More Elvaan strangeness.

Taru perspective allows me to make new discoveries.


This is the Elvaan M idle stance. The heel of his left foot is hovering above the ground. Whether deliberate or not, now that I've noticed it this is going to bug me forever (much like the backwards beetle foot) and I'm going to be looking Elvaan feet for the rest of my life.

The weekend thus far.

This weekend began on a good note:



And so began the meriting...uh, looking for party frenzy.

Nobody wanted to party with me, so I went to kill stuff (mainly time) in Sea for a bit (the outside area is reaaaly nice, I just don't go there much so I get to appreciate it more when I actually do. Anyway, time there was spent killing stuff for a Relaxing earring. 2/5 on organs, 1/5 on tissue for that (out of about 20 kills, orz).


Discontented with the poor drop rate, I shouted at an Aern's head. I made sure to ridicule his preferance for the weird space music that the play in that area. I went back another time with Arc (on BLM) which made for much faster kills, but no drops that time (THF next time methinks!). I also managed to die to Aern aggro (or what I thought was aggro, brought about by my hurtful remarks made earlier) which was actually down to an accidental sleepga that I didn't notice.

After more seeking and monitoring shouts in whitegate, I join a FL assault shout for Ilrusi Atoll.


(Goblin Dude) Hey, I bet you guys can't kill this Khimaira!

We did.
Wasn't too hard, we had the JP NIN kite the goblin and hold it by the entrance (he did a great job, only lost 200 or so HP on his own for the whole fight, I gave him a little /cheer at the end so he didn't feel alienated from the group). Then everyone else was free to fight Khim - we were lucky not to see any Fulminations from it.
13 more clears to Captain!

I upgraded my Thalassocrat!


...to a signed Thalassocrat. :o
Not that I actually know the person who signed it, but the previous owner needed to sell it and didn't want to lose the name, so I swapped mine.

This was followed by yet more seeking and then a party invite!

..then the leader told me the person I was replacing had logged back on.

Fortunately this meant I didn't miss a shout for Shadows of the Departed (pre-requsite for Apocalypse Nigh) all went well.


One step closer to an Ethereal Earring! wooo


I tried seducing Esha'ntarl, but she was too caught up in talking about fighting stuff. :(


Eventually I did get a party, Arc was leveling SAM from 73~75 so I went to prod stuff at Mamool Ja staging point for a couple of hours.


Second place :(
But considering I lost by only 2.5% (counting wyvern damage) to a Black Belt MNK/WAR, there's no hard feelings here.
Arc was 73~74 SAM/NIN, and Ilanthe was a MNK/NIN
Only 82% accuracy for me (ate meat, no acc boosts - march/minuet), but alot of that might be oweing to the fact that Puks are dicks. I never really felt like I was missing alot, even on the NIN mamools.

Firsts.

To celebrate 100 posts of me documenting my mostly underwhelming activities in Vana'diel, here's some old screenshots!


My very first screenshot! I made sure to find a quiet area so I could play with the emotes without bothering people (naturally I was unaware of the 'motion' suffix at this point).


My first plant! It yielded rock salt in the end.


This is actually the first (and only) time I've seen the HQ ram NM in La Theine. It was hueg like xbox, maybe even bigger.


First deathwarp? I decided to go as THF so I could flee to the zone and get it done faster, only realising it takes forever for them to kill me at level 25. I linked everything I could find and still made it to the top of the hill in North Gustaberg before dying. Good thing no-one was waiting on me.


First boat ride!


First time in Jeuno! I spent the whole trip casting deodorize on myself thinking it would help me avoid detection, which apparantly wasn't enough when a raptor started chomping on me not far from the gates. I was saved by a level 50~something JP paladin, and I thought he must've been the highest level guy in the game.


First airship ride! I remember that someone else I did the mission with missed the ship when we were supposed to ride together :( I can't remember who they were though...


I remember being jealous of Countess' rdm stuff - at this point it was RSE, then it moved on to AF, and now I want that Morri robe/D. chap combo.
Some things don't change D:

Shantotto confirmed for Dissidia?!

