One for the fans

One of the awesome things about having a blog is knowing that someone not only reads it, but every now and then you find that they also like it. I've been talking about some of the most random and silly things that come to mind, so it's surprising to get acknowledgement or even compliments from people in game about it.

I was even asked to screenshot one of the people who read my blog. So, as my little way of saying "thanks", here's the picture I took. See, I told you that I'd have it up here.

To Lisamarie of Hades, thanks for reading my little slice of insanity. ^_^

Hot Damn!!

Today has been a good day. Well, it started off really boring. I hate waking up early and trying to play. Every time I wake up early, I find myself standing in Whitegate because all of the Americans are dead asleep and I'm left with primarily Japanese players. Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with the Japanese but I notice that they rarely ever use the auto-translate feature. So rather than stare a bunch of squiggly lines until I fall back to sleep, I decided to run out to good old Cape Terrigan. It's so addicting.

After a few runs of taking Karyn through hordes of bunnies and lizards, she is now getting very close to level 70. ^_^ Finally, the journey is nearing its end. Of course, nothing special is going to happen, it will just be something that I know I've taken from start to finish. I find joy in the simple things.

Then I took a trip to Al'Taieu with Davik so we could could kill some oversized fish and take their organs. I'm working on ungimping my jobs so I'm after the gorgets for the various weaponskills. Tifa and I collected the majority of organs for my Snow Gorget and Domie helped me get the last few. (if you're reading this, thanks Domie. ^^) Now I'm working on Light, and then I'll slowly work my way through the rest of them. It's not too painful, until you need to get the Yovra organs. I hate those things.

Now for the fun stuff. Nyzul Isle. That place has given me so much pain and frustration, yet I keep going back. I tell you, I must really love pain. Not long ago, I did manage to get my hands on the Goliard Saio, so I was pretty happy. Again, it's another piece of ass-ugly armor, but hey...it was free. My main goal has been the Askar Korazin. Yes, I know...the Haubergeon is better overall until you get the relic weapon, but Askar looks better. So shut it.

Let me give you a brief description of how the runs have been so far.

1. Shout for members

2. Wait.

3. Shout for members

4. Members join

5. Shout for that one job you need now that you are 5/6

6. An hour passes

7. Some members leave.

8. Shout for members.

Wait...that's not describing the run, but I thought you should know anyway. Here's the breakdown of the run:

Floor 76: Kill all enemies

Floor 77: Kill specified enemy

1. Player A aggros wrong enemy or standard NM

2. Player B says "WTF"

3. Player A shrugs

4. While remaining players are fighting the true target, Player A brings aggro to the group

5. Player C attempts to sleep aggro, but Player A put a DoT on it.

6. Death ensues

Floor 77: Eliminate Leader, Avoid Discovery by Gears

1. Player A aggros every gear on the floor.

2. Player B sighs

Floor 78: Activate Lamps

1. Player A discovers a single lamp

2. Player C asks what type of lamp

3. Player A: "It's a tall lamp."

4. Player B loses connection

Floor 79: Eliminate Specified Enemies

1. Player A is told to wait at rune

2. Party splits and begins to take out the targets

3. Enemies are killed and floor is cleared.

4. Party waits.

5. Player D wonders why we haven't changed floors.

6. Player E runs to rune.

7. Player E discovers that Player A went afk during that time.

8. Mass /slap emotes and threats are relayed.

Floor 80: Leader

1. Pull Rampart for TP.

2. Player A aggros leader before Rampart is destroyed

3. Shouts of "WTF?!" can be heard from inside Nyzul Isle all the way to Bhaflau Thickets

4. Enemy is killed and an item that Player A has listed drops

5. Party leader exits floor before Player A lots.

6. Player A is then booted from the party.

7. Shout for members.

I say this in jest, but you know you've all had some experience close to what I've described. Granted, they haven't all been this bad. It's mostly just craptastic drops when we kill the boss. However, today was a special day. That's right my loyal minions, I am the proud owner of an Askar Korazin! Whoo Hoo! Now to get the helm, and maybe the pants. One extra sexy Samurai, coming right up!

Oh yeah baby! Askar = mine!!

Shantotto Mayhem

Well, the final of the three add-on scenarios was released, and I have to say that I enjoyed this one. It was still the standard fetch quest, but it seems as if more effort was put into making this something that people would actually like.

