General: Adventures in Aht Urhgan

We did so many different things over the weekend, both in the new areas and back in the "old world", that I'd rather just write one big rambling entry here, instead of breaking it down into individual stories.

They've really added an enormous amount of content to the game, and they've really changed it from the way they did Chains of Promathia. With that expansion, you faced great challenges to be able to access new areas and new content, which means it took (is taking) a great deal of time to even scratch the surface. So even though it was released in September 2004, there are still areas I haven't been able to go to yet. With the Treasures of Aht Urhgan, it seems like it's all there now, readily available (with a few very minor hoops to jump through) to everyone. However, the new areas don't seem to have any monsters that are too weak to be worthwhile to a level 75, so it's a bit limited by a player's level. I probably wouldn't even recommend anyone get it unless they have a job over 60, though there are Assault missions at level 50.

Having it all there, ready to explore now, is actually a bit overwhelming. I found that by trying to do too many things on Saturday afternoon, I actually wanted to go back to the "old world" to catch my breath. One of the oddest things I noticed was that I felt at times I was playing a different game. Having played FFXI literally every day with a couple minor exceptions for over two years now, some of the new areas, new monsters, different monster behaviors, new quests and missions, just seemed different enough to feel like a different game. It was a bit surreal.

We started off Saturday morning trying to get Grymalkyn's ranger leveled a bit. Grym wants to do the Ouryu fight as THF/RNG, and with the 50 level cap on the fight, her RNG needs to be 25, and was at 21. We headed off to the East Altepa end of Korroloka Tunnel with Kiki's RDM60 for some, ahem, assistance, and Grym ate her food, used her Empress band, and killed the first worm for 300 points. Then we realized that the tunnel was absolutely full of parties and soloers. Yes, we'd forgotten that Saturday morning for us is Saturday evening prime time for the Japanese players, and they seem to "get" Korroloka Tunnel better than most North Americans. So we headed to Qufim instead, and Grym got to level 22. The worms in Qufim took a bit longer to kill, but weren't much of a problem for her and she chained better than a solo player should be able to, even with a RDM60 tossing some cures her way.

Elboron showed up, so we switched back to our normal PLD71/THF71/BRD71 trio and headed off to Mhaura to catch the ferry back to Aht Urhgan. This trip was a bit more exciting than our first the other night. Someone fished up a Gugru Orobon (NM fish) and a bunch of people formed an alliance and took care of it. We saw a whale jumping out of the water off the side of the boat. Since the Bibiki Bay ferry has dolphins that swim alongside, I was happy to see they added something for this ride as well.

We ran around talking to NPCs and picking up quests, and have completed a few, with tangible rewards:

Keeping Notes (reward: moghouse exit)
Arts and Crafts (reward: Imperial Bronze Piece)
An Empty Vessel (reward: Blue Mage job, title: Bearer of the Mark of Zahak)
Olduum (reward: Olduum Ring, level 60, enchantment Teleport Wajaom Woodlands, recharge 20 hours)
Got It All (reward: Bibiki Seashell, level 60 ammo, VIT+4)
The Prankster (reward: map of Caedarva Mire)
Delivering the Goods (reward: 3 Imperial Bronze Pieces)

Most of these simply involved running around in town, but for An Empty Vessel, we did have to venture into Aydeewa Subterrane, and it was back to the same spot to dig up an item for the Olduum quest. The outdoor areas in the expansion are just so lush, even on the PS2. They must be stunning on a good PC setup.

The Missions for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan are really just a series of cutscenes. The only dangerous one is the second mission, Immortal Sentries, which requires you to deliver supplies to one of the assault staging points. As of last night, we've already completed through the seventh mission, and there's only one more to go (until they add more to the game):

Immortal Sentries (title: Private Second Class)
President Salaheem
Knight of Gold
Confessions of Royalty
Easterly Winds
Westerly Winds (title: Agent of the Allied Forces)

Our first trek into the wilds outside the city was for the BLU quest. We made our way through Bhaflau Thickets to the underground area, keeping sneak and invisible up, hoping we wouldn't run into any of the fleas we'd heard people talking about. We made it safely to the spot we needed to get to for our cutscene, and were sent back to the city.

We had seen the excavation points near the BLU quest cavern, and decided to try to complete the Olduum quest, so we grabbed some pickaxes and headed back, with Kiki as RDM60/BLM30 for escape this time. The three of us got the key item we needed and headed back to town to get our thunder ring. Kiki switched back to PLD71/RDM35 and we headed out to the Leypoint in Wajaom Woodlands to complete the quest. I was so surprised that it would be such an easy quest to get the teleport ring. I'm not sure how much we'll actually use it, since it drops you in the middle of the huge woods, but it should be faster than taking the boat from Mhaura, and with a mage (sub)job, it should be safe enough walking to town. And having it recharge every 20 hours means it will be good forever.

Since we were already more than what looked like halfway to the Halvung Staging area, we headed through Halvung to Mount Zhayolm to deliver our supplies. It was fun sneaking past new monsters we'd never seen, hoping they wouldn't notice us through sneak and invisible, and we safely made it to the staging area. Once there, we were able to "attune" ourselves to the Runic Portal, for an easy trip back to Chamber of Passage in Whitegate. Now we just have to get to all the other Staging areas to unlock those portals as well, and we'll be all set for any of the Assault Missions.

