First: Your problem is that your keyboard configuration is set on that other option, make it set it as "Compact" which will allow you to use the WASD keys instead of typing the letters out.

Second: Equip your weapons and go out hunting and save ALL your crystals and stack them up using organize in your inventory menu.

Sell everything else or keep them.

You will get Dia soon, which will act like a DOT and it will lessen the already long and persisent back n forth wack a bit.

At level 10-12 you should be heading to Valkurm dunes or somewhere you can get a decent party. Most PT will have a PLVLER meaning a high level will be there healing for you guys so you can get more EXP per hour.

An hour at 10+ in Valkurm with PLVLER should get you 1-2 levels, if playing more than 3+ hours and with a good advancing PT you should get from 10-15 in no time. THis is with a GOOD group that knows how to exp chain and keep the battle constantly going w/o downtime, so you can get maximum XP per HOUR.

Sell your crystals int he AH (auction house) in stacks so you have a little profit. Buy all your spells from NPC unless you see a good deal on the AH.

Originally posted by nekrothing

Originally posted by marinrider

Meh not years, more like 4 -6 months for me, I was addicted like no other though...

How hard is it to find a group though?  I mean I dont like sitting in one spot for hours trying to find a few people to quest with, it just feels counter-productive and not a good use of time.

Should check out the guide I wrote, "The definitive guide for FFXI jobs". I put up a pretty accurate estimation on how often each job gets party invites according to level increments along with some other stuff.

Link maybe?

Oh, and I remember there was no way to choose your server, so how do you go about changing what server your located on?

Originally posted by marinrider

 

Originally posted by nekrothing

Originally posted by marinrider

Meh not years, more like 4 -6 months for me, I was addicted like no other though...

How hard is it to find a group though?  I mean I dont like sitting in one spot for hours trying to find a few people to quest with, it just feels counter-productive and not a good use of time.

Should check out the guide I wrote, "The definitive guide for FFXI jobs". I put up a pretty accurate estimation on how often each job gets party invites according to level increments along with some other stuff.

 

Link maybe?

Oh, and I remember there was no way to choose your server, so how do you go about changing what server your located on?

http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/147054

Also, you can choose your own server now, which is good.

Originally posted by marinrider

Awesome, you my friend have convinced me to give this game 15 more dollars, I shall try the game again because I feel like my 14 hours of play was not enough (most of which I think was patching though)

I have talked about this with my pre launch AoC guild many times. If I had not left FFXI for those three months, I would still be playing it today. I miss it. The grind of the game gave me more of a sense of accomplishment when I did something good. It wasn't like other mmorpgs where there is instant satisfaction right off the bat until you really learn how to play.

Originally posted by marinrider

Awesome, you my friend have convinced me to give this game 15 more dollars, I shall try the game again because I feel like my 14 hours of play was not enough (most of which I think was patching though)

You should not even be playing games if you are not willingly to give a good MMO a DECENT try. Decent meaning atleast a minimum of 1 week with atleast 20 hours so you can get the hang of what this game is about, how people interact, the "sense" of the game and such. 14 hours is not even enough to satisfy it. And as you said, most of it was patching.

Originally posted by poopypoowu

Originally posted by marinrider

Awesome, you my friend have convinced me to give this game 15 more dollars, I shall try the game again because I feel like my 14 hours of play was not enough (most of which I think was patching though)

You should not even be playing games if you are not willingly to give a good MMO a DECENT try. Decent meaning atleast a minimum of 1 week with atleast 20 hours so you can get the hang of what this game is about, how people interact, the "sense" of the game and such. 14 hours is not even enough to satisfy it. And as you said, most of it was patching.

Yea I know, most games I do give a good try to, for some reason though I kind of slacked on this one.

Oh wait, now I know why, when I went to the store, I bought FFXI, and also a trial of WoW.  Guess which one I liked more.

WoW was probably the reason that I didnt give this game a good try, and does anyone want to recommend me a fairly populated server?

Well personally, i'm waitiing for my game to arrive so i can rejoin a friend of mine in playing this again. If you wish I would gladly have you join us on Gilgamesh. THe prices in this server's economy is quite low, which is good for the buyers but bad for the sellers. Which is good for us since we are just starting out ^_^.

If you decide to join me on gilgamesh please send me a message on this site.

Alright will do, don't know when I'll be coming back, soon I'm guessing though.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

ok thanks a ton, got that part figured out. My next question.

WASD how do I use it? it types when I press the button.

Also...Im a white mage... cant seem to kill the things right outside of town... do I need to buy something?

Hey there and welcome to FFXI :)

I'll try and answer at least a couple of the questions you'ave asked in this thread... Others have done a good job as well of answering them.

1. About movement with WASD - if you go into the Main Menu (press the "-" key on your numpad), and then go to the second screen by either pressing "-" a second time or pressing the left or right arrow. Then go down to Config or Options (don't remember exactly what it's called atm). It'll bring up a new menu. I don't remember which one it was, but if you look through each, one of the options will give you the ability to select between "Compact" and "Full" keyboard setups. By default it's on the larger one and you need to set it to "Compact". Once you do that, you'll be able to move with WASD, the camera will move with the arrow keys and, frankly, once you're used to it, you'll never even need to touch the mouse again.

2. The Nation's Conquest is one of the numerous "sub-systems" in FFXI. Conquest is basically a "passive" competition between the three main nations, San d'Oria, Windurst and Bastok. When you have signet active (given to you by a guard near the gate out of town) points are accrued for influence over the region you're in. Vana'diel is broken down in numerous large regions and each has influence over it by which ever nation has the most points racked up.

Every week (at midnight Japan time), the scores across all zones are tallied up and the Nation with the most points in a given region for the past week gains control over that region for the next one, until the next tally. Control comes with benefits. For one, special items are available at "regional vendors" in the controlling nation's city that otherwise would be unavailable. You can do "supply runs" to the outpost of a region while your nation controls it, thus unlocking the ability to warp directly out there almost anytime afterward (there are level restrictions on some of them).

There's a 4th contestant, however.. that being the "beastmen" of that region. If the beastmen kill too many players, erasing accrued points as they do so, then none of the nations control the region and it's controlled by the Beastmen until one of the nations tips the balance back in their favor.

You can also earn crystals from mobs while signet is active. Crystals can either be sold, used in crafting, fed to plants for gardening or traded back to the signet/conquest NPC for Rank Points.

It's a fairly cool system that might not make sense now, but it will more as you play... like the rest of the game.

3. You mentioned "two inventories" - actually... there's more than that as you progress in the game, but don't worry about that now :)

You start out with a "personal inventory" which is what your character carries - up to 30 items to start, but it can be expanded to 50 items via the (in)famous "Gobby Bag" quests in Jeuno.

You also have your "Mog Safe", this is basically your storage for anything that you don't want to carry around with you. You can expand this to 80 slots via a series of 3 quests your Moogle will give you when you've met the requirements. Again, I don't want to hit you with too much since there's so much to learn as it is and you're just starting.

In any case, FFXI is a *huge* game. Thanks to the sheer amount of content it has, and the fact that it's not a "fast-moving" game by any means, you can easily spend 2 or more years playing and still have not done/seen everything.

The best advice I have for anyone starting the game is, take your time, learn to play your characters as well as you can, be social, be polite, be helpful when you can, and enjoy yourself.

Just correcting Mike on one thing he said. It's 60 personal inventory slots instead of 50, probably his finger slipped.