So what's been going on?

I've got a little back log of screens from the last few days that I haven't put up so here we go.

I got another 'Blogger Guy' /tell from the guy in the screen shot below.  It's nice to know that even in full retail fame is still strong!

I took part in a lovely large leve group which earned me quite a lot of exp and Gil

Remember when I found this thing back in the Beta and I thought it might be used for Airships or something?  Well it looks like it's still not being used for anything although to be fair I didn't stick around for longer than around 10 minutes, but it still looks like it's not being used yet.

Here's another blast from the past. back in the Beta I managed to get past the locked gates of Wineport and have a look around.  The place was pretty empty although their looked like there was two shops that were just not open yet.  I went back to Wineport now retail is out and nothing at all has changed apart from the gates are no longer locked.  I was very disappointed!

We have Team Speak

Yes, thats right we have a Team Speak 3 server for everyone on the Linkshell to use.
Now I have had a few people say that they would contribute to the costs via paypal, but I a better idea, one which will mean it won't cost anyone a penny.
All I ask is that each of you once a day click on the google advert thing lower down in the side bar once a day.  No more than that becuase it doesn't count, but just one click a day from each of you will cover the costs of the Team Speak server.

Are you American? This post is for you!

American voting time is coming up soon and video games need you to stop crazy old people from ruining your hobby.  I live in England where we have far less mental people running the place it seems, although that could well be a clever disguise.  Either way The Video Game Voters Network wants your help and you probably should take a look at their site and sign up now.  Comic book legend Stan Lee has got behind their cause and so has Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw, so at least they are a credible group and worthy of your time.  So any American readers should check out the special Zero Punctuation video below and go and check out what good you can do in the upcoming vote.

Don't drink from the cup!

If you got the drinking cup with the FFXIV Collectors edition, don't use it!  Well apart from drinking water from it, anything else is bad news.
If you read the piece of paper that comes with it, it says the following:
"Do not fill the product with the following materials as they may cause damage: Items including salt and solid materials, carbonated beverages, milk or other dairy beverages, fruit juices, etc."

Source: Kotaku

Fun times in Eorzea

Today I set off from Camp Black Brush to complete from Local leves I had, there was no dust storm today so it was a nice peaceful walk.

After handing in the the Leves I needed to, I felt like a spot of minign was the order of the day.

After a little bit of mining I took on another few Leves and has luck would have it, I found another chest on my journey.

After finding the chest I went on to attempt to kill the mob for the Guild Leve.  It didn't work out so well.











After getting my arse kicked I went on the complete the Guild Leve, but only just!

I went back to camp and I found a Behest just about to start.  I joined up to it, as did many other people so the amount of mobs that we had to kill was quite a few.  being the level I was I found that there was not a lot I could do to help the group.

After finishing the Behest I took the reward money and went back to town and travelled to the market wards andspent my money on the materails needed for creating a Bronze Dagger.  After getting the bits I needed I went to the Blacksmith Guild in Limsa and created my new weapon.  I also got a new option after I had got to 100% to touch up the item.  I selected it a few times although I'm not too sure what it done.

I want you!

I am looking for more people to post about their own adventures on the blog.  This offer is only open to Linkshell members so either contact me in-game or on the forum via PM.
I think you all know how I like to layout the blog posts, so just follow the same sort of template.

Also, once I get home from work today I shall be sorting out a Teamspeak server and I'll give you the details soon.

My Article is online!

CVG.co.uk has published my article HERE about Final Fantasy XIV!  They link to this blog from the article and you can read it online right now HERE.
Yeah, ok I linked it twice, but I don't care I'm just so damn happy!

Group boat ride

Here's a few pictures of todays group boat trip to Limsa, I would write more but it's late, I've been playing all day and I want to go to sleep.  So I'll leave you with some pictures.

I found the hookers!

The Miners Guild looks like it'll be a fairly normal place to go, but once I got there I found out its actually a secret whore house!  This is what I found

1) First of all this lady says I might what to stay sober, pah!  What does she know!

