"The history untold by version-up notes."

[takethistoyourgrave]

NOTE: THIS IS A TRANSLATION WORK IN PROGRESS THAT WILL TAKE A LOT OF TIME. IF YOU KNOW OF A BETTER PLACE FOR IT, PLEASE MOVE IT.

**This will be translated quickly and roughly. It is really long and I just think it would be fun for others to read some of the hilarious and interesting topics from back in the day. There will be grammar mistakes, there will be things that don't make much sense, and there are things that don't make sense to me**

I have seen a surge in the interest regarding the Vana'diel of the past, and as such, I have decided to translate >>http://miara.sakura.ne.jp/ff/memo/m_yami.htm<< for your reading pleasure. The site is a Japanese site called "The untold history" and is a collection of Japanese players reflecting on the past changes and feelings about the world of Vana'diel. I will be doing the translation mostly while bored at work, and once I get enough information translated, I will try to get it up on it's own website (or someone could maybe host it in a relevant place?) for completeness and ease of viewing.

Without further ado...

---

Server Information

00 Bahamut 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
01 Shiva 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
02 Titan 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
03 Ramuh 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
04 Phoenix 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
05 Carbuncle 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
06 Fenrir 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
07 Sylph 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
08 Valefor 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
09 Alexander 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
10 Leviathan 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
11 Odin 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
12 Ifrit 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
13 Diabolos 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
14 Caitsith 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
15 Quetzalcoatl 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
16 Siren 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
17 Unicorn 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
18 Gilgamesh 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server
19 Ragnarok 5/16/2002 Retail Version Server

20 Pandemonium 11/6/2002 Newly Made for JP PC Release - No transfers, fresh server
21 Garuda 11/6/2002 Newly Made for JP PC Release - No transfers, fresh server
22 Cerberus 11/7/2002 Newly Made for JP PC Release - No transfers, fresh server
23 Kujata 12/19/2002 Created from servers 2, 6, 9, and 13
24 Bismarck 12/19/2002 Created from servers 5, 8, 15, and 17

25 Seraph 3/13/2003 Created from servers 0, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 20, and 22
26 Lakshmi 3/13/2003 Created from servers 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21
27 Midgardsormr 6/10/2003 Created as a new server
28 Fairy 10/7/2003 Created from all servers
29 Asura 12/9/2003 Created from all servers
30 Remora 10/7/2004 Created from servers 0, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, and 29
31 Hades 10/7/2004 Created from servers 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, and 28

Windows Beta Glasyalabolas 6/18/2002, ended with the beta on 11/1/2002
NA Beta Cactuar 6/12/2003, ended with the beta on 10/14/2003
Xbox 360 Beta Hydra 12/10/2005

PS2 Beta Chaos 12/17/2001, ended with the beta on 4/26/2002
PS2 Beta Zande 12/17/2001, ended with the beta on 4/26/2002
PS2 Beta Golbez 12/17/2001, merged into Zande mid-beta
PS2 Beta Xdeath 12/17/2001, merged into Zande mid-beta

Public Test Chocobo Used for REAL VANA'DIEL Public Testing
Atomos Test Server

Ixion 12/19/2002 Created from servers 4, 7, 11, and 12; Integrated into Bismarck on 1/14/2003
Typhon 12/19/2002 Created from servers 3, 10, 14, and 18; Integrated into Kujata on 1/14/2003
Kirin 12/19/2002 Created from servers 0, 1, 16, and 19; Integrated into Bismarck on 1/14/2003

Continued Below

[takethistoyourgrave]

From 8/26/03 "The history untold by version notes" IN PROGRESS

(Game Related)
■In the past, you would get aggro even while riding Chocobo.
But because the chocobo's movement speed was faster than the enemies, it was easy to zone without taking damage. With would cause a lot of MPK, so this was fixed.

■Even if you called for help, no marks would show up on the compass.
　Unless you could see the mob called for help with your own line of sight, all you could do was pray for other's safety.

■There were no elemental marks on-screen.
There was no way to judge the weather in an area besides looking and making your own judgement.

■There was no auction house.
Items were only sold through bazaaring PCs or through shouting.

