Jecca Mehlota (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jecca_mehlota) wrote2007-11-25 10:47 pm
jecca_mehlota) wrote2007-11-25 10:47 pm
Wings of the Goddess
I went exploring in Vana'diel this afternoon and I had so completely forgotten how much I love this game but I adore it SO MUCH (seriously, I logged more time today than I have in the past two or three months) and this is absolutely my favorite of the expansions so far! Even though everything is still a much high level than me and could murder me dead if I let it! (Chains of Promathia has been relegated to Close Second, since I do adore that one, as well.)
I took a whole lot of screenshots (using FFXI's built-in picture taker) and screencaptures ("Print Screen"). I also crashed out a lot, due to my internet still HATING EVERYTHING.
I am going to discuss what I have seen so far and also spam a lot of images now!
OKAY SO. I went with my brother - Nabiki, who is a Mithra and therefore female, so from here on out, any in-game reference to my brother will be female - to explore the new areas! The premise of this expansion is that somehow - I'm not clear on how, that'll probably be covered in the story line. If not, eh, who cares? We have enough crazy warping around, anyway - Adventurers can be sent twenty years into the past, during the last war, by these things called Cavernous Maws:
The first time you go back into the past, you have to use a specific Maw - the one in the Batallia Downs (which is just an area outside the biggest city, Jeuno). That's the one pictured above.
So we walked off! And found the Maw! And... got eaten by it.
The Maw doesn't do anything initially, actually. Once you start to walk away, though, it rears up out of the ground, and Hisi and turns around to see...
AND THE THING SCREAMS! (I laughed at the text.)
Hisime, of course, goes, "What the heck?!"
VACCUUM:
HISI CAN'T RUN AWAY! NUUU!
er, as perhaps wrong as it is (she's scared! Oh, Hisi!), I really like that shot. I've never seen that expression or pose before (probably because it's... new) and it's just an interesting one.
Then she's turned into a ball of glowing light and (not shown) swallowed by the Maw.
Hisi finds herself in a strange area!
She looks down. Voidness!
She looks up. (I don't know what that is. In the preview video-thing, an NPC questions if it could be ATOMOS.)
There's some energy build-up, which she pokes, and it THROWS HER!
We fall...
And apparently pass through something. (See: TIME)
The energy solidifies into... CAIT SITH?!
You're in the wrong game, buddy! (Though the Cavernous Maws look like something from FFIX, I think, and they borrow from themselves all the time. Whatever.)
There's a scene with some warriors on chocobos running along (which I didn't take any pictures of). They come up to the Maw and see.... Hisi playing dead.
Random Jeuno-Knight NPC: Is that...a person!?
Hisi: bleeeaaaah x__x
Poor baby. She goes through so much because of me.
They send me off to Eldieme Necropolis which, in the present, is kind of like a death trap of pain, but right now people actually live there or something.
Nabiki and I gathered ourselves together (she'd been propelled into the next zone over - Rolanberry Field - while I'd remained in Batallia. Where you spawn is completely random) and, instead of taking the advice of the nice soldiers, headed off for Garlaige Citadel (which is also a death trap of pain in modern Vana'diel, but during the war it was a San d'Orian outpost, and, well, seeing as we're both San d'Orian...)
I have pictures of the place! It is really weird seeing that place not in ruins and overrun by undead.
Anyway, we got a letter of recommendation by the guard there (who, of course, didn't know what Adventurers are, since they haven't been "invented" yet), and were told to get ourselves to San d'Oria.
We backtracked through the citadel and the other zones. I logged out when we reached Jugner, since I had to go to work. Silly me, I thought that Jugner would be the same level range in the past, but, no, it's much higher. The Orcs have a major outpost there right now (Davoi, since they've overrun the monastery all ready) and have a wall blocking passage through the forest, as well, so we're currently taking an extremely long detour through an entire new area called the Vunkerl Inlet. It's beautiful. Also extremely high level. eep! I have screencaptures of it, too, of course, but I haven't named and uploaded them yet (we're still going through it right now and I am typing this in between crashing outs).
You've not lived (in Vana'diel) until you've been sneaking through a high level area and had one of the "ground shakers" (massive monsters that make the ground shake when they walk) suddenly come at you. It doesn't matter that it hasn't aggro'd you. The heart-stopping moment of "I am SO DEAD" is what matters.
Anyway, that's enough of that. We're about to go back into Jugner after the Longest Detour EVER, and I need to pay complete attention to avoid being murdered by Orcs.
