Little Ladies' Day (02/15/2011)

[Biggie]

This springtime festival is said to have its origins in the relatively recent Ul'dahn Legend of the Lost Lady. Over the past three centuries, it has transformed into a celebration where women of all ages, races, creeds, and repute dress up in their finest habiliments for a day on the town, stopping to pose in front of specially erected backdrops while nibbling upon colorful sweets; all the while, being waited on hand and foot by their loyal 'seneschals.'

And who are to serve as these seneschals, you ask? Why, the realm's gallant gents, of course! Yes, Eorzea's menfolk have sworn a solemn oath to show their appreciation for all damselkind by dedicating this delightful day to them.

http://piczasso.com/i/7mg3r.jpg

Duration

The festivities are scheduled to last from the stroke of midnight on Thursday, February 17, until 6:59 a.m. on Thursday, March 3 (PST).

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Ring My Bell

These bells need no introduction: they sang for the Starlight Celebration, hummed for Heavensturn, vibrated for Valentione's Day, and now their tintinnabulations shall resound throughout the realm once more for Little Ladies' Day. One need only ring the bells to receive a gift, compliments of the city-states and their benevolent rulers.

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Gifts Available:

Peach Branches
Powdered Sugar
*[red]Gifts can be received once every eight hours (earth time), starting the first time a bell is rung. Up to six items will be stored for each person in the event that periodical returns to the bell prove difficult.[/red]

Bell Locations

Limsa Lominsa (Upper Decks/Lower Decks)
http://piczasso.com/i/lt8b9.jpghttp://piczasso.com/i/y1squ.jpg

Gridania
http://piczasso.com/i/07b04.jpg

Ul'dah (Merchant Strip/Hustings Strip)
http://piczasso.com/i/m8i0k.jpghttp://piczasso.com/i/cb38m.jpg

Of the Hand

Festive confetti made of peach blossoms, and tasty rice cakes are two items associated with the Little Ladies' Day celebration. The following is a guide on how to craft both:
http://piczasso.com/i/wyw84.jpg

The Legend of the Lost Lady

Three centuries past, the city-state of Ul'dah was ruled by an iron-fisted sultan by the name of Baldric Thorne—a man feared across the region for his quick temper and his even swifter justice. Perhaps as punishment for his compassionless ways, the Twelve saw fit to bless the sultan with but a single daughter, Edvya, whom the sultan loved more than the sun and the moon. And it was this love that drove Baldric to take measures that would ensure no harm ever befell the princess—including her confinement to the royal palace and the assignment of a retinue of over fifty handmaidens and seneschals.

As the princess grew older, however, a longing to explore the unknown land that lay beyond the palace walls tugged at her soul, until one day, in a devilish display of wit, she switched clothes with a miller girl come to the palace with her mother to deliver flour to the kitchens. Once Edvya had exchanged her beautiful gown and tiara for the soiled rags of a commoner, it proved little trouble to pass unnoticed through her legion of servants and slip out into the city for a day of wicked fun.

It did not take long for the palace to realize something was afoot, and upon discovering that his only daughter was missing, the sultan, overcome with rage, immediately ordered the sultanate's entire standing army to scour the city until they had found the princess. As for the royal impostor, thinking that Edvya may have been kidnapped by the girl's mother, the sultan ordered the miller's house torn apart, her family arrested, tortured, and thrown in the royal oubliette.

As luck would have it, the princess had not wandered far from the palace, and was discovered in a nearby market by her father's men. Once back in the safety of the palace, Edvya revealed the whole ruse to her father, explaining that she had conjured it on her own, and begged that he show mercy to the miller's family.

Upon realizing that the atrocities committed to the miller girl and her family were without warrant, he had the family released from the oubliette and summoned to the royal audience chamber. Here, not only did he personally apologize to the family and order the royal architects to design and build them a new home, but, in a move most unexpected, Baldric himself offered to serve as the daughter's seneschal for a full day, saying that no young woman, regardless of her standing, should be denied the respect due all citizens of the sultanate; that all girls, common or noble, are 'ladies' in their own right.

Rumors of this unforeseen display of humility were quick to spread through Ul'dah and ultimately proved to be extremely well-received amongst the smallfolk, who, until then, had perceived their leader as little more than a heartless despot. So well-received were they, in fact, that the sultan declared one day from each solar year on which he would select, via lots, a common girl from the city and serve as her personal seneschal, as he had done with the miller's daughter.