We decided to head to Nashmau and explore around there, and hopefully unlock COR and PUP as well, so we hopped on the boat and made our way over. Nashmau is filled with Qiqirn NPCs, and their names are all confusingly similar, which will make it tough to keep them straight for the different quests. I wasn't going to include this screenshot from Nashmau, but since Halifirien used the same spot for his own photo opportunity, I thought it would be funny.

Our first trek into Caedarva Mire was in an attempt to reach the Azouph Staging area. We ran into a clump of true sight Heraldic Imps that checked IT++ for us at level 71, and despite our careful attempt to get around them, Grym was spotted first. I think part of our problem was that it was hard to tell which way they were facing in the darkness. Thinking Elboron was still safe behind us, Grym hit perfect dodge and warped out, I flashed it and used invincible and used my instant warp scroll just as Elbo tried to sleep it. Death 1 for Elbo.

Back in Whitegate, we did some other stuff, then decided to go back again and try to do the PUP and COR quest, hoping we wouldn't run into the Heraldic Imps again. This time, we all headed into the Mire with our Treat Staff IIs equiped. We got near a tunnel we had to pass through, and there were 5 imps hovering around. We nearly made it past them, but one spotted Elbo. Grym again hit perfect dodge and warped, I flashed the imp to get it off of Elbo and used invincible and waited a few moments before warping, but Elboron had used his lullaby macro, swapping in his Apollo's Staff and losing the timer on his Treat Staff II. Death 2 for Elbo. :-( I really hate Heraldic Imps. We vowed to not return until we at least got the map for the area.

At this point, Grym and Kiki headed back to a now-empty Korroloka Tunnel and quickly got Grym's Ranger another level. Only two more to reach the goal of 25. Elboron went to Windurst to work on leveling BLU a bit.

A bunch of the other people in the linkshell were planning to fight the NM flea for The Prankster quest, which rewards you with a map of the Mire, so we headed back to Whitegate to join in on the fun. With an alliance of 10 level 71-75s, that poor flea didn't have a chance, but a PLD+WHM duo had fought it right before us, and it was pretty impressive to see how the flea just kept smacking that PLD. We got aggro from a couple Fomor in the Thickets - they're much better dressed than their less fortunate relatives back in Tavnazia.

After that, some of us continued on to Halvung to try to find the "cockroaches" that drop a cocoon that's in rare supply and needed for all the Puppetmasters to upgrade their Automoton frames at level 10. We fought a few things along the way rather than try to sneak/invis, since there were enough of us to handle aggro. One of the amusing things is that the crawlers in the new area sleep at night, and have ZZZZZs floating up from their heads. I was surprised that a Qiqirn in Halvung didn't aggro us.

We finally found a few of the Wamouracampa, but they were pretty stingy with their cocoons, and we only got one. We had to fight several Friar's Lanterns, which was detrimental to several peoples' exp. I think we ended up with 6 deaths while we were there, but Diasuke has Raise III, so it wasn't too painful for those who died. The cocoons sell at the cloth guild for less than 800, but they seem to have only 3 up per game day, and people have been camping the guild to sell the cocoons on the AH from 250k to 1 million gil. I think I'm going to wait awhile before leveling PUP (of course, not having it unlocked yet makes that even easier).

Sunday, Grym and Kiki spent some time leveling BLU, but I think I'll write up our adventures in blue as a seperate entry.

I was a bit worried about traveling back and forth to Aht Urhgan, but I think I'm happy with the "solution". I'm keeping my home point in Al Zahbi. When I want to get back to the old world, depending on where I'm going, I can either get a free "warp" from the Taru near the moghouse to somewhere near Jeuno (I've ended up on top of a gate in Rolanberry, on a rock in Qufim, on a rock in Sauromogue, and Grym's even been sent to Ru'Lude Gardens), or Grym can teleport us to Altepa or Xarcabard or Mea and we can quickly get to an outpost to get back to Windurst and our Mog Storage and the OP teleport network. And if there comes a time that we really need to reset our home point somewhere (while leveling BLU perhaps), we can use our Olduum rings to get back to Wajaom Woodlands and Al Zahbi. Or we can decide to take the ferry and do some fishing.

Chocobo prices at the Mea crag were running over 7k on the weekend. The new city is so popular that they've sent out system messages telling people to disperse from the area (Whitegate), or risk being forcibly moved. There were over 700 people in the zone when I saw that message. The lag is terrible, the shouts are annoying (I avoided Lower Jeuno as much as possible to get away from both of those), but for now at least, Al Zahbi is a bit quieter than Whitegate. I noticed the server population was running over 4000 for most of the weekend. I haven't seen those sorts of numbers for months. It typically runs closer to 3k during JP prime time, 2K in NA prime time. So it seems that everyone's checking out the new stuff. A guy on my friendslist who left Lakshmi for Hades ages ago, and hasn't played in about a year seems to have started playing again this past weekend. I think there's enough new and different with this expansion to tempt people back, but whether it holds peoples' interest remains to be seen.