Reminiscing...

I was lucky enough to be invited to the PS2 beta release. I am sure that I tried a few different combinations of race and jobs before settling on one. My first character was a female Elvaan named Elune (Warcraft fan) and I chose white mage as my main job. My starting city was Windurst, the city of magic. The job choice was mainly due to not knowing how to /heal to reset HP and MP. I figured that as a mage, I had a few extra cures to make me last longer against Mandragoras and Bees on the battle field before I had to return to the city and recharge in my mog house! About a week later, I finally learned how to use my controller to chat to someone and they taught me to use the R3 (?) button to /heal. Back then I had no idea that any old USB keyboard would have worked just fine as opposed to some sort of official Sony PS2 keyboard. This other player was named Mouse (another Elvaan; MNK). We duo'd together and (as far as we knew) were the highest level jobs. We were both close to reaching level 20, when suddenly another player on the beta server sent me a /tell. Despite being 20 levels into the game (which was a lot of invested time back then), I had no idea how to reply. That didn't seem to matter -- the Mithra named Elian directed us to take the Mhaura boat to reach Selbina. We partied together with a few other folks several levels lower, and became really good friends throughout the beta phase.

We were the first to unlock subjobs and get chocobos. By the end of the beta phase, I believe I had leveled my white mage to around level 45 (?) or so, and then real life demanded my attention. To this day, I still remember the wow factor of FFXI, even with its Japanese text in many areas, and black-icon items with missing names (I think they were seals, whichever ones that drop from Crawler's Nest). There was something really cool about being the first (not just via beta, by literally among all beta testers) to explore Xarcabard and Fei Yin. Up until I left for real life, there was only one black mage with Warp II -- a scroll that I donated to said BLM and obtained through metal-gearing through Fei Yin as a lower level WHM. Back then, Sneak could literally "start to wear" right after casting. It was actually scary to see new foes whether beast or beastmen -- I always assumed that everything was aggressive and linked. Ahh... the sense of danger back in those days! Or being the first to discover that the beta release actually had SMN as an unlockable job (I spent quite a number of days in Qufim in search of a ruby that was thought to not even be in the game yet). Even a GM showed up to witness the first summoning of Carbuncle! I wish I had kept some of my screenshots...

Anyway, just reminiscing. Feel free to add your own thoughts, or totally ignore mine. Shout outs to a few people whose in-game names I actually still remember to this day (names may be misspelled): Mouse (MNK), Trojka (DRK), Taimoor (WAR?), Elian (THF), Xenophenon (BLM), Ryan (who later made a character named Ryane during retail, if my memory is still intact).

And some folks whose name is just at the tip of my tongue:

* a mithra red mage who leveled with Taimoor (they were Mouse's and my exp rival until we started to do static parties)
* a galka thief who started one of the bigger linkshells (Bahamut's Legion, I think) that I was a member of

And there was one other character named Angelheart (Taru) who was probably one of the worst WHMs on the server, even after accounting for the fact that we were beta players and knew nothing about FFXI.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Seriously though, I bet playing the beta was a blast!

I joined the game late in around 2004. Took 30 days to make it to level 30 when I first started. It's nice to read about earlier player experience. I recently returned to the game after 6 years of hiatus. It's quite an awakening to find out that most of the people I knew are now Fathers with kids.

Playing beta was indeed a blast. I think that experience was what made FFXI such a memorable game for me. While I was annoyed that I knew absolutely nothing about the game, that aspect was also what made the game so addictive.

The absolute best memory for me during beta was getting Rank 5 and the airship pass. I think we were in our high 30's or early 40's at that time -- I do not remember the exact levels but I do remember that getting the drops for the quadav NM in Beadeaux was a huge challenge that took our entire LS to take down. Back then, we didn't know the zone was sound aggro only. And we only had a few mages who could sneak, deodorize, and invisible. If you could only imagine the stress of being one of the few mages who could cast those 3 spells, and having to do that for 18+ people! And how many people freaking out when their curse wore because they did not realize that curse reduces their HP. The moment when we all un-cursed was a long stream of "WTF just hit us! Cures! Cures! Hurry up!" even when we were not engaged in battle.

But that wasn't the worst part. Getting the key item in Oztroja was a huge pain. A few people died on the trek and HP'd. I think I was close to being an ***, if not downright so, while running that event. I didn't even allow party chat so that I could get the instructions to everyone. The lighting of the torches and opening the brass door had to have been the absolute most nerve racking thing to do in the game. There were yagudos standing there, and you had to drop invis to light the torches. And I remember them being rather annoying to light because you had to stand just right to light them... I am sure a few died right at the point (so close, yet so far). Ahh, those days of being scared of yagudos... :-)

GARRISON!!!!

Anik we need you to kite the mobs.
Anik replies, I don't have a kite what is that a ranged thing?
No just pull a mob and kite it.
Anik replies, WTF are you talking about?
Run around in a circle and let the mobs chase you.
Anik replies, thats dumb.
Gdi....

Fast forward to end game.

Anik says, Ok I'll kite kirin since I'm the only one who knows how.

LS thinks (arrogant ***, he was a noob once too)

Fast forward a decade or so,
Jokes on them, this noob doesn't even recognize ffxi anymore.