Great weekend in Vana'diel

Yep, I made out like a bandit this weekend. It went so much better than I thought it would.

Here's what happened.

Friday night we got a Nyzul group together since our Thursday run was canceled. We had some trouble on the first run, but the second one went real well.... and look what I got.



Yeaaaaaah!! I've been wanting these for BLU for a long time. I hadn't had much luck in Nyzul with anything lately, so to see these drop to me was really a surprise. After this run, we were successful at another boss battle, but we didn't get anymore drops, sadly.

Saturday night Nyzul got even better. We were going to go for a fourth run on Friday, but not everyone had a fourth tag. Those of us who had a tag left split off and did our own thing. So come Saturday, some pals asked if I would be their sixth for a fourth floor 80 run. All was free lot, so I immediately agreed.

What happened next?



!!!!

This wasn't even on the radar at all! Another piece of gear from Nyzul that I've never seen dropped nor did I think I would ever obtain it. So, this worked out awesome.

And finally, Sunday.. just before Dynamis I was able to nab this little beauty..



I mentioned on Friday that I was going for this bow, so I managed to grab it real early Sunday morning with the help of some linkshell pals. Thanks, peeps. <3

Sadly, my Wyrm Armet never dropped from Dynamis, but... I really could care less right now. Looking over what I got this weekend, that would have been an added bonus.. but there's always next Sunday.

- Vice

Dude, dude... seriously, have you seen my Ranger?

I'm at it again - Ranger.

After pausing for a few months, I decided to return to the job after leaving it at 66. I restarted Ranger early in the week and have been leveling it when I'm not doing any of my endgame events (Dynamis, Limbus, and Nyzul). I've really missed playing on this job, but since I've obtained a little over 800k selling an item that I don't need anymore, that gave me the extra push I needed. Now that I've managed to secure myself with a very nice amount of gil, I'm able to spend on some new gear and ammo.

I was leveling Ranger late into the night on Thursday and nearly took it to 68. I've got about 2.5k more to get before I can hit that. I'm going to try leveling it this coming weekend. It would be real awesome to get it to 70 by Sunday night, but with that day being endgame-filled, I doubt it'll happen. 69 seems possible at the very least. Today when I get home, I'm going out for a Selene's Bow with the assistance of Seb.



Yeah.... I want.

Also, I'm pleased to report that I've finally got the piece of gear that I've been going after for quite a while.



Ahhh, finally!



I've been wanting this body piece for a long time and really didn't think I would ever be able to get my hands on it.

This now makes me 4/5 on Homam. I'll I need now is my "Fast Cast" surfer pants and I'm 75SEX!

I'm going to end the post here and get back to my HTML coding.

Gotta love the codes. =/

- Vice

'Prophecy' Thoughts

I started FINAL FANTASY XI in October of 2003. To say that I've seen a lot of changes in the game over the years would be quite the understatement. From the addition of expansions: Rise of the Zilart , Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and Wings of the Goddess , new content has never failed to disappoint. The experience of venturing through these expansions was a genuine thrill - specifically Chains - my personal favorite of the big four, although my final assessment can't be given until Wings has finished.

Of course, in any baseball game, you can't hit a home run every time.

When SQUARE-ENIX announced the addition of three new scenarios, which make use of the already pre-existing areas, I, along with all other players were genuinely excited. Of course, while the excitement was pretty high, I was saying to myself and friends, and still do, "Yeah, this is really sweet, I can't wait, but... what about Wings ?" Yes, yes, they are working on them, I'm aware, but if I'm in the middle of an episode of LOST , I don't switch the channel in the middle of it to watch something else. I would much prefer to have the focus be on the continuing storyline of the aforementioned expansion and not some optional ten dollar 'scenario' that has proved to be nothing more than a headache - one which I can get for the same exact price at a bar, but put no effort into it at all.

And that's exactly what A Crystalline Prophecy has proven to be for me: a headache.

When voicing my opinions regarding this new add-on, the little resistance I've been receiving has been the same: it's optional and it's not something I have to do.

In some respect, you can file the expansions under the same rule. Yes, they have reshaped the game in terms of their content, but I didn't have to finish Zilart or Chains , for example, if I didn't want to. If I wanted access to Sky and Sea, then yes, I'd have to finish them. In the end, the rewards for finishing these two are far more great than some piece of customizable gear that can be purely situational at best.

