Feylorn's tip of the week

Tip #1

Should you need to re-install your game, or have it installed on more than one machine it can be a pain having to sort all your macros and config out again.
Well the game actually has a built in backup/restore tool to help you out!

To save a character's macros and config settings go to the 'choose character' screen and highlight the one you want to save the settings for.
Then use the following key/button combos and confirm to save your data to the playonline server.

PC: Shift+Alt+Ctrl+B
X-box: LB+Left stick button
PS2: L1 button+L3 button

To restore settings from the server after re-install or on another machine, again highlight the relevent character on the characters selection screen and use the following combos-

PC: Shift+Alt+Ctrl+R
X-box: RB+Right stick button
PS2: R1 button+R3 button

And finally, should you ever want to wipe all a characters macros and settings and restore them to defaults (why??) you can use the following button combo in the same way-

PC: Shift+Alt+Ctrl+D
X-box: RB+LB+Right stick button+Left stick button
PS2: R1 button+L2 button+R3 button+L3 button

**Please note you can only store backup data like this for one character at a time!**

Tip #2

Free EXP!

Yes you can get free exp!
Well, ok so it will take about 20 mins of your time, but it's still free.
I'm sure you have all come across those times when you go to get a chocobo from the stables and have the npc ask you to return a lost chocobo for you right?
Well I'm sure some of you might already know this, but for those who don't, this little mini quest can get you some free exp.
There are a number of rewards for returning the lost chocobo depending on the time you take and the specific route you are doing.
For the purposes of getting free EXP though you want the run between Bastok and San'doria, either direction.
Doing this run in under 20 minutes will get you a page from the Dragon Chronicles, and using this item will give you between 500 and 1000 exp instantly. This may not seem a huge amount at later levels, but at lower levels can be a big help, and at any level it is good to use just after leveling to get a nice buffer.
If you have never done a chocobo return run before I'd recommend going from San'doria to Bastok as it is the slightly easier direction (have to follow paths up cliffs going the other way).
You can only do one of these runs each week, and it resets at conquest tally on Sundays (so you could do 2 runs every other Sunday, before and after tally).
To check when a specific run is going to come up I use the extremely useful clock functions on the MithraPride site- http://mithrapride.org/vana_time/index.html
Just check the Chocobo race schedule to see the times for the next few runs.

Tip #3
Questing for fun and profit.

When it comes to raising fame I see a lot of people taking the same route:
Repeating the same low fame requirement quest over and over, in the case of quests like the cabbage/moss quest in Selbina people do it hundreds of times.
Well sure, that will raise your fame in multiple areas at once, but it will cost you quite a bit of time and gil to do, where you are basically just sitting there trading items over and over.

There is another way.
A lot of people don't realize that higher fame level quests give more fame on completion than lower fame requirement quests.
This means it can actually be quicker getting fame up by doing the highest fame requirement quests you are able to do in each city, than repeating a low requirement one over and over.
There are other benefits to this method too. For one it's not boring, as you are doing new quests instead of repeating trading all the time. The other main benefit it that instead of it costing you gil, you will be making quite a bit. Many quests reward gil, items and other useful things like maps.

Do a repeatable quest for fame and you will have a long hard slog of constantly being bored, spending gil, and forever checking fame levels to see if you have got there yet.

Do many different quests and you will have fun, make gil, and not notice the time spent. In fact for most people who take this path, they often end up coming out with 'wow, I never knew I was a hero in xxxx' or similar statements.

Remember folks, the game is about having fun, not crunching numbers!

Tip #4
More free stuff.
Most of you will have an NPC fellow.
Many of you will have done the NPC fellowship cap quests.
Did you know that there is a related hidden quest in Bastok metalworks which gives an additional reward choice once you have completed the 'Chameleon Capers' quest in that series ?

You may not have even come across the quest which is called 'Bait and Switch'.
It's a simple little quest that you get from Salim on the upper level of the main metalworks room.
I'll not go into details here as the FFXI wiki site has an excellent page for the quest. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_Switch
The quest is repeatable, once every conquest tally.
The key ring belt is a nice item to get for THF, otherwise the Hermes Quencher is probably the best item to get regularly.
Flee in a bottle, what's not to like?

Anyway, what about that extra reward thing eh?
Well, after you have done 'Chameleon Capers' in the NPC quest line, you get a new option during the 'Bait and Switch' quest. This will also only be available once you have received each of the possible 'Bait and Switch' rewards at least once. At this point it will unlock the costume kit item to use in the quest, and doing so will get you a free Icarus wing. Unlike the other rewards from this quest, you can only get the wing once, but hey.. who can grumble when it's free.

Awww Fey! What Happened to this? I thought it was gonna be a regular thing on the forum?

Incidentally, whenever I look at this threa, i can only think of this theme song: