Valentione's Day (01/25/2011)

The hills are alive with the sound of bells and laughter as the ever-popular Valentione's Day draws near.

To learn all about the holiday and what it means to Eorzeans everywhere, continue reading!

Discuss this in the ZAM Forums!

History

Currently observed throughout Eorzea, Valentione's Day was originally established to pay tribute to Countess Arabelle de Valentione of Ishgard—a remarkable woman who exhibited unparalleled courage in her quest for true love. In present day, it has become an occasion on which people express feelings of love and gratitude to those most important in their lives. This is commonly done via the exchange of simple chocolate bon-bons crafted specially by the giver.

While in recent years there have been complaints that the true spirit of the day has been grossly perverted—now little more than a marketing ploy conjured up by the Culinarians' Guild and the Company of Eorzean Kukuru Growers to increase sales of their products—this does not take away from the fact that countless people across the realm use this tradition to bring happiness to others. And isn't that what the countess would have wanted?

House Valentione Coat-of-Arms

 


 

Duration

From midnight on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 to 6:59 a.m. on Tuesday, February 15 (PST).

How to Participate

Compared to most popular Eorzean festivals, Valentione's Day can seem fairly low-key. While some celebrations feature city-wide parades, lavish decorations, and various other manners of bacchanalian revelry, Valentione's Day is truly more about an individual's quest to muster the courage to conquer his own fears of rejection. It is for this reason the realm does not see any dramatic changes for the duration of the festivities. This, however, does not mean people are on their own in preparing for the holiday. City-states provide free portions of powdered sugar—a rare sweetener imported from far-away lands to the south, and usually only reserved for the noble classes—with which Valentione chocolates are created. To receive a pinch, citizens need only ring one of the many special bells erected in convenient locations within Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Ul'dah.

Each year, there are those who feel inclined to bring attention to the fact that these bells closely resemble those used during other festivals, such as the recent starlight celebration. It is unfortunate that these people must concentrate on the negative when the true meaning behind Valentione's Day is about expressing gratitude to a fellow friend or companion—something that should not require unnecessary displays of extravagance.

Bell Locations

Limsa Lominsa (Upper Decks/Lower Decks)

Gridania

Ul'dah (Merchant Strip/Hustings Strip)

Powdered sugar can be received once every eight hours (earth time), starting the first time a bell is rung. Up to six servings of the ingredient will be stored for each person in the event that periodical returns to the bell prove difficult.

Making a Valentione's Day Treat

Chocolate is a popular gift given during the Valentione's Day celebration. The two most common recipes used are as follows:

"Courage Begets Love"

The heart-shaped escutcheon used in her house's coat-of-arms was added after the death of Countess Arabelle, in remembrance of the similarly shaped shield she oft carried into battle.

As Valentione's Day became more popular, the story of Countess Arabelle and her crimson shield became more and more widespread, in turn, transforming the shield into a symbol of fortune and happiness. Two centuries ago, the Culinarians' Guild was finally successful in obtaining permission from the House Valentione to use a representation of the coat-of-arms on their festive chocolates.

Item Required Rank Ingredients
Heart Chocolate Culinarian (lv.1–10) Bubble Chocolate ×3, Powdered Sugar ×1
White Chocolate Culinarian (lv.1–10) Pearl Chocolate ×3, Powdered Sugar ×1

Comments

Post Comment
OHNOEZ it's valentines!!one11one1!!
# Feb 01 2011 at 8:42 AM Rating: Decent
OMG LETS QQ OVER SE ADDING SOMETHING SMALL FOR VALENTINES!! "Whhhaaaaaaaahhh!!! Now what am I gonna do? Cant get a RL valentines so I guess Ill go stalk a Miqote till she finally says shes a guy or a lesbian so I leave her alone... then I can hate on XIV valentines as much as rl's"

Come on now. SE has always added holiday events. so what if its small this year, the ones in XI wern't very big to start off with either and for everyone mad about a few lv 10 heart shaped cakes do you not remember how many people in XI ran around with them in bazzars? Obviously introducing heart cakes is something at least the female base such as myself enjoys.

As stated above, SE doesn't want to add things very much until things are fixed. that should make you happy. Furthermore throwing something like valentines in a year later would severely mess up people who RP lore and things about the game.

Can we please stop trying to whine about making this game into two other games and let it be XIV? please?
...
# Jan 31 2011 at 2:13 PM Rating: Decent
...

Edited, Jan 31st 2011 7:10pm by Unripeapple
Just my thoughts
# Jan 29 2011 at 2:09 AM Rating: Decent
17 posts
I could be totally wrong but on this but i think they are 'releasing it' because it was already written into last patch that happened in December. (The last patch of OLD Dev team ideas). The reason I think this is because A. The New Year's event happened without any sort of update needed and B. I can already make the Heart Chocolates with my left over sugar from Christmas. So, yeah, it's not a true event...but if you read the description, I think they more or less say that in a 'cheeky' way

"Each year, there are those who feel inclined to bring attention to the fact that these bells closely resemble those used during other festivals, such as the recent starlight celebration. It is unfortunate that these people must concentrate on the negative when the true meaning behind Valentione's Day is about expressing gratitude to a fellow friend or companion—something that should not require unnecessary displays of extravagance." -Lodestone

