Eorzea - A Year of Accomplishments 2012!

[Kagato]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNVm7rxrxoc

That!

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I think what I wrote in a post about my experience in castrum novum when it was first released, was probably one of the most memorable stories of 2012 for me. So I'll repost it here .

Link to original thread.

Upon completing the initial GC quest that was released with patch 1.22b, (Don't Hate the Messenger) naturally I wanted to continue on to the next portion (United We Stand) which has you on a mission to infiltrate the new imperial stronghold Castrum Novum and put a stop to their evil plans to bring Dalamud crashing down on Eorzea. After watching the cutscenes from the previous quest in which the Eorzean Alliance was formed, I was pretty pumped up to go beat up some imperial soldiers. But alas, I was certainly no match for the Garlean army all by myself.

However, being impatient, excited, and curious I decided I would just head over to the gates and try to get a peek inside. I mounted up on my chocobo and headed over to the front entrance where I was greeted with a wonderfully nice cutscene, after which I was even more pumped up to see what was inside.

Upon exiting the cutscene I was shocked to see that there were dozens of players that had loaded up on my screen already engaged in combat with the enemy. It was like I had just entered a real war zone. Although I was alone and I wasn't getting any of the monster claims, I felt compelled to join in the fight and help these random parties fight their way through. At first I felt a little guilty for trying to piggy back on the efforts of others in order to complete my goal, but it soon proved to be more challenging than I think anyone anticipated. The shear number of characters on screen made it near impossible to see enemies and we often found ourselves being ambushed by large numbers of wolves and soldiers, as well as the occasional giant machina that could one shot you. Needless to say things were hectic and there were many deaths.

The machina in particular were especially powerful, and I often witnessed entire groups wipe on these. After getting through about the second or third gate people started to get a sense of urgency, and no one wanted to have to start over at the beginning. Although there wasn't much communication people began to cooperate. I noticed many people had changed jobs to white mage to help cure and raise the fallen, and often you would see individuals running back behind gates to try and raise someone before it closed. You would hear shouts from people telling others that a gate had opened and suddenly you'd see a dozen people mount up on chocobo and dash for the gate. People would stop to help take down the big robots regardless of who had the claim, even if they could have easily just ran past to the next area. A sense of comradery had formed between complete strangers in this chaotic battle and to me it was really incredible.

In the end I was picked up by a group of people I had never met as there were many others like myself who had made it to the boss without being in a full party. The large force consisted mainly of many small groups of maybe 3-4 people who all made it to the end by working as one massive force. So we gathered up 8 people and took on the boss. It took us a few tries to get it down, but by our last attempt we made it out with barely a scratch. All-in-All, through the cooperation of complete strangers, I was able to complete a goal that I had without needing to shout in town or any prior planning. I simply went to the area, joined up with the people who were there and got it done.

btw, I made a little video that I think captures my emotions of the night pretty well

[Dannythm]

I created a new character when patch 1.19 hit, in a new server, Selbina at the time, to get a fresh start with the new combat system, and as it happens I found a new home.

Ken endured a lot of adventures and mastered many martial and magic skills, but her potential still lies hidden, and she needs to refine her equipment, but defeated many foes and dangerous monsters and raised in the ranks of the Immortal Flames as a hero, but she is not satisfied as not all trials could she overcome (never downed Garuda (Hard) much less The raven nevermore), but Ken was there, fighting for Eorzea and her ow survival until the end, surrounded by friendships hardened in the battlefield, and that is her greatest achievement.

I hope to see everyone again in ARR, I miss you.

[KaiserDrill]

The best moment I've had in 1.0 is this:

Did a pickup group for Cutter's. Everyone stated what they were lotting for (i just wamted the cowl, nothing else).

Great sr all the way to chim, and then DISASTER. The tank wanted to try a different positioning, which worked well

UNTIL chim had literally a sliver of hp left. Being the go getter whm that i am i decided to run in and holy for the kill.

turns out the holy didnt kill him lol. Coincidentally he did voice right as i did my holy.....wipimg the entire party but ,e amd the tank.

Lucky for me i had my trusy backup mp ^^. So i promptly presence rezzed my brah vishual chase (blm) and he finished off chim while i held it down with only a paltry amount of mp left.

BEST part of the story? The cowl dropped ^^. Its now my prized piece of gear, not just for the rarity but the crazy story of how i got it.

[Yrusama]

I took a lot of time to make sure the Final Fantasy Wiki (finalfantasy.wikia.com) had as much coverage of XIV 1.0 as I could. I may have made a few mistakes, but given there was almost nobody else working on it I'm pretty proud of my work. I just wish I could have covered more, and I look forward to contributing more in the future.