■There were tens and tens of goblins in Buburimu that would link, and you would become surrounded with aggro without even moving.
□Just taking the elevator in Palborough, Quadavs would aggro in groups.
If you waited for them to show up to kill them first, they wouldn't come in singles, so you had to fish one and hope the others wouldn't link. If it went well, only one Quadav would come upon pulling.
One time I did it with close to a full alliance, that was really fun.
That mission in the Palborough Mines was fun and full of constant death, but after that there really were no more fun missions with that same feeling in Bastok.

■In the past, even if monsters were dragged from their pop areas to a new place, they wouldn't move very much from the new area.
□Due to this, the entrances to Selbina and Mhaura would be plugged up with goblins all the time.
□Inside the cities, alliances would be put together to try to kill these monsters, or high level players would hang around and could be seen killing them.
But, due to these trains, unknowing players would often zone out to immediate death.
It was fixed so that you were able to get away from these targets by running quickly and you wouldn't be aggroed.

■The giants in Qufim would drop an exponentially higher amount of gil compared to now.

■In the beginning, even beastmen outside of dungeons could drop equipment.

■There was no such thing as checking a monster as "Incredibly Tough".

■Paladins had skill in Great Axe, Axe.

■Arrows only stacked up to 12 instead of 99.
□There were no ranged Weapon Skills.
□Ranged Accuracy was lower than it is now.
□The price of arrows was at least 10x higher than it is now.
□Eagle Eye Shot became 3 knives. (?)
□When they finally added the ranged WS Flaming Arrow, it would damage the ranger as well upon use.

■Job changing was not done inside the moghouse, but in a different area in the menu.
It was funny, but we want a revival of changing our jobs just through the config menu!
□During that job changing, there was a bug for a really long time where the screen would black-out upon job changing. It really took them a long time to fix that one.

■WAR's Max HP was lowered.
Because of that, it made PLD have more HP than WAR, so after that, they also lowered PLD's Max HP.

□Max MP was PLD, DRK > RDM. Due to complaining RDMs, PLD and DRK's MP pool was lowered.
After that, they raised RDM's Max MP, as well.

■Goblin mages were able to use Ice-Spikes.
Soon after that, they removed it.
After that, they switched the Goblin Mages to be able to use Blaze-Spikes.

■Fishing updates happened frequently.
In the beginning the balance was that you wouldn't skill up if you didn't cast your rod and catch fish.(?)

■Speaking of that, we need to talk about THF's Gil Steal!
In the beginning, the beastman would drop a random amount of gil. But once THF learned Gil Steal (Mug?), beastmen wouldn't drop any gil at all.
I will never forget when they fixed this (without saying anything) and made the mobs drop 100% of the gil instead of it getting thrown away!

■There was no need for any Skillchain other than Combo > Red Lotus > Combo.

■If you used Sneak Attack before a Multi-hit WS, every hit would land.
Due to this, SA Raging Fists was stronger than anything in the game. (This was the beginning of the Raging Fist craze).

■Once you learned a WS, despite your current level, you could use any WS.
□You could use Raging Fists as a level 1 WHM. Because you needed H2H skill in your chart, you needed to sub WAR, MNK, or THF.

■Back then, the GMs would say "Have a nice journey."
□Even when I broke the rules, at the end of the discussion, the GM would say to me "Have a nice journey."

■You could level from 20 to 50 in Crawler's Nest.
Soon after that, they made the bees aggro, and nobody would use it as a level up area.
□From then on, it was the "Bone Bone Fantasy" boom. WAR's using 2h Staff was the best.
Soon after that, they made the 2h Staff WS weak.
□We had no choice, everyone subbed THF and used multi-hit WS.
They removed the DEX bonus from sub-THF Sneak Attack, but SA>Raging Fists was still good.
~~This was about the time Limit Break 1 was introduced, and lots of players quit over it.~~
□In a PT, there was always a MNK/THF using Raging. At least 1 MNK in a PT was common knowledge.
From this point in time, RNG's got buffed up a bit.

---
(Column 1) (Player's Feelings)

■The world was full of riddles and adventure.

□In the past, it felt like a game. The feelings of refreshment and nervousness were mixed together while adventuring.

□Crazy, this game fills me with a sense of nostalgia... I can feel it in my heart.
While leveling, we would also run to places like Ghelsba and link everything together, killing them with -ga spells or AOE Weapon skills. I remember it well.

□Well, it's like... We weren't trying to do everything perfectly. It was more like that sweet taste, that we remember so well.
It was fun once we got SA and used multi-hit weapon skills.
I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to take in the game.

