Happy Rising! Let's look back.

[Ramesses]

Yeah... this Rising event has made me develop an overload of emotions when I look back.

Below was one of my earliest images when I returned to the game after Yoshi took over. As we all know, several aspects of 1.0 was a mess when it released in September 2010 and by October or early November, I quit in frustration.

I think I first returned in April 2011 for a couple months then returned full time by end of the year after I started seeing improvements... a lot of us were VERY vocal with our suggestions back then, but the Devs patiently kept hearing us out and making changes. Plus, SE let us play for free while we constantly helped with feedback.

Game-wise, I had initially started out as a lancer in Gridania on the Mysidia server and it's a shame I still can't find my first images I took from my first day in the game (during 1.0 beta final phase--or early access? Darn, I forget which).

Anyway, if I remember correctly, by the time I returned (or was it after?), Mysidia server would eventually merge into the Gungnir server. That was where I ran into old friends and made a LOT of new friends from Japan (many of whom also played FFXI). Back then the community were so much more excellent towards one another.

That said, I selected several of these images at random because it turns out I have at least three thousand of them for 1.0 alone. They include:

• Fighting Primals for the first time (Ifrit, King Moogle and Garuda)
• Joining the Maelstrom (and later images shown swearing allegiance to our lovely Admiral),
• Rescuing Hildibrand from Dalamud (or something like that---by the way, last time I checked, I believe he still has Nael's weapon).
• Leveling my various jobs (paladin was funniest because you started with a really crappy shield made of wood scraps)... loved leveling Dragoon best.
• Wandering to the cliffs where you could only see Ishgard from afar.
• Doing the pilgrimage of the 12 stones of the Twelve... I think the quest was called "Living on a Prayer"
• Running errands for Sensei Louisoix
• The last few images is of how Dalamud looked in the sky towards the end of days... and Legatus Gaius constantly flying ominously over our heads.

Yeah... good times... fantastic times indeed.