Three years ago I remember sliding my new PS2's HDD into its slot. So excited to play a new Final Fantasy. However this wasnt just any Final Fantasy, this was Final Fantasy XI: ONLINE. If you dont know Final Fantasy is an on going series from Japan, all of which until XI were single player offline. I am a fan of all the FF games myself so of course I would have this the moment I could!
Starting on XI I had already had friends who would be starting with me so we all joined my other friends linkshell. In the linkshell were my closest friends in game at the time! Terial, Kyler, Cresentia, Maior, and Drifter are just a few that I can remember. Of those 5 only 2 still play. Wandering around the city of Windurst looking for a quick way to snag some gil, or going on a rank mission, that is what you would find me doing for the first month of playing. I didnt know what to do or where to go. Also finding a job that was for me at the start took quite a while too (what was it a month before I even had anything to level 10?!) I finally came across the job of Red Mage that seem like it was the only job for me!
As that first year of XI went on Maior, who was in my original linkshell, created his own. An extension of his gameing clan "Clan of the Angry Monkeys". Most of the linkshell switched over to it leaveing Terial's linkshell behind. I met many more people in ClanAM who of which came and went. I continued to level my RDM even more trying to keep up with my friends from ClanAM. Even if I never really caught up I still enjoyed doing many things with them.
Year two was much like year one. I still leveled Red Mage but also leveled other mage jobs. Leveling started getting fun on Red Mage and was ready to get to 75 any day. Alas I did not get 75 untill very late in my seccond year of playing. The expansion of Treasures of Aht Urgan was really the first one I got to really enjoy. The brand new areas the new story everything about it drew me in. It also gave me so many new places to level my Red Mage.
Just recently starting my third year of FFXI I thought I would farther but I'm happy where I'm at. All the people I've met, all the people I've yet to meet and all the experiences I'm going to continue to have will never grow on me. I'm sure this one game will still be in my life for a long time to come and I'm sure when I do end up quit playing it will be because of the severs going down or something! Just cant get enought of this FFXI!
