It only takes a month

Ok, so I came back a little while ago and have been a busy little bee. So what could I have possibly done in the time that I've returned? Let's recap...with pictures!!

BCNM 40!

Yoko had asked if I was up for doing some BCNMs with her and another friend. Since I'm always broke, I had to jump on the opportunity to get some monies. I'd have better luck making friends with some RMT than trying this, but I'm a glutton for punishment. Plus I have a lot a seals to waste.

The bright side of this is that I got the Erase spell along with some other junk. If I didn't already have it, I would've been pretty excited.

Treasure Chest: Greetings, I'm your treasure chest, and I'm not giving you a damn thing.

Moblin Maze Mongers!

This was so silly. As I said though, I'm into doing painful things. I was looking for a party now that I'm leveling Corsair (yargh!!) and I got an invite to do MMM from a JP party. I figured, why not? I've only done MMM one other time with Domie and Bigstarr, and I hear there are some nifty items in this place. Also, and I don't know why, but I really like the music for Everbloom Hollow. Not something I'd just listen to on a whim, but it's a catchy tune nonetheless.

After wasting a good 30 minutes or so waiting for everyone to remember where Jeuno was, we get the map created and head inside. I'm very new to this, so I didn't have a clue on what I was supposed to do outside of a few buffs and shoot things. Naturally, I was the puller. I didn't mind since I have my Shark Gun and was anxious to finally use my Steel Bullets. Low and behold, they turn on Level Sync. To 51. I was not very happy.

EP and I share the same sentiment when it comes to Level Sync after level 55. We got Slug Shot and want to blow off some faces with it. You can't do that at 51, so my enjoyment level immediately went in the negatives. I'm sorry, but Hot Shot and Sniper Shot just don't do it for me anymore.

On top of that, we didn't have a healer. We had a DNC and a BST/WHM. Don't get me wrong, I like both jobs, but having a full time healer is kind of nice too. In the end, we were 1/3 out of the attempts and I got a whopping 5 marbles. If any of you want me to do this event again in the future, stab yourself and then get back to me.

If I had Slug Shot, this would have never happened!!

Die and a Miss!

I was just sitting in my Mog House while everyone gathered together and got ready for our first Dynamis run since our leader's return. (I'm not the leader by the way, he had some stuff to take care of for awhile). I asked Miliani if I had to go as BLM, cause you all know how much I love going as a BLM to events. If not, read this and you'll understand. Surprisingly, I was asked to change to Paladin. This made me quite happy and pretty damned nervous because I only tanked Dynamis once before and it wasn't a dreamland area.

Things went fairly smooth, all things considered. We didn't have a lot of people because we're going through a rebuilding phase in the shell. No boss run this time, just unlocked the subjobs and did a bit of farming. Hopefully we'll kill the boss and have more time when we go again. This time around, I didn't die at all! Other people did though. >.>

I wonder if Tulkaz was hurt after laying on a dead cactus like that?

Trick or Treat!

What do you do when you get bored in Whitegate? Change yourself to a skeleton and terrorize the town! That's what a few people were doing when I stepped out of my mog house. I got a random trade request from someone and figured I'd jump in too. We all got into a little bit of role play for awhile and had some fun. There was no exp, no reward, and no benefit to any of this except just being silly and enjoying ourselves. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself a lot.

Well, until someone decided to dress up as a Sweeping Cluster and /em Self-Destruct on us. Damned party pooper. Regardless; Halloween's my birthday, and it was nice to see people "getting into the spirit" of things. See what I did there?

I was going to eat Saithe's brains, but then I remembered Elvaan's don't have high INT.

Random!

You love my random pictures, I know you do.

A Wivre needed some help getting Colibri feathers out of its mouth. I had nothing better to do.

Decided to expand our normal Brothers duo and bring in some SCH power. We got a lance and a bone.

Standing in line waiting to audition for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Yargh!

As usual, when I am BLM in *anything*, I wind up dead.

99 Silly Questions

Being a resident Vana'dielian (sp?), I'm certain that you have had your times where you wonder why things are the way they are in FFXI. Some internal questions that make you question even the normally unquestionable "fantasy logic" that we have come to accept.

When you're constantly playing, these thoughts don't seem to be as important because it's just something you're used to. You pretty much brush them off and think nothing of it. Since I returned, some of these thoughts have flooded my mind and leave me in a constant state of confusion because the more I think about them, the more exclamatory my WTF thoughts become.

So guess what? I'm going to share a few of these with you and see if I can drive you crazy too. Aren't I just the sweetest thing? ^_^

1. Why is it that the final spells for a WHM reside in a hole-in-the-wall shack in the middle of the desert that has absolutely nothing to do with White Mages?

2. Since the Phantom Puk in Jade Sepulcher drops a Chocobo Egg 100% of the time, does this mean dragons and chocobos are related? If so, does wearing Crimson / Blood gear help with Chocobo breeding since they have Dragon Affinity?

3. Considering we basically have to beat the daylights out of avatars to get them to join us, why don't they have a chance to turn on us and attack in the same way that a beastmaster's charmed pet does? After all, neither one *really* wanted to be our b*****, right?

