their name, and introducing yourself. Who knows? Maybe the friend(s) you made are the ones that will help you, the next time you're running away from that monster that's about to kill you. Or maybe they'll be the one(s) to help you retrieve that artifact you've been wanting.

For those that want to participate...enjoy it while it lasts. Peace doesn't come often.

For those that don't like the festival...there's plenty of other things you could be doing.

I have no clue why people don't like this event. changing into a lil girl is a bit crazy, but i have added some new friends to my list because of this event.

I missed the christmas event so I was excited to see this event going on

what do u get from this festival beside changing into a little girl and cakes?

....


March Calendar Event
White Day
--------------------------------------------------


St. Valentine's Day in Japan is a day when women give the special men in their lives boxes of chocolate. To balance out the one-sidedness of this practice, White Day was invented for men to reciprocate such gifts. While Valentine's Day is an imported convention, White Day (on March 14) is a purely Japanese creation.

Just as with the giving of chocolates on Valentine's, the driving force behind the popularization of White Day was a confectionery maker. A company making marshmallows launched a campaign in 1965 urging men to repay valentine gifts with soft, fluffy marshmallows. The name White Day comes from the color of the candy, and at first it was called Marshmallow Day.

When chocolatiers saw the opportunity to expand their business, they began marketing white chocolates, and other candy makers soon jumped on the bandwagon. Gradually, the original association with marshmallows disappeared; today, men no longer limit their purchases to confections, giving women handkerchiefs, accessories, and other gifts.

According to a survey conducted by a Tokyo department store in 1996, the White Day gift that made women happiest was flowers accompanied by a greeting card - regardless of whether the chocolates given a month earlier were for their honmei (true sweethearts) or to fulfill their giri (obligation) to classmates or colleagues.



edit: typos -.-#

edit: Hahaa! ^^;; Looks like I got the events mixed up. Was talking to a coworker who mentioned White Day and it sounded quite similar. Darn, was hoping for another present. =\

Edited, Tue Mar 1 16:18:13 2005

I'm very much enjoying this little event - altho I question why they held it the same week as a 5 hour maintenance... but oh well. :) After playing around for a bit, I'm going to save the others for the future. It's fun to break out things like this a few months after they happened, watch the newbies go Wtf?! lol ;)

I'm personally enjoying the festival for what it is. A chance to get to know new people in the game that I haven't had a chance to meet yet. The rewards are just reminders of the new people I got to meet.

Every now and then SE gives us great opportunities to meet others we normally wouldn't have a chance to meet. It's nice to do events where you don't have to spend money or a lot of time doing. You can just sort of answer a shout of an event party needing a few more and get to make new friends while you do it.

Of course that's why I enjoyed summerfest so much as well. I didn't care about the rewards in that event either. I enjoyed making new friends while trying to find our way through zones we had never been to before.

I don't see what everyone's problem with this is. I thought it was a kind of cute idea. And it's not like it costs money or anything. It's just a fun thing to do ^^

I think this event is great. Think of other MMORPG's and tell me how many have special events? It is something unique about FFXI and if people don't like it, they can play something else or not participate in the event.
I will say I would get bored if they didn't mix it up every once in a while. I think some american players have gotten too spoiled in that if they get nothing good out of it, they wont participate. People that think this way are missing the entire point of the game.
I like the events and it adds a little something that other MMO's ignore for the most part.

I think that's why they're complaining. Because this day and age IS amazing, yet we get crap like this. Remember Summerfest? Easter? Hell, even Christmas was better than this.

For all of you that complain about these events.
Relax, it's a game. What other game do you play has events every once in awhile. None for me.
It's an added bonus to get you off of the monotony of levelling.
If you don't like it, don't do it.
Have fun for once in your life.
I grew up with an Atari 2600 and games such as Pong, and Combat.
This day and age is amazing for videogames, yet people still complain.

If you eat the cake, how long does the costume rest? And can you zone, fight, fish, craft, ... with it on? O don't like the event, just having to worry a lot to get louzy gifts.

/emote farewell

Kiranain a.k.a. Kupuri from Pandemonium

So far, I've seen that for every female of a race in your alliance, you get a rice cake for that race. So if you have 3 Hume females, a Mithra, and a Taru female, you would get a H-Cake, M-Cake, and a T-Cake (only one of each). However, if you get 6 males and 4 females in an alliance together (I believe these are the numbers), you get a stack of each type of cake.

We just did this quest and got 3 tarutaru cakes, 3 mithra cakes, 3 hume cakes, and 3 elvaan cakes. our party line up was this:

1 man and 1 woman in one party
3 women in a second party
5 men in a third party

We're going to try different races and see if we get anything different. I hope there's more to this than just the cakes. But the tents and tables in the common areas hints at more later on. We'll see, kupo!!

i got 3 cakes for each race whenever i did it....it's fun to run around as a little girl for a while, but i haven't seen anything else besides the decorations that go on....