Some pics from VanaFest:





I didn't think they'd include FFXI characters, and can't tell if this is a joke or not... there's no villain announced yet, but there's so many in the game it's hard to guess, plus Shantoto doesn't really have an arch-nemesis that I'm aware of. I would have thought Aldo/Zeid would be a better choice vs one of the Zilart brothers, Prishe/Promathia might have done well also. We'll see.

If they are putting XI characters in then I'm definately getting it (even if I have to borrow a friends' PSP to play it). And it will be awesomeee~

Oh shit son.

So I return home and discover that the economy is in recession (I live under a rock when away from home) but as a spoilt middle class child I think I'm safe for now, apart from the some ten thousand pounds in savings I had in an Icelandic account (oops) but that's technically the government's money, so I'll just point them to it when they ask for it back. Gordon Brown and his jowels are very angry.
We'll see what the government's planning in tomorrow's pre-budget report but by that point I'll probably have stopped caring.


Stuff what I missed.

A Pandemonium Warden attempt, on Hades no less, occured while I was gone. What a gyp :|
Hopefully someone recorded bits of it, I want to see :(

Some kinda crazy new 'expansion chapters' are being produced.


From the looks of things these are going to be kinda like purchaseable quests/missions. Hopefully it will be as impressive and entertaining as the ToAU/WotG mission cutscenes, but based on the original/zilart content. Definately will be giving these a try.

Vana'fest was this weekend as well, there's a good bunch of announcements from that, I'm sure...but I'm not going into it all but I skimmed over this blog and discovered that they're adding some new low-level battle system that isn't the maze stuff, SCH and DNC group 2 merits as well as relic gear (cue the excessive COR/BLU/PUP QQing about having to wait 43910 decades for theirs), plus eyepatches and explaining the purpose behind the Glory Crown. Yay.

AFK.

I'm actually making use of my railcard and going home for a few days so I'll actually have to find something other than FFXI to kill time with. Shouldn't be hard considering the amount of reading I should have got done already (in an ideal world). Hohoho, this could be interesting as I've no idea of the route, where I'm supposed to change trains etc. so I could potentially end up in many places with no way of getting back plus a hefty fine for not having the appropriate ticket.


Getting hit with Terror during a jump can lead to you being frozen in some pretty cool positions, but if you change gear too fast it just resets you in some lame standing pose. If I could have got a clearer shot of that before I blinked (and without the terror JA effect), it would have looked great.

The results of a recent party:



Blackpearl = WAR/NIN
Boomstam = RNG/WAR
Me = DRG/SAM
Sneeuwvssaljaioegadlkfetc = THF/NIN
Blueeye = PLD/WAR
Elexa = RDM/WHM (I felt this person's pain)

No brd, no cor? No way. Would be my usual response to such a setup if I were on rdm, but I still jumped at the chance to do something more than seek for a party on DRG (typically I'll be asked to change to rdm to allow some domaru SAM or lv.73 WAR/THF to sponge mp off me). It wasn't terrible, but I didn't keep track of exp/hour so I didn't feel like I was wasting my time.

But I really wanted to see what my accuracy was like on birds without buffs, which was 93~94% in the first half hour, but slowly dropped to around 90% towards the end (1~2 hours? I should've kept track)). The main reason I think it dropped was because I kept getting Flash from the PLD reflected onto me, which also caused a fun instance of completely missing with a Penta Thrust.

Despite this, I still managed to perform pretty well, especially outdoing a RNG/WAR of all things, and by quite a margin - although he did die twice (I wonder why...) which would put things in my favour, I think he still continued to fight (with a little more discretion) while weakened. It just shows in a mediocre group you can't just throw caution to the wind and go all-out expecting the mob to die so quickly that you don't 'need' shadows or Seigan.

I don't know what the WAR was playing at to parse that low, and the THF was pulling which explains their low %. PLD is a PLD and as such did less than my wyvern.

Thankfully, it was one of those groups that actually disband after a couple of hours instead of constantly replacing people until none of the original group is left.



So we all got a teleport and a D2 from the THF, yay!

Wheeling thrust still sucks, I missed 2 of the 4 that I did ._.
...I need to try getting my Sea gorgets. And homam. And a V. fork. And Aurum D:<

Still a long way to go, but I'm pretty satisfied with my DRG as it is. Obviously I'll be less satisfied when I do something that matters and fail utterly at it, so it's a good thing I have RDM :D

The only redeeming feature of city dynamis...

