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goodbye blogspot

2010-11-13T04:41:00.002-06:00

moving this blog over to FFXIV loadstone.

If anyone actually reads this, you can come find me here: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/rc/diary/top?cicuid=1672630

Open Beta

2010-09-13T17:52:00.002-05:00

I really could not wait to get home to try out the FFXIV open beta once I heard about it. And now I'm home and I've tried it. The graphics for this game are absolutely gorgeous. I'm just glad I have a rig that can actually run it. I was a little worried about my computer at first because the specs Square Enix put up for the game are a little crazy... especially for an MMO, but turns out I'm running it just fine. So that's good news for when the official release comes out.

For the Beta, I used my three character slots to put a character in each main city. I have a Miqo'te in Ul'dah, a LalaFell in Limsa, and my main Hyur (Beamer Magnus... of course) in Gridania. Beamer I started as a Gladiator since I figure I'm probably the most familar with that. Elita (the Mithr...er... Miqo'te) is a Conjurer, and Twinkle (the Lalafell) is a Alchemist. I have yet to try any Disciples of the Land jobs. I'm so lost on crafting. I just don't like doing it in any game really. I will probably highly neglect that. I like the way battle works in this game though. It's not as fast as some MMO's, but it's considerably quicker than FFXI which is nice.

I'll update more later, but for now, he's what I've got Beamer looking like:

Final Fantasy XIV

2010-07-03T19:19:00.002-05:00

So... I've been done with FFXI for a little while now. Probably since my last post actually. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the game, I just had too much going on at the time plus... with XIV coming out and all that.

Sooooooo... FFXIV will be released on 30 September on PC and for those who preorder the collectors edition, it will be out on 22 September. I managed to make sure that I get a collectors edition... AND now have a PC powerful enough to play it. lol woot! Knowing that I'm going to be playing the game in a couple of months gets me pretty pumped up about it. It'll fade for a little bit before I actually get the game, but when I have it, it'll all come rushing back.

I'm trying to coordinate with friends from FFXI to all end up on the same server. Plus, figuring out who will be playing what class and all that helps too. Honestly though with as flexible as this new armory system is supposed to be, it really won't matter a whole lot. I do however plan to try and take up my usual role as the tank for whatever group I'm in. I'm sure that will vary from time to time though. I'm not looking forward to having to switch to a mage role within my group.

Anywho... I know I have maybe...2 people ... possibly 3 ... that actually read this blog. Probably not so much anymore... but anyways. Sorry for the lack of posting for awhile now. It'll all be back up and going again soon. :)

/sigh

2009-10-30T17:10:00.003-05:00

Time for a break... I've finally caused myself to become very burnt out on this game. It was bound to happen soon. I've actually been playing quite a bit lately, but because when I play (and the usual amount of time) is so off from what the game would normally require, I usually end up doing solo lvl grinding or even crafting (that seems very unproductive). I don't get a lot of the game by doing this. Along with that, Lee managed to get his account hacked and can't play for awhile... So without my usual group to play with (Lee being the "leader" of that group) when I AM on for any sort of extended period of time is a little frustrating.

It's been harder and harder to play ffxi as my kids are getting older too... It's nice to see all the news suggesting that Final Fantasy XIV will appeal to casual players as well since I'm gearing more and more in that direction.

Granted, I still very much like the game and SE and all that. I just need to step away for awhile. School and a deployment coming up, I won't really have a choice anyways.

Hell... maybe I'll even draw something. Haven't done that for months.

finally decided

2009-09-30T03:50:00.003-05:00

My next job to 75 will be Warrior. With as much time as I've spent lately on SAM, THF, DRK, and a few other melee/DD's, WAR seemed to be the best choice for now. If anything Dark Knight will be next after that... I think.

Did a Nyzul run the other night with Yancey, Tenzo, Leenk, Cptporkchop, and... uh... some sch that came with us. I can't remember the guy's name. Anyways... I got two drops!!! (and forgot to screencap them.) Managed to get my Askar hands and feet. :3 They're both fairly handy for a PLD and will work well when I get WAR to 75. I'm extremely pleased with obtaining them.

