Dunes Parties

[Raydeus]

Re: Dunes Parties

At the time Qufim was the best and more practical choice actually. It was a combination of it being extremely close to Jeuno (at a level when everyone would be heading there anyway to get a choco license) and a much smaller world back then. Plus other camps were either too easily crowded or were in very unpopular or hard to reach places. And if you consider the game was much slower and what you needed to do to get to Kazham it makes sense many people starting to play would wait for it until they had no other choice and were high enough to farm the key more easily.

In short it wasn't bad at all for a starting player 9 year ago, I can at least tell you that.

[Narachan]

Re: Dunes Parties

Honestly, of all the horror stories there are regarding Valkurm Dunes . . .

They're all lies, all designed to distract you from the true horror of this game, so that it gets you before you even realize what's happening. Yes, my friends, I speak of the monster known as Qufim Island.

That I would TOTALLY agree with. I hated Qufim. XD I don't mind it so much now, but it's very different in a small, higher levelled group!

[Takelli]

Re: Dunes Parties

At the time Qufim was the best and more practical choice actually. It was a combination of it being extremely close to Jeuno (at a level when everyone would be heading there anyway to get a choco license) and a much smaller world back then. Plus other camps were either too easily crowded or were in very unpopular or hard to reach places. And if you consider the game was much slower and what you needed to do to get to Kazham it makes sense many people starting to play would wait for it until they had no other choice and were high enough to farm the key more easily.

In short it wasn't bad at all for a starting player 9 year ago, I can at least tell you that.

Kazham was actually the worst place for me...

Takes way too long to kill Mandragora's, especially when you first started getting in there.

And once the lower level ones died fast enough, you got little to no exp from the fight, then you went into yhoater jungle, and then the mandy fights took forever again.

The music was great though, can't complain about that. xD

[Narachan]

Re: Dunes Parties

Kazham was actually the worst place for me...

Takes way too long to kill Mandragora's, especially when you first started getting in there.

And once the lower level ones died fast enough, you got little to no exp from the fight, then you went into yhoater jungle, and then the mandy fights took forever again.

The music was great though, can't complain about that. xD

I think my main problem with Kazham was just the fact that I still find it hard to navigate the jungles. x_x;

I can't remember the music though, gotta get back there soon and listen to it!

[Armando]

Re: Dunes Parties

It was a combination of it being extremely close to Jeuno (at a level when everyone would be heading there anyway to get a choco license) and a much smaller world back then. Plus other camps were either too easily crowded or were in very unpopular or hard to reach places.

Any advantage being close to Jeuno has is completely negated by having to run at least 1/3 of the zone on foot just to get to the overworld area, and the zone being double unsafe 1/3 the time (undead.) There weren't enough worms near the tunnel entrance to go around, fighting worms in the open is dangerous, and they fuck with your already-laughable accuracy. Crabs aren't really an option at 20; sure, you can manage to drop one before they drop you, but it's painfully slow and you don't have Dispel.

On the other hand, Rolanberry Fields is also adjacent to Jeuno, Berry Grubs are the same level as Qufim crabs (but MUCH squishier!) and there are 91 spawn points all over the zone. And you can even ride a chocobo to camp! We got the short end of the stick.

You didn't really fight anything sane until Kazham. Mandragoras are squishy and harmless. But people are dumb and the more harmless a mob is, the more prone they are to fight it while underleveled (see: crabs).

[Firewind]

Re: Dunes Parties

Worst part about Mandies were the fact that pretty much everyone back then was "NIN tank or GTFO" even though NIN takes are useless against Monk mobs without utsusemi Ni and a decent evasion set (you won't have either at 25-34)

Then of course there are the people who are idiotic enough to mistake XP/Kill for XP/Hour and they will try to go to the next camp early. Jungles at 24, and Citadel at 32 were always nightmares and massively slowed down XP.

[Mezlo]

Re: Dunes Parties

I enjoyed the dunes. It was fun meeting all the different people and all the different playstyles and such. The dunes, where noobs and veterans meet for a party of WTF?