□Nobody knew anything.
Nobody had any money.
Everyone was just out there adventuring.

□Vana'Diel had dreams and adventures.

□Everyone's eyes were lit up.

□At that time, I still had friends. I had LS mates. I had buddies.

---

(Game Related)
■THF and RDM could use Cyclone, and this made them more popular than WAR's with Earth Crusher

■Sneak Attack could hit from any direction.
It was funny to see main THF and sub-THF hitting with this, but then missing so much normally because their combat skills weren't capped.

■BLM/THF's Sneak Attack was stronger than a main THF's sneak attack.

■THFs really had no place in a PT.
The word "Auto-leader" started because of this.

■When hunting Crawlers, we relied on the damage that came from BLM spells.

■With the 1H Sword boom, 2H weapons became crap.

■In the past, Onion equipment was dropped by their respective goblins.

■In the past, Skill would rise more nicely.

■When getting countered by an enemy, you would get 10 TP.

■All attacks, regardless of weapon, would give 5 TP per hit, and getting hit was 5 TP.
Getting hit with magic would not give you TP.
Because of this, players used a provoke order to get hit by the enemy and build TP.
This would cause lots of issues for the mages.
□When INT gave more power to BLMs, there were also times when they could get hit... and we were fine with thatﾟ･(ノД`)･ﾟ･

■WAR WAR WHM BLM BLM BLM was an awesome setup.
□Rather, WAR BLM BLM BLM BLM BLM was an awesome setup.
□Having said that, the best would be BLM BLM BLM BLM BLM BLM.
If you had like 3 BLMs, you could definitely hunt VT (what we now call IT).

■MNK's Martial Arts was just a little bit slower than 100 Fists.
□In the beginning, MNK's weapons were not influenced by the "Delay +".

■There was a time where EP and Too Weak were very dangerous.
I remember times when higher level players were overfishing the lower areas.
The people who would wipe the whole areas like this got a bad reputation.
□Around that time, there was a period in time where we couldn't hit mobs at all.
Because they could just keep farming Giants, lots of hardcore players just saved up a ton of gil during this time.

■There was a time where the EXP correction wasn't working, and that was great.

■Selbina was more crowded than Lower Jeuno.

■In the beginning, killing Bogy's for the SJ quest was really scary.
I would join PTs and lose lots over and over, and just try again the next night.
At that time, I kept thinking "I don't wanna think about this so much"... but I kept struggling and struggling to get it.

■You could get your subjob even if you weren't Level 18.

■People were regularly fishing up fish into Lower Jeuno.

■Jobs with MP had to watch out for "magic aggro" from any of their actions.
Even using a bow, even eating onigiri... hey look, here comes that Ele/Pot/Weapon!

■PTs would regularly build TP on weak mobs and then unleash on a hard one. Because of that, PTs regularly had 2 back-liners and 4 front-liners.
□PLD PLD MNK MNK WHM WHM etc. was strangely powerful.
There was no cure hate so WHMs could alternatively cure, and in two sets of Red Lotus > Raging Fists we could kill Orcs.

■Even in the later half of the 20s, a PT of around 10 people could earn 200 EXP on bones in Eldieme.

■I'm pretty sure that the synthesis noise in the past was INCREDIBLY annoying.

■In the beginning, the only people who played THF were masochists.

■TP reporting was all done by manual typing. (<tp> didn't exist.)

■There were no magic resists for enfeebles and elemental.
□But, around the 7/16 (2002?) patch, there were some resists.
However, enfeebles would land on VT or higher 90% or more of the time. And even if elemental magic was resisted, it would only lower the damage by like 20%.
However, with that new patch and the roll-in of bigtime resists, came the period of dark winter for the Black Mages.
Even hitting Easy Pray with Elemental, all you could do was hope it would hit for 100%. When hitting VTs, you couldn't hit for anything over 50%.
It was also made that Bind and other enfeebles had basically no chance at landing on VTs...

□Without knowing about the bind nerf, I went out to hunt Giraffes like always.
Bind, of course, wasn't landing, and I was running from a Giraffe, about to die.
Suddenly, in /say, I see "Bind!"
A higher-level galka WAR had run in and voked my Giraffe and then kneeled in front of it.

Galka War to me>> Hahaha, MY bind still works!!!

