Spira wants a mythic!

[Spira]

Hi everyone,

I trust we are well. Christmas is around the corner and tis the season for giving, so I wanted to do some good this year.

But I also have one wish, which is to get a mythic in FFXI.
For those who don't know, I no longer play FFXI regularly - my playtime has been limited to just-before to just-after version updates. However, even if I were to quit the game, I still keep my account active for two reasons - one, because I can't bear to leave this game completely, and two, because I datamine.
In any case, I would truly wish to have accomplished the feat of obtaining a mythic in this game. In particular, the Nirvana, because I love Summoner.

Anyway, here's where you come in.

EDIT: Post-Campaign summary.

From 11th Nov 2014, I ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise gil / alexandrite for a mythic (I had everything else needed to obtain a 75 mythic save for the alexandrite) Based on my progress and market rate, I estimated that I'd needed around 200m gil in order to buy the rest.

To do this, I created characters on every single server with the same name (except Ragnarok), so that donors could dbox gil to me. For those who wished to make bigger donations to me, they could do so by arranging a meet up on their server.

To spur donations, I set targets for the drive.
50m - I will show everyone a step-by-step of how I mine the dats every update.
100m - I'll upload the master versions of all the resources I've created in the past.
200m - I will create maps/resources for any FFXI system based on a majority decision. (pending)
(no stretch targets)

In addition, I pledged to donate USD$10 for every 10mil donated to any entity (*charitable or otherwise) of the donor's choice or general consensus.

Less than a month in, on 8th Dec 2014, I was pleased to announce that the goal had been met, and so I would close donations in order to facilitate server transfers.

This is what we've achieved.

Gil raised: 200,000,000 / 200,000,000 gil (100% of the goal)
spread across 22 donations, inclusive of 10901 Alexandrites, from 19 separate donors.
(Some people donated more than once.)

My Donation Pledge: USD 100
($30 to BlueGartr)
($70 to an undetermined beneficiary of my choice)
($100 requested me to keep the money)

I decided on the following donations. I love animals (I usually play pet classes lol) so I thought I'd pass it on to help them
$40 The Order of the BlueGartr
$70 Humane Society of the United States

Thoughts...
When I first started this campaign, I honestly had no idea how far I would go with this. I was inspired by crowdfunding stories and thought that perhaps something of this sort could happen in FFXI as well. It really was a matter of putting your faith in the community, and at the very least I had hoped this would help kickstart some of the gil I would need to raise to buy the rest of the Alexandrite that I needed.

Quite interestingly, this drive has led me to start playing FFXI a lot more now than in the past few months and I suspect I will be spending much more time on it now as I work my way towards a iLevel 119 Nirvana. I've also had the joy of being able to meet players on their servers for the first time, after having known them on the forums for years.

What this endeavor does tell me though, is that our community is alive and well. The number of people who have reached out through donations and moral support is frankly overwhelming, and I think this serves as a testament to the strength of Final Fantasy XI's online community, which I've been told is stronger than most MMOs. In fact I think this is the first ever crowdfunding campaign of this sort in FFXI (and possibly in MMOs?) and it's a resounding success. We made gaming history

Thank you to everyone who made this possible - everyone who gave their support, everyone who generously donated, and even everyone who sold alexandrite to me (especially the people in Carbuncle server). Respect.

Happy holidays! Thanks for making this one wish come true.



-Arciele Spira

update1 (11/11): clarified charity lol
update2 (12/11): opening up to more servers
update3 (13/11): now available on all servers. included note on alexandrite donations.
update4 (8/12): donations closed
update5 (11/12): post-campaign summary. donation pics.

[Sechs]

Uh! Good luck Spira
Hope you'll make your dream true very soon!

[Spicyryan]

Forget the charities and starving Cambodians! BG has server costs!

[Spira]

lol that is a good point. >_<
its the spirit of giving in any case. i'd make a gift to any entity for them to carry on their good work.

[Shenrien]

Is this real?

[Sechs]

Is this real?

Why do you even doubt?

[Scizor]

If i had some gil id donate sorry for being poor

[Lyramion]

Not even online !

[Spira]

i genuinely forgot and turned my laptop off and went to bed >_<

am online now XD

[Lyramion]

i genuinely forgot and turned my laptop off and went to bed >_<

am online now XD

Best Sakura Biscuit I ever had - would recommend

5/5 Stars on Amazon

[Streak]

Is this... a chick who wants a free mythic for being a chick?

She thinks she deserves it because she wants it?

I finished my mythic about 6 weeks ago after 11 months of farming Alex every day. It only takes 1 hour per night for 240 runs with a single character even if you don't buy a single alex.

Mythics are intended for people with unswerving dedication to achieving everything from TAU to the point of being ridiculous. I don't think handing out cookies counts.

Then again, this is just a game, and if you're a chick people will have a soft spot for you and you may get some funding. What do I know.

[Byrthnoth]

IIRC Spira isn't a chick. He's a summoner!

Mythics still aren't trivial, but with the massive surplus of Alexandrite that came from and is coming from people exploiting the warps in Salvage, they're much more obtainable than ever before. 210mil would buy you a mythic on Lakshmi, and considering Spira's .dat mining and stuff I'd have been unsurprised if he could have gotten that many donations in the past.

Good luck. I'm currently broke (Idris - 12859/13099, Vajra 29971/30000) and we're on different servers, but otherwise I'd have definitely considered a gil toss!

[Lyramion]

Then again, this is just a game, and if you're a chick people will have a soft spot for you and you may get some funding. What do I know.

Ya Spira been doing DAT stuff after updates since the beginning of time for FFXI.*

(*slightly exaggerated)


At this point we have people around gearing their 5th mule and stuff. Nothing wrong with trying some crowdfunding.

[Prim]

Is this... a chick who wants a free mythic for being a chick?

She thinks she deserves it because she wants it?

Spira has been one of the most continually reliable sources for .dat info in the NA community for what, like 7 years now? I'd say that's worth 1M of fantasy money.

[Sechs]

Spira is a very sexy asian guy, not a chick, and he's one of the nicest FFXI players around ever, period.
Spira if you find a way to send a mule or a friend to Asura let me know, I'll be glad to send a small tip (can't expect much, I'm a broke galka, but every bit counts rite?!)

[shepardG]

So basically you need 750$ bucks.... not that un-reasonable considering all the work you've contributed to the community

[Mercilessturtle]

but with the massive surplus of Alexandrite that came from and is coming from people exploiting the warps in Salvage

I thought they fixed that? Prices have long since recovered on leviathan at least. Also, am I missing something or are people seriously thinking writing a trivial 20 line perl script is worth a mythic?

[Lyramion]

They fixed the King but not the Pawns.

[Malithar]

So much backlash over an active member of the community needing help to reach a goal. Silliness.

Had done gone to sleep when you sent that tell the other night about missions Spira, glad you finished em up.

[Byrthnoth]

...writing a trivial 20 line perl script is worth a mythic?

Well, apparently using freely available 3P programs to POS hack and farm thousands of Alexandrite per Salvage run is worth a mythic, so I'd hope that anything constructive and independently creative is also worth a mythic.