It's weird... (A newb's tale)

[Ryouken]

When I first started the game I was really nervous about interacting with other players...

I still remember when I asked someone to join me in my first PT, at that time I didn't understand the whole lvl gap issue, so I ended up asking ppl who were 5 lvls higher than me

I've played for a month now, gotten two jobs to lvl 20, gotten my subjob, and gotten my chocobo license... so I guess I'm not a HUGE newb anymore (I'm still a newb )

But today after finishing a mission (got to rank 2!) in Sandy, I was walking around the cathedral when I got a tell:

/Player: Hey wait!

I turned around and saw a new player (a lvl 1 WAR who still had a question mark by his name)

/Player: Can you help me?
/Me: With what?
/Player: I'm new to the game
/Me: lol, I could tell ^_^
/Player: Exactly
/Player: Can you help me?
/Me: With what?
/Player: Everything

A long pause of silence...

/Me: Everything!?

More silence...

/Player: Yes
/Me: oh...
/Player: ok then
/Me: Maybe you should go ask a mentor
/Player: Who is this mentor?
/Me: A mentor is a high lvl player who answers questions

*sigh* More silence...

/Player: Maybe you should teach me the basics
/Me: Why don't you just read the game manual?
/Me: Or you could use the Compendium at the log in screen

... Silence...

/Me: Well you could go to the game website and look there...

... More silence...

/Player: Who is this mentor?
/Me: lol, A mentor isn't the name of a player ^_^

... SILENCE...

/Player: Forget it!

And then he ran off

After that I felt confused and kinda annoyed... but at the same time I felt honored that a newb actually asked me for advice... it made feel like... I wasn't a complete newb myself

But I ended up asking myself a question: "WAS I THAT ANNOYING WHEN I STARTED THE GAME!?"

lol

Has anyone else had that first experience where you realize that your not a newb anymore?

[Matera]

Why didn't you just give the poor guy advice? XD

[sevenpointflaw]

ironicly, as I was reading this, my roomate was fielding questions to a newbie on a 360 that refused to open his manual up, and kept asking her questions even though she doesn't even know what a 360 controller looks like.

[Nyru]

There are many things that a lvl 20 player would be very helpful with, even if they still feel like a newbie.

When I first started, I didn't know you had to equip your weapon, that some items could stack, how to use Trade in the menu, that you could sell things to NPCs, how to talk in /tell, and so much other stuff that some take for granted. I was nearly lvl 5 before I got brave and clicked on that big blue crystal (Home Point) thing to see what it did. I have been playing for nearly 2 years now, and I am still the Queen of Questions in my ls.

Every piece of info is important. I am always encouraged when I see someone asking questions. It means they want to learn. Yay! A skilled player in the making

[Jei]

Yea I got curious while reading too. What would that player want to know from you. I'd ask that myself.

If he ask for basic, I wouldn't mind.

If he ask for gil, ima run away.

[Ryouken]

Yea I got curious while reading too. What would that player want to know from you. I'd ask that myself.

If he ask for basic, I wouldn't mind.

If he ask for gil, ima run away.

Thats what really confused me

I had no idea what this guy needed help with (whether it was gil or a quest), thats why I told him to go find a mentor...

When he asked for the basics I figured he didn't read the manual yet.

[Minimee]

dont be afraid to help other noobs. your not helping him, and trying to get him to find a mentor, tells me your still a noob. i try and help everyone who asks me for help, as long as they dont ask for gil. if they ask for gil i tell them about getting signet and killing things for drops and selling items on ah. since you have just recently hit level 20, in a couple of levels you yourself will be asking for help. someone is going to say after next person levels, we should go to kazham. does everyone have kazham airship pass? and your going to say; kazham pass? where,s kazham how do you get there? what if no one helped you? what makes this game so enjoyable for me is the social interaction. i enjoy being able to help others. especially those annoying red ? noobs that really want help and not a hand out. i am a mentor and have my mentor status always up. btw if i get my pet noob to do a few quests and never ask for gil, i usually give them gil 10k to 100k, depends on my mood and how they act.

[avhmia]

Has anyone else had that first experience where you realize that your not a newb anymore?

Back to the original question, I remember the exact moment when I started to feel like maybe I had a clue. I was on my way back to Sandy from Jeuno to get something I had left in storage. I had teleported myself to the crag with my very shiny, very new Teleport-Holla spell that I had just quested that very morning. Of course, I couldn't bear to part with a whole 300 gil for a Chocobo, so I trudged on foot through a rainy, muddy La Thiene. As I approached the road, I saw a pair of lower level players running towards Ronfaure with a Battering Ram in close pursuit. I caught up with them a little way from the zone and hesitated for just a second before casting dia.

It was a long fight for a lowbie WHM without a capped club skill, but in the end I managed to defeat that ram. During the battle, a small crowd of folks who were leveling in the area had gathered around to watch, and as the ram went down they /cheered and /clapped for me. One of the people I had rescued sent me a tell thanking me, expressing how lucky he was that a "high level" happened to be in the area at the right time. For the first time in FFXI, I didn't feel helpless or swept along by the game, but rather like I had some control over what happened to my character.