...is exploring other people's mog houses. Dier's is awesome.



I spent most of my time in there playing on the harpsichord, so no pictures of anything else, but it's really nice. Almost inspires me to make an effort with mine if I wasn't so stingy.


I've not done much recently, I spent most of my time over the weekend sleeping in the library. Although Xarp helped me kill the Impulse Drive WSNM, so now I can solo Light skillchains once every two hours - I've not pulled it off yet, I only tried in Besiged but that has people spamming WS every 3 seconds. I skilled staff a bit, so now I have the skill in a nice reassuring blue number on RDM/WHM (long way to go for DRG) and I did a bit of meriting, unlocking Deep Breathing, Empathy, and level 1 Jump and High Jump recasts. It's quite a difficult choice deciding where I'm going to stand after finishing Group 2, it's likely I'll only use DRG for soloing and meriting if I'm not wanted on RDM (lol) so I might cater for those applications.

I started giving reasons for my choices, but it took forever to type out, so I'll just say at the moment I'm planning on 5 Deep Breathing, 3 Angon, 2 Empathy. 5 Jump/High Jump for group 1. I have a feeling I'll keep forgetting to use Deep Breathing, so I'll wait a while to see if I use it much before getting more merits into it. No point in having it on a 5 min timer if I only remember to use it every 15 mins.

Goblin mazes and some crazy shit like that.

Nothing I can say about this matters, but I feel like I should waste my time thinking about it anyway.



When a nondescript manhole first popped up one day on the streets of Jeuno, none of us gave it more than a passing glance. Little did we suspect it would be the gateway to a subterranean world of adventure and riches...

Today we get up close and personal with the industrious Moblin entrepreneur whose new business venture is set to take Vana'diel by storm. Your intrepid reporter Finleen has the exclusive scoop with Maze Mongers President and CEO Goldagrik right here!

This is one of the more unlikely promises made that SE have actually followed through on - but are player made dungeons going to be the highlight or a nasty side effect of the version update?

As should be expected, there's not enough information to warrant more than speculating, and so this could either make the upcoming version update one of epic win or epic fail (brace for the latter is the best advice I could give). These two possible outcomes shall be discussed in more detail:

The potential for a successful system
For this outcome to occur, there should be options to include the following in dungeons - Multiple levels, bridges, trap doors, levers for said doors, poison-plant thingies from Attowha Chasm, fun swamp effects like the gravity or flee effect from Caedarva Mire, a very generous limit on objects allowed in dungeons (if any). Of course there is such a thing as too many objects, but that's where player discretion comes in to create a good one.

More importantly, monsters should give exp/drops (within reason) in said dungeon. I don't care either way about exp loss, just as long as there is the potential to actually benefit from playing in them. Obviously nothing silly like a Fafhogg farming dungeon, but being able to create a perfect merit camp for your party would resolve problems for congested servers (however this might cause problems like the entire content of the rest of the game being disregarded in favour of a convenient player dungeon).

The mention of "Profitable mazes with piles of treasure to be had!" is interesting. I don't see them putting existing gear in there; it just wouldn't make sense. Perhaps sellable/craftable items as rewards, but then what stops people from spamming them to make money, and saturate every market there is for valuable goods? Star Sapphires however can never be too common, so I suggest at least 5 of these drop from every mob in the area.

(at this point, I'm sure you're dying to learn of my assault progress...)


Blitzkrieg and Marids in the Mist cleared - now all Mamool assaults are done and 15 more to Captain!

A likely outcome?
The more cynical side of me anticipates that there will be no exp granted by anything within the dungeons, and especially not drops if you're allowed to put HNM 'bosses' in there. Perhaps no exp loss inside, but that's hardly compensation if there's nothing to be gained anyway. It's probable that if they do implement a reward system, it might be a points-based one (which looking at assaults isn't too bad of an idea) but then it depends on what you can obtain as rewards. If it's furniture and costume items (hitherechocoboracing) then it will fall flat on its face. If we get yet more decent~ok sidegradeable gear for 70~75s to add to the already overwhelming array of dynamis/abjurations/salvage/assault/nyzul stuff available then I couldn't really say, it's not like we need more gear but then again that's all people really want from these things. What else is there? Gil rewards? Exp rewards? Exp certainly won't beat the potential of a good merit party so that would be a mistake.

