Zilart Mission 8 complete, Minotaur Re-redux

I haven't focussed on EXP'ing much this past week, and have even taken the past two nights "off", but the week contained enough events to constitute a good time.

Last Friday, Feon and posse (Cozmos, Ishy) kindly offered assistance with ZM8, which was completed pretty quickly although I managed to pull hate off of Feon at a rather inopportune time and died to Kam'lanaut's Light Blade move. Fortunately Kam was near death, so Feon was able to Mijin Gakure away the rest of his HP.

The Pallas pop item dropped while we'd had been killing our way to the BC, so we killed that NM on the way out of Delkfutt. No bracelets, though. -_-

I set up a CoP 2-3 run for the Roughnecks on Monday, which would be my third time completing this mission, and it still retained the fun factor!

Out of curiosity, I decided to be the person who runs solo to the Minotaur & draws the rest of the party in. Although the path is straightforward, the run certainly was an exciting exercise in dodging True Sight agro from the Steg/Taurus mobs.

A dry run (sans Roughnecks) had taught me a valuable lesson that I hadn't learned in my prior completions of this mission: Steg/Taurus line of sight extends upward, meaning they will agro you from he bottom of a ladder if you stand too close to the edge. Unfortunately, this makes it really difficult to gauge the direction of the mob's sight when it stands directly under the ladder unless a tail is sticking out to provide some indication.

My "real" attempt went more smoothly although I still agro'd a Taurus around G-7 on the second map (sometimes they just turn at the worst times). Refusing to start the whole thing over, I decided to just... run my ass off to see what would happen. My shadows were eventually stripped and I took 2-3 hits, but I managed to get up the next ladder without interruption and ran a bit more. Apparently the ladder slowed the mob's pursuit, resulting in enough distance for a despawn. This was definitely a heart-thumping moment, so I had to compose myself at K-5, and the final stretch eventually cleared.

The Minotaur fight itself went smoothly, although Ahmber faced Mortal Ray and was Doomed... apparently without Holy Water since he died at the conclusion of the fight. A few more people died to Mortal Ray that night, due to the same reason, which leads me to believe that, despite reading walkthroughs and warnings, people will just never really look for the move nor bring the curative item until it actually happens to them at least once (and no, I can't say I'm an exception to this... see my recounting of my own CoP 2-3 run ^_^;).

The rest of the mission was completed without a hitch. Rather than farm the Bronze Key, Ahmber had brought his THF and a Skeleton Key (or several, I'm not sure) and managed to pick the lock on the first attempt, which saved us a ton of time.

All in all it was a fun mission, even though there were moments where I just had to telegraph or bark instructions to prevent mishaps or to just enable me to focus on where I was going but simultaneously direct/inform the group. I might have inherited this style from a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, but I'll try to make more of an attempt to be a bit more respectful with my orders. Hard to do in the heat of the moment sometimes, though.

To blog or not to blog

Another long pause between posts. My free time is really dwindling, to the point where even lunch at work consists of stuffing my face as I continue coding. So...I'm running out of places in the day to compose my thoughts and type something up.

Blogging about FFXI is becoming part of the opportunity cost when I decide to log on and actually play FFXI rather than blog about it. That said, I'll put up a quick entry while my kids are getting ready for bed.

I've accomplished quite a few things this week, some solo, some with the help of my friends.

Feon and his group assisted me in completing ZM6, which was a fun fight, excepting the part where I ate an Eagle Eye Shot when my shadows were down, and died on the next strike. Hooray for no EXP loss in ZM BC fights!

A couple of evenings later, Feon invited me to participate in the slaying of the Quadav king: Za'Dha Adamantking. It was a longish fight, mostly because Za'Dha is a WHM and used Benediction at one point, later followed by high Cure spam. But we eventually took him down and got our title, albeit no 10-million-gil-club dropped.

With the assistance of the Roughnecks, I've reached level 42 on my WHM. Although this was my initial goal for the job, I'm seriously considering a longer WHM career, if only for the fun of it. I do enjoy the job, I won't lie.

On the solo front, I completed my Blessed Hammer quest, then went on to kill many of Marchelute's cousins in Fei'Yin for a relatively quick key drop (about 1.5 to 2 hours) and eventual completion of my Teleport-Vahzl quest. Yes, I'm now a full fledged teleport monkey!

