Fun? FFXI can be fun?!

OF COURSE IT CAN!

But before I explain... let me start with...

I finally got my BLM to 75!!!! I spent the last hour before I logged off doing some campaign and managed to get my last 2k xp. I had 3 merit points saved so I ran to my mog house right away and got myself Burst 2. I then proceeded to run outside into a mass of orcs, and cast Burst 2 on one of the NMs only to have my arse handed to me seconds later! BUT! it was worth it!

I'm eager to try it out on some xp mobs and watch a chunk of their HP just drop...*evil laugh* For the moment though, i'm going to try and do some meriting this weekend to get Freeze II unlocked. I figure I should have the two spells as soon as possible, just in case I happen to get invited to some kind of manaburn event where I need them. I'm not going to bother with the other ancient magic tier II spells, only because I would rather max out the two most frenquently used spells.

So anyways, thats the big news for this post. I'm so glad I finally got my BLM to 75. Its really fun (yes, I said FUN!), and I just hope that my endgame shells can get other people to start coming as WHM so that I can play a little more. Besides, whenever i'm in sky or dynamis I usually end up doing some sleeping, and enfeebling... and I remember once I even kited Kirin for all of 10 seconds on my WHM! Yay for Gravity! >_>;;;

And now back to FFXI being fun... for the most part, you have to deal with greedy players that think of no one else but themselves. They will walk all over you just to accomplish THEIR goals, and leave you in the dust. You also deal with a lot of players that have no idea of what "player etiquette" is, and well... i'll save that rant for another day. And of course what this game is mostly known for... is... TIME SINK. People play this game because you do get to feel a sense of satisfaction when you've put in a lot of time to reach a goal, but my gawd does SE take this to the extreme. They've made a few improvements over time to make things a little easier (like really great merit camps in ToAU) but there's still a lot of improvements they can make. So for the most part, you just have players complaining about the grinds in this game, being frustrated as ever with trying to progress and never really feeling like you can beat the game.

However... every now and then, you're able to have one of those days in the game where you just really get to relax, laugh and have F U N.

One of my social LS members who joined recently, requested that our LS get together and take a screenshot together. Then, another member expanded on the idea of us hosting another subligar race. So I figured why not, and got things schedule through our forum.

We all met up in Ru'lude Gardens, and took a few different group pictures. We didn't have as many people show as anticipated, but that was ok. We had Standpoint, Alianne, Hanow, Elden, Onedarkflame, Atrehyu, Sabene, Soulstar, Drimergirl, Idun and Zeo for the pics.


After goofing around a bit and getting the screenshots we wanted, (one of these i'm going to try and turn into a banner or wallpaper when I can find some time) we headed to Port Jeuno to get started for our SUBLIGAR RACE!

The rules were pretty simple: Grab a subligar, make sure you're a lvl 1 job and line up! Our goal was to reach The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah Outpost, and the first 3 to make it there would receive some prizes that I organized. Standpoint and myself would follow the group all the way, and raise them along the way whenever needed.

So here we are, getting ready... everyone strutting their stuff in their shiny subligars!


Unfortunately Sabene and Idun weren't able to stay for the race, but we ended up having Darce and Nightshadexl join up with us after the race had started.


Not too far into the race, we had our first death!!! Elden had the honors for that one!


Everyone did pretty well in the next zone, Meriphitaud Mountains though I believe there was a death along the way. It wasn't until they all hit The Sanctuary of Zhi'tah though that Onedarkflame's evil plot to MPK everyone resulted in his own very very brutal death!

Sadly, I don't have a pic though ; ;

With his death though, this allowed the rest of the group to reach the outpost. Our winners & prizes were:

1st Place - Drimergirl
Prize: 50k + Signed Chocolate Cake + various fireworks

2nd Place - Soulstar
Prize: 30k + Signed Gateau aux Fraises + various fireworks

3rd Place - Hanow
Prize: 20k + Signed Gateau aux Fraises + various fireworks

Everyone else: Various fireworks

So after everyone met up at the outpost, they all started using their fireworks while the sneaky Standpoint went off to find a Golem and then attempt to MPK everyone.

Which he did succeed at...