Apart from that and the various primal/mission wins, I'm very proud of my progress as a civilian. I obtained both the Axe and Needle of the Luminary, a nice Hamlet's Cutter's Hat, my first class to 50 was WVR and my first triple-meld was an Electrum Lapidary Hammer. I have better crafting melds than for combat, and I really hope the changes to stats don't make them worthless. Then again, I wouldn't mind having to spend some fine configuring gear again. It was fun the first time, it can be fun the next.

Question: Will luminaries glow or anything like artifact armor?

[KatoKinko]

I wrote a blog about my time on Final Fantasy XIV.
http://www.ign.com/blogs/-archang3l-...-of-a-kind-mmo

[Gentaro]

I guess my story would be Darnus hard, as it was the best experience I've ever had in my entire MMO history. This fight was special in many ways...it was the final battle, it was challenging - and it was avilable for a limited time only. My group was busy with relics, thats why we didn't have much time left to do this fight. For the last week we kept trying and trying and got further into the fight every try. On the last day, we finally reached the meteor phase and horribly failed, that kind of ruined the moral, everyone felt down but we kept trying. We reached the phase again about an hour and a half before the final maintenance - we did it and.....ran out of time.
The next try failed and we had about 45 minutes left before maintenance - it would be our last try, everyone knew it. That pressure was horrible, I think I gave up somewhat already. We entered and the fight started horrible, it couldn't have been worse. 2 people didn't use their lunar curtains and got knocked out right at the beginning. People kept getting hit by the explosions. At that point probably none of us would have expected a win there, but in phase 2 we recovered. I think Raise was on cooldown the entire time in phase1, we couldn't have squeezed out more raises, but phase 2 went perfect. We managed to skill the golem phase, we got all 10 meteors down (that was a pretty close call tho!) and managed to defeat him with quite a bit of time left. My hands were shaking.....well I guess everyones hands were. It felt amazing, no fight ever gave me the feeling of accomplishment like Darnus hard.

We had 6 minutes left when we got out - best feeling ever.

[Mihana]

I think the best I'd have to say was a moogle run I did with my linkshell a few months back. As we were fighting everything was going smoothly, until the king decided to troll us. One bad move and quickly things went from okay, to bad, to worse, to okay we're going to wipe. Both White Mages down, our tank, DDs save for I think one Bard and one Monk left with the Monk near death. I can't remember the exact details but we had only two alive and only one could even cast Raise. Well somehow we managed to pull away from an obvious wipe to a full party again weakened still with the king and about three/four moogles still alive. One by one as we recovered slowly the moogles fell leaving only the king. It took all of us going into a nuke/DPSing frenzy but we managed to fell the king with less than a minute left on the clock.

None of us expected to pull out a win that night. We got some moogle weapons for our troubles and were victorious in the end.

My biggest achievement would have to be hitting Lv50 on my first class. It might not seem like much but until FFXIV I never hit level cap on any MMO I've played. I think that goes for most offline RPGs too. Yet I managed that, and to reach cap on several other classes including cap on two different crafting jobs, nearly three.

[KaMuiSouZou]

Winning grand prize in the Gear Design Contest and realizing something I designed will be made in FFXIV was very very special to me. Final Fantasy was such a huge influence on me growing up that it's one of the reasons why I am a professional artist/animator today, and it's been a lifelong dream of mine to someday move to Japan and work on a Final Fantasy game. This contest let a part of that dream come true.


Also, being one of the "Memories of Eorzea" contest winners was incredible as well. I hope to one day meet Yoshi-P and receive his signature in person, but this prize will nonetheless be treasured.


Some special in-game moments...
-Like many, I remember the awe and excitement of my first day very well. Every time I entered a new zone or city I felt like a tourist - posing and taking pictures everywhere I went.
-I really enjoyed the entire storyline, both Path of the Twelve and Seventh Umbral Era. Meeting the Circle of Knowing members... Minfilia... Cid and the GC leaders... and of course my path companion Kokorai.
-Joining the wonderfully friendly and awesome linkshell "Seraphim."
-The first time I beat Nael van Darnus to complete the story was with less than 8 seconds remaining!
-And lastly, the End of an Era trailer made my jaw drop and my eyes tear up. Final Fantasy at it's very best.

[HiirNoivl]

My favorite memories are filled with laughter. (Baked Popotos anyone??)

I have to say that by far the funniest moment for me was in Dzaemel Darkhold... We were in the room before you kill the imperial soldiers and all these Skellies popped! :O

We almost died! After they were all gone we took a break and chatted for a bit, wondering what to do next when all of a sudden our archer yells, "Can someone help me with this SKELETON?!" Turns out the poor guy was getting wailed on and NO ONE noticed.

I'll laugh at that moment forever....