EXP/Gil please

[RAIST]

@Kaych
you REALLY need to read my sig. At the end of your wall of text, you FINALLY espouse the general message of it, yet you don't seem to be following it too well in practice.

For some clarification in your answer to me--I never stated that ZM's did give rewards:

wanna say a lot of the COP/ZM ones do too. Been a while since I had to assist with those lines

And you can quote text by using the quote and /quote html tags.

And now my wall of text, but trust me, it serves a purpose:

This game was designed to be a co-op experience. While a lot of the content has always had the option to solo/low man, the big stuff was designed to virtually require teamplay, as it is SUPPOSED to be a MMORPG. If you want to be selfish and do only what you need to do, and only want to help others if there is something in it for you--then by all means MERC yourself out. I would hazard a guess that the majority of the FFXI community believes in helping friends out (or complete strangers in an effort to make new friends) simply because either that is the type of people they are, or they understand that it WILL benefit them later in the game. Chaulk it up to generating good Kharma, or people understanding they will need a high level RDM, WHM, or BLM with refresh atmas, having a RNG might be good for quick ACP runs for ls mates that still need the final fight--whatever they may feel may be a benefit for themselves or their circle of friends.

Here is something for you to consider that has been going on in my circle of friends. One of our Resident BST/PUP (only two jobs he ever took to 75) just offered to level BRD for us to use as our regular BRD was tired of it and wanted to level something else. So, they formed a static and ran his BRD up. I took him farming for scrolls--sold the drops we didn't need, made a nice chunk of gil, and I upgraded some gears for other jobs. Was getting a Sahagin key and farming for hours a pain in the butt, even they I didn't need anything from there? yes. Did I get something in reward for my time--yes(earned gil on the side and upgraded gears). Did it benefit the group? yes--he got his BRD leveled, got his songs, and got to spam songs as I tanked and got skillups--30+ people will benefit from having his BRD with propeer tools/skills available for events. Would I personally have benefited more by spending my time working on only my stuff like completing my AF3? Maybe--but...on the other hand, he also needs gear for his BRD, PUP, BST. Guess what... a lot of the stuff he needs comes from mobs/quests that also drop SMN, and BLM, (maybe some BST too, forget) which I need. Guess who gets to come along on my farming sessions? A player with 90 BST/PUP/BRD.. mighty convenient for me, eh?

now I'm not THAT opportunistic. This particular player has been an in-game friend of mine for ages--he dragged me a long and made me finish ZM, and if not for his help, I wouldn't have CoP done, nor most of my TAU, Nyzul, nor ALL of my WotG (we efen DUOED a lot of it when others were insisting on cookie cutter party setups). Yes, we've died a lot. Yes, we've given up on some and put them off until we could get more help. But, the point is.. if neither of us had been willling to make some sacrifices (ie time, suffered loss of xp and gil on items and such)--we would not have formed a friendships that has allowed us to progress far beyond where we could go solo, and since we were doing it with FRIENDS we had a helluva lot of fun doing it. These friendships have extended to outside of the game, even though we are hundreds of miles apart. So in the end, I guess you could say I have not only benefited in game, but have benefited in my personal life as well.

Now.. for the real clencher. Want to know how this great series of relationships started? I was in a party in Qufim when I first started playing. Dind't have a main LS--only stayed in one event pearl that I picked up doing a Rank mission in a pickup. The party leader wanted to move to khazaam and I didn't have access. We needed a WHM, and I couldn't go. The party was all in the leader's LS. He pearled me and they took me to get my keys, and we went to the jungles and exp'ed. Eventually, he had to leave the game due to RL issues and the shell dissolved (married, moved, started planning a family). The shell dissolved. A small band of us stayed in touch for while via Friendslist and hopping between other shells we had, getting pearls for eachother until one of us found a good shell and we all eventually reunited. In some cases, our old LS takes over the events for the day simply because the majority of us are from that former LS. We more or less merged two shells together in sense, and have expanded our circle of friends into something even greater then what we had before.

And, it all started becuase a complete stranger that picked me up from a search for a WHM to do a Qufim party offered to help me get my Kazahm pass.

So, in summation:never underestimate the value in helping someone else just for the sake of helping them out, you never know just where it may lead.