Seasons in the Abyssea

I'd heard so much about Abyssea in podcasts and from general FFXI chatter either on forums or websites, or from friends, so Cheekee and Sirdante decided to introduce me to it properly as my 30-something WAR, just to see how much XP I could get with them.

We went to Abyssea-Grauberg, took a long trek through the woods and found a Galka who offered me a repeatable quest a bit like Fields of Valor. Had to kill crabs over and over, and then return to him to get the quest again.

Every so often a coloured chest would drop and the XP would increase or we'd get more time. XP started off slow but seemed to increase the more we killed, but it was still not the brilliant "level to the cap in a day" that I'd heard of. I think I only made a couple of levels before the end of the night, which wasn't bad, and I like the idea of Abyssea. Just can't wait until I'm higher to actually contribute!

A Fresh Startaru - Again!

When I rejoined FFXI last year, it was great... but I remember not being sure of what to do: I'd been out of the loop for so long that I'd lost track of what I'd done and what I needed to do, and as a result I drifted away from FFXI again.

Unable to keep away any longer, I began a fresh, new account, starting up Kixxi again from scratch. Anuka swapped to her Taru alt, Chinchi, and we began levelling together, both level one, both new characters.



It was so much fun - everything was new, fresh and I didn't have any "what have I done, what haven't I done" issues, as I hadn't done anything, so talking to NPCs gave me those old quests I had done six years ago and hadn't really understood. This time I was able to relive those old moments but it all made sense this time.

Also, fighting seemed so much easier. OK, so we had the Novennial Ring (the ninth anniversary equivalent of the Anniversary Rings), but they seemed to have given massive XP boosts for killing, so whereas EP mobs used to give around 15xp, they were giving around 80-90 or so. With me on MNK, and Chinchi on WHM, we were able to duo EMs and Ts, giving us hundreds of XP per kill!