This Just In: Powerleveling still sucks

For some godforsaken reason, I neglected to go /anon when I logged in last night and, on a whim, accepted an invitation to party in the Crawler's Nest.

I was on a bit early, and I figured it would be a good way to play EXP-catchup with the Roughnecks static. Of course, both Lexxi and Murrdoc got on earlier than I expected, and within minutes of accepting the invitation, Feon & Coz also invited me on another Titan Prime run.

I made a stupid decision and remained with the party.

When I got out there, I was absolutely stunned to find a powerleveler. We had a Bard, we had decent DD, we had a Paladin. Why this 75 RDM? I was so flustered, I forgot to even buff the party when I got there, not that it would have made a difference. I never got a chance to throw on a decent cure except during the off moments when the PL slipped up. At least I was allowed to remove status ailments, but ... that was about it. I came very, very close to just running in and meleeing the mob out of boredom.

And of course, as with most PL'd parties I've experienced, people died or came close to dying on more than one occasion, and the EXP sucked, for the usual reasons.

A. Overcamping. We were stationed in the 'hidden' chamber. The first pull was an Exoray (our level range was 37-39), which took a good 5 minutes to kill. Subsequent pulls were mostly IT++ Flies which were taking several minutes to kill, with the occasional Crawler (which we should have been targeting exclusively).

B. No communication with the PL. Downtime would suddenly be interrupted by some insane pull hitting the WAR/NIN (sans shadows) for massive HP and no response from the PL (ostensibly AFK) and myself fumbling for the Cure3 and pulling hate, or not being fast enough and watching the puller die.

C. No hate management. The PLD was always in the white and was losing hate to the MNK constantly.

D. Boring the living shit out of the WHM. The status ailments were all that kept me awake, and this boredom would really backfire when the PL would go AFK without announcing it.

So I reached level 39 tonight without earning it. /hurray for powerleveling.

No more pickups for awhile for me...

WHM 38, Teletaxi Income, Mammets

Due to a lack of free time, I'll need to keep this entry brief.

Part of the past week was spent leveling WHM to 38 with the Roughnecks. After a slew of nights in the Garlaige Citadel, which from a healer's perspective is a bit dull, I was happy to start EXPing in the Crawler's Nest. I had to keep my eyes constantly glued to the screen to remove Slow & Poison, keep the tank Regen'd & healed, and took whatever chances I could to rest during the fights since the pickup puller was pretty aggressive (and I didn't want to drink away all of my gil). The pace and timing of the work gave me more respect for healers in status-effect heavy areas such as Caedarva Mire.

This level unlocked Teleport-Yhoat and Teleport-Altep for me, which gives me more opportunity to earn tele-taxi gil, and comes in quite handy for a quick hop to those zones when I'm not within easy reach of a Sandy warp. I'm actually surprised at the earning power of teleports, particularly during prime time, especially considering that 1 or 2k is worth quite a bit more than say... a year ago. This leaves me to wonder how long it will take for prices to drop to the old 500 gil standby from days of yore.

A few nights ago, I assisted Lycasdemus with another Minotaur fight. This went much more smoothly than my last one, since everyone was prepared and several of us had completed the mission before.

On the night before last, I rejoined the same group and went through Promathia Mission 2-5. Yes...the Mammets. The group consisted of WHM, RNG, WAR, PLD, SAM, and an additional healer for the journey through Riverne. It took awhile to get the Giant Scales to drop, but nothing monumental, and we dodged Hyppogryph agro without major incident.

At the Mammet fight, we employed the strategy that involves a single kiter (in this case RNG) agroing all targets without hitting them, rendering the kiter healable without the danger of pulling hate. Meanwhile a single puller brings the first Mammet to the entrance and the party goes all out, killing it as quickly as possible and moving on to the second. We managed to kill this one as well right before the party wiped, putting us in an excellent position to finish the battle once reraised. We had about 10 minutes left, I believe, when we completed the mission.

We trudged on through all the cutscenes and I logged out after the Overgrown Ivy fight for some badly needed sleep (it was 2AM). I still need to complete the Windy portion of the story branch, including the Antlion fight, but that will need to wait until another day.

