Events

Fucking.

Events.

My number one super special awesome favorite thing about XI was the events they put on.

Halloween. Summerfest. Christmas. Crazy Japanese Holiday #239. I participated in every single one and got all I could out of it. It was a big relief to do something other than murder shit all day, no matter how fun said shit was to murder.

Having fun was always... Well, fun.

My favorite holiday out of all of them was the Sun Breeze Festival, aka Summerfest. Why? Because you got a bitchin' yukata to wear while the fireworks were going off all over the place.

Bitchin'.

My first experience with Summerfest was back in 2004. I logged on, not realizing an event was taking place, and saw an enormous crowd of people in the Bastok Markets area all wearing the blue event yukata. I was so confused, I started asking around, trying to figure out what was going on. Someone finally told me about the event and I jumped right in.

I remember having to do a certain quest that involved getting teleported to a high level area, and temporarily becoming level 1 with sneak/invisible on and having to search around for a specific item.

It was the coolest thing ever.

At the time, I didn't realize I was being teleported to an actual place in the game I could visit later. I thought they were areas designed for the event, so I was surprised when I saw non level 1 guys running around killing stuff. Also getting murdered by Guivre a lot. That was fun. 

Then you went down near the hot springs outside of Dangruf Wadi and started goldfishing. It was tedium to the max, but fun nonetheless.

I still have my original yukata from 2004.

Halloween was another event I loved. I joined a bit late to catch the first one, and was told by everyone who attended it was awesome and GMs dressed like demons. But I did catch the next one, and it was a blast. Dude's roaming Bastok, collecting sweets and turning everyone into nightmare fuel.

I also ended up getting a warp staff, which I have to this day. Comes in handy when you need to... Warp.

I remember buying a bunch of cookies and bubble chocolate from an NPC and handing them out to anyone who happened to walk by. It was a great time, and something I cherish.