This has little to do with anything, but I found it amusing... I managed to Skillchain on myself as a lvl 30 THF/NIN. lol

Back to the grind... more later when something exciting happens and actually remember to screencap it. >.<

30 SAM

2009-09-10T04:40:00.003-05:00

Trying to lvl Melee jobs kinda gets me wanting to level ALL my jobs. Last weekend I ended up doing 2 lvls on DRK, 10 lvls on SAM, 1 lvl on WAR, 5 lvls on DNC, and 1 on MNK. I really need to work on THF as well... but I might be starting to spread myself a little thin. What's good though is that my gear for most of these jobs is pretty much the same since they're all between 37 and 20 basically... save for the weapons and a couple of other job exclusive things. Ultimately my goal is to get all this stuff to at least 37 and then just pick whatever I decide I like best and go from there. I will likely lvl DRK or WAR I think, but I kinda like SAM and DNC is just too good for solo'ing not to play around with it every now and then.

Tried doing a SMN burn pt the other day with Justin (Mehungtoolow) that ended in an epic fail. I'm not sure how. I've always been told these things are amazingly easy and quite awesome for quick xp... somehow, two of the smn's (I went as lvl 12 BLM since... I just want warp and don't care to lvl it) forgot to 2hr and then went when the COR (Justin) was afk. So... after waiting around after the emo fit everyone threw over it, I ended up warping back to my HP and went back to working on SAM again.

Started posting stuff on FFXIAH.com just for the heck of it. People post the strangest comments to artwork. I don't draw my characters in really awesome gear generally... i guess most people post screencaps on there or artwork on there for that purpose... I must have missed the memo. For anyone that's curious, go here: http://www.ffxiah.com/player.php?id=1156263

wow... soooo... my blog is gimp

2009-08-29T10:30:00.003-05:00

after looking through a few other blogs (though Cinnabun's links in his blog) I realize that my feable blog looks fairly awful compared to most others. I'll uh... get to work on that once I figure out how these guys get some of the cool looking stat bars and stuff on their pages.

i need money.

2009-08-29T08:58:00.004-05:00

Angel skin drops make me happy... or really... having gil makes me happy. Doing campaign for so long kinda makes me forget about farming on lvl'ing normally. So I spent last night camping Devil Manta in Kuftal Tunnel with Leenk and Cptporkchop. It usually ends up being a fairly boring time doing that, but... I'm poor so that works.

... I really need to craft more. But... I'm lazy...

I'm trying to lvl a DD job next. Kinda taking a break from PLD for awhile (though it's still my main of course). I've been messing with MNK, DRK, and SAM. I'm told I'll have the most luck with DRK and SAM for end game and tp burn pt's... stuff like that. But... I actually like mnk and with a dnc sub it's insanely easy to solo. If nothing else, all those jobs I'll take up to 37 real quick and go from there.

oh! I got my Iron Ram Hauberk! (and I completely forgot to screen cap it when I got it.)

ws over 1k

2009-08-24T04:18:00.002-05:00

So... I know for sam's or drg's or any other DD jobs this isn't a big deal, but I thought it was kinda cool for me as a pld. I broke 1k for the first time on a weapon skill. :D

wheeeee!

Vanguard X = the blind leading the blind

2009-08-22T13:59:00.003-05:00

So when I have any campaign ops credits, I usually do a quick run of the Vanguard X campaign ops mission... in East Ronfaure [S] primarily. It's quick (about 5 minutes so long as I'm only escorting 1 reinforcement) and easy and normally is rated at about 3 or 4 stars... so end up with about 350 XP and 1100 allied notes. Piece of cake. The only bad thing about it is that the reinforcements just seem dumb as rocks.

"... one more word out of you and I'm feeding you to the Orcs, dumbass"

The NPC will say one of three things. Either "I'm worried about the soldiers back at the Garrison" (and then he runs back to the checkpoint), "Is that an enemy scout?" (and then running the west), or "You're slower than turtles in the mud" (and running northish...toward the stronghold...sorta). The two latter NPC remarks aren't as bad. They kinda end up going in the direction I want them to without my guidance...but the former... I always secretly wish I could just kill the bastard myself. lol Still though... Easy Allied Notes and XP.

