@Retronaut - I didn't purchase the game that day, but I was still given a t-shirt. According to lz, the grotto is a legacy boss that's tougher than the GS boss. And finally, I've gotten 0 tags outside of the events. This includes going to 4 airports (albeit one was at around 2:30 A.M.), Disneyland and Disney's Californa Adventure.

The first time I battled him, I wasn't sure if I was able to have a full party yet. After I was defeated, I went to the Inn and made up a team; a warrior, a mage, and a martial artist. I grinded a bit and got them all up to lvl. 6-7, and took the Wight Knight down with ease. It's weird how hooked I am on this game. RPG's never really excite me that much, especially the grinding, yet I found myself playing the game early this morning while my gf was asleep, just battling monsters to lvl. up.

@suburban_sensei - Just a suggestion from me, but you may want to add a priest to your party. While they're not great for melee attacks, they're healing prowess and status-clearing spells make them vital on tougher bosses that can't be beaten with brute force.

Thanks for the info, Birdman. Which job is probably the best to switch with? My martial artist is strong and quick, so I would like to keep him. I was thinking about getting rid of the warrior, and making myself a warrior. However, forgive me for my ignorance, but I haven't seen how to change my profession. Do I do that at the Inn as well?

@Suburban_Sensei - It's probably better to get rid of the martial artist imo, as without a shield they could die quickly in long boss battles, though apparently they're quite useful in the boss battle after the Wight Knight. You are able to change professions (and unlock new ones) later in the game. It'll be a little while though, and it could take a while to catch up by then.

@Birdman13 - So staying as a Minstrel is probably wise? Yeah, I will play a little longer and decide which occupation is more valuable. My martial artist seems to be stronger than the Warrior (they were lvl. 6, yet my martial artist was dealing nearly the same damage as my Minstrel at lvl. 11), but you make a great point about not having a shield. Thanks for the help, by the way!

@suburban_sensei - It's probably better to switch your minsterel to something else. While they can rival most classes at their own game for a while, eventually they lose out on practically everything to another class sooner or later. They're good to begin with, but not so great to continue with.

Ah, okay, thanks for the tip. I will probably change my Warrior to a priest, and then make myself a Warrior when I get the chance.

Yeah, I've got a copy of DQIX on the way, which cost only 19 quid due to a coupon which ran out yesterday. I do look forward to playing it and will probably put 500+ hours into it.

Just noticed the thread, and I have 3 level 99's, a level 90 and a grotto with metal king slimes!

Just a quick question: If you remove a guest from you got from canvassing, does their map leave with them?

@Retronaut: That's what a rep said at the first Best Buy event I went to, that shirts were only for people who purchased the game that day. I know Nintendo didn't intend for that to happen, since they passed out shirts at the GameStop event for early attendees. I gonna bet the store manager probably put them up to it. I know that, for our rep, it was his first time, so he never did an event before. I convinced him to give everyone shirts that were there by asking him if he really thought anyone would buy a game with a bunch of nerds hanging out, loitering around the immediate area in the middle of a Best Buy, so he caved and just gave us the shirts and then I left for another Best Buy once there wasn't any more people arriving for the event. For the future though, you do realize you could simply buy a copy of the game, keep it sealed and then return it and keep the shirt, you know its not a real Best Buy promo. I would've did that had I not thought I could reason with the rep. =)

I got 3 pages of tags that day. Stupidly, I was deleting tags to make room because I didn't know better, so at the Simon Mall event, I won't be attempting to make room since I viewed my ex-coworker's DQIX(she's a Nintendo rep now) and saw she already unlocked all areas in the Inn, has over a hundred tags and the guestbook maxes out at 4 pages long before replacing names on there. My girlfriend carried around her DSi all day with Tag mode on while walking around downtown running errands for work and received 0 tags. I'm treating the upcoming Simon Mall events as a last chance to get tags, If I don't unlock all the areas in the Inn at the first event, I'm gonna go to the second event in my area too. I hope other DQIX gamers in my area feel the same way.

I think the reason none of us are getting any tags outside of the events is due to 3 reasons: 1. DQ isn't as big in the US as it is in Japan, 2. Because it isn't as big a bunch of people figure "Well, since nobody else really has the game, why bother?" and 3. Japan is a lot more urbanized than NA, meaning more people in less space = more chances of tags. Couple #3 with DQ's popularity in Japan, and I've realized it was simply made for Japan.