All in all, it was a very fun event and everyone said that they thought it was even more fun than the last subligar race we hosted back when our shell was still called TheBrotherhood.


I think i'll probably try to host another even during the summer, or just after. Its a nice break from all the frustrating and irritating aspects this game has...

Oh and tomorrow my shell is going to be doing another Ohat run for 3 of our members. Our roster seems a little smaller than the last time (people need to stop quitting the game!!!!) but i'm pretty sure we'll get it done. I'm happy that the people needing their Ohat can get it done with their social LS, because I always hear of the horror stories with pickup parties, or runs scheduled through QCDN that end up in failure, ninja lotting and other stuff... makes things more enjoyable when you can do it with friends you can rely on. And besides, if we do screw up... everyone intends to help with more eye farming to do it again! I just dread trying to go after that stupid damp hakutaku eye...... stupid stupid bad drop rate ><

Big updates bite.

So SE finally decided to give the players an update with more WoG content. (Only after months of having released the last patch). A lot of people have been really psyched about the update... but honestly, I can't say that I am. After reading bits and pieces here and there, I realized just how much MORE i'll need to do. I'm already feeling swamped as it is with the endgame activities I do, and haven't quite been able to participate in all the LS events i've wanted to for my social shell. Plus now that i'm lvling Kaelyth and trying to get him ready, I just feel like i'm never going to have the time to do all the things I need to. And that is actually pretty sad considering I play every day.....

Anyways though, there are a couple of things i've decided to try out with the new update. The first being that i'm going to slowly do some campaign whenever I can. I need to rank up in campaign and accumulate 50,000 points for the Cobra Crackows I want for my BLM. So far i'm more than half way there, but I really have a hard time doing more than an hour of campaign by myself. Its not fun when you're alone, and it gets extremely boring real fast.

I've also tanked the pop NM Lil'Apkallu. This fight was pretty fun, and it looks like my LS will be doing a semi-static for the new "ZNMs" every saturday as long as people are available, and someone was able to get a pop item. I don't think i'll try and get a pop item for anything yet, but i've really enjoyed doing the fights. Any excuse to bring out my PLD is a good one for me!


I also ran into this guy earlier this week.


Apparently under certain conditions, he'll suck you up and you end up in special zones where you can fight NMs that drop really really good gear. There's been a bunch of shells setting up recently, and i've been tempted to apply and join but again... I have way too much scheduled as it is so i'll be waiting a bit before I get to try out this new endgame. This is about the only thing though that seems to interest me from the most recent update.

So... now for the LS events recently... yet again we've managed to take down an NM that "usually" has a large group. Carste was needing to get himself a Uggalepih pendant for his BLM, so a bunch of us went out to pop the NM. The fight was pretty fun, I got to bring out my SAM!


Most of the fight was just kiting the NM as the BLMs would nuke it, and i'd stun the Death move with my WS. The first fight was pretty smooth, I think we only had about 2 deaths in all. Then a friend of Carste's requested to fight the NM, so we did another pop. This time the run wasn't quite as smooth... in fact, we kinda all ended up dying and at the very end I was kiting the NM on my own @_@. But thankfully our WHM Falk home pointed after his death (RR had worn just seconds before) and came back to raise everyone else. Pretty fun fight! Only Carste ended up getting the drop though, making us 1/2 :(

Assault is really starting to get boring now... I've been able to get my Perdu Voulge, but the missions aren't really enjoyable anymore and when we spam certain missions... well... it just gets boring real quick. Well... not all of them are boring. We did this one mission where we had to avoid these dragons, and I ended up making a wrong turn and right in front of me there was a friendly red dragon waiting to say hello ^^


We're going to actually try and start Nyzul now, but we need a 6th. Hopefully someone in our LS will be able to make our times, because I think we're all eager for a change. Plus the gear you can get seems to be pretty nifty.

I also got quite a bit done on my BLM recently. I finally reached lvl 73, and now just need to manaburn the rest or do campaign. Not too sure I can deal with the whole "solo-ing" thing... I don't mind farming solo, but lvling... well, I think part of the reason I enjoy this game is simply because of the party experiences.

