FFXI: Return to Vana’diel – A Quest for Grass
I return to Vana’diel after not having played FFXI for over a decade. Here are my adventures!
You wanna know something disappointing? I never got my chocobo license way back when I used to play FFXI. So I had no idea how it actually worked.
When I found out that you only get to rent a chocobo and not actually own a chocobo, that was disappointment. Of course, they finally did just introduce real mounts (more on that later), which kinda soothes the pain of that discovery. Because back in the day, that chocobo license was all I ever wanted as a lowbie player.
Quest for Weed Grass
So, I picked up the chocobo quest in Jeuno, which requires me to get Gausebit Grass. These drop most often from Crane Flies in the Meriphataud Mountains. This means I had another trip ahead of me since I’ve never been to that zone.
Everything from this point out is unknown territory for me. I’ve never been beyond level 20. I made the run to Jeuno once, but that’s as far as I got. So, it’s a little exciting to get past the point I was before and see what lay beyond.
What lay beyond? More zones with monsters that can three-hit kill me.
I tried to be super careful and unlock every survival manual along the road. Then the Sauromugue Champaign happened. Who the heck thought it was a good idea to put the survival manual up in a place where people couldn’t reach it? It was stuck up on this plateau, so I started skirting around the stone trying to find a way up. I easily spent 20-30 mins dodging powerful monsters and certain death, but never found the way to it.
In the end, I did accidentally aggro something and died a terrible death.
So, I had to start the run over again. This time, I totally ignored the stupid survival manual and just headed into the Meriphataud Mountains instead. Bleh.
There, I found Crane Flies in good population. But I also knew I was only a few zones away from Windurst, so I decided to finish up the run to that city to unlock it.
That being done, I warped back out to the Meriphataud Mountains and started farming flies. Pretty good experience and not a terrible drop rate for the grass. I was level 25 by the end of it all, and actually got an extra grass to drop, which I could sell for a little profit on the AH.
Chocobo Luv
So, I returned to Jeuno and started the Chocobo Wounds quest. During this, I had to win the trust of a poor abused chocobo, who refused to eat. Eventually, I got him to take some of the grass I farmed up.
This quest has been sped up significantly. It used to be that you could only interact with the chocobo once a game day. Now you can interact with him once a real-life minute.
So, it didn’t take very long to get this quest wrapped up and earn my license.
Once that was done, I was also able to start the quest for the new Raptor mount…