Question: Since When Have You Been Able to Trade Rank For Crystals?

[Wakeninety]

Back in the day, only about 2 years after the game's release (release of CoP) I played FFXI. I've come back to see what it's like, and much has changed.
Has it always been that you could trade crystals to the guard, and they fill the rank bar?
It feels like an easy mode change because the missions can be so repetitive and boring, and at some point you stop wanting to stretch out certain content.

[Uriah]

Been able to give crystals for points as far back as I can recall.

At least 2006

At some point they drastically changed the rate by like 20x though

[Alhanelem]

pretty sure it was always a thing, they just changed it to be the preferred way so repeating missions wasn't necessary.

[Kjara]

From The History of Final Fantasy XI, Year 2002 (https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/The_History_of_Final_Fantasy_XI/2002):

Jun. 12th, 2002:

"it was also not yet known that players needed to trade Crystals in order to be offered the mission in the first place. This added to the frustration."

So it was there since launch, it just took a while for players to figure it out.