But anyways, I was able to drag some LS members out with me and got myself Blizzaga 3. We fought a wyvern at one point, which made things a little exciting. I think we had a couple of small deaths but nothing too serious. Only took us a little over an hour before we got the scroll to drop, and then we decided to farm a bit more and help get some of our members some gilz.


Other than that, i've gotten my crafts up a little. Woodworking is 59, Alchemy is 60. Now just to cave in and buy some Krakul thread and get my clothcraft up ><;;;

And i've mainly been trying to work on Kaelyth in my other spare time. I've gotten his MNK to 25, and after next week i'm going to be joining a LS static to get him to 75. We'll only lvl once a week, but it works perfectly because with a new character... i'm going to have a lot to do in between.


I also managed to get his WAR to lvl 20, so that'll last me a while. Onedarkflame came out to help PL me, only... I ended up eating the dirt! Haha, its all good though.


I'm looking forward to being able to play Kaelyth a little more. Finally I won't have a mage job for people to request me to come on, lol!

And figured i'd post this pic I took.


Apparently Leaping Lizard spawned while Timwakefield was strolling by, and he asked in LS if anyone wanted to try and get the boots. I was the only one around at the time, so I went ahead and joined up with him for the kill. Didn't get the boots though ; ;

Oh and last, a really cool screenie of Bahamut from the first cutscene for CoP!! BAAAHAAAMUT!

<3 Karma.

Its finally good to see people get what they deserve. More specifically, an ex FFXI player named Jyakotsu who for the longest of time, has had a very sick obsession with trying to harass me in any way available to him.

For those who don't know about "Jyakotsu" you can read the post that Xean made a long time ago. He made sure to post as much information as possible, so that nothing would be argued. Mind you, there will always be people that are ignorant anyways and just say his post was entirely biased and a lie, but i'm not even going to bother with people like that.

Anyways, for the last year since the whole YYR thing, Jyakotsu has tried in a few ways to make my gaming experience miserable. He attempted to persuade my Sky leaders that I could not be trusted and shouldn't be in their shell (which thankfully they were smart enough to disregard) and for the last few months, he would hunt down any posts I would make at the server forum QCDN.org and rate me down.

Now the rate downs, mean nothing. A red dot? A green dot? I could care less, because "popularity" isn't something i've ever been concerned with. I have the respect of many friends in game, and thats really all I need.

However, with every rate down he has proceeded to add a verbal attack, directed to my weight. "Fat Bitch".

I guess I have either Kelga/Reiyn/Josudes/Kirameki to thank for having provided my RL pictures of me that I had posted on our LS forum which at one point, we were all members for. Because without him having been given screenshots or account access, he wouldn't have any way of knowing what I look at.

Anyways, I started getting really irritated with the comments. Why did he care so much about what I looked like, and more to the point, how did my weight affect him?

Oh, I think I know the answer to this! Because he only has the mentality of a child, he could only use the lowest form of an insult to provoke a response from me. Seems he feeds off drama.

I ignored the comments for a while, but eventually it grew to the point that it was becoming really obsessive and I just couldn't grasp why he cared so much anymore? I thought the reason he hated me, was because he had judged me as someone who encourages people to steal from others? So shouldn't his insults somehow be directed towards this? Hmm....

So I PMed two of the admins. I asked them if any action could be taken, because to me the constant "You fat bitch" comments were a form of harassment that were going unseen simply because they were accompanied by his rate downs. I also didn't have the ability to ignore him on the forums, because he's a moderator for a board.

The solution I was given by one of the mods, was that the rate downs he had given, were changed to rate ups. This of course still didn't address the issue I had, which was the harassment. So I just left it... not much more I can do.

Eventually though, someone who was also having the same issue with him, posted a flame. There was one question by another poster that urged me to respond. It asked why he bothered making verbal attacks to people when he no longer played the game. So I responded... and thats where it all changed.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/5504/post1ts7.jpg

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/4278/post2iz3.jpg

I guess he really didn't like the light being on him, and showing him to be the asshole that he really is. And so the first time he responded to my post, he decided to take yet another pot shot at my personal life (AGAIN nothing to do with the supposed reason he hates me) and comment on my relationship status.