[Biggie]

So what, is this a vday event, after vday?

[Reapz]

Oh look, bells. Atleast they are changing scenery for it I guess. Just wish they'd stop events all together till they can afford to make them worth a shit

[Hyan]

A loli-event.

'Nuff said.

Suspense for the battle system poll/letter is building up lol, I couldn't care less about the quests atm. However I guess there's a chance they'll implement the core company system, so that's cool.

[Shuichi]

Alright SE. Enough already with the bell events. Just maintain radio silence until you're ready to announce something substantial. Time to start rolling out content here.

[Manako]

well... fireworks are new. This is a Japanese holiday, they probably felt obligated to represent and hey, they could reuse all those old FFXI models with just a minor update.

[The Q]

Woke up and saw the tweet on my phone. Thought to myself "Great! More bells and little girls too! This really makes my day!"

They should just drop these mockeries of seasonals until they actually have them.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPYese-Hl8M

[Hiroishime]

i love the lalafell artwork.

[Lordender]

Good to know SE's taking out the time to do holiday(special) events because clearly thats what the biggest MMO failure of ALL TIME needs!

[Vimes]

The artwork is pretty amazing actually.

But yea, no one gives a shit about these events right now. They should give us something to look forward to in-game that isn't an empty promise or just plain lies. Bit tired of hearing about companies & craftable boats etc. They've been talking about that since before launch. Put your money where your mouth is, SE.

[Hyan]

Good to know SE's taking out the time to do holiday(special) events

Really? lol

Well, their "lore-team" is hard at work at least.

[Elrina]

I think the only reason they are bothering with them is to set precedent for the future. That way it isn't like, this year they ignored everything, and then next year and onward they suddenly have all these events for each holiday/etc. Then in the future they can do bigger or unique versions of the events when they aren't so bogged down, while we know which to expect.

It's a kind of stupid reason (if that's what it is), considering it really doesn't matter right now, and instead of having people actually work on this crap Yoshida could just include a bit in a Letter like:

"We wanted to be able to do such and such seasonal event, but considering the current press to complete more important features and content we decided the priority was too low to implement now. I would like to inform you that we plan to have in-game events surrounding this holiday/seasonal event in the future, however, so look forward to it next year!"

He could even include a list of them that they planned on skipping or something, if precedent is the main reason, and I'd bet people would be happy he actually came out and said they planned them in the future but cancelled them for now to handle high priority stuff.

[Shuichi]

True. While I'm a pretty patient guy, I do understand that these events are more rooted in Japanese culture so I guess it's somewhat expected to have a little something. But, it is definitely quite obvious that these events are of the lowest priority, hence the reason why each one of them seem to be some type of "bell" event. A note saying "we're going to skip out on seasonal events right now because we're busy" would have prob been quite fine for the west but maybe not JPN.

With that said, I'm looking forward to Feb.'s second patch.

[Elcura]

i love the lalafell artwork.

The artwork is pretty amazing actually.

Am I being had? I thought the art work was pretty bad. Her face looks weiiiird.

[Hyan]

Am I being had? I thought the art work was pretty bad. Her face looks weiiiird.

It makes Lalafell's face look actually somewhat decent- an impressive feat.

[Elcura]

It makes Lalafell's face look actually somewhat decent- an impressive feat.

The mouth ruins the entire thing, the rest is good, but shit they fucked up with the mouth.

[Vuitton]

I doubt they dev team really took much time to put this in. In fact I am sure they put almost no time into this because it would have already been in the game since release (or maybe the last patch, but unless there is evidence...). So, big deal. Someone is going to enter a command on their end to turn it on, and they sent an email to one of their writers and one of their artists that said give us a story and a drawing to throw up on the site. A pre-planned event is happening, and everyone is doing what they're already have been doing. As if this little event could ever take up much of the dev team's time. Probably one person spent 5min adding peach branches to the bell's loot list.

Anyway, the story was interesting and the picture is pretty. The event is based off on Japan's version of White Day which is normally March 14th. St. Valentine's Day in Japan the girls show the guys how much they care. White Day is the reverse where the boys show the girls how much they care. I guess in Hydalen(sp?) the holidays occur back-to-back.

[xopher]

a holiday i can get down with.

[Lucavi]

Bells for Loli's. Oh my.

[Rumo]

Kinda lame...
But seriously: Seeing them make such shitty events leads me to the conclusion they are using all their ressources for the stuff that really needs to be fixed.
So actually good news =)