(Though, if you desperately need more, Hisime's account of this mess is over here. There's no fourth wall there, so you can leave comments if you want.)
...and, er, I'm sorry. No one cares about this! I promise I'll try to stop talking about it now.
I took a whole lot of screenshots (using FFXI's built-in picture taker) and screencaptures ("Print Screen"). I also crashed out a lot, due to my internet still HATING EVERYTHING.
I am going to discuss what I have seen so far and also spam a lot of images now!
OKAY SO. I went with my brother - Nabiki, who is a Mithra and therefore female, so from here on out, any in-game reference to my brother will be female - to explore the new areas! The premise of this expansion is that somehow - I'm not clear on how, that'll probably be covered in the story line. If not, eh, who cares? We have enough crazy warping around, anyway - Adventurers can be sent twenty years into the past, during the last war, by these things called Cavernous Maws:
The first time you go back into the past, you have to use a specific Maw - the one in the Batallia Downs (which is just an area outside the biggest city, Jeuno). That's the one pictured above.
So we walked off! And found the Maw! And... got eaten by it.
The Maw doesn't do anything initially, actually. Once you start to walk away, though, it rears up out of the ground, and Hisi and turns around to see...
AND THE THING SCREAMS! (I laughed at the text.)
Hisime, of course, goes, "What the heck?!"
VACCUUM:
HISI CAN'T RUN AWAY! NUUU!
er, as perhaps wrong as it is (she's scared! Oh, Hisi!), I really like that shot. I've never seen that expression or pose before (probably because it's... new) and it's just an interesting one.
Then she's turned into a ball of glowing light and (not shown) swallowed by the Maw.
Hisi finds herself in a strange area!
She looks down. Voidness!
She looks up. (I don't know what that is. In the preview video-thing, an NPC questions if it could be ATOMOS.)
There's some energy build-up, which she pokes, and it THROWS HER!
We fall...
And apparently pass through something. (See: TIME)
The energy solidifies into... CAIT SITH?!
You're in the wrong game, buddy! (Though the Cavernous Maws look like something from FFIX, I think, and they borrow from themselves all the time. Whatever.)
There's a scene with some warriors on chocobos running along (which I didn't take any pictures of). They come up to the Maw and see.... Hisi playing dead.
Random Jeuno-Knight NPC: Is that...a person!?
Hisi: bleeeaaaah x__x
Poor baby. She goes through so much because of me.
They send me off to Eldieme Necropolis which, in the present, is kind of like a death trap of pain, but right now people actually live there or something.
Nabiki and I gathered ourselves together (she'd been propelled into the next zone over - Rolanberry Field - while I'd remained in Batallia. Where you spawn is completely random) and, instead of taking the advice of the nice soldiers, headed off for Garlaige Citadel (which is also a death trap of pain in modern Vana'diel, but during the war it was a San d'Orian outpost, and, well, seeing as we're both San d'Orian...)
I have pictures of the place! It is really weird seeing that place not in ruins and overrun by undead.
Anyway, we got a letter of recommendation by the guard there (who, of course, didn't know what Adventurers are, since they haven't been "invented" yet), and were told to get ourselves to San d'Oria.
We backtracked through the citadel and the other zones. I logged out when we reached Jugner, since I had to go to work. Silly me, I thought that Jugner would be the same level range in the past, but, no, it's much higher. The Orcs have a major outpost there right now (Davoi, since they've overrun the monastery all ready) and have a wall blocking passage through the forest, as well, so we're currently taking an extremely long detour through an entire new area called the Vunkerl Inlet. It's beautiful. Also extremely high level. eep! I have screencaptures of it, too, of course, but I haven't named and uploaded them yet (we're still going through it right now and I am typing this in between crashing outs).
You've not lived (in Vana'diel) until you've been sneaking through a high level area and had one of the "ground shakers" (massive monsters that make the ground shake when they walk) suddenly come at you. It doesn't matter that it hasn't aggro'd you. The heart-stopping moment of "I am SO DEAD" is what matters.
Anyway, that's enough of that. We're about to go back into Jugner after the Longest Detour EVER, and I need to pay complete attention to avoid being murdered by Orcs.
(Though, if you desperately need more, Hisime's account of this mess is over here. There's no fourth wall there, so you can leave comments if you want.)
...and, er, I'm sorry. No one cares about this! I promise I'll try to stop talking about it now.