Wow, Lost Odyssey! (Off Topic)

Caught this on the Destructoid feed. Famitsu has released shots & basic info concerning a new RPG titled Lost Odyssey, which will ostensibly be released at the end of the year.

I'm glad the 360 will finally be getting something besides Oblivion and Blue Dragon in the way of RPG's, and this title's pedigree (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu) sounds rather promising.

By the way, am I the only one who isn't that enthused about Blue Dragon? It seems incredibly generic and drab to me, even for an RPG. Maybe my bias against Torayama's style is influencing my appreciation of the "gameplay", but the videos I've seen have been less than impressive, in my opinion.

/shrug.

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.

Friends

Progress slowed a bit this past week when I fell ill, losing my voice for a couple of days, and taking a concomitant pair of days "off" from FFXI for sleep. WHM is currently at 33 with a healthy buffer, steadily approaching the teleport-enabled 36.

In preparation, I've worked on my reputation in the starter towns, going beyond the requisite level 4 for teleports since the task was quite dull and I wanted to get as much of it completed in one fell swoop as I could. I'm a hero in Windy now (as well as Sandy, of course), and still working on hero status in Bastok (currently level 7).

I've developed a few macro'd "sets" of WHM gear to play around with, rather than going whole hog on the +MP, since this really only benefits me when my MP sits between the base value and the boosted 100% value. Once my MP dips below base, I swap in as much +MND gear as I can afford, which seems to make a barely noticeable difference in Cure potency, but I assume assists in getting enfeebles to "stick" and boosts Bar spells a bit. To Lexxi's delight, I wear several pieces of my RSE, which usually launches her into a series of icescapades jokes.

Quantitative accomplishments and tinkerings aside, I'm encountering a social quandary in FFXI, denoted by the title of my entry. I'm not going to complain about it, but I'll admit that it simultaneously flusters and flatters me; an odd combination of emotions to juggle.

As some of you might have noticed, I have several separate but close circles of friends, and I care about them equally. They're always welcoming, endearing, and special in their own idiosyncracies, dynamics, and goals. I enjoy spending time with these groups, yet sometimes I feel I'm slighting one when favoring another and it becomes difficult to gauge how I'm being perceived by all involved. I don't want to come off as some opportunistic, Machiavellian whore, but I fear this is precisely what I appear to be when I make a decision to "cut over" to another LS for the evening depending upon how much time & energy I have, or what mood I'm in.

I know, most should be so lucky. Again, I'm not going to complain, but I do want to assure the parties involved that I do care about all of you. You're more than an enrichment for me in this game. Without my Vana'diel family, I honestly would have quit FFXI sometime in September of last year, when joyless EXP with strangers and endless solo grinding on crafts and skills were distancing me from the game. I would have missed out on so much if I hadn't been welcomed, almost simultaneously as it turns out, by the Roughnecks and DarkEden. I can't thank you enough.

At the risk of overly extending this entry, I do want to send a /salute to Minusjoker, who decided to quit the game after returning a few nights ago to confirm his feelings and gain a final sense of closure. It was a privilege to game with him. I know he'll continue to be in touch with the Roughneck group through other channels, but he will definitely be missed in Vana'diel. To seal the act, he generously donated his tradeable inventory to the Roughnecks, and gave me his Chivalrous Chain which I'll wear with pride and memory.

Farewell, Minusjoker. I hope you continue to show the same character, humor, and dedication in pursuing your accomplishments in the real world, or future MMOs for that matter. ^_^

WHM 30, Lebros Cavern, Decimation

I've continued to progress in leveling WHM since my last update, hitting 30 as of last night. All of the EXP was earned via the hijinks of the RoughnecksUnited group. Surprisingly, I didn't need to use Raise until last night when a Goblin Smithy brought our deathless streak to an end, using some curiously opportunistic AI to go after Murrdoc while the party was slept.

The roster throughout the week usually included Lexxi, Murrdoc, and myself, with a rotating assortment of LS members including Raikoh, Ahmber, Quan, and Maloc.