2) Hold on, maybe she was right!  Whats going on here?!

3) No way!  Its actually full of hookers!  Heicko is going to go wild!

4)  You have got to be kidding me!  Damn it, why did I just spend my money on a pickaxe?!

Day one

As expected with day one, not everyone is in yet but here is a few pictures of who did make it in.

It's here!

I have it!  It came in the post today, so I have run home from work at lunch time to install it and while I'm waiting I'm posting this message with some nice pictures!
The book is nice, not sure what I'm going to write in it though, the map is made from cloth which I didn't expect and the Cup needs to be washed out first because there was some strange white powder stuff inside it.

Heroes of the realm unite!

The time has finally come, Final Fantasy XIV is now here!  Ladies and Gentleman of the Twelve, it's time to travel Eorzea and face a great evil.  So grab your bows, wands and swords, saddle up that Chocobo and get ready to fight because now is the time.
The age of Twelve has now begun!

Getting FFXIV? Better find out how to pay for it first....

Want to play FFXIV?  Of course you do, thats why your here!  Anyway you'll be buying Crysta tomorrow so you can play.

What is Crysta?  Well its like MS points that you use on Xbox Live but these points are used for paying for FFXIV sub and security tokens.  Being an English man myself, I am going to quote the exchange rate for proper money here,  £1 = 100 Crysta Points.  You can convert that into whatever funny money you have in your place of residence!
Either way buy points to play game, thats the bottom line.
Why not read what CVG had to say about the issue here.

Best of the forum

In what I think I'll start making a regular feature on here, I'm going to cover the interesting, funny and down right crazy things that have been posted on the forum.

Arkadian wrote:
"2 days left!!!! aaahhhbwabwahwhah!"

- Looks like Ark is really foward to Wednesday then!

Skotia posted:

Looks like some how Skotia found his way out of FFXIV and ended up at the hatch from Lost!

Arkadian Posted:

Ark manges to lead everyone to an early grave!

Delete the Beta

Well done to Arkadian for making this known to everyone on the forum, but I think its so important I'm posting it here too.

Make sure you delete the Beta version BEFORE you install the retail version.  Square-Enix had this to say:

"Installing the release version of “FINAL FANTASY XIV” or other software developed by our company while “FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Version” remains installed may cause certain issues."

Linkshell List

I'm putting this image of our Linkshell list online here so it is easy for everyone to quickly add the names back to their friends list on Wednesday.  Also it's easier for me to invite you all again if I have a copy of everyones names in one handy place (and if everyone uses the same names!)

2 days left!

This is the week!  I'm sure you all know that we'll be playing on the BESAID server at launch and you all know my characters name (Jeffery McWild), but if anyone does forget for any reason then you can find the details just on the right hand side.
It seems most Linkshell members are going to start in U'ldah, but seeing as it is quite easy to travel to the different citys it should not be such a big issue.

6 days to go

Under a week to go now and I'll let you all know here that I shall be making some changes to the forum very soon.  Nothing too major, but I'll be adding a few new areas for Linkshell members, like an area to post what items you have for sale and an area to arrange Linkshell group Leves.

Next on the agender, I shall be continuing where I left off last time and looking back at an event that has happened over the development time of Final Fantasy XIV.
I think one of the biggest news stories was when an Alpha tester named Pookypoo smashed the NDA and started broadcasting videos across the Internet.

I'm sure most of you will remember how his videos and screens spread round the Internet like wild fire and this very blog was no exception! Look HERE to see just how crazy April was when Pookypoo decided to show the world Final Fantasy XIV in it's Alpha state.

One week of waiting left.

This time next week Final Fantasy XIV collectors edition will be out and any of you, that like me have pre-ordered the game will be holding it in your sweaty hands.
So to aid with the excitement I'll be doing some posts from now until then, I'm going to post big news items that have happened during the development of Final Fantasy XIV, and what better way to kick off a week of looking back than the place it all began.  The Sony 2009 E3 show, where FFXIV was shown to the public for the first time.  It's fair to say that the audience was quite surprised!