As I was telling him "Heyyy, that isn't bind!", I felt like I was going to cry...

Thank you Mr. Galka WAR ;__;

■I'm looking at the version up history now, but...
7/9/2002 Version up, they were already building up and arranging for Lv 70, 80 mobs...
Even though it was one year early... when was the cap lowered from 75 to 50?...
□No matter how you look at it, it's unthinkable that there could be Lv70-80 mobs before Zilart.
It is a lie along with saying that we had Lvl 3 Skillchains since last fall.
□Even though there were already tons of dragoon mobs and stuff inside Davoi.
At the entrance to Davoi, Dragoons and Champions and stuff would gather and get stuck there. It was very scary.
Anyone who came to Davoi would get massacred at the entrance.
□It can't really be thought that the Dragoon's were the result of arranging Lvl 70-80 mobs. Their level too.
I get the feeling that their level didn't go up to 70.
□Really!
In the longrun, the lvl70-80 mobs became lvl 55-60 and stuff. In an attempt to hold them down a bit.
In the backlash of these mobs, they fixed the EXP and the Level of the mobs.

■If you sold Shell Shield in Sando by bazaar, you could get more than in Bastok.

■WHM's all wanted the Brass Hammer, which was only obtainable from 1st place Bastok.

■Because the first month of the game ended up being free, everyone made mules in each city.
□I think it was properly announced at the time, but
when they announced characters would be free, it only meant the characters
made up to the point of the announcement, so everything made after that
had to be paid for! lol

■You could get up to 800EXP from a kill.
■NMs popped on a sequential-order system.
■Raugemont pass was absolutely horrifying.
■Ghelsba played music which eventually ended up in a Kazham quest.
■Even at 35WHM Taru I could kill Toughs.
■There were areas that you couldn't check a map and we didnt have In/Sn/Deo, so progressing in those areas was a lot of fun.
■The difference in stats between each race was smaller.
■Sakaguchi (from Square) played.
□I wonder if these were from Beta times?

■When the game first came out, people in Raugemont would aggro the goblins and run out of the area. But those goblins would never go back to their original area, the would just hang out at the zone line.
　But, those goblins hadn't been made aggressive yet, so we could still hunt bats and weak gobs up to the door.

■In the past, we could solo on sheep up until about level 28.

■There was a bug where you couldn't advance in Windurst M3, and it took Square forever to fix it.

■Boiled Eggs (Lizard Eggs?) were rare.
□In the beginning, you could buy boiled eggs from a shop, and then make a huge profit off of them (even for now) doing a quest in windurst.
□Then they stopped selling them from the NPC.
□They became really tough to get after that, and became a big ticket item.

■You could make a skillchain using just a WS followed by a magic spell.
At that time, there were tons of different tactics, huh...
There were times when the BLM or WHM was closing the skillchain.
□I think you could do a skillchain using Cure + Fast blade.
□Is this just a rumor??

■I wonder if it was around this time last year (8/02).
I hit BLM 40 and my elemental skill became white and stayed uncapped.
The basement of Garlaige was a wasteland, and it was popular for people on my server to make Alliances and go hunting in Crawler's Nest.
We would make 500-1000 EXP/HR, and the only spells we could cast were Cure. But, my 1h, 2h staff skills and my dagger skills got skilled to cap.
I was also closing skillchains.
Sub THF Sneak Attack was amazing. There was no idea of enmity management. There were no tactics.
I wasn't using any elemental magic but it sure was fun.

■The bees at the entrance to Crawlers were active.

■It took forever to get Royal Jellies.

■You could sell Claymore by bazaar in Bastok for more than in Sandoria.

■Using beastmaster's "Tame" on uncharmable mobs (like beastmen and elementals), you were still able to tame them and make them lose aggro.

■We got so many crystals we were constantly just throwing them away.

■Yeah, I had so many crystals that innumerable stacks were just rotting away.

■There wasn't any relation to skill; you could basically fish anything up.

■You would get TP even from En-spells and -spikes damage.

■Beastmaster's "Charm" was based on your current jobs main level, meaning you could sub BST 1 and charm anything related to your main job's level.

■The range from /random was 2~998.

■Death Weakness could be cured with the spell "Cursna".
□Is this just a rumor?

■Clear Mind was ninja-added to Red Mage.

■You could get the "evil hands" quest regardless of your main job. (?)

■THF had no H2H skill.