4. Why don't Colibri ever get full, and exactly how do they manage to reach into our digestive system to pull the food out anyway?

5. We are the heroes of Vana'diel, able to defeat the mightiest of enemies with ease. Yet for some reason, we are unable to scale ledges higher than a couple of inches off the ground and have to walk around. Why???

6. If you can hide yourself from an enemy after aggro by using sneak, invis, and deodorize, why didn't they detect your smell the first time?

7. Shouldn't ALL leeches drop beast blood when we kill them? Don't they all have blood in them?

8. What is it about talking to a guy in armor that suddenly makes armor appear in chests across the land? Why wasn't it there before?

9. Why does crafting have to be so god damned confusing? Couldn't we just toss ingredients in a container, shake it up, and move on with our day?

10. Why do I waste so much time thinking about dumb stuff?

The last question is the most profound of all, wouldn't you agree?

/restart

Greetings my minions!!

I had to take a break from the lovely world of Vana'diel for awhile. LS issues, personal matters, and all sorts of other things made me say it's time to leave for now.

So, most of that has been resolved or at least is at a manageable state. Not to mention, A Shantotto Ascension is coming out soon. Granted, the gear is meh and the only thing that looks cool are the dragon pants for...mages (insert big WTF symbol here). Personally, I think those pants would've looked 8000% better on Monks, but what do I know.

Anyway, I've got lots to talk about and I'll be posting like crazy over the next few days. So get ready people, cause I have returned. ^_^

/shutdown

In time, I do hope to see you all again.

Until then my minions...

- Jacinda

@Kiri: no more sadfly, got it?

@EP: get 75 RNG already. >.>

Job Update

I can't even remember if I told you all that I was leveling Scholar recently. Well I have, and just hit 75 earlier today. Yay me!

Now that I have more than the basic set of spells from every other mage class, I have to say that Scholar looks like it could be a very fun job. The time limit of strategems and such means careful management of your abilities, and a bit of thought to play effectively.

It was boring as hell to level up until 60, and even then there wasn't much excitement due to the FFXI's playerbase mindset that if you can cast Cure III in any job, your role is always main healing. Thankfully, all of my magic skills are capped due to my other jobs.

So now I'm running around, playing with the various Helix spells just to see what they actually do and if they can serve a real purpose during a non-exp party fight. I'll see what trouble I can get into.

However, there is one thing about Scholar that any future member should be ready for:

You become jailbait. If you're a Mithra, stay away from this job.

I'm now an official member of the Vana'diel Jailbait Society. Granted, I could have joined when I got my full AF at level 60, but I would have been easy prey to all the pedophiles scouting for an easy target. At least now I can get moral support from other members.

Seriously, that's how I feel when walking around in full AF. Like the eyes of Maat models everywhere are watching; eagerly anticipating the moment when I run into a friend and do a /bow motion so they can get a glimpse of the scholar "pants."

I notice it from other people too. Anytime I fall in battle, people run to my backside before casting raise. Necro-pedos. Could it get any worse?

I have to admit, I was so glad when I hit 72. Not because I was that much closer to 75, but because I could wear my seraweels and cover up.

Other than that, yeah...Scholar looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Scholar - Final Fantasy XI's fap job.

RMT Headquarters

Ever get the itch to do a /sea all [generic RMT name] after you get a /tell? Since we've been getting so many, I decided to start doing that. I found a funny little thing.

Every single one is in Bastok.

Now, I don't think we should go on a crusade to ban every newly created level 1 character aligned with Bastok. Although it would be funny to see a nation on character-creation lockdown. I just find it kind of funny that the nation of Humans, which by all accounts are the most selfish and greedy species that ever existed, is also the nation where the RMT decide to stage their operations.

It just seems fitting, you know?

Old Fashioned Stupidity

I'm going to make a huge assumption here. Yes, I know what assuming does. Still, this assumption is one that I think I can make and get away with.

I assume that everyone who plays FFXI with a PC has been to the internet more than once.

With this assumption, I also assume that everyone who has been to the internet has heard of this little thing called phishing. If they haven't heard of this particular term, I'm fairly certain they've heard of theft, hacking, or other indecent activities that can be done through the net.

So someone please tell me why the hell so many people are getting hacked online in this game? This "new wave" of RMT tells that hounds us all every few minutes to verify our account for suspicious activity makes me laugh. They might as well ask us to go to www.allurgilzrbelong2me.com and enter our information. Yet, people are falling for this head over foot every day.

How?

Do you not pay attention when someone with the name Hadexhhgassfew sends you an in-game tell? Are you not aware that Square-Enix's online game site is www.playonline.com, not www.playonline-ffxi.com? It doesn't strike you as odd when someone with a non-GM name tells you to visit a site and verify your account?

Any red flags going off when this stuff happens to you? If not, the please go to your PlayOnline browser, delete your account, and download the latest version of solitaire online. As a matter of fact, don't do that. You might download a virus, and lord help you if that happens.