My Playlist - We Are Vana'diel

The FFXI development team have been posting videos recently on their channel for We Are Vana'diel, but the ones I've liked the most so far are their My Playlist series. For each one, a relevant individual gives a few songs that are the most meaningful to them, providing a brief explanation as to why they picked each song.

I wonder if we could maybe do the same here! The entire OST is available on streaming services if you want a full list to help you choose. The hardest part is narrowing it down to just a few...

1. FFXI Opening Theme - I can't imagine a song better suited to introduce the themes and setting of the game. It's a beautiful piece on its own as well.

2. Gustaberg - This is the song that draws out the most nostalgia tears from me. It's appropriate for its area and sounds great out of context as well. It makes me wish they got Kumi Tanioka on for more music after the initial game.

3. Battle In The Dungeon #3 - My favourite battle theme in the game, and that's saying a lot. It's got fantastic audio quality and its pacing is perfect, to a point where it really gets me excited for a fight.

4. Faded Memories (Promyvion) - This song is just dripping with atmosphere, and is a large part of why the Promyvions are my favourite zones. Equal parts tension and curiosity.

5. Vana'diel March #4 - My favourite of the Vana'diel Marches. To this day it still holds me at the character select screen sometimes. Even as a kid I remember being blown away by this one. Maybe it's the positivity and energy? I have no idea, but I do like it a lot.

Runners-up:

1. Unity - Login - Classic Login theme. Heard this near-daily for so many years. If I were to have the sound on title screen turned on instead of muted, it would be set to this track in particular.

2. Tu'lia (aka Sky) - Easily where I had the best times with friends that no longer play. F for friends.

3. Al'Taieu (aka Sea) - Such a treat to finally arrive after being gated out for so long due to level caps, being busy, and trying to drag others along with me.

4. End Theme - As if this game ever ends.

5. My Xarcabard - Due to converting other audio files to dats for FFXI, this is actually what I hear when I enter Xarcabard... since forever ago. (Not that I would ever modify the game in any way from its original form; this is hypothetical).

I remember hearing this for the first time ever while fooling around with an FFXI DAT viewer/reader thing back in 2003 or 2004. I hadn't been to a RotZ dungeon yet, and I found this piece better than any battle theme I had heard in the game up to that point (it still is my favorite EXP pt theme), so I was really excited to get to a level that's high enough so that I can exp in an area where this plays, which happened to be... Quicksand Caves of all places (for a whole of 1 battle before the party disbanded...lol).

1. Gustaberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0rYk83Rt0A
This was my first experience with MMORPGS other than PSO and I remember being confused as to what I was actually supposed to be doing, there was no guiding hand to tell you exactly what to do and where to go as there had always been with other games. I was just put into this massive area to go explore and level up on my own, so I did just that. For days I was just roaming around and killing things here with my hammer, loved finding the hill area with new monsters, the lighthouse you could go inside and the steam area with crabs. Gustaberg was all I knew of FFXI (I went in pretty much blind) and I was killing monsters for gil and buying spells and things, I literally had no idea there was more to the game than this at the time.

Then someone started talking to me in say after I gave them a cure and he told me I had to explore Konschat Highlands, because he had seen a "big white alien building" there that I had to see. That's when I found out there was more to the game than where I was.

The Gusta theme always has the most emotional impact on me, when I hear it randomly somewhere out of the game.

2. Selbina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiGxNFlOO5k
While exploring in Konschat and looking at the "big white alien building" on my whm I got a tell asking me to come join a party, they were so desperate for a healer they came and guided me there (they also refused to take no for an answer). After the party broke up, I got another invite right away and again they dragged me further into the dunes. I remember after that party ended wanting to go back to Bastok for spells but having no map and no idea how to get back (I didn't know about deathwarp at the time), so I wandered around in the blinding white sand dunes totally lost for hours. Till I found Selbina, the music was so upbeat and welcoming and I remember being so happy I had found a town. I used Selbina as a base and kept trying to find my way back to konschat, retracing my steps back when I felt I was getting lost again.

The music had more impact because the previous areas had no music at all.