■The Bogy-type mobs AOE curse weaponskill was renamed to "Curse" at some point.

---
(Column 2) The untold history of Jobs

■The RNG history that no textbook will teach you (although my memory has faded a bit).
□Elemental arrows were 20,000gil or more for a single arrow. Other arrows were also ridiculously expensive, and Silver Arrows hadn't been added to the game yet.
□Greatbow was the strongest longbow. On top of that, you couldn't get it unless Sando was in first place.
□You could open and close doors even after you had used Camoflauge.
□Because there were no bow WS' and you couldn't get TP,
at the time RNG had E rating in 1h sword and you had no choice but to skillchain with that using Red Lotus.
The day we were able to learn Cyclone was incredibly exciting.
□Due to a Barrage bug, the amount of damage displayed in the log was ridiculous.
Due to the fact that the log didn't really show the correct amount of damage that Rangers were doing, the RNG job got a shady reputation.
□On the widescan screen, the monsters names were often lined up improperly one after another.
□Thanks to Camoflauge and Scavenge, RNGs were made fun of for being a "wannabe-job".

■The BST history you won't find in any textbook
□In the beginning Charm was on a 5minute timer, and we could charm huge sheep, malboros, and even NMs.
The length of charm had nothing to do with the strength of the enemy and was about 5 minutes long. Also, if the charmed mob got hit with too many criticals, they would become uncharmed.
"Tame" was also usable on uncharmable mobs, and was a godly ability.　
But, at the time almost nobody played BST, so it wasn't a well known fact.
□They took out the ability to charm huge monsters, and they took out the ability to use "Tame" on anything that wasn't charmable.
At this time BST was competing for the first or second most masochistic job to play.
□They took out the uncharm by critical hits, and made is so that the duration of charm was relative to the strength of the monster.
Because you couldn't charm EM-T mobs for more than about 3 minutes, everyone on the BST threads were pissed. On top of that, the number of main BSTs was already low enough...
□Charm was changed to a 15 second ability. To BSTs, this was a godly patch. At the same time, there was huge rejoicing in the BST threads.
However, around the threads, there was more of a panic of people wondering what they had nerfed at the same time.
□Charm was established as having high hate, and frontliners who subbed BST would call it "Provoke II". This was the Provoke II era.
There were a lot of WAR/BST at this time.
□They lowered the enmity from Charm. The Provoke II era ended. They added the "Bind" effect when you tried to charm an uncharmable mob.
It was a strange buff, but it did provide some use when soloing.
□There was a period of time where the enemy would hit the master a lot more than the pet, too.

■The BRD history untold by textbooks
□In the beginning, the effects of songs were about half as good as now. On top of that, BRD skill in 1h sword and dagger was lower than now, which made soloing really freaking hard.
□There were a lot of times when monsters would have plenty of time to run out of range of songs like "Requiem" before we could finish casting, and we would get interrupted.
□Harps were only obtainable when Bastok was in first. On many servers, Bastok stayed at the bottom of the list forever, and there were tons of BRDs with no string skill at all.
□Suddenly without notice, our songs became about twice as potent. However, our skills in weapons still sucked, so soloing was still as tough as ever.
□Lullaby was implemented at that time, but nobody really though there was much value in sleeping links, so this was pretty much unused for a while.
□There was a bug with lullaby for a while where you could sleep the mob and keep attacking it and it wouldn't wake up.
□Hate from songs was so strong that if you sang mid-battle, the mob wouldn't come off of you even if it was Provoked. There was no choice but to sing buffs in-between battles.
□Because of that, people would sub BRD and sing for the hate.
□Party-target songs, besides Paeon, were changed so that they gave 0 hate.
But Paeon gave such incredible hate that, when the party was in trouble, the BRD would sing Paeon and surely die, sacrificing himself to save his comrads.
□Elegy gave about the same hate as Provoke, and was sometimes used in place of provoke.
□Suddenly without any notice, Elegy and Paeon's hate were lowered.
□Instruments had no effect on songs at all, but it was thought that higher level Horns and Lamia Harps did something to buff songs and so they were often used by high level bards.
□At time, Ballad was never thought of as being a great song. Bards were invited to parties for Paeon and Madrigal. (Translator note: this is crazy because back then Ballad gave 3/tick o.o)
□About the time Shadow Lord was implemented, BRDs were made better little by little and eventually reached the same popularity as WHMs.
□When Ballad 2 was added, the general idea of hate management was finally being understood. Songs with no hate up until that time were changed to give a bit of accumulated hate.
□At that time, Ballad 2 gave 4 MP/tick (and Ballad 1 gave 3). However, soon after, a patch changed it so that it also gave 3 MP/tick (same as ballad 1).

