I went to the King Vinegarroon spawn area at Western Altepa Desert. It has a lot of meaning for me, as it was the most painstaking achievement I'd gotten in XI.
Part of the reason I hated/loved pre-Abyssea content is that you really needed a team backing your efforts. In this case, it was pure hatred. My linkshell camped Fafnir, Behemoth, Adamantoise, Sandworm, and Dark Ixion--none of the other bigg'uns. Seeing all kinds of other SAMs and such with Ace's Helms, I wanted one, so I was told by a sack that if I were to get the ToD, they'd kill it.
So certainly, determined as I was, I went to track the ToD of that beast. Since the scene on KV had settled (at least on Carbuncle), I was pretty much alone camping, but at the same time, it proved difficult; getting the first ToD was a pain, but it was late at night when almost no one was on. I didn't expect to kill it then.
Over the next few days, I'd get it within average times; people would be on, but not enough. Of course, it seemed to be around an hour after our normal HNMs were done. "Aw, dude, sorry. We need like, 14 people to kill KV." It was frustrating to sit there and let it go, but I wasn't going to give up. Soon, it was overlapping the other HNMs, and tension grew with the idea that other HNMs would have to take precedence over my wants. Not even a holding team would be sent to Western Altepa Desert.
For a month (thank God it was during the summer), off and on, I would wake up and monitor my screen for KV, with a friend's character watching the weather forecast. Even when double weather was forecast, I couldn't get anyone out to help me even kite it. There was one instance I remember where the linkshell actually came out to assist me, but some people were AFK, so we were left with about 9 people. Enlisting the help of some friends (okay, begging was involved), I actually got a reasonable force out to kill the damn thing. I held my breath as we went in for the zerg, only to find nothing in the drop pool. I knew the drop rate wasn't 100%, but damn was I infuriated. I figured if I could get people to help me once, it wouldn't be too hard to do it again.
Another month passes with similar shenanigans--"it's too early for people to be on" "it's too late for people to be on" "gotta go to Fafnir, man."
It gets to my head, keeping track of ToD day after day, even when it means using a friend's character to monitor it. I admit that I was a little mean to some of my close friends, but who wouldn't be? It was more hours of effort than I've put into any single thing in my life. As pathetic as it was, I felt like even though I tried my best, I couldn't do anything about it.
I de-activated my account for a couple weeks to clear my head, coming back with a cool head. I didn't care about it anymore. However, at Kirin one day, with some people from a shell that had merged with my linkshell, the leader of the smaller shell that merged with us mentioned "looks like we need to get our hands on some Ace's Helms for our SAMs" or something along those lines. I found that to be enough motivation, so I volunteered to get the ToD.
Surely enough, on the first day after that other linkshell merged, we had enough people on at one time to take on KV. I had also been dual-boxing another friend's account, so I had to help kite while I was switching job on another character--very stressful. By the time we got everything under control and formed up, we had about 15 people--I was a BRD and the RDM Chainspell Stun: two absolutely important jobs for the procedure.
Catastrophe hit with... well... okay, the BRD rotation was *** up because some of the party leads didn't exactly pay attention to who they were supposed to be inviting. So, finally, the leader called for everyone to just move in and start zerging. Flustered, I alt-tabbed to the RDM character and got ready to stun spam. It was a close fight and a sloppy kill, but...
Ace's Helm is one of those items where... if you're in the right shell, you can get it without any real effort. Maybe if you just get ToD once or twice, you can snag it. I've known plenty of people who got it almost unintentionally. One guy got it accidentally.
But me... I remember my whole body quaking when we went in without a full BRD rotation, and my body still quaking when the thing dropped, watching to make sure no one intended to ninja lot me or anything. I don't think I'd ever been that emotional over a video game, but who wouldn't be? Up until that point, I'd given up over a hundred hours over the course of three months for absolutely NOTHING to show for it.
For an enemy that dropped only one item, I had to rely on my friends and acquaintances that I didn't really know outside of their persona over the internet.
This is why I never** give up when I go for what I want. My determination and my friends made it possible. Having to work so hard for such a small improvement in terms of gear is indicative of FFXI's condition pre-Abyssea. So much work to get so little improvement, but in the same regard, it makes it all the more rewarding when you finally get it.
And that's why I logged off in Western Altepa for the last time, wearing my Ace's Helm.
** = statement somewhat embellished for effect
P.S.: I have Colenzo to thank for being a social Moses. It seems that whenever he does something, people are somehow all gung-ho about that ***. "Some of the guys and I are gonna go jump off a cliff; you in?" "HELL YEAH!"
EDIT: This was also at 80 cap. :x So, okay, it was a little more lenient. But not by much.