Heartless bastard much? I don't feel the need to explain much here, because my close friends know... but for those who didn't, i'm not with anyone anymore. And like any other relationship that actually had meaning and true feelings, there was definitely a lot of hurt when things ended.

Then he also went on to say, that weight is 100% controllable, as if to mock me again for my appearance.

I guess having medical conditions that you're just born with also allows weight gain to be entirely controllable? I can never understand how people can be so judgemental. I think I find it interesting that for someone who can go on and on about how being racist is wrong, can be so prejudiced and judemental about people for something that doesn't even apply to who they are as a person. Hypocrit.

Anyways, after having posted and responding, I also posted a screenshot of the comments he had made, which proved right then and there what kind of person he is.

He is nothing but a loser that obviously needs to bring harm to others in order to make himself feel better. He has nothing but malicious intent, and the extremes that he has gone to, are seriously unhealthy. When you hate a person, do you seriously go out of your way to make their life a living hell?

The supposed reason he hates me has to do with something that happened more than a year ago, can he seriously not move on with his life? He is so consumed but his hate, that I really think he needs professional help. He does this to anyone that gets on his bad side, aka "makes him feel butthurt".

Its really kinda sad. I even sent him a PM when he was sending the harassing rate downs asking him to stop, which then of course turned into a ridiculous bunch of attempts at him to inflict harm to me emotionally. Only too bad I laughed more than anything, because he reminds me far too much of an immature child when he tries to insult. He avoids any actual points made and instead attacks something that isn't even related.

Even now, he sent me a 2 PMs titled "Bitch Bitch Bitch =/" (its obvious you can tell he's not happy about the negative comments people are making about him after having seen what an ass he is).

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/2852/jyakfn6.jpg

The first one said "keep talking please it entertains me. You owe me just as much an apology as Myrrh. You stole shit from me just as much as Myrrh. My fucking month of time was wasted because of your "people's" attitude.

So you know what? thats why i treat you the way I do. You aren't sorry at all over what happened, nor is your bastard of an ex bf. So you know what? I'm glad you almost quit back before Kelga forced me to talk to both of you. Think about doing it again".

So I responded with "You're not worth my time, have a good day" because I know that if he couldn't even counter the points Xean made in the blog post he made (linked above) then me trying to counter his claims would be like talking to a brick wall. Pointless to someone as ignorant as him.

So his next response to this was "Just remember to stay the fuck off the flameboard :P I might have to hurt you again Q.Q".

Lol, threatning now? Seriously. I haven't responded, and I won't be anymore. I made the posts I felt that I needed to in that thread, and I feel that he's now gotten the recognition he deserved. He's a lowlife of the worst kind.

I would like to hope that his life be miserable and that karma continues to bite him in the ass, but... I think it might be better for him to one day learn what it is to be a good person and let go of his disturbing obsession for being malicious to others. Seeing what he'll to do a person he knows in a video game, makes you wonder what he does to people in real life he decides to hold a grudge against.





On a happier note, I finally hit lvl 59 in Woodworking!!! Thanks to Ketsurui, I had just enough ingredients to take my scorpion arrows to 59. Now I gotta go craft a signed cake that I owe him ><;;

Partners in Crime.

Black Mage, is H E L L A fun.

For the last week, i've been pushing to get as close to lvl 75 on my BLM as possible, along with my partners in crime Sabene and Alianne. Though the parties aren't always the greatest (gotta love the know it alls, or the people who just don't know anything and you would think are RMT with the lack of knowledge they have at lvl 60+) I am having a blast lvling the job. I admit sometimes I get a little nuke happy... but I blame that on Sabene, because she does it too! And then of course we have Alianne on his NIN just laughing as I tank the mob for a couple of seconds. >_> (I don't do it all the time though! I swear!)

And now that I have BLM up to 67 (as of today!) i'm now able to do the Up in Arms BCNM manaburn style! It is soo much more enjoyable than straight up tanking on my PLD. No cost for meds/items (other than melon pie) and its fairly straight forward. Nuke, gravity, bind, Nuke, sleep, repeat! So far me, Alianne and Carste are 0/24 for the Kraken club though ._.


