What it all amounts to

Yesterday the update introduced the new mount system! This is quite a significant change to FFXI, bringing it in line with most other typical MMOs, which allow the player to summon a mount from a list at the touch of a button. For years FFXI has only allowed mounts through the chocobo rental system, or through the use of the Chocobo Whistle if you've reared a chocobo. Now, you can complete a quest to allow you to summon a mount of choice from your Abilities menu. In short, it's a lot more like FFXIV, for those who've played it.

After you've completed the quest, you can even trade the NPC your old Chocobo Whistle and it'll add your Chocobo to the list of summonable mounts too. I guess this means your Chocobo Whistle is redundant but I haven't thown it away yet... just in case!

First of all I apologise for my screenshots - they're a little stretched. I'm going to need to play around with my screenshot settings to try to fix this.

To start the quest, go to Upper Jeuno where the stables are. Outside in the yard, talk to Mapitoto, a Taru wearing a Chocobo hat. He'll send you out to Batallia Downs to pick up five bowls of Raptor Food around the map (they're marked on your map so you know where they are) within a ten minute time limit. Sounds easy, right?

You've also got a motivation bar (which affects speed) and a pep bar. As you run around the map, your motivation bar drops, making your mount run slower and slower. Once it becomes empty, you dismount, and you get the option to either try again, try again on an easier mode (this has no detrimental affect on your reward) or quit.

What I noticed was that if you run up a hill, you'll see a "!" symbol over your mount's head, which I think means its struggling, and the motivation bar drops quicker, so run round the hills. I also didn't pick this up from the quest (I had to find it on the FFXI forums), but the pep bar is for speed bursts. Once it's 50% or higher, you can /cheer and your motivation bar goes up and your pep bar completely empties. The more pep, the longer the burst of speed. This'll allow you to reach the Raptor Food easily.

Once you click on the Raptor Food (you need to be really close) it'll tell you how many you've got so far in your chat log. After you've got five, you'll need to run your mount to an NPC on the far western side of the map, where you'll have completed the challenge. She'll send you back to Upper Jeuno to complete the quest where you'll get your first mount, the raptor.

It's as fast as a rental chocobo, so purely cosmetic, but it paves the way for interesting and exotic mounts to collect!