■Sneak Attack, THF, and MNKs history
□Using "Steal" you would get about the same hate as "Provoke", so you could use that in it's place.
□There were no bonuses to DEX for main or sub, SA was just a critical hit.
□Sneak Attack would not work if the THF was facing Northwest, even if it was the monster's back. The attack would always miss.
□Using Multi-hit weapon skills with SA, all hits would land and all hits would be critical hits.
In the beginning THFs were pretty crappy, and so were MNKs. So, they became good friends.
□They added a DEX bonus to SA for both main and sub.
Because of this, not just THFs, but everyone was using Sneak Attack.
□They added H2H skill for THFs. Because MNKs weren't very good, this wasn't a big shakeup to the THF community, but some people still had hope.
□They removed the DEX bonus from subbing THF.
□Because of their negativity and constant whining, THFs were always made fun of by other jobs.
□They fixed the NW-facing bug.
□They made it so SA>Multihit WS would only guarantee the first hit, and the DEX bonus only applied to the first hit was well.
□The Job Skill "Trick Attack" was added.
This job skill worked incredibly well with Sneak Attack, and THFs not only no longer had to be "Auto-Leaders", they even rose to prominence as a popular job.
Until that time everyone had been using the Skill E hand-to-hand, but with Fuidama (SA+TA) people started doing incredible damage with 1h swords and daggers, so everyone stopped using hand to hand.
But because 1h sword and dagger WS' didn't skillchain well with hand-to-hand, from that point on it was very rare to find a THF and a MNK in the same PT.
But, this was a new era for THF; when THF and PLD became best friends.
□It wasn't added in a version update, but "Yokodama" (SA+TA procing from the side of the tank) was discovered.
With that, it was definite; THF and PLD were like two peas in a pod.

□When THF killed beastmen, no gil would drop.
□SA was an ability used just for guaranteed accuracy.
□THF soloing was worse than WHM.
□When they added the DEX bonus to SA, even THF was able to put out 3-digit numbers.
□But even though THF was putting out 120~ish with SA, BLMs were putting out 300~ish with spells.
□Subbing THF for TH was fine with most people, they didn't need main THF.
□Dagger WS' up until Cyclone were really weak, so most people were using 1h swords.
□When sub-THF SA was weakened, THF came to be resented by most other jobs.
□People hated THF even more once they released THF keys to open the treasure chests.
□Once Trick Attack and Treasure Hunter 2 were released, THF suddenly had a new usefulness and a wave of popularity.

---
(Game related)

■I think from an old version update, the Delk Mission Giant was on a 16min timer and dropped 1 key 100% of the time.
At the time, we were lv30~35 climbing in alliances, so it basically took an entire night to do the mission.
It was the same way for the NM Quadav in Bedeaux for Rank 5.
When I went to Bedeaux for the mission, there were so many people there that the leader of the alliance was just booting people who got the ra/ex and then doing /sea and inviting the next person down on the list.
I remember one time my friend was trying to do the Delk Mission and their group got to the top only to find 18 players who each needed the key (16 mins per key) so my friend couldn't do the mission and they were crying.

■There was a period of time where enmity was so strong that even if your neighboring PT had a link that they pulled back, you couldn't take their link because there was no way you were gonna get it off them.

■Charm had the same hate as provoke.
Using that to their advantage, WAR would sub even BST lvl 1 for provoke on 15 second timers, and could build up amazing enmity.
Charm was not based on CHR.

■If you had effects upon yourself filtered from showing in the chatlog, Raise spell would have no effect on you.

■The amount cured was based upon the target's VIT.

■You could do the Tiger's Necklace quest over and over.

■When the airship or boat was leaving, if you sat down or cast magic, you could see the effect of that being left over as the vehicle took off.

■The only way to get signet in Jeuno was to visit your consulate in Ru'Lude and talk to the person on the right.

