For those who kept asking about .dat editing and what it is specifically there are a number of sites on the web that cater towards updating data models in the game with fan-made ones. For the most part this is harmless and easy to do. My resources page has a few links to rather good .dat sites.

FFXI Dats and MMO Xoops are two good sites to get dat files from. I’ll warn you the later has a lot of crazy Japanese hentai-esque stuff, so be careful, but the first is in English and has a lot of fun .dat models you can change your characters to.

TECHNICALLY dat editing is illegal according to Square, but I honestly see absolutely no harm in it if you just want to update the aesthetics of your character! Just a forewarning that it is against Square’s TOS, so use it at your own digression.

For those who aren’t sure how to update your dat files. Basically you’ll have to figure out what dat number corresponds to which specific piece of armor you want to update. Like if you wanted to update your character’s hair color you’d have to look for the specific dat that corresponds to your character’s face design. This can be done by finding the number in things like Model Viewer and then replacing the specific .dat with the edited one. Make sure to make a backup of the original and which folder it came from in case the custom dat isn’t what you were expecting. Obviously make sure you rename your edited dat to the same name as the one you want to replace and put it in the right folder.

Not so hard. So enjoy. :3