Miraglyth, I've only done the quest twice, and only got the Return Ring. Just sharing how I get my Ring so that maybe we'll both get the Homing ring before the end of the event.

1st Try:
I built a 8 people PT/alliance at Jeuno, 2 Bastokan, 1 Windurstian & rest are all Sandorian. (I shouted in Jeuno and took whoever willing to try their luck... and end up with so many Sandorians...Including myself)

Anyway, got everyone to go around the 3 countries and at the end 2 people out of the 8 got rings.

Because of having to recruit people, treking the whole lot of people across the three countries, and waiting for them to be in the same area before everyone talks to the NPC, the whole thing took around 4 hours.

2nd Try:
I started thinking after the failure first time. It doesn't make sense for an events to take so long and be so logistically difficult as in having the same 6 people or more PT to trek all across Vena'diel... And the fact that the NPCs stress on variety of the PT... Which probably means the NPCs don't want to see the same people on all 3 visits.

So this time I just travel alone, and put together PTs with 2 more people (1 from each Nation so that we'd still have all 3 nations in our PT) there and then to talk to the NPCs. Afterwards, I would disband and go to the next country and put together another PT.

I talked with all 3 NPCs and in particular, I remember the Sandorian NPC (my 2nd stop) told me something like: "I see you have found strength in variety". I disbanded before talking to the moogle to complete the quest and I got the Return ring.

Without having to trek a full PT around, I think this run took only 1.5 hrs. And also I only occupy minutes from the people that help me rather than asking them to stay in the PT for the next 4 hours. I think this make much more sense as an event.

Theory of how to get the ring:
I think each of the 3 times you talk to the NPC, the members of your PT gets recorded. (You can think of it as a snapshot of your PT taken by the NPC ^^.) When you complete the quest, the moogle looks through the 3 snapshots for members that appear in more than 1 of the snapshots and if you are the only one that appeared in more than one of the snapshots, then you'll get the ring. Otherewise if there are others who's in your PT for all 3 shots, the moogle will think you guys have completed the quest without really "Partying with someone you usually wouldn't", and the Rings/Chocobo tickets will be randomly distributed amoung these people. Meaning you may need to be lucky to get the ring...

So if that's right, it's not a good idea to do more than 1 leg of the journey with the same lot of friends.

Hope this helps!

Edited, Sat May 28 15:51:43 2005

I posted a thread (see below) one week ago when I got my return Ring.

Well, yesterday, I got the Homing Ring !!!
Here is how :

- I activated my quest in my home nation, Windy, by talking to Gate moogle.
- Some days ago (yesterday ^^), I travelled to Basty/Sandy/Windy again to talk to NPCs.
- Each time, I formed a party with RANDOM players in the area, each time we were a 3 PEOPLE-PARTY.
- I found out that each time my party mates were from diff.nations than mine and than current one I was located in, and they were also diff. LEVELS (ex : in Windy, I was lvl 26 with a noob lvl 1 & a lvl.60) - I definitely think it has something to do with "diverse" party requirement.
- I finished by talking back to my Windy moogle (ALONE) and got it !!!

So from my experience on this event (I got the return+the homing rings currently !!), I can confirm these points :
- YES, I talked to moogle in-between twice, so it doesn't affect anything.
- the order you visit NPCs doesn't affect anything (for my return ring I made Sandy/Basty/Windy)
- the messages NPCs tell you DOESN'T AFFECT your reward, definitely (as I got exactly the same STATEMENTS as every time I did it before + the players I partied with DIDN'T do the event and didn't talk to NPCs)
- I don't know much about "in X people party you got X chances x X that One get a ring, X others choco and so on", as I REPORTED TO MOOGLE ALONE (so I had no current party / it would mean, you can possibly get this rings "alone" - even if you talk to NPCs in party).

So I'm done with it (eventually ^^), I wish you all good luck on this (few days left there are !). I must precise that I did it several times : first time, choco ticket, second time return ring, 3rd & 4rth time choc again, and 5th try homing ring, so hang on !!!

^^

Attempt 4:

• Bastokan Hume Male (Owns a Return Ring)
• San d'Orian Elvaan Male (Owns a Return Ring)
• Windurstian Mithra

Everyone got 1 Chocobo Ticket.

I'm guessing the game either awarded a Return Ring to one of the people who already had one, or me being partied with one of the other members in a previous attempt somehow screwed it all up.

I honestly think that the messages the NPCs give are completely BS and have no end result on what you recieve. If SE seriously wanted this to be a fun event they should have given us more details about how to do this properly. The moogles when you first talk to them tell you to partner up with distant friends, meanwhile the NPCs tell you to find a more diverse party, even if no one else in your group is the same nationality as you.

I did this event 5 times before I got a ring and I really don't think there was anything in particular that I did in the 5th party to distinguish it from the previous 4. My 5th group was just 3 people, me (elvaan san d'orian), a bastokan hume, and a windurstian mithra. I got d/ced as we were travelling to the last npc and so the other two completed without me and recieved chocobo tickets. When I logged back, I finished alone and the moogle gave me the Homing Ring. All the NPCs told me to find a more diverse group, so obviously that has nothing to do with what rewards you get.

Has anyone ever *not* gotten the diverse group message?

As far as I can tell, the only true given is that in a party of 6, only 2 people will recieve the rings. Of course this can be broken down into for every 3 people, only one will recieve a ring. This is the only constant in this event as far as I can tell.

Well I have the right to feel cheated. I started up one of these and put the most effort into it. Overall it took 6 hours to make a party, get it to the NPCs, and bring the party back up to 6 because there were dropouts before each NPC.

