Salut everyone, I am Cylest. A nobody who signed up to our server in 2019-09-21, yet despite that fact I feel a lot older than I actual am after having made some wonderful friends, overcome some frustrating challenges, and achieved a great many of my personal goals all thanks to slowly but surely acquiring hard fought for experience. At present I am a Mentor, and after attaining this status I began thinking about what being a mentor actually means, and for that reason I'm going to put to paper all my relevant knowledge that I can compile into a comprehensive guide in the hopes that it'll benefit the wider community and assist new players in having a fantastic experience on what I consider to be the most accurate "Classic" Final Fantasy 11 server, Nasomi.

This is not meant to be a thread reporting on bugs, exposing faults, or to create a vehicle that others can use to generate negativity or harassment. For some the elements I'll be covering won't be common knowledge, and for many it will be things they've known for quite a long time. If you're an advanced player regularly duo'ing HNMs it's unlikely anything I present here will benefit you, but there's always an opportunity to learn, not that I would be so smug as to believe I could teach anyone anything in the first place. Again, the stated goal of this collective isn't meant to flex my knowledge or act as a PSA for known issues with the server. These are just helpful tidbits that I pray will reach the eyes of new and old players alike, and with luck they'll benefit from knowing how to avoid the more annoying pitfalls of our already magnificent server.

With the conclusion of my introduction, let's begin;

[First and foremost my friends this is not retail!]

As it stands we are currently a partially supported Treasures of Aht Urhgan server. You'll often read the term "thats out of era" when asking about things that came along in Wings of the Goddess and the following expansions. If you're a returning player who finds themselves familiar with quality of life features such as Trusts, Home Point Warping, and Field Mounts you'll have to understand that all these functions are currently disabled on our server and it's unlikely they are to be making an appearance. That doesn't however mean that these options won't be listed in menus and can possibly trick you into believing they're functioning normally. You can still see all these features while traversing the realm, and it's not uncommon to make an assumption without some measure of foreknowledge. I apologize for the frustration, but as stated those aspects of the game are not available to us. However, there are some exceptions!

A prime example is that your nations Gate Guards and Conquest Overseers, signified by their titles; T.K. (Temple Knight) / I.M. (Iron Musketeer) / W.W. (War Warlock) next to their names will have items available to you to use even before you've attained a rank in your government faction. Some of the most important items are the Warp Scroll, and the Reraise Scroll. While my memory is a little fuzzy as to when these where first added, they will undoubtedly prove invaluable to you while exploring the realm. Always remember to grab your signet from them, and spend the chump change needed to have a pair of scrolls on you at all times. It never hurts to have two very awesome get out of jail cards on your person, especially when you're far from home!

[Secondly, don't get upset about misinformation, it's normal!]

It's fairly normal to not remember things accurately especially in a game you possibly haven't played since 2005. You'll likely be scouring the internet for information, searching on google or looking things up on the various wiki sites that you remember using in those days. While it's incredible that even today most of them are still going strong with a semi-active community I must regrettably report that a great many of those articles are not gospel when it pertains to our server. I don't mean to say that they're "Wrong" only inaccurate. Years of changes to the game have caused them to be modified in such a way that they no longer accurately reflect what our experience on Nasomi will actually be.

More often than not battlefields will have level caps, quests will require extra steps or items, and pathways described as being a shortcut may not actually be available to us on Nasomi. There are ways of getting a more era-specific answer to your questions by manipulating pages such as ffxiclopedia. Each entry has a history that you can browse through, to take note of changes based on the date every page was edited or updated after major changes where made to the game itself. Even taking these steps can sometimes lead you to a dead end, but don't give up! Lots of players will answer questions if they're posed in a polite, respectful manner. Do your best to describe what quest or NM you're after and keep in mind some things just won't exist.

[Yeah. . . Some stuff is busted, but don't let that stop you!]

For most of us we've experienced more than our fair share of bugs, starting out you probably won't see to much out of the ordinary, but for an unlucky few you'll possibly run into a couple of avoidable annoyances. Here's a few to look out for, and ways to get around them;

*That's -my- name, don't wear it out!: Probably one of the sneakiest problems a brand new player might encounter while starting on Nasomi is a 'Connection Timed Out' message when making your very first character. The game appears to go through all the steps of finalizing your choices only to hang up, get stuck, and refuse to validate. This is most likely due to the fact that the name you've chosen is already taken. I suspect this vague message appears because as a framework we lack the Play Online support that retail has, so there's no method for the client to do a check then inform you with a proper error. Just relaunch the game and try a different name until one of them sticks, hopefully you won't have to retry too many times before getting one you want.