I know the reward is some type of pants, but I haven't bothered looking into it. I still have yet to collect my reward from A Crystalline Prophecy simply because the stuff doesn't interest me. Not to mention, all of the gear is ass-ugly. Is it too much to ask that they make a set of matching armor? You have a cowboy trench coat, a Marvin Martian helm, and now some kung fu pants that the actual martial artists of Vana'diel can't wear.

Note to SE: Style IS important and drugs are bad, 'mkay.

Seriously, lay of the heavy stuff before you come out with designs for armor. Learn to match. I don't understand why we would get three rewards that don't go with anything we currently have and sure as hell don't go together on their own. Try this out. When you log in next, look for someone who has done all three expansions and got the rewards for the same job class. Now look at their gear and tell me that you aren't sitting in your chair laughing your ass off at how silly they look.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the expansion.

First, you start off by heading to Windurst and you witness the lovely Dr. Shantotto tinkering around with some new magic. Before you know it, she gets sucked into a little portal and poof...no more Taru. Chaos ensues when she returns and starts making plans to take over the world.

Before order is restored to the land, you embark on a journey that takes you to many places you may have forgotten about. Toraimarai Canal, the Cloisters, Sea Serpent Grotto, and the crowd favorite, Den of Rancor just to name a few.

You even get to craft some of the quest items. Isn't that exciting? Thankfully, I wasn't one of the first few people to try my hand at this crafting, otherwise I would've been paying 500K for something that will drop down to 500 gil in a week or two. Maintaining e-peen is a very expensive thing.

The final fight is either quite easy, or extremely frustrating. This all depends on the method you employ against the last Shantotto sisters. Someone had mentioned that they wondered what the fight would be like if you weren't given the optional boosts that you could collect. In a nutshell, it would be similar to a zerg, only you'd be the recipient because they would mop the floor with your behind in a matter of seconds.

In the end, it's definitely the better of the three add-ons, but that's to be expected. You're not going to make an expansion based off of your most powerful BLM in the entire game and make it absolute crap. Then again, anything is possible.

Here's a few shots that I took while progressing through. Check out the expansion sometime. The final cutscene was pretty funny.

Now this was funny. While we were killing our quest NM and dealing with adds, Shikigami Weapon decided to join in on the fun. Damn shame someone else claimed it.

Ahoy Mateys!

I'm sure you saw a few posts back that I was leveling Corsair and learning the way of a pirate. Outside of just running around and saying "Yargh!" all day, I have learned that Corsair is a damned busy job. Just like Bards never get any rest, neither do their pirate siblings. However, I dare to say that a Corsair has more work cut out for them than a bard because unlike the minstrels of melody, a Corsair actually has the ability to do decent damage. Sure, you can try to argue that Bards also get the use of a Joyeuse in later levels but, come on...how much damage do you really think a Bard can do with Savage Blade? >.>

Stop. You're thinking of how much damage they can do. Just stop thinking and keep reading.

/sigh

Anyway, after I hit 71, I got an unlikely party invite. I say unlikely because it wasn't the standard Caedarva Mire or Bhaflau Thickets tower camp, but a merit party. I've got a nice little post about merit parties coming up but, needless to say, I don't see many pre-74's in merit areas. Before Level Sync, there was always the general rule that you don't party with anyone roughly 2 levels over you so the EXP distribution remained fairly even. So going into a party 4 levels under seemed like a huge ripoff. However, I was both bored and curious. Fields of Valor can only hold you for so long, after all.

I spend way too much time in Cape Terrigan.

Off I go to a merit party! It was boring as all hell. I was COR/WHM and outside of rolls, I barely did anything. This isn't anyone's fault, mind you. After all, Corsair has horrid accuracy and trying to hit IT++ enemies without any food is stupid all by itself. So all I really could do was cast a small cure and keep everyone buffed. The flow of exp was awesome. Weaponskills and such going off all over the place. It was like fireworks, but no exploding body parts. (Yeah, body parts. It was neat to see.)

The only thing is, there was no DD on my part, so I got bored. Eventually, they got several merits and went to get restocked / spend their points. At this time, I was asked to try out COR/RDM and give a little DD just to keep me from getting too bored. Very thoughtful of them. I had a good time, and while I missed damn near every shot, at least I *thought* I was doing something. Just like giving a kid an unplugged controller and watching them laugh with glee. They don't know the controller doesn't work, but they're happy in their ignorance.

