Happy New Year...

Happy New Year Everyone... wishing everyone the best this year and the strength to achieve anything they put their minds to.  Stay on course, full sail ahead, the wonderful wind always at your backs and the sun shine warm on your faces.  It as an ancient prayer from several cultures on every continent in the world.

To start off, I changed the BGM music sequence on the blog (yet again)... a few close friends in Europe made me remember the theme song for Berg Epona city in dothack G.U vol 3... so it plays first now.   Also re-discovered Luna Sans "Oraanu" while sorting my music files, so it plays off as 3rd on the list now (thus now pushing  "Voyager", one of my favourite songs on Vanadiel, further downwards on the list).   What can I say... I always loved her voice and the flute + drums accompaniment .

In the end, I basically had to swap the music around not only because my Mixpod playlist has been having problems (their servers went offline)...but I had a sudden feeling of nostalgia while considering a return to FFXI  inbetween waiting for FFXIV:ARR Beta to start.

By the way, Yoshi-P just posted an awesome New Year message on the Lodestone.  Not only that, he also hinted that January 7th would be an important date to bookmark... (Beta?  Benchmark?  New Live letter?)... especially since the Developers Blog just posted up a new image of an awesome snake kabuto (helmet)

He also posted up a very curious looking concept art of him and his personal "Free Company" made up of the snake, bomb-baron, baby chocobo, and baby behemoth...

Hmmm... methinks the crowned water snake leading him is very focused (wait wait wait... is that a paragon's crown on it's head?).  Perhaps it represents both the good luck of the year and us (the players) leading Yoshi as he achieves all his targets for the relaunch of 2.0

The baby behemoth carrying his arrows gotta mean something in the storyline... and the baby chocobo possibly refers to the chocobo job class system still in its infancy.    Dunno... this is turning me bonkers trying to rattle this out.   I should go post some speculations about this on the Lodestone later on.

Oi oi oi... this just occurred to me... what if Yoshi-P was going to present a new FFXIV:ARR commercial on January 7th?  Just like the one Square Enix released back in 2010 for the launch of 1.0 (remember when I posted this a couple years back?)...

Would be spiffy innit?  Once Beta is completed, Yoshi-P and his team will need to market 2.0 very aggressively to not only China and Europe, but also to Macau, Hong Hong, South Korea, Australia and South America.   That's what I think will really make this game a global success because from what I've seen so far, ARR deserves nothing less than becoming a phenomenal success.

That said, I suddenly felt like reminescining about several things regarding 1.0, and of course, i eventually went and dug out an old pic of Louisoix from Xmas of 2011...

...So that I could compare it with the last one I took of him.  This was the very last time I saw him alive prior to the final cutscene...

As I was leaving, I turned round to look at him and took another picture... its as if he was trying to tell me something... crazy coincidence huh?  And I never take coincidences lightly...

Now we understand Sensei... you will be avenged, Great One.  I might as well toss up some random pics from last year to cheer the mood up a bit, yeah?.  

Let's begin with the one item I wanted soooooo bad in 1.0 that just absolutely refused to drop for me in Dzemael Darkhold... the Alpine Jacket (far right in image below).   I remember first seeing it just a few minutes after I returned to the game (following my year long hiatus) in Dec 2011 and loved it...

Ahhh... this was my first "The Maelstrom Needs You!' image... sent it as a gag to my friend who kept prattling on and on about how great the Flames were....

This was when we took a trip to Ul'Dah on a mission to get some high-end liquor for our beloved Admiral Merlwyb

Dancing for Luni during Xmas 2011... and she was quite pleased.  Can't really remember too well, but I think Aiden had threatened to post the rest of these all over the forums unless I wore a subligar and ran around Ul'Dah...

Hunting the dungeons with my great friend Amon Kojiro... we used to make record times in clearing those areas....

Another "The Maelstrom Needs You!" campaign poster...

I keep wondering if these strange airship stops in the north Limsa will be utilized in 2.0...

The youngest of the three "Padjal Siblings" that rule Gridania...

Testing out the fire spells on BLM...

The Imperial Eorzean Order of the Dragoon has arrived... all your bases are belong to us....

This was when I was told that I had no more leve allowances left... so I proceeded to burn the leve office down.  What can I say?  I was already in a horrible mood...

Limsa at dusk... magnificent...

This was when I was trying to have words with the Treant... it didn't do well, trust me...

The Imperial Eorzean Order of Black Mages has arriv--- wait wait wait... they definitely don't know we were recently here to rob them already, right?

With a great friend waaaaay back from FFXI... the great Chick Norris/ Valark

Stood beside Merlwyb when all those lurchy males came slobbering for her hand in marriage...

...and all she has to do is show them her muskeets and they bounce.  Case closed...

Ahhh yes, there's Yoshi--- I mean-- the wandering Ministrel...

Feel the power of super saiyan-mode... Goku got nothing on me...

With Arianger, as we plot how to avenge Sensei Louisoix (yeah, he's here in "limbo" with us while we wait for 2.0)

This is how I would like the furniture for my personal home to look like (or at least our Free Company mansions)...

There's Urianger again... wonder what goes on in his head.  he does that a lot these days.  Say, you don't think he might be Louisoix's son right?  Right???

Hey Bahamut!  I'm coming for you, you bloody #$%@!!!

Citizens of Limsa, hail your new Treasurer.  Accepting gil in cash only please...

Wonder if we can still come here in 2.0.  Methinks our great Sensei may have left us clues right here on how to defeat that overgrown reptile...

I always wondered... did this Gridanian terrain get like this hundreds of years ago during the sixth Umbra calamity?

Peaceful place I found right by Althyk's godstone...

Turns out the beastmen seem to have godstones of their own... or am I just speculating iffy conclusions here?

No no no Hildebrant, don't eat those... drop it, drop it...those are not edible bro...

Visited Yoshi the Wandering Ministrel after they locked him up.

Managed to poison all the guards while trying to help him escape.  Didn't quite work out as planned so  they placed a wanted notification around town.  Had friends who used their markers to draw moustasches on the mug shots, so I was never caught.

Yes indeed... Gaius still patrols the skies. I want a spiffy private airship too...

Loved my chocobo mask, still do... goes so well with the "airquotes" emotes.   Hillarious and I miss it.

Yet another "The Maelstrom Needs You" campaign poster.  Yeah... I get paid for this madness...

Heh... wanna beam me up Gaius?

My lovely retainers...

And this was the last thing I was doing before Sensei warped us out to safety... had that magitek idiot down to like 5%

Well, in conclusion, the images are not the best spiffy quality but they make for some thoughtful and fun memories... didnt have the time to sieve through over five thousand screenshots so I just randomly selected about a hundred.  

Anyway in the meantime, be well everyone.

As always everyone, please remember that all the official videos and images from SE were used here strictly for fan purposes; and all the product, system names and/or company logos remain the registered trademarks of Square Enix.  Copyright (C) 2010-2013 SQUARE ENIX CO. LTD. All Rights Reserved