As entertaining as the larger group was, I think the most comical night of the week was when our core trio partied with a spectacularly gimpy pickup. What made it so funny was partially sleep deprivation, but also the gradual process of discovering the gimpiness, combined with that unmistakable sense of overconfidence that clings to the newbies at these levels.

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail, but a sketch will make things pretty clear. We weren't sure what the BLM was actually doing in the party. He would alternate between overnuking, staring at the mob, repeatedly checking the party, and resting for huge stretches at a time. The WAR was hitting the Mandies like... a Mandy and wasn't using his hate tools all that much, favoring the /emote channel to lay down some Iron Maiden. Yeah.

When we eventually checked the two screwballs, the equipment definitely fit the picture. A /check on the BLM revealed that he wore mostly melee equipment, not a stitch of +MP gear, and sported a set of... Courage Rings.

The WAR/MNK, while seemingly aiming in the right direction with a Moth Axe (hadn't upgraded to a Neckchopper yet) and the right subjob for tanking at this level (which is a rare sight on WAR), decided to leave his Ear, Finger, Back, and Waist slots empty.

I was a little harsh when I told Doc & Lexxi that he seemed to have "purchased his gear from the I Don't Give a Fuck kit at the Warrior Shack", but in a sense it was true. If you bother to google your job (which can't be said for Mr. Courageous BLM), at least go all the way and equip yourself completely, otherwise your research is useless.

The rest of the EXP was accumulated with people who actually knew how to play the game, which was fun in its own right, though not nearly as comical.

During our Mandy-slaying grind, I've been using Barsleepra on the faith that it does... something. Can anyone attest to what this Bar spell actually does? Shorter sleep times? It doesn't seem to really "Bar" anything, but this might be the result of lower Enhancing Magic at these levels. I'll keep using it until someone tells me it's definitely worthless.

On Thursday night, Feon invited me to an Assault run on Lebros cavern, which went well. They chipped and DoT'd away at the walls, and I cluelessly followed them around, doing the same. At one point, I mistakenly followed Cozmos to the wall that she was supposed to solo DoT, but fortunately my brief error didn't ruin the mission and I came out with 1270 more Assault points. Around 6700 to go until I can buy that Chivalrous Chain.

After the Assault run, Feon, Audessa, Cozmos (piloted by John), and Ishy (piloted by Feon), kindly accompanied me to the Temple of Uggalepih to complete my WSNM fight with Yallery Brown for the Decimation weapon skill. The battle was over quickly and I blew my 2-hour on a final Rampage to kill it off (probably needlessly, but it's not like I was going to actually use Benediction on WHM). Although I technically have the weapon skill unlocked now, I'm ashamed to say I haven't used it yet but I do hope to get a screenshot soon.

On the way back from the WSNM, we killed the Goblin Archaeologist once again, but lost the 3 gold coins as we zoned to Jugner. -_-; We then headed to Davoi to kill an Orc NM by the name of Dirtyhanded Gochakzuk for Ishy, which didn't pan out because of some changes made to the area which prevents a straight pull from the fort to the Monastic Cavern zone (you can no longer drop down the ledges on the way there).

We eventually made a straight attempt with 4 (Feon, Ishy, Audessa, and me) by clearing most of the mobs on the way to the central room, but the fight itself was quite brutal, especially when the NM used Manafont, spammed -ga spells, and was nearly immune to Silence. Subsequent attempts might require Carby pulling the NM out of the central room.

All in all, a good, productive week, with a little adventure thrown in!

P.S. Yeah, yeah, pics will be up later.

Semi Off-Topic

I've been having a hard time keeping up with the Destructoid feed lately, but a preview article for The Darkness immediately caught my eye. After the disappointing reviews for Shadowrun, I'm seriously looking forward to this game as my next "smart" FPS. The gameplay mechanic seems sadistically interesting, the graphics are gorgeous, and ... Mike Patton performs the voice of the "darkness." How friggin' perfect is that?

Progress on WHM, Axe, Sword, Fishing, and Tomfoolery

Here I go feeling like a swiss army knife again.

Progress has been steady on my WHM. In preparation for more Roughneck EXP, I acquired my pair of Mycophile Cuffs on my first Mycophile kill earlier in the week. Hooray for free gear.