3. Fighters of the Crystal (crystal warriors)
This was my first endgame type group content and it was the most epic thing I had seen in any game, I leveled BLM just for this. The music is cool, the cut-scenes were amazing to hype you up. We did it with 16 BLM a WHM and a big Galka PLD, I remember being amazed he could hold these beasts all on his own without dropping when they could one shot most of us (looking back he used invincible but I didn't know that at the time). BLMs were getting one shot right and left but we took them down, and we were all so happy at the end and went together in this big huddle of blms to get our earrings.

4.Promivion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2cQZmeaFc
I did Promivions with 5 long time real life friends, it felt like some epic adventure we were all going into. We leveled specific jobs, got the special level cap gear and we talked about these fights for weeks, it was a huge deal and literally did feel like we were going on some real life adventure or something. The darkness, the weird enemies, the totally alien landscape all made this all the more epic of an adventure, and the spooky and mysterious music fit everything so perfectly.

5. Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d09ElJAdSlg
These missions were so incredibly difficult I really felt I was never going to finish them and it took a long long time, I did the first ones with friends but a few had to quit due to work. Then I had joined a static with my LS but there was some drama later on and the static fell apart. After that I had to do them in pugs and was so difficult to find groups because I had waited to do them till 9-12 months+ after cop launch (rl friends could not play as much and it slowed progress right down). I remember logging in and just sitting in lower Jeuno waiting all day, fruitlessly most days cause I either didn't have the job they wanted or there were few shouts cause most had done them. I wish we had /yell back then, I could never leave LJ.

The amazing music, the insanely different look of the zone and the relief of finally completing these missions to that point all made it a very memorable moment. I left the game running all night to listen to the music in bed.

One Last Time - Of all the music tracks in the game, this is the song that I can never forget. It's powerful and a mix of so many emotions due to the context of the cutscenes it's used in; joy, sadness, determination, separation, loss, and so much more. A true masterpiece.

Repression -- While my first pick is my most memorable track ever, this track is by far the most emotional. When I went through the storyline this tune brought me to literal tears in some cutscenes. That's a true hallmark of good storytelling.

Promyvion -- I have some very fond memories of the CoP era, and nothing rekindles them better than the zone that started it all. The Promyvions were mysterious, yet strangely peaceful. And the music track reflects that perfectly. I still enjoy relaxing to this tune whenever my travels take me to one of the zones. Lufaise Meadows nearly took this spot... but I just had to give a nod to Promyvion instead.

Breaking Ground - There's not really a lot to say about this one, I just really loved the uplifting battle theme colonization reives had. The abyssea battle track could have gone here as well. Very fitting for the theme of pushing outward and exploring.

Jeuno - Starlight Celebration - When I first heard this play it caught me by surprise, but every year I look forward to hearing the Christmas tunes in Jeuno. I spent many hours crafting by the auction house in the 75 era relaxing to this jingle. The sunbreeze shuffle is a close second for this slot though...

Cool thread idea. Thank you all for sharing your memories with music /and/ a story. Much better than just "member berries".

This one is my current favorite. RoV sucked me back into FF11 after more than a decade and the way the story went through all of the major events was really cool.

And of course the main city themes and their surrounding areas. Selbina/Mhaura, and ***like the ferry and the airship themes. Even after hearing these songs a billion times they never got old. I even like the Playonline music.

I was thinking of pestering the person that maintains the setbgm plugin's list of music files and seeing if they had ever thought about adding the POL tracks to be playable by SetBGM. I would have to hunt down who exactly posted that they maintained it though because I forgot which person it is.

I changed some setting in my POL Viewer to play a random track and find myself enjoying most of the tracks I hear; so much so that I will linger on POL just to enjoy them for a bit as I'm not entirely sick of them.

San d'Oria bagpipes though. Boy. 20 years of that. Thankfully it's grandfather'd into me to like (tolerate) that track.

*hits music change macro to turn that song off every time*

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/56323/2021-harvest-festival-event-pumpkin-locations/#3597597

Thank you so very much! That was the exact post I had in mind.

I keep thinking about .dat-swapping to Griffons Never Die.