The result? The two people who stayed with me throughout got their Homing Rings.

I got two Chocobo Tickets.

If this event ends without me getting my Homing Ring now, I don't know what I'll do.

So the true question about this quest is : Is the reward random or NOT ?

=> I just got the return ring, with different people parties through Sandy (3 people)/Windy (3 people) /Basty (6 people).

For my concern, I think this reward is totally random.
Anyway, there are some things that seems false in any case :
- NPC stats : nothing to do with them, as the stats they gave me were very poor
- NPC order : idem, I got the ring with the order I told, but people may experience it in a different one
- MOOGLE : idem, I started out in sandy (I'm from Windy) and spoke to moogle twice in between, so moogle doesn't interfere (he just activates event anywhere you are in the same way)

Now, coming to the tricky subject of party :
* PERMANENT party : I thought that having the same people was better but definitely not, you can change party for each NPC
=> "DIFFERENT party" : here's the whole trick / yeah, moogle claims a different party to be set up, but we don't know what "different" is. It could be linked with any of :
- races / jobs / home nation / Level / gender.../ (or maybe hidden stats...)

In any case, I tried to invite random people to join me, from different race/jobs/level ..and it worked out.

I can't say more, but the fact is that this event "cheers" people to party with people for a "non-experience" purpose (maybe then the "level difference" is important within party set up).

Good luck to all !!
^^

Whats the difference between the two rings?

CHA!

This is more or less a reply to a "lame event by SE" quote "i'd like to see you come up with a better event" although I might not be the poster I have been thinking of an idea for an event since around Christmas (pretty pathetic huh?)
It's the perfect time for it now cause it goes along with "Spring Cleaning"
Make a series of lvl 1 weapons in the fashion of the goofy weapons that FF7 had (ie mop, nail bat etc) and go around Vanadiel cleaning things up, no lvl restriction just lvl 1 weapons and like the wooden katana event trade that weapon in to the moogle for a better spring cleaning weapon and at a certain point start giving furniture as prizes or something else.
Any additional ideas anyone has or even criticism
just reply box to this I want to see what I can do to submit it to SE for maybe next year or something

I can picture my Elvaan running around with a Mop or a Parasol cant you? or my Taru mule with a Baseball bat!

You guys make me laugh. Oddball theory that match your -- and only your -- case. Equations that look like it was just a converted recipe for chocolate chip cookies. All I wanted to know was what areas this was involved with (cause there is no Port Jeuno like there was last year) and what was the neat prizes I could get. I wasn't expecting such a laugh out of it all.

Seriously lets think about the kind of theories that I'm seeing on websites and in the game as I'm talking to people.

-- You have to be in an alliance of 18 all in JSE subligar on a full moon Firesday. I got mine, but no one else did but that is how you get it anyway.

(Honestly, if you were the only one who got it, why do you think that this is an acceptable way to report on getting it? Plus, do you think anyone who would try this know 18 people even exist in the world let alone are friendly enough with people in the game?)

-- Well, you get the ring if you talk to Person A, B, and C in that order only have you talk to the moogle 6 times and get 6 Chocobo Tickets. That will equate to exactly Pi (3.14blehblehbleh) points which will unlock the special ring quest where you go to Jeuno and talk to 80 people then come back to a moogle in your home country.

(Honestly, where did this come out of? I mean I can't even begin to imagine how something like this would work and I am a genius. Picking numbers out of the air and putting them into a line adding a plus sign and a multiplication sign, then adding an equal to the end is not how people came up with mathematical theory [well, maybe whoever invented Calculus].)

-- You need to talk to every moogle once and do it in a circle. You see, ring! Get it. You must start in Bastok though.

("Urge to kill, rising.")

Why does everyone need some **** and bull theory to try to come up with the correct way to get an item. Did anyone every just sit down and think, its random?

Last year during this event I was the first person I knew to get the Adventure's Certificate. At that time there was no Chocobo Tickets either, all we got were fireworks. So everytime i ran past a moogle (after the hour passed) I snagged a few more fire works. Finally about 4 days later and about 6 or 7 moogles I got the Certificate.

I told everyone else i got the Certigicate and they all camped the moogle to try and get one from them. Some did, some didn't. As far as anyone of us could tell, it was all luck, nothing more. I didn't do anything special I just talked to him when I had a chance.

Anyone ever try just luck to get something instead of trying of dumb formula or odd ritual that only works for the person who though them up?

Has anybody tried visting the people in certain orders, say like your best scores first to you worst scores last? This seems like a possible solution. I have yet to try it but would like other input, and I will post my findings after I try this tactic.

Spoke to Ayame with an alliance of 7 (our party 4, other 3), then Vilatroire with an alliance of 4 (our party 3, other party 1) then Shantoto with a party of 4 (same people as the alliance).

I got a Return Ring, everyone else got either one or two Chocobo Tickets.

The four party members that stayed throughout were a Bastokan Hume (me, level 40), a Windurstian Galka (level ??), a San d'Orian Elvaan (level 71) and Windurstian Taru (level 4). Because of this I seriously doubt that level, race or nationality is taken into account for the prizes, as we were about as diverse as you can get for all of those.

Hopefully players can redo the trip and soon after the last go. I want to get an Outpost Ring too ^^

Edited, Sat May 14 22:55:57 2005

I gat the Return Ring my 1st try, but it does'nt seem to work. I cant get past 14% of the ring load. What does the ring do any way and why doe'snt it work?