I hate having to wait to find out, but I'll probably have forgotten about it in a couple of hours anyway D:<


But who knows, so what if the rewards suck? If they don't restrict the options for the creation of dungeons so much that it limits you to creating a bland, flat, open area it could actually be fun. Now there's a first.

Job adjustments scheduled for the December Version update!

...or so I hoped to see on the Playonline front page this week. Instead, there's some advert for FFXI junk for sa-

ASDGJSKAGH:GJ@~:AgGKL SWEET JESUS £87 for a ring D:

If buying one got me an in-game item (dalmy plox), then I'd consider it...wow, £87. No doubt there's postage and packaging to consider on top of that.


On the other hand, the gobbie and mandragora straps look pretty decent and are at least reasonably priced - unfortunately, all my strap-based needs (ie: nothing) are already catered for.

GG, SE. Now where's my job adjustments?

I also have discovered the USD has gone up against GBP by quite a lot since I last checked (1 USD = 0.649317 GBP).

Now I knew it was going back up again, but I hadn't realised it was by this much (last I knew it was 1: 0.5ish) so now importing stuff isn't worth the bother any more considering postage, customs charges and Parcel Farce's ever-popular 'handling fees'. If I could find a courier that could dodge customs reliably (and not just on occasion), it would still be worthwhile, but now I'm just gonna have to put up with UK prices. Today is a sad day :(

So long, Simurgh.

The three hours spent waiting for it to pop were at least not in vain. As I've said about many things in the past, including previous Simurgh camping excursions; never again.

Elvaan are not ordinary.

If you disagree with the statement above, you are simply wrong. There is no such thing as an opinion in this matter.



This was taken from the most recent San d'Orian WoTG story quest. It is a good quest.


Lol, Zogbog. Best NPC so far in the storyline, it will be a shame having to kill him :(



I just thought I'd share this as well, though it could have done with zooming in a bit more and I forgot to hide the UI, I like how smug I look in it. Of course it now occurs to me I could have cropped it, I'm not in any mood to go back and do that now.

Version Update news!

We're pleased to announce that the next FINAL FANTASY XI version update is on track for an early December release. In addition to the long-awaited continuation of the epic Wings of the Goddess mission arc, this patch will also feature new content designed with low-level players in mind, brand-new systems unlike anything you've seen in Vana'diel before, and much, much more!

All the exciting details will be announced here as they become available, so be sure to check back on a regular basis!

When the dramatic revelations posed to the player in Wings of the Goddess missions (such as "Who is the Cutest dancer? ^_^" and "Hi, I'm Cait Sith. You know, from FFVII.") have pushed the story into and far beyond the hallowed realms of epicness, the very thought of expanding on these already deep and vivid themes seems an almost impossible feat to even the most imaginitive of fans. Yet here we are, reading of the Final Fantasy XI development team's promise to further still contribute to this inspiring tale of love, dreams and honour in a time where the very existence of our ancestors are locked in a bitter struggle for survival with the most terrible of adversaries, all allied under the sinister standard of the Shadow Lord with only the common desire for destruction of the forces of Altana shared between them!

The fact that we already know the outcome of said struggle is neither here nor there, and that it will continue to rage once we've all completed the missions and brought an end to the Shadow Lord's devious schemes (again) is not of much concern to the characters involved in the story because they're not the ones having to endure that damn Campaign Battle music.


Would you like to see a picture of a Galka Scholar? I'm going to show you anyway.



No? Perhaps you're curious to see the inside of Carbuncle's face?



Not even a flying Orc takes your fancy?



No? Oh well.


The only thing the WotG missions (not counting the side quests) have achieved thus far is make an Elvaan male look impressive in combat, which is an astounding achievement considering how the race just looks so anatomically incorrect even when simply running.

Anyway, yay for low-level content, new (battle?) systems, too early to speculate, etc. etc. Much, much, more better not equate to chocobo racing additions, red mage job adjustments where?, etc, etc.

I think I'll just leave this here.