A Farewell to Sky.

After participating in Sky for more than a year, i've finally decided to stop with this endgame event to free up more of my time and do things that I enjoy more. I had a really hard time trying to write up my "goodbye" to my LS, because it never feels right to leave when there are still people that are needing gear.

Over the last year, i've obtained a lot of gear for my RDM, WHM, BLM, PLD, WAR and SAM. The only item I never got, and probably never will unless I get an urge to do sky again, is the W. Abjuration Legs. I'm not too worried about getting this item, because unless you're a PLD that kites for an endgame shell, its really just a luxury piece. Well actually, i'm sure there are a few uses for other jobs but from what i've read up on it, PLD is the job that gets the most use out of it and i've never done anything to date where I would need this piece.

I know that I definitely earned every piece of gear I ever got. In fact, I know that every time I ever went after a highly sought after item (B.Haidate, K.Osode, Zenith Mitts) I always ended up losing more than 90% of my accumulated points. Often, this would be worth about 100hrs of time because it would cost me close to 200pts (each hour - 2pts)

The truth about why i'm leaving though, is simply that I don't feel that i'm on the same page as the leadership of my shell nor as the majority of the shell. The members are just too laid back, and not as serious as I would like for the shell to be. Things aren't always done as efficiently as they could be, and despite having been promoted to an officer, I was never given any access or power to try and improve the shell. I don't think it was done intentionally, but again my standards for how leadership should be is just perhaps a little too much. In the end, I was finding myself miserable because I had joined the shell with a goal, and after having accomplished that goal of earning my gear, I felt that I couldn't handle when things wouldn't be done efficiently.

Our shell is more up to date and fair than others that I have been in, and the people are friendly. That's the reason that I stayed all this time, its a good shell and the best i've been in to date for sky. And its also why I plan to stay until the end of the summer to help them with their plans to pop gods/Kirin non-stop while people are still around. Its expected that after the summer, attendance will drop so now is the best time to help out and get as much done as possible while the numbers are still there.

But as I said, the attitude seems to be too soft for my taste and there aren't enough penalties for members that aren't putting their all into the shell. Or I guess the better way to say this, is that there aren't any incentives really for going above and beyond others and showing up on time, coming as the job that's needed (rather than the job you want to be) and just being considerate enough to have an active presence on the LS forum so that events could be organized better. Naturally, I try to do this all.... I can't help but give my all. The thought of being dead weight to a shell irritates me. And though some members were making little efforts to be on time, there was just way too much time wasted getting ready for Kirin... sitting around for 2hrs is not what I call fun.

I guess the other thing that always stayed with me was the one time that 50hrs of participation ended up being completely erased. In the beginning of the shell, I had joined with Xean. We had been accumulating our own seperate pts for a while, but due to his college schedule he wasn't really finding a lot of time to participate. From time to time, i'd be asked to log in as his character for some events, when my own jobs weren't really needed. So I had asked the leadership if it would be possible to accumulate "one" pool of points for the both of us. Obviously I knew that to be fair, we wouldn't be able to earn double the points... so for example, if we were both online, we would still be getting the same amount of pts that one person gets, even though we were both online. But it was fine, because at the time, I wanted to help him get some more gear for his character and put a hold on my own.

Leadership agreed to this, and even allowed other members that had 2 characters to do this too. You would have one pool of pts, but you could apply them to either character when making your bid on gear. One thing to note though, which is really important... is that before I shared a pool of pts with Xean, I had about 200pts and he had 100pts. In order for us to use one pool of pts, it was agreed that we would "wipe" Xean's pts to 0. Then, my total pts (around 200) would be the new count for "our pool". We didn't ask to combine our pts, because we didn't want to get an advantage over other members. So, this is where Xean's 50hrs of participation pretty much got wiped.

Everything seemed fine. Both me and Xean would participate and earn pts (though not double) so that we could bid on gear for either character, depending on which we felt needed something more.

But someone else didn't think this was fair, and voiced his opinion. In the end, he was able to convince leadership that the system they had setup for me and a couple of others, was no longer allowed.