I reached level 25 a few nights ago with the Roughnecks, giving me the privilege of casting my first Raise on Lexxi (I swear I didn't let her die on purpose, just to try my new spell. No, seriously).

When our EXP session concluded, I indulged a sleep-deprivation-induced whim and ran back to Jeuno to gear up as a "buttersheep", the warrior vernacular for WAR/WHM.

I had to equip my MP earrings & rings, Friar's Rope, and the walmart turban, but I finally had enough MP to raise and toss on a couple of cures. I pictured running around Qufim and horrifying newbies as an elvaan Warrior in artifact armor and a turban, raising & curing random people while spamming the angel-wing fireworks. But it was so late when I got back to the tower that my plans were canceled due to lack of corpses.

Still enamored with the concept of free Sneak (I don't even want to estimate how much I've spent on Silent Oils in this game), I decided to go sneak fishing for shall shells in Cape Terrigan on the following night. The shall shell bite rate has not yet been nerfed in this area, so I decided to give it a shot.

I was greeted by a nicely laid out group of /anon tarutarus led by a female hume.

The taru's rested and got up simultaneously, in 2 sets, and had amazing timing with their nukes, casting them synchronously on every crab. Yeah... /wave RMT party. I thought a GM might be interested in watching the show, so I invited one out.

I'm fairly sure he only decloaked to me and not the RMT, since they continued to do their magic right in front of him. I found this rather humourous on his part.

Anyhow, the fishing went well and I skilled up to 32 and netted about 3 stacks of shells. I probably won't do this again for awhile since I would be better served by other methods of fishing for profit, but I now have a more accurate estimate of profit per hour on shells. And it could be worth diversifying if other markets die or temporarily stagnate.

Feon invited me to more NM hijinks last night, which was a rather pleasant way to spend the evening in Ifrit's Cauldron (of all places). The target was Tyrannic Tunnok, a scorpion NM that occasionally drops a Venemous Claw.

Since we were killing virtually everything on the way to the spawn area, I was able to simultaneously skillup my Sword to 190 (via Joyeuse) and break the latent on my Pick of Trials, clearing the way for an eventual NM fight and the Decimation weaponskill. I and Ninjax also picked up coffer keys in the process... not that I'll be hunting for my map there anytime soon. I also capped out another Merit, which I really need to begin collecting again in light of the recent Combat category adjustments.

The NM eventually popped, and we approached it with a plan. NinjaX and I would skillchain Light and Feon would call the 2-hours around 50%. We were both primed with TP, but NinjaX whiffed on the first WS... not that it would have mattered if he had connected since I followed with Mistral Axe much too quickly. In the split second between noticing the SNAFU and that 100% of my shadows had been stripped while I WS'd, the scorpion turned to me and performed Death Scissors, adding to my collection of shapshots of myself lying dead on the ground next to a NM.

The rest of the party performed fine without me, although Feon eventually died as well, leaving Ninjax as the sole melee to take the rest of the scorpion's HP away. He succeeded but the NM was stingy with the drops, unfortunately.

We ended the night with a Teleport-Holla and what is becoming a regular ritual after our DarkEden adventures: a fight with the Goblin Alchemist, closed with Feon's Mijun Gakure when possible.

Magery and Miscellany

I don't have a large amount of news to post, although the past week had a few highlights.

I've been making steady progress on my black & white mage jobs, bringing BLM to 21 and clearing the way for me to level my WHM to the desired 40. I'm currently at level 23 and breathing a bit easier with Regen and a more MP-efficient Cure2. Looking forward to Raise in a few levels.

Quite a bit of my EXP has been earned in the company of RoughnecksUnited members (the formerly retired shell that was the pre-cursor to Lifthrasir and has now been revived). I've found this to be one of the most pleasant ways to level up in this game and really wish I'd met these people sooner. The two pickup parties I joined in the interim were drab & boring in comparison, even with the noob factor to keep things volatile.

The EXP was interspersed with a couple of last-minute events. I assisted Littoguy and a group of 7 others (which included Audessa and Darkronin) in the WSNM battle for his Asuran Fists. I barely had a chance to take a snapshot of Bodach before he was defeated.

Last night, I joined a group from IfritsRoyalGuard (Tog's peeps) on an "exploratory" Einherjar run.