And speaking of which... 5 more days till I have my iron ram Hauberk. WOOT!

campaign results

2009-08-14T04:03:00.004-05:00

As it stands, I'm right now 12 days aways (3 more evaluations) from getting my Iron Ram Hauberk. :D This will be my first set of any thing resembling end-game gear so I'm rather excited about it. Campaign goes pretty well for me for the most part. I average 2k+ on most battles and generally do the vaguard X campaign ops missions for extra allied notes.
From August 12th

From August 13th

I lurk around a few forums now. I'll probably never post. I've never really been a fan of socializing through message boards over the net...unless I know the people in person. I read what a lot of people getting in campaign as far as XP/LP goes. I kinda wonder if people know that there are caps on what you do and if they know how that effects their rewards. I'm sure they kinda do...but you always kinda see people either playing against a mob like they would in an xp party. >.>
oh well.
I do well in campaign. I'm happy with it. I think though after I've gotten my IR set completed... I'm going to be done with it for awhile and probably start working on lvl'ing a new job. I have only 1 lvl 75 at this time... I need something else.

Eirwen's lineart

2009-07-07T17:39:00.002-05:00

I like doing surprise gift art for people... it's just sort of a random little thing i like to do. A lot of them time when people ask me for art (and I don't know them very well at all), I don't like to do it nearly as much. Even if it's a commission and I'm getting something out of doing the drawing. I'm weird like that.

So right now I'm working on a drawing of Eirwen who is a friend of mine and former Linkshell member when I was on Odin. All the guys I know on Deviantart that play on Odin are good guys (and girls) and were part of the reason I even considered staying on Odin.

Eirwen's drawing has colors but they're very much in the WiP stage. I'll post that up when they're done. I'm going to do something a little more cell shaded that normal I think.

Got WotG mission screencaps to post, but they're on my other laptop so I'll post them later.

heh heh...

2009-06-24T04:46:00.003-05:00

I almost forgot to post this.

Got some art to for Sorasha for her and her boyfriend's character wedding. Just for the fun of it... plus a few other things to do.

In game... let's see... I got a Walahra Turban recently though I don't really use it much. The haste effect it comes with is nice but with no def on it, it doesn't work REAL well for me most of the time... Leenk, Cptporkchop, Nattaku, and myself went after the hagun ENM again the other night... kicked it's ass but we still didn't get a drop on Hagun. Go figure... and also... I"m starting woodworking craft with my wife. :D fun stuff.

I will be adding some stuff to this page soon to spiff it up a bit. Hopefully everyone reading (all 2 or 3 of you ^^;) will like it when it's up.

haven't posted art in awhile

2009-06-16T15:43:00.003-05:00

I think I need to come up with some sort of banner and/or maybe some graphics for this blog. So for the banner, I'm working on this image:

Of course I'll crop and color it soon. Might use it in my Deviantart Journal too.

Working on merits and Nyzul lately. Still haven't finished lvl'ing RDM to 37 (sitting at 33 currently). For merits, I'm mainly doing campaign battles. It worked well enough to lvl me to 75, so getting merits should be a piece of cake. As for Nyzul runs, well... my usual group isn't always on all at the same time so we don't always go... A lot of the time the guys in the group are much more worried about hunting NM's for gil. which is fine I guess... I can think of other things I'd usually rather do. Oh well.

making a brickwall

2009-05-19T17:39:00.002-05:00

In case I never mentioned it before, I hate mage jobs. They for whatever reason frustrate me to no end... Which is why I'm glad I'm only lvl'ing any of them to 37. I took RDM yesterday from 23 to 30, which is far enough that I can now sub NIN and solo my last few lvl's on the job. Maybe someday i'll get tired of playing a tank job and actually want to play something that doesn't take nearly as many (or any) hits.

I lvl'd with cptporkchop (Joe) for about 5 hours yesterday in Qufim. I actually prefer that place to kazham and thank god for lvl synch because we pretty much stayed at 20-22 and killed the same easy mobs for the most part. The party went really well... Joe would like to take credit for making it, but he only took over after the former leader d/c'd and never came back (which turned out to be a blessing).