Lets see what else... Oh, we got Squishy his Selene's bow a few days ago. I figured we'd be up most of the night, because the last time we had gotten this item for one of our LS members (ironically who left our shell a week later because apparently none of us were considered real friends even though by us helping him get his own Selene's bow, he was able to sell another bow and profit himself 3 mil -_-) we had fought the stupid NM quite a few times before the Selene's bow actually dropped... but this time when we got Standpoint's, he went 1/2.


Also managed to get my Sleepga II scroll. I had prepaid Alianne for the scroll because he had the quest flagged. I had quested the scroll a long time ago back when me and Xean were saving and farming like crazy to get his Noble's Tunic for 7.5mil.... sold the scroll for a nice 1.6mil back then. So sure enough, after mentioning that I needed to help Alianne with the actual NM fight against Agas to complete the quest, a bunch of LS members volunteered to come out and give a hand.


The fight was almost too easy. I could have sworn it was a lot harder, but we had the NM down in minutes and I don't think I remember Sabene going through any MP on her WHM, lol.

Afterwards we decided we'd do a LS merit pt with the members that had helped with Agas. We were doing pretty good, I think we managed to get up to about chain #35 until a party showed up and started taking the mobs at our camp. Gotta love people who don't know how to use the search function to see how many parties are in an area...

Anyways, we were still pulling pretty fast but eventually got annoyed because there were less mobs so we went to the North camp from Mamool Ja Staging point in Bhaflau Thickets, aka "Death Camp".

And that it was!


Poor Carste, lol.

Thanks to those merits, and some more meriting I did during the week I was able to get my Elemental Magic Skill merits to 6/8. I'm hoping i'll be able to finish those up in the next week, and then I can save up some more merits so that I can maybe work on my STR for my melee jobs.


I also had my first encounter with Padfoot. I've heard of the NM, and that he drops Astral earring... so when I happened to see a sheep with that name I immediately shouted in LS "COME NOW!" and had Alianne, Sabene and Zeo help me kill it. I could have soloed it, but at the time I didn't know the lvl so I didn't want to risk death ><;


Unfortunately we didn't get the drop, but then again apparently the so called "NM" we were fighting, was also a fake. I guess Padfoot has something like 5 versions, and only one of them is the real thing.

I'm slowly working on my crafting too. I want to one day see all my crafts at lvl 60, so slowly i've been working on them whenever I have gil (or rather when I want to spend gil) I've been able to get my Clothcraft to 55, Alchemy to 56, and Woodworking to 53. Clothcraft still has about 2 lvls that'll end up being a bit of a gil sink, but over time i'll be able to get most of that back.

And for all my endgame stuff... well Dynamis is good. We had a ton of Wootz ore drop in our last Bastok run, which will end up giving members in our LS about 160k from our "Month End Bonus" which is basically a reward for people that stick around the full run to help farm coins at the end. We also had quite a bit of AF drop, but more and more it seems that the cities no longer have any gear that people need, so it usually ends up being free lotted.


Lastly... sky is just starting to wear on me. Our shell hasn't been able to do the "tp burn Kirin", nor a "regular kirin" for the last 3 months. This is because a good number of the members chose to do other in game activities instead of showing up, unless of course we're doing something they actually need. And then again, there's just a lot of people that have left the game, or just left the shell without saying a word so our numbers have been down for quite some time.

I've been looking forward to getting a K.Osode for myself, so that I can use it on my SAM but it doesn't seem that will happen any time soon. I don't mind too much that things are a lot slower, but I do fear that the shell is in that last phase.... before it breaks. If no new members are recruited, people are just going to end up quitting because most of us only need to do Kirin at this point. So much of the regular god gear is free lotted. I guess its a good thing the osode i'm borrowing is from someone that is very unlikely to come back to the game... but just in case he does, I want to have my own osode.

Meh, guess i'll have to wait and see how things go.

Oh and I managed to get Kaelyth to 13 on MNK. I spent an hour seeking, but didn't get any invite which might be because I don't have a subjob and that my rank is lvl 2. Guess I could have made a party myself, but i'm really up for making parties now a days... its so hit and miss if you get people that can actually do what they're suppose to, and sometimes soloing the xp is just faster. >_>



Thats it for now :)