Yeah... we died, all 12 of us, then reraised and died again, but it was fun nonetheless. Apparently the mobs in the first room will all link with their family type, regardless of location, if you attack any of them without killing the single Bird mob that pops and despawns periodically. We, of course, discovered this the hard way.

Unfortunately we were all dead when the bird popped, with the exception of a few reraised, weakened players who nearly killed it before it despawned. I'm thinking some sort of status effect needs to be in place to prevent the bird from despawning mid-battle, but that's just a theory. Sac pulls may be needed to enable others to find the bird to begin with. But we didn't see quite enough to get any solid strategies yet.

The rest of the evening was spent with Lexxi (MNK), Maloc (PLD), Quan (BLU), and Murrdoc (SMN) and a couple of party guests at Qufim Island where I went from 21 to 23 in what seemed like a short time, although the hours do go by quickly when you're in the company of good friends.

P.S. Lexxi, if you're reading this, this was the film I was talking about. And here's the other one.

On CoP

I write the following rant, because I feel like I need to clarify the reason why some issues, namely the upcoming difficulty downgrades on CoP send me into cautionary tirades in various venues of FFXI conversation. I also want some folks to understand why I'm not regularly online every night.

When I began this blog, I did so with the intention of bringing something different to the table.

I wanted to chronicle my experiences as a FFXI player who is part of a demographic that is as much underrepresented as it is largely insignificant in size to the overall population in most MMOs, much less FFXI: the parent gamer. But not just any parent gamer, mind you.

Not the parent gamer whose kids are out of the house. Certainly not the "I'm so hip I play MMOs with my kids" parent gamer. I mean the sleep-deprived, newbie parent of toddlers, living in a home that still smells faintly of diapers. The parent who begins to realize the lifelong art of juggling increased priorities -- among them career, parenthood, love life, physical health, free time, and (blessed) sleep.

As a part of this odd group of gamers, I'm faced with a choice when I stare at the Playonline screen: do I want to spend the 2.5 to 3 hours of free time that I have tonight playing an MMO? And "spending" that time is really what I do. It has a cost, consisting exactly of what I could be doing rather than carrying out a virtual life in Vana'diel.

In the brief span of time between my kids' bedtime and my own, I could read one of the slew of books I've deceived myself into thinking I actually have the time to read. I could watch a good film with an appreciation that can't really be achieved during the kids' waking hours. I could continue to hone my writing, or finish the odd number of poems I began years ago. I could have a meaningful, uninterrupted conversation with my wife. Hell, maybe I could play something other than FFXI for a change.

What I think some of the other adults playing FFXI don't understand is the impact of this trade-off. We can't just come home from work, put in a few hours, log out, and go do something else in RL. Those few hours are it for some of us.

This frames the game in such a way that the quality of my RL sometimes becomes inversely proportional to the rate of my accomplishments in Vana'diel. And this realization affects how I, and others in my situation, play the game.

Sometimes, though probably not as often as I sanely should, I choose not to make the expenditure in favor of FFXI, and I shut down the machine. Sometimes I do this for extended periods. These outages usually aren't planned. They're just the result of the constant juggling act, and FFXI has to hit the floor every now & then.

But I'm patient, and realistic, and continue to chip away at the game for my own pleasure, my own little spot of Zen order in all the chaos. When I do decide to log in, my usage of the 3 hours at my disposal also becomes a bit of an economic exercise (though not an unpleasant one), between EXP, crafting/skilling, missions, and linkshell activities... when I do have a linkshell.

This sporadic and slow approach to FFXI doesn't always lend itself to strong longstanding social connections in the game.

I have several close friendships on Ifrit that I consider myself extremely lucky to be a part of, but I could just as easily see someone in my situation wandering through the game for years without gaining firm social ties. Part of it is the piecemeal nature of our commitment to the game, but much of it is also due to the social gap between those with parental priorities and those who constitute the leisure class of FFXI: the early twenty-somethings with expendable time.

We just live in very different worlds, and when we connect it's usually a serendipitous occasion.