Afterward, we went down to Palborough Mines and did the BCNM royal jellies once before I decided it was a bit late and logged for the night. The BCNM ended up a bust anyways... nothing of value dropped except for a phalanx scroll for my rdm.

Not much else exciting happening. I'm rather exhausted today and I have work tomorrow... so no gaming for me tonight. I may do some sketching instead.

The Echo Awakens

2009-04-12T17:04:00.004-05:00

I was originally waiting to do all these missions with Leenk, but given that it might take a couple of weeks to actually do, I figured it would just be easier to do all the solo-able stuff for the add-on missions and then have Lee catch up later or something. The second mission was incredibly easy... the third looks to be as well... I actually have three small NM goblin fights to go through for it. but anyways... here's Me talking with Young Aldo
Hopefully, I'll be able to make it through all the missions by the end of the week... that's my goal anyways... sad thing is this will be the first expansion/add-on I will have actually completed. lol

tonberry slaughter

2009-04-11T21:09:00.005-05:00

Leenk and I went up to the Temple of Ugglapih today to farm some tonberry lanterns... Leenk accidentally forgot to change his sub to /sam and instead went as a slightly gimped /thf (lvl30)... turns out that worked out to our advantage. After killing a few tonberries one dropped a flickering lantern which is used to spawn a NM named Sozu Rogberry. A fairly easy little NM that drops a Thief's Knife.It's really not a big deal, but apparently the knife sells for a decent chunk (70k) so we went ahead and went on to go spawn the NM. On the way there however, we ran into Bonze Marberry A nasty little BLM tonberry that spanked us pretty good at first. I wish I had screencapped it, because the little bastard hit Leenk with "Everybody's Rancor" and took him for 4,000 hp. ugh. Lee went down, but the tonberry only had about a 1/4 of his hp left... so after throwing up invincible and then another set of utsusemi: ni (I went as pld/nin) I was able to finish him off.

In the mean time, I started the first cut scene to the new add on storyline. I wasn't going to originally, but then I saw the Nuevo Coselete... One of the armor exclusives you can get for completing ACP. It's good pretty good stats, plus... two add on augments I can put to it (like enmity +5!! huzzah!) and it looks damn sexy... especially with my pld gear. XD

I mean... seriously... look at that! How cool looking is that?

Paladin +1

2009-04-10T12:14:00.003-05:00

Been meaning to upload this. This is the .dat swap I ended up using on my Adaman armor for PLD. (I want to do my own thing for my AF gear... when I'm brave enough to .dat mod instead of just .dat swap)

Got it here (for crediting puproses): http://ffxidats.com/page.php?al=alias3132

Now that I really look at it, it is a bit over the top. lol but still not bad. I think the winged crown is what really does it. *smirk*

April Update

2009-04-10T04:24:00.003-05:00

I love this game getting updates, but I hate downloading them. I've got the updates running on both my 360 and on my laptop and they are both about 3 hours each. I'll probably leave the update running on my pc while I go to work this morning... but the xbox I'll probably have to shut up and let it run later. I should have known better than the to think the updates would last less than an hour. lol
There does seem to be a decent amount of good stuff in the update. There are three jobs getting adjustments. Whm, Rdm, and Smn... I play none of the three on a regular enough basis to really care much though.
Among the more interesting things for me is the new story expansion "A Crystalline Prophecy". I won't likely get to that right away, so for now I'm going to leave it be. They have however added more Field Manuals to new areas...which I really like since Ashley (my wife) has started her own account to play as well. So since I'm helping her start this brand new character (a taru named "Emmalicious"), the xp and gil bonuses from the training manuals are great. :)
Anyone who wants more info on all that stuff can go read it here since it would silly for me to write about it at this point. most of it isn't really critical information in my personal game blog anyway.

I actually have a couple of days off to play this weekend. So I think I'm going to be doing that a little. :D Also... have some dat swap pics to post later... after I get brave enough with that, I think I might actually try .dat modding as well.

uhm.... kupo, dood!