So... when this happened, leadership decided that the total pts me and Xean had accumulated over the last two months or so (again, remember we were never given double pts) would go to "my" new total, and he would start again at 0. Xean was never given back the 100pts he had lost in the very beginning.

I never felt this was fair, to go back on something that had been allowed. I also thought it was even worse when the person who had made the biggest complaint about it being unfair, quit the shell soon after.

I also couldn't see how it was "not fair". Its true that I was the one more responsible for earning pts because I was not working at the time, but I didn't really feel much need to use my pts to get any gear. I wanted to help Xean get his gear though, because I knew with the little time he could put into the shell, it would take forever before he'd accumulate enough pts.

So if a "sky only" ls gives pts to its members for their participation, as a way to measure who should be rewarded, then what happens when a member no longer needs any more gear? If they're still putting in time to the shell, where is their reward? Most people would probably leave soon after getting their gear, but I had come up with an idea to help equip another member of the shell (who DID participate in events when possible) and ultimately that helps him do better during our events too right?

Either way, there was never anything I could have said I think to change the decision that had been made, or reinstate the 100pts that Xean had lost in the very beginning. And I guess to this day, it always kinda stayed with me.

But I never left, nor did I leave the time that leadership made a mistake and allowed a member who had been inactive to lot the B.Haidate on their first day back. Had leadership kept the "inactive list" up to date and organized, that member would have not been able to bid that day and I would have been first up for the B.Haidate. Instead though, i'd end up waiting 2 months before we were able to kill another Byakko.

Despite those two things happening, I felt loyal to the shell and to many of the veteran members. And I know that even though mistakes were made, and things weren't handled as fairly as I would have liked, the leaders didn't have any ill intent. So I stayed with them and continued to be present for all runs and help the members reach their goals.

It just became really evident that as time passed, I was having a harder time dealing with the laid back attitude. I don't expect people to treat this game as a job, you are suppose to enjoy it. But I guess I was starting to expect too much of people, and wanting things to be more organized and more efficient so that more could be accomplished. Ever since Xean quit, I've realized how much of a time sink the game is. It was fine when i'd be playing with him 24/7, and i'm sure many couples can relate that playing with your partner changes the experience for you. But things happened, and he quit and soon I found out how easy it can be to feel burnt out in the game. You can really see just how much time you have to put in into the game just to get one item, and sometimes it seems really discouraging.

To add to this, my own social LS was starting to pick up a few new members that hadn't yet hit 75, and we even had a few people return from year long breaks. I really wanted to be present as a leader, and be around to help them out and I was finding that with my sky, limbus, dynamis commitments, I just wasn't having the time I wanted. I would find myself longing to be in my social shell doing some fun random quest, rather than being up in sky which more often than not, had a lot of "sit around and do nothing" time (at least when we did gods)

So rather than continue to feel miserable during my ffxi time, I wrote to my sky ls and told them that I would be leaving at the end of this month. I thanked them for all that they had done for me, because in truth they are the reason I have the sky gear that I do. I know that I feel very grateful to the ls, and it still kinda feels wrong in a way to leave them without knowing that every member has obtained the gear they wanted. I just hope that with my last month, we'll be able to knock a lot out of the way.

Now that I think about it all though, I'm pretty sure i'll be talking with the shell leader and just letting him know that if ever they need outside help for something, to send me a /tell in game. I enjoy the fights a lot. But I think its finally time for me to say farewell to sky and focus a bit more on the things in the game that make me happiest, which is being amongst my social ls members and seeing them progress. My social ls doesn't have a lot of people that are "uberly" geared, or even have more than 1 lvl 75... in fact, we have many that play so casually that even after 2yrs they still haven't reached 75. But I find that they seem to have the most appreciative and caring personalities and really, they're the people that kept me playing after all this time.

Well, I had plans to include other stuff in this update... but, its longer than I planned it to be. So i'll probably have to make another update this week and post what other things i've been up to. We'll see :)