So yeah, OLD Dev event and a placeholder until the new team makes the changes they want to make. Also explains why the events Christmas-New Years-Valentiones each seems progressively less-thought out...this is just the very rough draft of what this holiday is about in Eorzea. Next year, it will be more fun and involve more storline and world lore I'm sure.
Non-interactive
# Jan 27 2011 at 4:41 AM Rating: Decent
The problem for me is that these events pale in comparison to FFXI. Here, you go ring a bell. Then go make a chocolate. And you're done. In FFXI, it was team up with another player, go speak to various NPCs, get a normal item. Trade items. Go team with another player or a certain gender/race, get an HQ item and so on. There was interaction with NPCs. There was running around town. There was partying up with sometimes random people. These FFXIV events just seem so non-interactive.
Boring...
# Jan 26 2011 at 8:16 PM Rating: Decent
Change the record people... What were you expecting??? All this negative feed back is getting boring now, if you don't like the game go and play WoW.

You might try adding your ideas and suggestions. Crying achieves nothing.

Happy Valentine's everyone :)

Edited, Jan 26th 2011 9:20pm by Aernheart

Edited, Jan 26th 2011 9:21pm by Aernheart
Let's be honest...
# Jan 26 2011 at 7:29 PM Rating: Decent
27 posts
This isn't really an event.

Or to be more exact this is not the full scale version of this event. Yes we should all get used to the bells showing up here and there, but any event between now and Yoshi-P completed plan should be viewed as placeholders.

FFXIV's event schedule will/should resemble FFXI's so that's

New Year's Event
Valentine's Event
Spring/Easter Event
Summer/Fireworks Event
Fall/Harvest Event
Winter/Christmas Event

Why isn't there more stuff to do? They are working on the next update. Yoshi-P already made it clear he's not interested in adding content until the UI is improved so that people can enjoy it.

Why'd they bother? Because it's easier to put a holiday into the lore beginning then to magically add one later. Call it a continuity thing.

i understand its from the old team
# Jan 25 2011 at 7:17 PM Rating: Default
But why even release it? It just makes the game look worse. Might as well have ended it with "we'll have more bells next month. Please look forward to it!".
Wow...
# Jan 25 2011 at 3:20 PM Rating: Excellent
37 posts
Seriously? You all need to grow up and get a life. If each complaint drained a drop of blood, some of you would be 100% blood leeched.

Hmm....
:::Taken down for privacy:::
# Jan 25 2011 at 1:24 PM Rating: Decent
:::Taken down for privacy:::

Edited, Jun 27th 2014 2:28pm by DoctorSneaky

Edited, Jun 27th 2014 2:28pm by DoctorSneaky
CHOCOLATE! AWESOME. NOW I CAN PROPOSE TO MY GIRL!
# Feb 01 2011 at 8:46 AM Rating: Good
**
287 posts
DoctorSneaky wrote:
...the people that made the game barely have faith in this games success at this point- that she should spend hours ranking up to a potentially disastrous "rebuild reset."


It's amazing how people consistently read and comprehend only the things they wish to read and comprehend. SE has already stated, in conjunction with it's previous Player Poll that had a large number of the player base ready to accept "drastic" changes to the game, that there will be no sort of data dump along with those changes. Ergo, anyone creating a character, or anyone working on one now.. particularly those that are already r50 on a job class, don't have to worry about suddenly losing all of their progress.

I'm certain that if that possibility still loomed in the back of player's minds, there would be a whole lot less people even bothering to log on.

----------

As for the rest of you.. give it a rest. We all know that the game had faults when it was released and that it wasn't really ready for the launch. The point is the development team is working on fixing things. I find it hard to believe that anyone that isn't a pure troll could step up to the forums here and complain about a run-of-the-mill, no thought process required Valentione's event and magically read between the lines that their effort on the event reflects negatively on their pride in this game and the changes they plan to make.

Odds are, as others have already said, the event is not complete because they have their hands tied with more important work.

Give the devs a break, for Christ's sake! They're doing as much as they can as fast as they can and I, for one, am quite satisfied with the progress they have made thus far and intend to stay with FFXIV as long as they keep up the good progress.
token event
# Jan 25 2011 at 12:35 PM Rating: Excellent
Just guessing, but given the largely, "It is what it is," nature of the blurb about this, they probably got this half finished from the former dev team and left it as is. I'm guessing, to all you impossible to please knee-jerk gripers, that they are indeed working on more important things, thus a token holiday event...

Geesh, if you hate this game so audaciously for the love of God quit reading blogs about it.
OKAY
# Jan 25 2011 at 11:35 AM Rating: Good
okay....everyone start complaining and moaning...OKGO!
Stop whining
# Jan 25 2011 at 11:31 AM Rating: Decent
It didn't matter what they did or didn't do, some of you would *****.
bells, again?
# Jan 25 2011 at 9:48 AM Rating: Default
more bells? pff. Cant tell me the guy who sweeps up after the devs couldnt do better.
The coat of arms....
# Jan 25 2011 at 9:02 AM Rating: Good
Would be pimping on a leather Jacket(black).

ya rly
# Jan 25 2011 at 8:13 AM Rating: Decent
there's like... 2 consumable items... it's not like they spent much time on it lol

Edited, Jan 25th 2011 9:14am by Razzazzika
rly?
# Jan 25 2011 at 7:51 AM Rating: Default
you would think they have more important things to work on than this valentines event.
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