2009-04-04T07:15:00.006-05:00

I have officially started dabbling in .DAT swapping. XD (a gateway drug to .DAT editing! omg!) As a test to see how it would work, I messed with something that wouldn't stay with my character all the time, but I would clearly be able to see... My Moogle! He's an exploding penguin now. hehe

"How can I help ya, dood?... er... Kupo?"

"I need to get something out of stor...WTF???"

"Uhm... dood?"

Definately more to come later... dood.

Nyzul = Pain

2009-03-28T10:42:00.002-05:00

Back to ifrit again. I swear this is my last server hop for awhile. I am never following Earl and Yancy around in their server hoppping ever again. ugh. Anyways, I've been to Ifrit more than once. So nothing new there. It is of course another server where technically, no one really knows me. I once again am without a reputation. Lucky for me, there are about 3 or 4 people I can play with on a semi-regular basis. 2 of those guys kinda know me. 1 actually does. The thing about rep that is most annoying... You run across people who, if they've never really heard of you, think they should tell you how to play your job. It's the most annoying thing in the world most of the time. Steve (Nattaku) who is a friend of Lee (Leenk)'s plays Scholar. While in Nyzul last night gave me unwelcome advise. I happens. Whatever. But... I've been playing for 5 years. I've had a lvl 75 job for 1 year. I know how to play it fairly well by now. That's ok though, I got my revenge later.

We tried going through Nyzul Isle 3 times (I think) and never really made it past the second floor. We set up a party of four 75's. DRG (leenk), SCH (nattaku), SAM (cptporkchop), and PLD (myself of course) which might have worked out well. Anytime we had a floor that involved defeating all enemies, we were golden. When it was a boss enemy floor we ended up screwed everytime. We apparently don't do well against magic using bosses... Particularly frogs. ugh. One battle ended by me turned into a frog, charmed, and then killing the SAM. (heh heh heh) I think I need to read up more on Nyzul before going back in. Usually I was pretty clueless on where to go or figuring out objectives. I figured it out eventually, but I went in with very minimal knowledge of what exactly goes on with assualt missions. Maybe Steve took that as "he doesn't know how to play at all" or something... I dont' really know.

After the Nyzul run which produced...pretty much nothing (Nattuku ended up with a BLU mythic weapon I think), we partied with Lee's brother Brett (shellangel) to lvl his 54 DRK. Steve continued with his advise, so... during a fight I stopped controlling the mob (a lesser colibri)'s hate, quit tanking, and let it head straight to Steve. He died pretty quickly. SCH's must be squishier than I thought. I've not done that before... it was mean and a bit rude, but somewhat gratifying. :D

Need to get some screen grabs to post on here soon. Haven't shown any lately.

Don't know much about the April update, but I may post about that when I know enough to have more an opinion on it. Same for the new expanded story content coming out soon.

More later.

grumble grumble

2008-11-13T23:44:00.001-06:00

ah ha! And you may have thought I'd forgotten this Blog. Well I haven't! (clearly). It's been 3 months that I've been in Qatar now and I have 3-ish more to go. When I come back, I'll have my son, my wife, and a new daughter there to greet me. I of course will have FFXI to come back to. I've been able to play a little bit out here, but the connection is so bad and Odin's server is so over-populated that I have a hard time being able to do anything. So the quick fix? I moved to Garuda. I will be there for about three months. I didn't want to follow my friends that were formerly of Valefor because as I recently noticed, they've moved servers again... and I didn't think it would work trying to move back to Ifrit since Leenk recently had a baby with his girlfriend and probably won't be finding much time to play in the very near future (for the next three months that is). So... Garuda... I know a couple of people over there. I really know nothing about the server honestly. It seems alright so far. Instantly, I noticed the lag there wasn't even close to what I had in Odin. My first disappointment there though? Camping Carnero for 3 hours. Ugh. What a pain in the ass.

Once I'm back home, I'll be trying to get back to Odin I think.
More later...

involuntary break

2008-08-10T09:42:00.002-05:00

I'm not really sure who actually reads this journal. I keep it more for myself than anything else.

I'm sitting in an airport right now on my way out to Qatar... just kinda testing the wifi to see how that's going to work while hopping from air port to air port until I get to my ultimate destination. Seems this will work for now.

