History repeats itself

[Keith_Dragoon]

I leveled almost 20 jobs through the dunes and I enjoyed everyone of them. It's not about the exp the deaths or the loot. I enjoyed the community, I play/played the game for damn near 10 years and I've met so many life-long friends and most of these encounters were in exp parties.

The dunes was nowhere near my Fav area but on the fly I can think of 10 stories that involves the map that has engraved itself on my soul.

[Matsume]

Hitory never repeats itself but it often rhymes

Mark Twain

[Mamba]

Valkurm dunes was a nightmare on my server since day one. lol.

Dunes was the sandbox for noobies to learn to play.
FFXIV really needs this...

As horrible and nightmarish Valkrum Dunes were, that's where the WAR learned to provoke every 30 seconds and BLM learned to go slow on the nukes. That's where you really learned the basic rules of the game and made friends while learning.

We have a tutorial in the beginning of FFXIV yes, but once you get past the "learning the buttons" phase you are left on your own and FFXIV is not promoting party play like FFXI did. You can solo to 50 and be a total noob who is useless in all events... In FF11, unless you paid someone to PL you, you at least knew the basic functions of your job.

Just the other week I came across a lvl 50 THM in shiposae (or however you write it) who was asking me (a lvl 15 WAR) how he can unlock BLM, where he gets chocobo, how he joins Grand Company, how he needs to play not to die so much...
IT MADE ME LITERALLY SHIVER...

WE NEED MOAR DUNES!!!!

[Bladerunner]

Ahh great memories. Remembering leveling in Sarabuta(sp) or Tahyrongi Canyon. Having someone tell me to take the boat from Mhaura to Selbina and get in a party at the dunes. Lol, starting out as a monk with a staff and someone telling me with a smile, "You probably want to get rid of that staff and switch to some claws or something." Great achievements in that game which sometimes seemed impossible to achieve:
*Unlocking sub job
*Making it to Jeuno for the 1st time
*Getting Sky access- walking through the Hall of Gods the 1st time, gave me the chills^^
*Getting Sea access
*Unlocking new classes
*Getting rare gear-drg hauby, archers jupon, etc.
*Getting into good parties, where other players compliment your gear, your skill, or how great your DD was.
*Crafting a plus 1 signed

14 1.0 has made me get some of those feelings with beating some of the grand company storylines. If they can even deliver just one "euphoric- gaming moment" on a consistent basis, Square will have my money and devotion til the lights are tuned off

[VanillaLatte]

I think as long as solo-play is possible, it'll bring a lot of negative impacts to having great memories. Valkurne Dunes was so epic because of group/party plays (oddly enough, frustration in the Valkurne Dunes was part of the great memory).

And Nidhogg was not an instanced battle!

Either way, best wishes to FFXIV ARR and hope we'll have a great time there just like FFXI!