So... I say all of this because I want people to understand that it's hard and sometimes nearly impossible for some of us to get certain things done in this game. And doing them isn't just a matter of determination, or ingenuity, or perseverance, which I know many of you have demonstrated with your considerable accomplishments. It takes either a fluke or a nearly unacceptable cost to the quality of our RL hours to complete the task.

I'm not whining. Believe me, I know what whining is... I'm simply stating the truth.

So before some of you take too hard a stance on what you consider to be acceptably or justifiably difficult in the game, separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff in FFXI, consider that there are people for whom content such as "Sea" has been out of reach for quite some time, and for perfectly valid and inevitable reasons. SE's recent announcement might very well be a good thing for them.

I'm not even really speaking for myself, since I probably still wouldn't have the time for a Limbus group. But I know there are parent gamers out there who would make significant contributions to such groups. Consider Lifthrasir's flawless Promyvion runs that I recounted awhile ago. I personally think that the largely adult leadership of that group had quite an impact on how those forays into CoP played out.

On behalf of players such as these, I say bring on the kinder gentler CoP. Let veterans' reactions to the opening gates of Sea stand as a testament to their own self-worth.

Whittling

After reaching the 160's in sword skill and attempting some rather dangerous solo skillups in the Eldieme Necropolis, I eventually formed a bona fide skillup party in Kuftal Tunnel, which went rather well. I once again had the privilege of playing with Raikoh for awhile and got my sword skill into the 170's.

The next skillup session took place in the Boyhada Tree with Feon and the DarkEden group. They were all exhausted from a long Dynamis run, but we stayed together for awhile and I managed to reach level 183 while also whittling away the latent points on my Pick of Trials.

A few nights later, DarkEden did a series of Tier 1 assault runs on Periqia (Seagull Grounded). The AI for the NPC we were escorting through the zone was quite annoying and unpredictable. Even when he took a good path, he would stall in cleared rooms or backtrack for no apparent reason, wasting a good chunk of time. We were successful on 2 of the 3 runs, however.

Lexxi and I duo'd some EXP in the dunes last night, she on her MNK (16) and I on my WHM (19).

It was peaceful and fun, and I think the first time I've actually EXP'd with Lexxi. To my embarrassment, I kept fat-fingering my macros (laptop keyboards suck), and at one point ran out of MP on a particularly tough Goblin, resulting in death for both of us. She hit 17 early in the process, and thankfully had enough of a buffer to maintain her level. Raikoh nearly joined us when he logged in around midnight, but Lexxi and I were both passing out mid-battle and decided to call it a night.

Skillups & Savage Blade Redux

On the night following the Charybdis battle, Feon (/Ishy), Cozmos, & Audessa were killing weapons and dolls in Ro'Maeve and invited me out. Audessa was working on skillups and Cozmos was breaking her sword latent. I came out with as much accuracy gear equipped as possible (and some rice dumplings) and worked on skilling up my sword from a measly 67. Quite a ways to go before 250 -_-;

The session went very well, although we encountered a rather tough weapon around the end which killed Feon, and a series of links shortly afterward killed Ishmael, but we pulled through. When I logged, my sword skill was at 113.

I skilled up a bit in Crawler's Nest on the following day, mostly killing Worker Crawlers, Killer Mushrooms, and making the occasional foray into the big EXP room downstairs to kill some Soldier Crawlers and Exorays. I logged out with a sword skill of 126.

That evening, I noticed most of DarkEden were in Quicksand Caves and assumed they were triggering columns for the Altepa Gate. In fact they'd just completed the Ruby column and were preparing to take on the NM scorpion. They invited me out and patiently waited as I made my slow way out of CN and over to Western Altepa.

When I eventually got there, the party was comprised of Feon, Ishy, Cozmos, Audessa, on the usual jobs and Theshadowdeath on THF/NIN (thanks for the correction, Feon). Shadow and I recognized one another and we assumed we'd merited together, only to have Feon remind us that we had KSNM'd together a few months ago. Yes, senility strikes again.

We passed a couple of RMT camping the NM antican that spawns in the room to the west of the WSNM area. They kindly offered assistance which elicited absolute silence on the /say channel but quite a few lol's on the /party channel.