By the end of the party though, my skills had started to catch up and I was able to assist with skillchains and become more useful than just a 24/7 card spinner. Also, in that party alone, I went from 71-74. I must say, pre-75 merit parties can actually be very beneficial from an exp standpoint.

Now that I had a taste of the awesome exp, you know I had to find another party. So I did, and by the end of the day... 75 Corsair!! I just need some groovy gear and I'll be sailing the 7 seas with a crew of drunk misfits in no time.

Yay me!!

Thanks to everyone in Cape Terrigan who gave me a hand in unlocking my latest Mythic, Leaden Salute!! :D

The Summoning

For all of my Wings of the Goddess fans, let me tell you that this expansion has yet to disappoint. The storyline is shaping up nicely, and while you have a general idea of the events that will take place, the way they are presented helps keep everything from becoming stale.

On top of that, the story does a lot to tie up loose ends and delve deeper into some of the AF quests that you'll see over the course of playing and leveling various jobs. One that comes to mind is the Ranger story. While watching the cutscenes, they fill in several plot holes that may have had you wondering how certain things came to be. Again, this is only one example. If you've been stalling on checking out these missions, do yourself a favor and go see this. Whichever nation you are aligned with, I'm certain the quality is just as good. (Though I am biased, because Windurst owns everyone.)

Since Windurst is my nation, I can truly only talk about that story. For all of you who've ever considered taking up the Summoner job, these last two missions will truly inspire you to unlock and level the job. Seriously, the scene was just that good. You can understand a bit more about why we are able to summon avatars so easily but Karaha-Baruha met a very unfortunate fate. What we call forth is merely a fraction of the power that was used to save Windurst in its final hour. It was truly an epic moment, and so many things are revealed to you. I would say that in all of the scenes so far, there have been three "emotional" moments. This is certainly one of them.

The calm before the storm...

The Hero of Windurst, Karaha-Baruha.

This has to be the best display of summoning ever.

Zolka and Kayeel, stunned at the sight of Karaha's powerful incantation.

The true size of Fenrir makes Windurst's grand scale seem tiny in comparison.

Patriotism is not the only motivation for a soldier.

While I didn't see anything about Lilisette and her predicament, this portion of the expansion was a worthwhile addition. Just a shame that now I've got to wait for several months since the scene ends on a cliffhanger. Damn you SE.

It never ends

So I said I'd be posting like crazy when I came back, yet I've barely posted anything. Know why? Well, since that wonderful FailBox (can I trademark this?) moment when I had to reinstall my game, I forgot my blasted POL email password. So all of my awesome screenshots are sitting on my system and I don't have any way of getting to them.

Damn it all!

Anyway, I'm going to call PlayOnline today and see if they can help me out. I have to admit that I'm a little worried because I've heard of all the technical support nightmares that have come out of calling these people. At least I won't be getting [GM]Dave. ^_^

Jormy feed, {No Thanks}

Talk to you all soon.

Success!

Ha!

I got things working again. Of course, I had to completely wipe my hard drive, but hey...I've got a pc backup so it's all groovy. After a long install, I'm back and ready to go. Whoo!!

W...T...F

Ok, today's Friday the 13th, and it's usually just a bunch of paranoid people running around with a bunch of unwarranted fears because they watched too many scary movies as kids.

Well, turns out that bad luck is apparently the only thing on today's menu because that's all I've been getting. I come back to FFXI with a new attitude and ready to play, but guess what?

I can't play anymore.

No, I'm not banned. My FailBox had an issue. It failed.

No worries, I got a new one and it seems to be working fine. Unless you take into account that FFXI won't install on it. POL installed on my old hard drive without any problems. Got my account linked again and everything was good. Went to install the main game again and it just sits at a black screen.

I've been trying various solutions for the past 3 hours and nothing has worked thus far. I'd buy it for my PS3 but I hear the game runs like crap on that system and my PC is almost as old as some of the teenagers in my neighborhood.

If you see something on the news about a place in Maryland that mysteriously goes up in flames...well, that's me releasing my rage.

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. ^_^