*Level Sync, Level Stuck!: Once you've graduated to Level 12, or perhaps even 14 if you're persistent enough, you'll eventually want to join or even start your own party to farm experience. While this has it own nuances involved that have nothing to do with Nasomi, the Level Syncing feature is one that bares mentioning. If you visit the front page you'll be able to spot in the top right of the screen what the currently sync range is, which is critical to forming a group. It's not too terribly difficult to figure out, and once you've designated a characters level to sync to the party can begin! But dangit, you're ready to change the sync, or you want to disable the sync entirely while traveling to a new camp or beyond. Sadly it's just not possible to turn it off once it's on, at least not the normal way. A quick solution is to just kick the level sync character from the party and after waiting for 30 seconds it'll disable itself automatically. All that's needed is for them to rejoin the party afterward and you're good to go! However, try to avoid activating level sync when party members are not gathered, anyone outside the zone will be bugged and all players might have to log out/in to fix it. Even worse, level syncing can kill everyone who's in transit as spells like Sneak or Invisible will be immediately removed, exposing players to aggressive creatures that are now likely their own level or higher, and boy oh boy are they hungry for blood!

*I invited you to Party, didn't I???: Sometimes a player will transition through zones, or perhaps they just aren't attentive and miss the invitation. Those are entirely normal situations in which an invitation won't work properly, but in the case of accepting an invite and absolutely nothing appears to happen you've been snared by a very easy to fix issue. For whatever reason the other players can see you, but you cannot see them. The simple solution is to just transition zones, but another clever way is to invite someone to party if there's room. Upon their acceptance the party window should appear for the affected player, allowing them to read and send party messages as normal. In the case of the party screen turning black this is it's own hiccup and it's even easier to fix, but only the leader of the group do it. They'll have to go into party options and "Give" themselves party leader by choosing their own name again in the leader selection window. Doing so should instantly have all the names light back up.

*The Mog House, Where'd my Moogle go?!: When traveling to Jeuno for the very first time you'll probably notice that inside your apartment your favorite pom-wielding companion isn't present. That's because he's on break, but don't worry! Just open up your menu and on the first panel where "Map" use to be, you'll notice a new selection titled "Moghouse". From there you can do all your normal tasks without any spinning or mystical bubbles!

*The Mog House, Second Floor: Yes! This is another out of era-feature that can trigger after you've traded a specific flower to a special child NPC in your home nation. It use to crash the entire zone, now it just crashes you! If you aren't careful and make this selection while leaving your lovely little apartment your game will freeze up. You'll likely need to force the game to close in order to get back in.

*Fishing, Losing a Catch, Missclicking, or Overfishing: At some point during your Nasomi career you're going to take up the rod and reel in order to earn some very relaxed and reliable gil, but in the process you might make the mistake of letting a fish go, or hitting enter too soon. In Retail this just results in you having to start over, on Nasomi you'll appear to "Freeze" and be unable to take any action. All you've gotta do is reboot, a common theme for most issues. HOWEVER! Take it from this salty old cat, there is a [secret] when you believe you've got a monster nibbling on your bait. Just let the bugger go, it's the only time you're allowed to not tug it up. Also keep in mind every so often you'll have to move a short distance from where you're fishing, as after an unspecified amount of time you'll just stop catching anything at all.

*Elevator Bosses, The Metal Works and Beyond: Yes... The final boss of the game isn't Absolute Virtue, but elevators! They can be a bit wonky at times and for the very unlucky sort of soul they're even fatal. While inside ancient ruins you'll get aggro through the wall or find yourself stuck on a never ending platform like some cruel carnival ride that just won't end! Whatever you do don't panic, as most cases your client is just lagging behind the server and you the player aren't able to actually see the correct orientation of the elevator themselves. Sometimes down is up, and up is down! As crazy as that seems set yourself to auto-run at an elevator that is in the "Up" position and you just might find yourself magically teleported to the top. The same is possible for the "Down" position when trying to leave. This won't always work, so remember to have some form of Esacpe/Warp available to you in the form of a spell, or Scroll from the conquest NPC before attempting to embark on the most dangerous encounter on Nasomi!

*Boats and Airships, lost at sea, forever...!: A problem similar to elevators is that during some events traveling just goofs up. The pilot gets lost and is to embarrassed to tell anyone, so he's perfectly content to hold you hostage for as long as you'll allow them to. In most cases this will not be a problem as you arrive where you expect to be in a timely fashion, things just might take longer than you remember. But if your boat encounters pirates or you fish up monsters in the process of transitioning from one zone to another you'll now be putting down roots because this ship is now stuck in the Bermuda Triangle! The best possible way to avoid this is to just play it safe. If you're on a quest or have other players waiting for you, don't do anything to the zone that would encourage enemies to appear, and if they do show up in the case of pirates use your handy-dandy Warp Scroll and get the heck out of there. I understand having to go all the way back is a bummer, but think of it as an adventure where anything can happen!

*I clicked it, or did I???: One thing to always keep in mind while advancing in rank missions, quests, or anything in general is that it never hurts to tap a selection twice. Sometimes you'll activate a cutscene but for whatever reason your client doesn't trigger the event properly and the server just shrugs while you watch a lovely little movie. As far as you know you're on the right track, but wait just a minute! Double tap that objective marker one more time before you leave, it never hurts to check and nothing is more humiliating than having to ask your companions to do a long story mission all over again because you didn't get credit.

[A big work in progress!]

Hey! This isn't the end, I swear! But my brain is tiny and it takes a lot of energy trying to recall everything that's important, bear with me while I take a short break, as these tips and tricks are going to keep growing as I remember valuable lessons I'd like to share with the community!

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Reserved for even more blabbering form yours truly!

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