The fight was stunningly fast. I really think we finished it under 2 minutes, possibly in 1:30 or so. I launched a pre-primed Mistral Axe for a Light skillchain and eventually got off a Rampage, but didn't have time to unload the next WS before it was over.

So in a matter of days, Cozmos has unlocked Evisceration and Savage Blade.

The remainder of the evening was spent killing placeholder wyverns for Ungur in Gustav Tunnel and disposing of the occasional meddling undead. The dragon never popped, but we had fun nevertheless.

I also had a wonderful time chatting with Lexxi, whom I missed terribly after her departure from the game. It was really nice to see her in the chat log again, and we caught up and compared notes on our toddler's behaviors, which is always entertaining ^^;

I've been making steady progress on my sword skill, killing almost every tier of mob in CN except for the EP scorpions by the Queen Crawler spawn and working my way up to 153. In the process, I was able to team up with Raikoh of Lifthrasir for awhile, which was a pleasure.

I want to eventually bring my skill to the 250 cap and put 8 merits into it, increasing the cap to the A+ level of 276. That'll round out my Great Axe, Axe, and Sword skill quite nicely, and will really potentiate the Joyeuse. The sword is very fun to use now on mobs I can actually hit (they're not kidding on that 50% proc rate), and I can imagine it'll be a blast to use in meripo and various other sundry activities.

No play for me tonight though... I'll have an early morning ahead of me tomorrow.

Ode to Joy

I was resigning myself to another night here:

when Feon once again rescued me from certain boredom & torture. He proposed that I come along for a WSNM fight, which I promptly accepted. I'd never participated in an Evisceration WSNM battle before and I was up for some adventure. As I ran though the Dunes, Feon also told me to bring a sleeping bag since we'd be camping Charybdis afterwards. /joy!

I remembered to drop by the event Moogle on my way to the dressing room to get my stats:

I'll probably save the anniversary ring for either my WHM leveling or BST.

The WSNM fight went very well, although the Bat was tougher to kill than I'd expected, and more evasive:

So Cozmos is now clear for the Evisceration weapon skill! Didn't know she was fond of daggers >.>

Afterward, Ishy had to log for the night, so Feon two-boxed his character as we made our way to Sea Serpent Grotto for some camping. Our group consisted of Feon on his NIN, Feon on Ishmael as BRD, Cozmos as WHM/NIN, Audessa as RDM, and myself on WAR/NIN.

We made the circuit around the spawn area, killing pretty much all mobs that had the misfortune of popping in our path.

It only took around 30 minutes of this before Feon spotted Chary, sending my heartrate into overdrive. With my luck, I was expecting a multi-day camp, which would have been unmanageable for me. Of course as soon as Chary popped, so did every damn mob on the way there, including Zuug the Shoreleaper and some cronies.

I still couldn't believe I was actually staring at Charybdis when we got to the room. But there he was, ready for our challenge.

Unfortunately my role wasn't going to be a very active one, since the fight mostly involves DoT'ing & debuffing the hell out of the mob while the NIN tanks and gradually diminishes the mob's HP, then polishing the battle off with nukes at the end.

The fight initially went well, but Charybdis spammed Cross Attack much sooner than planned and dropped Feon to the ground. I made a lame attempt at kiting but was unprepared for the speed of Chary's attacks and died as well. So we wiped and started over.

The second fight went much more cleanly. At about 50% HP, Water weather came into effect, so I and the mages moved down into the room to avoid any potential elemental pops behind the door.

A Devil Manta add wandered over at about 20% HP, which didn't present much of a problem for me to solo, thanks to Cozmos and Audessa's vigilant multitasking support.

So you've seen the post title and read this far and probably just want me to get on with it already. Yes, indeed, they killed Charybdis, something I never imagined I would have been a part of in this game. And I got it:

And I became the elated, bewildered, and grateful owner of a Joyeuse. It's just starting to sink in today that I really do own this thing, and I'm absolutely flattered that Feon, Cozmos and Audessa would risk their time and EXP to get this weapon for me. For...me! People will never cease to amaze me in this game.

On another positive note, Lexxi and Murrdoc have both returned to the game, making the server that much richer with friends whom I trust and value. I feel my life in Vana'diel has taken a turn for the better, and I still look forward to the unexpected adventures it will bring.