If it's optional, does that excuse the fact that the content and rewards are not worth the time, effort, and even price of it? I think so. I'm sure the development team threw their hearts and souls into the creation of this and the yet-to-be-released A Moogle Kupo d’Etat and A Shantotto Ascension - which I hope will fare much better.

My biggest frustration with Crystalline as I'm sure many of you have already been made aware of by other players who are struggling with it, is the penultimate mission Ode to Life Bestowing . So far, I am 0/12 on this battle and lose confidence with each attempt. I don't think this fight would be as trying if it wasn't for fulfilling the requirements needed to actually enter the BCNM. In order to obtain the key item that is needed to enter the battlefield, a trip through Delkfutt's tower to collect a key item on all floors is needed. The downside to this is that you will be capped at level 30 and this must be done every time you wish to make another attempt at this battle, unless you have won previously.

Why? Seriously why?

Is this meant to make the whole mission more challenging to the player?

No, I don't think so.

It's only there simply to annoy us.

Up to this point, Crystalline is fairly simple and straight-forward, but once you reach this point you find yourself at the mercy of all the things in FINAL FANTASY XI that have frustrated you to no end right here - again. During my tenth attempt at this climb and battle, I started asking myself, "Is this really worth all of the time, effort, and frustration?" I'm getting annoyed a video game.. a video game that knows where the epicenter of my frustrations lie and has, once again, extricated those feelings with this optional(there's that word again) add-on scenario.

Now I am a completest. I will finish this some time, but unlike a certain individual I know very well, I am not going to panic and feel I need to get this done as soon as possible so I won't be 'left behind'. It's not a race to the finish and given the lukewarm reward at the end, you're not going to see me flying to the end.

At the end of the day, I know that my frustrations will not pay off.

Crystalline serves as nothing more than a test of player durability.

- Vice

Nyzul Isle frustration

Ahh, Nyzul Isle. Such a double-edged sword is this Assault arena. I swear it's just me, but I'm having a really tough time with this. I'm climbing floors just fine (currently at 56), but in terms of getting gear drops on the boss floors, it's absolutely impossible. As a melee player, the gear that I'm itching to get out of here is, of course, the Askar set, but since I've been working on this, I've seen Askar drop once. Just once. and let me tell you, the circumstances surrounding this one time were just... unlucky.

I saw the Askar pants drop. It was between some SAM and myself. We were the only two that wanted them. So, I put in my lot - 147. So I pound my fist on the desk, "Fuuuuuuuuuck!!" knowing full well I'm not going to get them now. The SAM lots 131. "Huh -- no way!!!" I say to myself, everyone else passed on them, or claim to have passed on them. They were mine. I had them. Until....

"Now exiting the Assault area."

Ran out of time, forced zone, no Askar in my inventory.

I feel like there someone playing a really cruel joke on me. Seriously. I see so many other people around Vana'diel wearing this awesome gear... it's so common that you would think one could just easily go to the Auction House and get it for nothing. Not only that, but when I'll be talking to a pal who just got through with Nyzul, it goes a little something like this, "Askar dropped on the first run, then we got some Denali on the other."

....

"I got a Double Axe..."

Yeah... x.x

I've become pretty obsessed with doing this assault. I've got a Thursday static, which is going very well once again, but when it's not Thursday, I'm usually off looking for a group to go with in the hopes of getting either the Askar or Denali, but what ends up happening is us wiping to Thundaga III, getting transformed into a frog from that goddamn mob, or someone accidently using their fireflies instead of their cookie... but I won't mention any names on that last one.

Oh, Nyzul Isle, why do you hate me so?

- Vice

Vana'diel Report

So, I got a fair amount done in game over the last few days.

The most important thing I should mention is that I got Kuvak to level 60PLD and got the last piece of AF - the bodypiece. So, as an Elvaan in full PLD AF, I don't think anything that can compare. It just looks awesome. So now the next step, unfortunatly, is to go back onto WAR and get it to 37. I really don't want to. I just want to get it over with ASAP. At the moment, I managed to raise it to 32, but I doubt I'll be able to get it to sublevel by the time the weekend is over.

