Teleports, Minotaurs, & Hiatuses

I've continued to work on leveling my WHM with the Roughnecks group and even managed to party with them and Feon on one occasion, since he wanted to hang out & get some EXP on his RSE-clad Monk (which of course got some more "compliments" from Lexxi ^_^).

The citadel doesn't leave much for a WHM in the mid 30's to worry about, other than the healing, particularly when a RDM is already handling the enfeebles. But the occasional Erase did come in handy now & then, particularly when Spoil was reducing damage output, or an unintentional tank was suffering from an Evasion Down effect. Links were another matter, but when aren't they?

I'd been preparing for 36 earlier in the week, running to Gusgen Mines for my Teleport-Holla, repurchasing the Teleport-Dem scroll I had quested & sold long ago, and trying my luck with the Teleport-Mea ??? point, which I fortunately found on my first try in the easiest spawn location in the Necropolis.

I dinged 36 a few nights ago and tried my hand at tele-taxi'ing yesterday, which was pretty fun with the exception of a couple of people who randomly tried to sabotage my endeavor. Apparently some asses are still working on getting their hats on Ifrit; that's all I'm going to say.

Anyhow, the requests for Yhoat and Altep were catching my eye, and I decided to prepare for level 38, heading out to Kazahm to begin the Elshimo marble quest for Teleport-Yhoat.

I loathe these types of quests, and hope to see less of them in future MMOs. If you want a player to feel engaged and motivated, you do not hand him/her a couple of 20-sided dice and ask him/her to roll until a 5 comes up. This is what the Tele-Yhoat quest amounted to... killing Ivory Lizards over & over with no changes in odds or any measurable progress.

When I get a quest like this, I read the following in its design: "We the developers, think the quality of your time in our game is worth crap. But thanks for paying your monthly fee, have a nice day, and... good luck!"

Am I insulted? Yeah. Did I still do it? After three or four hours of inanity, yeah I eventually got the drop, and flipped the proverbial bird to SE when I did. Yes, I know there's a lot more of this in FFXI, and I'm well aware of the intention of such design, but it doesn't mean I'll ever respect this particular style of implementation. There are other ways to keep people logged into your game.

I look forward to attempting the Teleport-Altep key item tonight. Wandering around risky zones to a definite goal is a bit more up my alley.

As I was resuming my tele-taxi service last night, I got a /tell from my old friend Gimppy, with whom I've been keeping in touch off & on since we began the game back in 2004. He was accompanying a group of friends on a CoP 2-3 run and invited me out on a whim, assuming I'd actually be further along on my CoP's.

As I hastily purchased a set of level 40 gear for WAR and ran out to the Tavnazian Safehold, I got a series of /tells from Feon who wanted to meet up with me to give me some of his gear for use and safekeeping. And I'm not just talking level 40 gear here...

Feon let me know that Cozmos and he would be away from the game for awhile, which immediately saddened me. It was difficult to process this as the CoP party was gearing up and communicating on logistics, but I did let him know, as I will here, that I'll greatly miss both of them. I trust that their time away will be recuperative, I do hope to see them again soon. I'm really flattered that he's entrusted some of his possessions to me in his absence and, at his request, will indeed put them to good use until he returns rather than stare at them in my Mog Locker (as I'm prone to do when he does such things).

The CoP mission got off to a rough start, when the first Minotaur fight ended in a party wipe (several Mortal Rays killed party members, including myself), requiring everyone to HP to the four corners of Vanadiel and run back to the safehold.

Our second attempt was quite a bit more coordinated and we'd acquired a NIN tank who did an excellent job of avoiding Mortal Ray & staying alive. I also had the pleasure of delivering the killing blow to the Minotaur.

After killing a few Fomors for our key, our NIN decided to come back as THF to pick the gate lock rather than take more time to farm, since the hour was getting late. At some point on our journey to the library, we fought one of the Stegotaurs and I neglected his Mortal Ray, earning me another death for the night. Other than that, the rest of the mission went rather well, and we completed our cutscenes up through 2-4 before passing out.

As a temporary /farewell to Feon, I'll close this entry with a picture that captures him in a nutshell. I give you Feon, solo'ing a Marid (and its Chigoes)... for shits & grins:

See you again soon, my friend.