[Murphie]

I look like a relative newbie to most folks I encounter in-game, but from time to time I field a question or two from someone who just needs an answer from whoever is closest. Depending upon the person, I generally answer their question, and then try and fill them in on some basics of the game (signet, how to fight, where to buy NPC gear instead of AH, how to use AH, food, etc.) Most of them seem pretty glad to have the info.

As for the OP's question: I can't really remember. :/ I've been playing on and off since 2003, and I've restarted a few times, so I've gone through that sort of thing a couple of times.

I guess the most memorable moment for me, as silly as it sounds, was being able to walk around Battalia/Sauromuge/Rolanberry without aggro for the first time. Getting through those zones w/o a Chocobo had always been a bit sketchy, so realizing that I had no reason to fear, or sneak/invis up was pretty cool.

[Kittyneko]

dont be afraid to help other noobs. your not helping him, and trying to get him to find a mentor, tells me your still a noob. i try and help everyone who asks me for help, as long as they dont ask for gil. if they ask for gil i tell them about getting signet and killing things for drops and selling items on ah. since you have just recently hit level 20, in a couple of levels you yourself will be asking for help. someone is going to say after next person levels, we should go to kazham. does everyone have kazham airship pass? and your going to say; kazham pass? where,s kazham how do you get there? what if no one helped you? what makes this game so enjoyable for me is the social interaction. i enjoy being able to help others. especially those annoying red ? noobs that really want help and not a hand out. i am a mentor and have my mentor status always up.

Umm.. I think the problem here was that he didn't know what the newbe asked, god.

btw if i get my pet noob to do a few quests and never ask for gil, i usually give them gil 10k to 100k, depends on my mood and how they act.

Yea me too.

[Murphie]

Well, it's clear that he didn't know what the poor guy was asking, but some leading questions would have helped clear that up a bit.

"Do you need to know about how to fight?"
"Do you need to know about where to buy armor and weapons?"
"Do you know about signet, and conquest points?"
"Do you know where your mog house is, and the auction house, and how they work?"

It's not too hard to help out someone even if they aren't exactly sure what they need help with. Then again, there are a lot of resources out there to point people towards, so that is always a valid option. I'm not sure that Mentors are a good place to send folks a lot of the time though, because I have yet to meet more than one or two folks since the mentor program was established that had that had the M up and were actually knowlegable/helpful.

[Ellipses]

I think for me the moment was when I was synthing brass ingots in Bastok Markets after a nice little mining expedition (ah, those were the days). Someone was shouting all kinds of questions about mining and fishing (disappointingly, not "HOW I MINE FOR FISH?"), plus a bunch of other generalities. I was the only person answering him, and I realized I was actually answering questions about things I'd never done before myself, and didn't have to look anything up.

There are still moments when I'll be talking to someone and I'll realize I know more about the subject than them, and it catches me off-guard, especially when they're higher level than me. It just... boggles me when someone who's been playing longer than me doesn't know about Horde Lullaby, or how unimaginably sweet Regen spells are compared to Cures, or what elemental resistances do, or that Quadavs aggro to sound, etc. The exception is events. I know ahead of time I'm going to be explaining the details of any given event several dozen times for the first few days of the event.

And I'm still scared of giving someone incorrect information. O.O Here it's not as big a deal, because someone (probably Icemage) will just come a long and correct me, but in-game, odds are nobody else in the party knows any better. And if they do, they'll probably be an ass about it. :/

[Murphie]

And I'm still scared of giving someone incorrect information. O.O Here it's not as big a deal, because someone (probably Icemage) will just come a long and correct me, but in-game, odds are nobody else in the party knows any better. And if they do, they'll probably be an ass about it. :/

I had someone in my LS do this just last night. We were having a WAR/NIN vs. WAR/Othersub conversation (for low levels, not endgame) and he actually pulled out the "How long have you been playing?" card. When I said "Since 2003", he got all "well I was just wondering"

[GaugeChambers]

I guess I'm one of the "Lucky" ones...

I beta tested this game. no, not the Xbox 360 beta then NA PC beta.

Everyone was a newb then, then I also was lucky enough to beta the PS2 version as well,

so, getting my noobness outta the way with everyone else was interesting...

I remember a time in the Ronfaure when I was a lvl 7 Mnk a lvl 6 Rdm invited me to a pt, and we started killing Goblins, a thf ran up and asked to join, the thf rdm n I started laying waste to all the gobs around Knightswell...

then I kept seeing...

THF lots 657 on the Gob Helm
THF lots 45 on Lightning crystal
etc etc etc

and I was like, how are you doing that and why are you getting all the items??
the Rdm to was confused on how the thf was getting the items.

the Thf didn't help "well, I'm a thf, I'm suppost to take items"

the RDM promptly kicked the THF from the pt stating

"We don't need an item taker in our pt, thanks for the help killing stuff, but we'd like items too"






Man... to remember that, not knowing about Cast Lots, what a utter noob I was, thinking THF's had some magic item grabbing ability (No steal doesn't count ) where I wasn't able to get items... and that was about 3 years ago... so much has changed

[Kadenmire]

I remember back when I was LVL25. I was on the ship from Selbina headen out to meet a frind in the Meriphataud Mountains when this thief who was only LVL 4 came up to me and asked me if I could help them get back to Windy. I was kinda shocked that someone would ask me for help cause this was first time any one had. To make a long story short I wound up late to my meeting because I sheapered them back to Windy but my frind wasn't mad after I explaned why I was late.