■The bees at the entrance to Crawler's Nest were not originally active, but they were changed later to be aggressive.
And then again later they were once again changed to be non-active, the way they are now.
□Having no Sn/In with active bees at the entrance (maybe 7/2002), Crawler's was basically complete hell for a tank.
On the way to hunt beetles around 40, there was a high chance you would be getting stung to death.
And there was no "Escape", so when you were leaving... once again, stung and killed.
Then, all the EXP that you had earned that day.... lolol.

■Originally, BRDs were masters and spamming the log.
Weren't magic bursts listed twice in the log at that time, too?
It feels like until that patch in November 2002 that implemented log filtering that even regular skillchain damage wasn't shown in the log.
□Well, up until recently, skillchain damage would sometimes show up twice in the log, too.

■At first, skeleton and ghost mages were using Blazespikes.
But, later they changed it to Icespikes; that was a bit annoying.

■Up until the summer of 2002 or so, when you were placing something on the AH,
it wouldn't confirm with you how much money it was going to cost (confirmation screen). That was a big inconvenience that I remember.

■There was a little bit of a prejudice against people from Bastok.
□There still is.

■When you did a skillchain, the WS was displayed twice. And the magic burst wasn't shown at all...
It also didn't declare the skillchain attribute. The arrow displayed was ⇒ instead of →.

■About Conquest standings
In the beginning, 1. Sando 2. Windy 3. Bastok (Bastok's missions were rough so there was a lot of death).
After that, 1. Bastok, 2. Windy 3. Sandy (This went on for a number of months).
Currently (2003) 1. Windy 2. Sando 3. Bastok (Basically this is the fixation that conquest has arrived at now).

■Maybe thanks to cheaters, the AH went down many times.

■Even on main THF, SA was just a normal critical hit.

■Thanks to the warp quest, slime oil suddenly became very expensive.

■It was said that due to stupidly expensive potions and using slime oils to make weapons, that Alchemy had no future at all.

■There was no person to give you signet in the Zulkheim region.

■All front-liners were eating boiled eggs.

■In Bastok, the Fetich pieces and lizard eggs were sold for a high price.

■There was a thing called the Sleepy Mushroom marathon. (?) (Translator note: I think this might be referring to people who hardcore-farmed Mushrooms in La Thiene or something)

■At a time in Bastok, the Mythril mining marathon got so crazy that Chocobos often cost more than 1000 gil.

■In the past, there was a much higher necessity for resting to full MP.

■In the past, once warp had been cast on it took a while to zone to the new area, so using this as an escape tool was pretty dangerous.

■Doing that, all you could see was your name but you could still play your character.

■When you got offered the Warp quest, it was said that you should go and get the Slime Oil in Bedeaux; however, for some reason, nobody went to Bedeaux to hunt them.

■Level difference correction and skill dependence wasn't as high, so all your power was based on INT and the weather/day.

■WAR had B skill in hand to hand.

■The price of songs at the shop, for that time, was outrageous.

■Overlord dropped Bronze Subligar.

■Without using SA, the accuracy for Axe weapon skills was so low that they would basically never land.

■Multi-hit WS besides Combo and Raging Fists were never used.

■The ability "Soul Eater" used to be stronger.

■At some point in time, Raging Axe was made stronger.

■For some reason, only on Hume F, the Red Cap had no feather, and it was left like that for a long time.
The Green Beret was the same, but that one was fixed quite quickly.

■Threnody was never resisted.

■Doll mob AOE explosion Melt-Down was stronger than it is now.

■The people who traded tons of items to the CP guards for their cities sake because they thought something good would come out of it were seen as idiots.

■Using Aspir with Lilith's Rod had a pretty meaningless effect.

■Aspir and drain were both complete and utter shit.

■You had no idea if Finale was actually dispelling anything.

■Originally En-spells also gave the enemy extra TP, so they weren't used very often.

■There was a rumor wide-spread that if you pulled Skeletons by casting Cure on them, they wouldn't link.

■Because there wasn't really a level-difference correction,
everyone was thinking they wanted to get their subjobs as quickly as possible, so there were even level 8 players who would alliance up and go battle Ghouls and Damselflies.

■Because there was no Sn/In, PLD AF3 was crazy hard.
People would get into full alliances to attempt this.
You would get surrounded by high-level orcs and entangled; it was really rough.
Orc Dragoons, Dreadnaughts would get all clogged at the entrance thanks to idiots who would aggro them and train them; Davoi was complete hell.