Just a comment about the Martial Artist... once you get to Alltrades Abbey and can change professions, switch to everyone that you can(Thief, Priest, Minstrel, Warrior, etc. and get them to about level 21. It takes me about an hour at most to get to level 21 fighting outside Swinedimples or vs Metal Medleys in the Bad Cave but feel free to go higher to get more skill points if you need. Save the skill points and then max out your shield skill and switch back to being a Martial Artist. This makes them extremely hard to hit and while it can take a little effort to grind the levels out it is worth it in the long run. Ive done the same for my Gladiator who can now use a shield as well, which makes up for his lack of def. Grabbing Fire and Frost Fource from the Armamentalist is vital for your mage too. Priests are useless to me except for stacking their skill points for other vocations.

@sykotek I may have tried to work out some way to get a shirt that day, but I was in a hurry, and didn't really time to argue with the guy in the store. I'm hoping to make it to the mall event in my area, and I'm hoping that I'll get enough tags to unlock the rest of the Inn. As I understand it, you only need 30 tags to gain access to everything, though, honestly, I'm not sure where I read that.

@Birdman13 The game was definitely made for Japan, and, because of all the reasons you listed, the tag mode works very well there. I guess I'm just a little bummed that 1) there aren't more people playing this game and 2) there aren't more non-Nintendo events. I mean, GameStop has in-store events all the time for various games (some stores have regular Pokemon events for people to battle and trade and there was a Madden tournament happening THE SAME DAY as the Dragon Quest event at my GameStop), why can't they have a more routine DQIX event schedule. I would think it would help them sell games.

Going off of what GreenSpleen said (kind of), here are some reccomendations for some helpful early vocation skills. I personally prefer grinding for levels against Gold Golems in the Gleeban desert for their high amount of gold dropped and the repeatability of quest #29 (Fool's Gold). For all of these, switch to the appropriate vocation and dump all skill points into the specialty vocation (Focus, Fource, etc.)
Martial Artist - War Cry, (If it lands, opponent loses next turn), +10 agility at 10, a Tension-building move at 16 and +10 strength at 22.
Thief - 10 for Half-Inch (chance to steal an enemy's item).
Gladiator - 4 for an extra 10 HP.
Armamentalist - A Fource ability at 4 (Raises attack & defence one stage), +10 stregth at 10, another Fource at 16 and +20 resilience at 22.

@GreenSpleen - I have to disagree with you about Priests. When you face tougher bosses later in the game, you'll be thankful for Multiheal, and their melee damage, while not incredible, is useful for stacking combos on.

@Birdman - I agree with you about Multiheal, its just personal play preference really. Useless was probably the wrong word for the priesty.

You shouldn't forget about fullheal and omniheal. you could be at 5 hp with about all your people (it happened to me once against Corvus when he used magic burst which does 200-300hp to everyone and can't be reflected) and then you are at full health. It is a life saver but used for last ditch only because it takes 128mp but multi heal could also help.

This is such a great game. Totally addictive!

I've been item farming (still mid-game, just past Gleeba dungeon) and I was wondering about item drop rarity. Snakeskin and flurry feathers seem to be 'common' items judging by the numbers needed in some of the recipes, yet for all I plug away at the appropriate snakes/birds, they never drop (I've had one snakeskin and no flurry feathers) and half inch very rarely works as well. At the same time I only need to look at a bewarewolf, badboon or badjar to get a ton of magic beast hides.

Is it randomised which items are rare on which cards to encourage link up play? Is anyone having trouble finding magic beast hides, but stocked with snakeskins? I hope not because I can't see any way I'll ever be able to play link up if it's local only sadly. Just to check I've understood, there is no friend code, online mode for this right? It's line of sight, bluetooth link only?

Half-Inch is the way to go. You just need to work on your deftness (which affects your steal success, hit success and I believe, dodge rate too).

I'm currently in a seemingly endless cycle trying to get materials - I want to steal, but I fancy more deftness, so I'm changing vocations to increase that, THEN I realise I want to kill some metal slimes to increase my rate of levelling (I use a critical attack, which is quite accurate when coupled with a high deftness level), so then I change to a mage to build up my MP (via the class skills). All so I can get a high level character with good thieving ability.

I'm at the end of the game, but with having switched several characters a lot, some of my characters are under-levelled.