I logged into Viceroy later in the day to meet up with some pals to do Sky gods. This was a hell of a lot of fun. We did all four gods outside and did very well. I walked away with the A.Head Abjuration, which means that I'll be getting my first piece of Adaman in three years. This item was free lot, by the way. I've been doing Sky with these guys and they're an awesome shell, but right now, it's hard for me to think of what I want to get in Sky. Nothing really jumps out at me right now since I've pretty much set my sights on completing my set of Homam gear from Limbus.

I'm 3/5 on Homam so judging by my points and who is up for what pieces of it, it looks like the body piece is going to be the next one I'll be getting. I'm still a long way away on the pants, but that body is simply amazing. There's only one person in line ahead of me to get the body, so I'm hoping that at our next Omega run, his heart does drop, which will push me to the head of the line. Once I have that thing, I'll NEVER take it off.



Tomorrow's battle plan is Nyzul Isle early in the afternoon and then Limbus at 9, so it's going to be a bit of a busy day in game for me.

So with that said, I'm off to get some much-needed rest.

Peace,

Viceroy/Kuvak

So it begins.

I never thought I would actually do it, but I decided to - a FINAL FANTASY XI blog. I'll admit, I haven't been much of a blogger in recent years, but from what's been going on within my online life of Final Fantasy XI, I think now, more than ever, would be the best time to get this thing going.

With that, I'll devote my first post to, well, me. Since this is all-new, I thought I should take the time to introduce myself to my reader(s). My name's Max and I've been playing Final Fantasy XI since the North American release (October '03), so I'm going on about five and a half years of trekking through Vana'diel. It's hard to believe that I've actually been playing the game for this long too!

I have two in-game characters. The first, and one I'm most proud of, is my original Hume character, Viceroy. I've been playing on Viceroy since day one and the name has become my online alias with the gang I play the game with. He hails from the great Kingdom of San d'Oria, is Rank 10, and is a 75 Dark Knight, Blue Mage, Dragoon, and Thief. His newest up in coming 75 job is Ranger, which now sits at level 67.

When he's not off hunting ladybugs in East Ronfaure[S] or running for his life because he caught the eye of some life-sucking UFO or Shark in Al'Taieu, he enjoys meriting/xp'ing, climbing floors in Nyzul Isle, skilling up, decimating birds with his lance, Limbus, and getting Meanie killed.

The other character, whom I've been playing the most as of late, is a San d'Orian Elvaan by the name of Kuvak. Kuvak is a character the was originally my mule, but seeing that I regret not picking an Elvaan originally and always wanted to play as one, I started to level Kuvak up to where (as of 2/24/09) he is a Rank 6, level 59 Paladin. I have to say, this is something that I thought would just be a huge grind, but it's actually been a lot of fun. I have reached a point on this character to where I can now play him full time. Also, being over Rank 5 means that getting around is a hell of a lot easier with that airship pass.

There were so many things early on in the game which I really dreaded having to do again (subjob items, Kazham keys, magicite, certain job quests, etc) - but truthfully they really are not as bad as I remember them. Because so much time had passed since I did them the first time, I came to the realization while working on them that they really are not that difficult. It was a different time in the FFXI community when I started playing the game. Many of the websites that we would use as guides were just getting started and were pretty vague in telling us what we had to do to get certain quests done. The FFXI Wiki had not yet existed, either. Our main pages for all the information came from either the FFXI Vault, Alakazham.com (a web site which makes it damn near impossible to find anything on there), or Killing Ifrit.

It's also amazing to see how much the game has evolved over the course of six years. Even though I started when the game made its North American debut, the Japanese players who have been there since day one and still continue to the play to this day, are the ones that have seen the most change out of any of us.

When FINAL FANTASY XI was released in the US, we were given the first expansion to the game, Rize of the Zilart. For all us US players (unless you were lucky enough to get in on the beta), we never had a chance to experience the game as it was before that expansion came. Recently, there was an opportunity for me to do just that when I re-installed the game through the 2008 Vana'diel collection after reformatting my PC and installing Windows Vista. I have to admit, I'm real curious to play the game in the pre-Zilart form and may give it a shot when I install the game into the new computer I'll be purchasing sometime next month.

This is something I want to continue talking about within this blog - the earlier days of FINAL FANTASY XI - leading up to today. Given that I've been in the game so long, there's a ton that I can recall and look forward to blogging about in addition to what I've been up to in-game and what not.

So for now, I'm going to wrap it up. I'm actually at work now and should be getting back to what I was doing. >:D

See you next time!

- Viceroy/Kuvak