New graphic settings.

I didn't see this the other day when i was changing from windowed to full screen mode but it's there now.  You can put the resolution to any setting you like, which is nice.

I'm on a boat!

Today I travelled back from Limsa Lominsa to Camp Port near U'ldah on the boat.  It's an easy trip to make, quite useful as once you have seen the Crystals in the citys, you can teleport there anytime you wish.

To make the trip yourself you'll need to go to the ferry port and walk up to the gate, bring up the menu and an option will be at the top which you will need to select to pass through.  It doesn't seem to cost any money which is nice.

Once through all you have to do is wait for the boat to show up and it'll put you on board by itself.

Although that can take, perhaps I should of asked an NPC just how long it would be until the boat arived.

But when the boat does show up you get a little cut scene show people getting on the boat.  Looks like it going to be busy.

Turns out that all the people that got on during the cut scene didn't want to go on the deck of the boat.  Make me wish I brought a fishing rod with me though.

Well god knows where these people from that cut scene went, because they sure as hell are no downstairs either.  perhaps they have locked themselves away in some cupboard I don't know about beucase they are still in fear of the FFXI boat attacks.  I have been on two boat rides now and I have not seen an attack yet, maybe I have been lucky.

I arive at Camp Port after a boat ride that seemed to last about 10 minutes although it felt longer.  I really reget not bring a fishing rod now.

Anyway Camp Port is not too far away from U'ldah.  You can walk it in about 15-20 minutes, which is about the same sort of time that it takes to walk south out of Gridania and arive at U'ldah.  So really the three citys are quite close to each other in that resepct.

Draiko's journey from Gridania to Ul'dah (Part 2)

So! continuing from where we last left off. I had just made it into Mor Dhona. The map was the first thing I just had to check right now.












My best bet was to make my way west to Camp Revenant's Toll and work my way down from there.

As I started to step out into the unknown my map was picking up a mob, I thought "Oh great, it's going to be some huge beast blocking my path". I turned the corner and low and behold!












A Toadstool, yep that's right! Well atleast it put me at ease, and I simply snuck passed it in peace.

The deeper I stepped into this land the more beautiful it became. I came across this very mysterious tower and wondered what could be inside it!












My first encounter with an Headrip Ogre, just taken one look at this guy I knew I had to stay well clear. But temptation got the best of me and I had to get a closer look of one.












Ok, so I think we all knew this guy was going to hit hard right? but maybe I took it a little too far when I drew my sword on him!












One word, ouch!. Well I'm not afraid to say I did not regret this action. I got what I wanted, A better look at this cool guy, and an ass whooping!













He claims he's kill, and oh look! he had back up encase he could'nt take me on! ha!

Moving on swiftly, I had finally made it down to the bottom. I had now reached the south part of the lake. I was even closer to this mysterious tower. One day, I will find a way into that place, oh yes!












Another check on my map was needed, I could see the exit to Thanalan. But I needed to save my progress at another checkpoint. Who knew how far the next one would be in Thanalan!? So I took a lot of risk and decided to take a detour.












With a lot of dipping, ducking and diving I made it to Camp Brittlebark. Now I just had to work my way back. I drew up another route and decided it looked promising.












No encounters with mobs down the norrow route and I was almost home free!

North Thanalan, This was the hardest part to get passed. I had already died 4 times trying to creep through. In the end I called for back up. Luckly a friend from the LS had already been here. He was able to teleport me to a camp nearest to the City of Ul'dah.












In the end, I was told that there was another route I could of taken....., I will spare myself the epic embarrassment and just say that I enjoyed the journey I had. I saw some really nice scenary and mobs.

I will now leave you with the rest of my pictures of the amazing lands of Thanalan. Enjoy!
















































In the end, I finally got to Ul'dah and I took in the great site of the city.
This calls for a rest underneath the stars with my fellow Twelves!