I started playing Final Fantasy XI a month or so after it came out in the states, and one of the coolest memories I have of the game was getting a teleport-dem one day in Jeuno with a group of others the white mage had accumulated. When we arrived, everyone paid out their 500 gil, or whatever she was asking for it, and then all of the sudden she flipped out because apparently one of the guys in the group gave her something like five million gil and logged out. I always assumed that guy was quitting that day, and decided to go out with a small bang to highlight someone else's experience of the game. I thought that guy was really cool, and I promised myself that when I quit I'd do something similar.

Months later I quit Final Fantasy XI for the first time. I sold off every piece of equipment I had up to that point on my main character and all my mule accounts and accumulated the gil into one big pool in my main character. I was broke, and selling that gil pool to an online gilseller site was looking pretty appealing, but I didn't want to break the promise that I made to myself. My compromise was that I'd sell half of my gil and do something special with the other half.

So, I went to Bastok Markets, stood at the fountain in front of the auction house, and shouted Final Fantasy trivia with gil prizes all day long. It was probably one of the most fun times I ever had playing the game, and some members stuck around for hours answering questions.

Good times.

In the end, the gil I ended up selling netted me just about enough money to even out what I'd spent on playing the game to that point, including the price of the game, and the monthly fee I'd been paying. It was nice.