The History of Final Fantasy XI/2007

==2007 - Conclusion of Treasures of Aht Urhgan==
During the 2007 Square Enix Party held in May, it was announced that Wings of the Goddess was under development. The expansion ended up being released in November.
In March, German and French service began. Final Fantasy XI saw an increase in European players at this time. Also this year, many Fan events were held throughout the world.
Jan. 1st, 2007 	    Bugards appear! 	    Bugards appear!
Jan. 1st, 2007 	This year, bugards (Beasts) appeared in various places from January 1st thru January 15th. Their names were Wood Bugard, Fire Bugard, Earth Bugard, Gold Bugard, and Water Bugard.
By trading the lead bugard random gifts, players had a chance to obtain the New Year's Gift. Using the gift gave Fishing Synthesis Support.
Trading the gift back to starter NPCs would award players with the Battledore. If players rode the airship between the starter nation and Jeuno, special NPCs would also be riding during the event. Equipping the club and speaking to this NPC would give players the option to trade two Black Ink and a Bast Parchment. They would be awarded with the Hoary Spire furnishing.	
Jan. 15th, 2007	    Chocobo Raising Fixes 	    Chocobo Raising Fixes
Jan. 15th, 2007	
*Game would not proceed properly by selecting the "Let it play with others" option during Kamp Kweh.
*An issue where a chocobo raising related option would be displayed during the The Amazin' Scorpio quest.
*An issue wherein the game would freeze while typing during an area change.
*Items which are obtainable from the "Chocobo Hot and Cold Game" have been adjusted.	
Jan. 17th, 2007	    Anti RMT Update 	    Anti RMT Update
Jan. 17th, 2007	Requirements to receive the quest An Explorer's Footsteps have been changed to the following:
*Requires a certain amount of Fame to receive the quest.
*Players are now asked to wait for 1 earth day in order to receive another quest.	RMT were abusing this quest by constantly spamming it to earn gil. These adjustments were made to combat this situation.
Feb. 2nd, 2007 	    Valentione's Day 	    Valentione's Day
Feb. 2nd, 2007 	Valentione's Day made its usual return from February 2nd thru February 15th.
The event itself was unchanged, but the new items introduced this year were the Miracle Wand and Miracle Wand +1. 	
Feb. 3rd, 2007 	    Additional RMT prevention Update 	    Additional RMT prevention Update
Feb. 3rd, 2007 	Another RMT exploit was removed. Fishing up rusty items and restoring them with a Light Crystal would create items that would NPC for a large profit. Light crystals were extremely rare, and shot up in price. Light Elementals in sky were a good farming spot for real players while this was going on. Players had flashbacks of the Rusty Cap nightmare. To combat this, the recipes were removed entirely from the game. Later, the NPC price of the items were drastically reduced.
Rusty item fish botters in action can be seen in the following video.
The following changes were made to combat RMT Fishing:
*The yield of items fished up in the following areas was changed:
**Batallia Downs, Valkurm Dunes, Buburimu Peninsula, Labyrinth of Onzozo.
*The synthesis recipes for the following were temporarily removed:
**Rusty Cap, Rusty Greatsword, Rusty Pick.
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Special Tiger Team
RMT Fish Bots increased sharply in Batallia Downs around Mid January 2007. Players who were tired of seeing the Special Task Force not doing their job ended up taking this predicament into their own hands.
Players would spawn the Notorious Monster Badshah and use the Goblin Digger to purposly MPK the fish botters. These players were referred to as the STT (Special Tiger Team). Many players praised this daring act, and it usually worked splendidly.
The Goblin Bounty Hunter was introduced in the March 2007 version update to countermeasure low level fishbotters/RMT, which basically was the same idea as the STT.
Many players supported these activities, but MPK was also against the Terms of Service. Many legitimate players got involved and were accidently targeted as a casualty of the act, who in turn called GMs into the fray. Some STT members received account suspensions.
These players who were legitimate considered the STT to be participating in "the same sin" as the fish botters/RMT.
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Feb. 23rd, 2007	    The Doll Festival 2007 	    The Doll Festival 2007
Feb. 23rd, 2007	The Doll Festival was run from February 23rd thru March 4th. Players were sent Sweet Rice Cakes to their delivery box.
Held in conjunction to this event was a Fan Art Contest. Click here to see the winning entries. Be sure to click the Next button on the bottom of the page to see additional entries.	
Mar. 2nd, 2007 	    Premier Site Summit 2007 	    Premier Site Summit 2007
Mar. 2nd, 2007 	Square Enix reached out privately to their then-Premier Sites in mid February of 2007, saying they wished to invite them to Los Angeles (specifically El Segundo) to visit their offices. On March 2nd they held and all day event where they discussed the state of the community, strengthening their communications, and to participate in some in-game events.
At this time there were no official forums yet, so the premier websites were their "voice to community". The Square Enix community team, including Matt Hilton, North American Producer Yasu Kurosawa and Global Online Producer Sage Sundi. The attendees were told a special guest would be joining them for lunch, who turned out to be the then-President and COO of Square Enix, Daishiro Okada.
This summit was called to establish a more connected and personal relationship between the company and the community. 
The websites that were part of the summit, as well as the staff members were as follows:
Allakhazam: Pikko and Exodus
FFXIclopedia: Ganiman and Rickshaw
Dreams in Vana'diel: Akosygin and ???
FFXI Vault (IGN): Sparky and ???
FFXI Stratics: Warzod and ???
FFXI Warcry: Razor and Sokaku	All of the attendees had to agree to non-disclosure agreements, until they were given the go-ahead by SE saying it was ok to post their write ups. The whole event seemed to have been a last minute happening, with only a two week notice to the premier site teams. 
The event consisted of a tour of their compound. This included, the Quality Assurance floor, the Customer Service area, Community Relations area, and GM offices.
The company then treated the community teams to lunch at Marie Callender's Grill. Many interesting discussions went on during lunch, including that at that time they had no intention of removing PS2 support.
Back at the offices, the premier site teams played a few in-game events. Specifically, the ones featured at TGS 2006 (Blitzkrieg, The Gathering Storm, and Heroines Combat).
After the in-game events, a presentation was shown to the premier site teams discussing the aspects of each of the SE teams, and their tasks. Windowed mode was the biggest confirmation at this event. Many players had high hopes for this feature.
Mar. 8th, 2007 	    French and German language support 	    French and German language support
Mar. 8th, 2007 	Coinciding with the March version update, French and German languages became usable in Final Fantasy XI. Players must have had a European version of the game, however, to have used these languages.	
Mar. 8th, 2007 	    Nyzul Isle Assault Introduced 	    Nyzul Isle Assault Introduced
Mar. 8th, 2007 	
{| width=100% style="border: 2px dashed red; border-radius: 5px; background-color: #eae9e9" 	New Features & Content
Mar. 8th, 2007 	
*Treasures of Aht Urhgan Missions 26 (Seal of the Serpent) thru 33 (Sentinels' Honor) were added.
*Assault ranks Chief Sergeant added, along with corresponding Assault missions.
*Nyzul Isle assault was released.
*Venture Roll was added to the existing Game Tables, and then forgotten.
*The new area Chocobo Circuit was added, although there was nothing to do there at the moment.
*Chocobo Racing was delayed until the end of the month.
**Note that the Chocobo Circuit entrance was added in this update, it was only used for NPCs to stand next to in order to facilitate Chocobo Racing, even though racing was delayed.
***The Chocobo Circuit was not added until the August 2007 Update.