[Raydeus]

Re: Dunes Parties

Any advantage being close to Jeuno has is completely negated by having to run at least 1/3 of the zone on foot just to get to the overworld area, and the zone being double unsafe 1/3 the time (undead.) There weren't enough worms near the tunnel entrance to go around, fighting worms in the open is dangerous, and they fuck with your already-laughable accuracy. Crabs aren't really an option at 20; sure, you can manage to drop one before they drop you, but it's painfully slow and you don't have Dispel.

On the other hand, Rolanberry Fields is also adjacent to Jeuno, Berry Grubs are the same level as Qufim crabs (but MUCH squishier!) and there are 91 spawn points all over the zone. And you can even ride a chocobo to camp! We got the short end of the stick.

You didn't really fight anything sane until Kazham. Mandragoras are squishy and harmless. But people are dumb and the more harmless a mob is, the more prone they are to fight it while underleveled (see: crabs).

It may sound great on paper, but in practice is much worse than Qufim ever was. There are 91 potential spawn points, not 91 Grubs "running" around in the area at all times. Did you ever actually tested your idea? Because I did try xping there a time or two because someone had the same idea when Qufim was packed. It was freaking awful, and the run is way worse than it is in Qufim because in Qufim you can at least run in a circuit instead of having to back track to check on spawn points.

[Armando]

Re: Dunes Parties

Never got a chance to test that one out. By the time I was picking out my own camps, I had already leveled most jobs past Qufim. I find it difficult to believe there isn't a single good camp in Rolanberry Fields though.

Speaking of non-traditional camps, one of my favorites was the Yuhtunga Jungle outpost at 27-28 killing Goblin Smithies and Furriers. It beat the crap out of going into Yhoator underleveled, and Goblins speed up EXP by killing themselves sometimes. If the party ran long and you got to 29-30, you could move further south to the waterfall and kill Sahagins instead.

[Raydeus]

Re: Dunes Parties

Believe it, there isn't. The only sort of kinda decent xp camp you could find was by the Weapons, and the pull was pretty awful to begin with and only made worse if the grubs decided to spawn somewhere else.

You could see a JP party from time to time trying there, only to leave sooner than you can say lolaggro.

[Takelli]

Re: Dunes Parties

Never got a chance to test that one out. By the time I was picking out my own camps, I had already leveled most jobs past Qufim. I find it difficult to believe there isn't a single good camp in Rolanberry Fields though.

Speaking of non-traditional camps, one of my favorites was the Yuhtunga Jungle outpost at 27-28 killing Goblin Smithies and Furriers. It beat the crap out of going into Yhoator underleveled, and Goblins speed up EXP by killing themselves sometimes. If the party ran long and you got to 29-30, you could move further south to the waterfall and kill Sahagins instead.

I remember the Sahagin camp when FFXI first came out. Was on my Ranger, and was the puller. We dropped them like flies, fast pulls, fast kills.

Went there a few times, and was quite fun when my original linkshell and I did parties there.

I just wish there was a way for people to do the Other camps, though. I would have loved to experiance the old school camps, and do the full party SCs again. But... The Old Vana is dead.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Dunes Parties

I, too, am having trouble believing Ray's claims, especially that it could possibly be any worse than Qufim. Then again, perhaps soloing in Rolanberry Fields is a tad different from partying there. (Did you run out of grubs too fast or something?)

[Janay]

Re: Dunes Parties

I remember hearing what I feel even today was the best track ever; "Mercenaries Delight" bgm when I got my first party invite in "Wajoam Woodlands" (spelling).

[Raydeus]

Re: Dunes Parties

I, too, am having trouble believing Ray's claims, especially that it could possibly be any worse than Qufim. Then again, perhaps soloing in Rolanberry Fields is a tad different from partying there. (Did you run out of grubs too fast or something?)

You run out of mobs, you get more aggro, you have to pull from too far away, roaming the area is way worse than anything in Qufim, etc. etc. etc. There are very good reasons why people didn't just move there and were actually much more willing to go all he way to Basty to level in the tunnel than trying Rolanberry.


But you don't really have to believe me, just get a party for the experiment and level there for a while.

[Oniwabanshu]

Re: Dunes Parties

i remember using the berry grubs for bst soloing back in the day in rol. thats pretty much the only time i ever ventured from pash to rol just inside the zone had bees and grubs, was decent exp way back when i'm talking like 3-5k and hour in the 30's i also remember when 10k an hour as acutally good, now it's laughable and easly done solo with GoV