Leaving right now is hard. I not only said goodbye to my wife, but to my son on his 2nd birthday. I'll miss holidays with them, birthdays, and the birth of my daughter. Leaving this time compared to others is a little harder than it usually is.

As far as the game goes (since this is my FFXI blog), I got NIN up to 36 the other night. Not all the way to a Subjob level but it's getting there. If I can log on downrange, then I'll be able to round that out. It's not really a huge concern of mine at this point. If I log on while I'm "gone" it'll be more for the social aspect than anything else. I'm sure the lag I'd experience would be horrible. Anywho, just saying that I'll be around and wanted to update one more time before I head out.

you know you've been a pld too long...

2008-08-05T22:31:00.003-05:00

A little old...but amusing. :)
originally from here: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=5&mid=10868711959521955&num=107

You know you've been a pld too long when...
- you know exactly how long 30 seconds is without having to actually count.
- you hit the provoke macro upon engaging someone in Ballista.
- you cannot understand what is so scary about having red hp.
- you have mysteriously grown addicted to the colour white.
- you have mastered the art of engaging, provoking and flashing a mob within 1/100th of a second.
- any other job has too little defense for your taste.
- you feel natural getting hit when you draw aggro while levelling your blm.
- you've become used to seeing a rdm farm faster than you do.
- intimidating an undead creature gives you an inexplicable surge of delight.
- tanking 3 mobs at 30 hp while the blm casts escape feels fun.
- you feel sad whenever you don't die in dynamis.
- you start getting depressed if a mage dies before you do.
- you fall in love with the rdm in your party.
- the Rampart/Savage Blade animation sends shivers down your spine.
- you walk in dark places and gleefully note how well you show up in them in your AF.
- you walk in Valkurm and and revel in the fact that you almost match the sand.
- the sound of your armour when it clinks on hard surfaces is music to the ears.
- you spend time in your moghouse just walking around admiring your armour.
- anything with VIT or Enmity beside a large number makes you start grinning :DDDDD
- you /salute a fellow paladin friend and neither of you think it's corny.
- you feel like buying the Ritter Shield just for that 'big shield+paladin' goodness.
- and you have a Koenig/Kaiser Shield.
- you level pld to 75 and feel like levelling it all over again on your mule.
- you used Holy Circle while levelling in Valkurm just to show you were a paladin.
- you cried in happiness upon holding off your first Benediction without using Invincible.

Elita in Color and Back to Odin!

2008-08-04T12:38:00.005-05:00

Finished Elita here. She's a little shinier than her armor really should be. Granted, it's leather armor... it just looks duller in the game. :D I'm happy with how it came out though. Probably should load this up to http://ffxionline.deviantart.com/ ... I haven't really checked on that community for a little while...

So... I got PLD all the way to 75. Since last time I had one good party and then just campaign battled my way to 75. I don't have much of a buffer as of yet, but I'll work on that soon. Before I get real worried about that, I'm going to try to get NIN up to 37 so I can blink tank. I lvl'd nin from 26 to 28 yesterday, but right now I can't get on because of all world maintenance. Pt'ing with nin is odd... I feel helpless tanking without being able to heal myself. Sure, my evasion is high enough that mobs miss a whole lot, but... knowing that I can cast cure on myself as PLD is reassuring. Sometimes I just don't trust people playing support jobs.

I did finally transfer back to Odin. Got back into both of my old linkshells (sorta... Odinartists is now by a different name) and met up with most of the people I left over there. I've gotten a couple of "you grew up!"/"75 finally!" comments. XD Yeah... only took me 3 years to get there. ugh.

campaign ftw

2008-07-25T06:45:00.004-05:00

With my main (Beamr) still on Valefor, and me not really wanting to look for help or a new LS (that i'd be active in for all of 2-3 weeks), I started doing campaign battles and ops to lvl... In reality, this is probably a bad idea. All I get out of campaign battles are XP and allied notes... so no skill ups and no item drops. For now though I can live with that. I have thus far lvl'd from 72 to 74 with maybe 1 or 2 pt's in the middle of that. so... that's a very large amount of XP I've solo'd pretty much. It's odd but for now it seems to be working.