■Ghouls were priority one and everyone knew it. For example, even if someone had pulled their weapons out ready to fight a Ghoul and another group voked it away from them, you wouldn't hear any complaints.
□However, every night you could hear tons of complaining.
"If you aren't fishing goblins, don't pull the ghouls!!" and,
"God, how annoying, ANOTHER pt has shown up..." "Misstell!" etc.

See next page for continued post.

[Shamaya]

I really like this. It's hard to believe some of it, this is so way back. I've been playing for over 5 years and reading this makes me feel like an ultra newbie. I like all the thf-related info =P

[Arthars]

jpbutton.com

[Pikarya]

jpbutton.com

^^^^ this

Other than the 2004+ pages not being created. Its very well explained up to that point.

JPButton � Final Fantasy XI History

[Belkin]

That is pretty cool. MOAR

[geno3302]

I miss the pre NA release times too! The game really was a different place, it really was more about having fun doing whatever instead of having fun getting shit done lol. I spend forever exploring the world on my SMN <3 I still love FFXI, but it's a very very different game.

[S N K]

I miss the pre NA release times too!

I don't miss the shitty trains in the Crawler's Nest because some dumbfuck would train one soldier crawler thru a mess of workers and it would sit right inside the zone line along with Doom Scorps and whatnot.

People would zone in constantly only to agro the train and thus bring it right back to the zone line freezing out people from exping for hours.

Yeah I miss that....

[Yugl]

I don't miss the shitty trains in the Crawler's Nest because some dumbfuck would train one soldier crawler thru a mess of workers and it would sit right inside the zone line along with Doom Scorps and whatnot.

People would zone in constantly only to agro the train and thus bring it right back to the zone line freezing out people from exping for hours.

Yeah I miss that....

I forgot about those horrible times. I remember having to log out at the nest after PTing because there would be a nice pack of Beetles/Crawlers/Scorpions at the entrance. The best part was when the train would start making progress back to the original spawn location and some moron would come aggro them all again.

[AkashiXI]

I'm surprised they didn't mention that Regen used to wake people up (much like other DoT spells). ;o

[AkashiXI]

Or the crazy Store TP from /sam! Gawd, MNKs + Relic Knuckles + Asuran Fists + /sam = >_>.

[Pikarya]

old mithra /sit ;o

http://i27.tinypic.com/2j2fc7b.jpg

[Carmi]

Or the crazy Store TP from /sam! Gawd, MNKs + Relic Knuckles + Asuran Fists + /sam = >_>.

YES!

With multi-hit weapon skills, all the hits after the first hit would give you the same tp gain as the first hit. Because of this, the drgs and sam were known for was Penta > one second later > penta again. I remember when DRGs were omfgawesome<3333.

You know the shitty mnk relic weapon with 999 delay from dynamis? Well that delay was non-existent so with the TP gain, MNKs also just did asuran fists > asuran fist again non-stop lol

ROFL


Also: oh we're level 30 now, time to go to garliage/CN with constant trains at the zone lines.. BATS!!.. or before that, going to the jungles and have constant gobby trains to kahzam

[Gunitsoldier]

cameltoe wut

[Fridell]

I forgot about those horrible times. I remember having to log out at the nest after PTing because there would be a nice pack of Beetles/Crawlers/Scorpions at the entrance. The best part was when the train would start making progress back to the original spawn location and some moron would come aggro them all again.

Good times lol, sometimes I wished this all would be up in action once again.

[Trocian]

the drgs and sam were known for was Penta > one second later > penta again. I remember when DRGs were omfgawesome<3333.

Oh, good times!

I remember right after they nerfed the this, DRGs fell completely out of favor.

[Senoska]

I don't miss the shitty trains in the Crawler's Nest because some dumbfuck would train one soldier crawler thru a mess of workers and it would sit right inside the zone line along with Doom Scorps and whatnot.

People would zone in constantly only to agro the train and thus bring it right back to the zone line freezing out people from exping for hours.

Yeah I miss that....

Guilty.

[takethistoyourgrave]

I didn't know that JPButton history thing existed, that is pretty nifty. Not sure if I should continue this or not now!

[BRP]

This thread doesn't really contain any version-updates does it? More like nostalgic memoirs.

[takethistoyourgrave]

Yeah, a bit more like that. So if people find that kinda stuff interesting, will keep working on it.