LFP'ing would be alright if I were able to get on a busier time of day or able to stay on longer. I'm still only logging on for about an hour or maybe two before I go to work in the early morning. Until I get back to a server with an LS I don't have to work my way into, this will work. Aside from lvl'ing, I'd like to be able to get some of the Iron Ram armor.

Did a sketch of Elita a couple of weeks ago. She doesn't really have a specific job I'm concentrating on for her now (though I did lvl her to 18RDM to get her subjob) so figured a sword and shield with leather armor was a good generic outfit for her to wear for now. Poor mithras don't wear pants often do they? lol I've been working on thf with her lately. Rdm was good for getting her pt's fairly quickly to start off, but I generally dislike mage jobs. I don't know that I could keep interested enough to play her on rdm at least to 37 for a subjob. Maybe if I get more time later on I will... though I'd rather focus on Beamr getting rdm up that far first. (PLD/RDM = brickwall yay!)

I've got a couple of weeks left before I deploy and once I get there I'll either be able to play on my time off or be taking a 6 month break from the game. It all depends on how well the WiFi connection is in the building I'll be staying in. Playing would be sweet as hell while I'm there, but if I can't, I don't think i'll be TOO heartbroken.

secondary

2008-06-28T08:00:00.003-05:00

i started off with a secondary character (a mithra named chromia) on asura, and since i decided i'll be back on odin anyways, i went a head and used an open content ID to make one on odin too. weird thing about mithra's... ppl always asume their females. granted... i named her elita (giving her a gender neutral name would have been a great idea. oiy). yesterday, i had at least three people walk up to me and make some sort of pass at me. i can't believe this character even got a "hey good looking"... who the heck does that in a game? seriously.

Anyway, at the suggestion of Screamer, i'm lvling her as a rdm first. This works well for me... i'll skill up magic skills as well as melee abilities. When I'm finally able to move my other characters all to the same server, I'm going to give her all of Chromia's armor and gil and let her run with that. (Chromia actually has some decent low-lvl gear)

Being back on Odin is kinda nice. The social aspect of the game has actually returned since there are a few people i know on this server that actually play when I'm usually on. An MMO really isn't massive multiplayer without the social part of the game. I'd been missing that on my other two servers. I'm back in HeartofSword and as soon as I find someone from the linkshell, I'll be back with OdinsArtists too. I read that last weekend, Kiela accidentally broke the LS. XD

ooOOOOOOoooo

2008-06-10T03:58:00.004-05:00

Now THIS is nice. It'll take me awhile to get around to all the rest of the stuff in the version update put in recently (well... aside from it loading right now and taking forever), but as soon as that's done, i'm going to go get this pld spell. I was really hoping pld's would get this from the time they started talking about it when the WotG expansion first came out. I'm a happy boy.

Now I just hope it works as well as I think it will. At first I thought it would just be a magic reflecting spell, but "increases chance of blocking with shield"? Oh hells yes!

real friends suck

2008-06-07T08:18:00.004-05:00

Well, not really... but I realize now I never should have started this server jumping thing. Initially I went to ifrit. that was a bad idea. then in early May I went over to Valefor to play with a couple of guys I work with only to find out that just a couple of days after I started on that server, they had moved to Asura. Had I known they were going there, I would have just moved to that server in the first place... So now my main is kinda stuck on VF with my two friends angry linkshell until I can move him again (coming in and saying "hey! i'm friends with ____" and then that person deserting the linkshell doesn't a happy group make)

So... Just for the hell of it I started a mule over on Asura and I've been lvl'ing her a little bit. It's weird starting all over. With the amount of experience I have had so far, I feel like I could probably lvl this character up better and faster than my main. (main = Beamr/hume, mule = Chromia/mithra... other character = Twinkle/taru). I like playing a mithra and kinda wished I'd tried before. Having better ACC and DEX is rather nice. I still prefer my hume though of course...

So in a couple of months (when my time to move comes up again) I'm heading back to Odin. I'm not sure how effective that will be because I'm going to be leaving on a deployment right around then. I've got ffxi loaded on my computer, but my graphics card sucks so it looks kinda funny. I'm not quite used to the PC controls either and... I have no idea how my connection will be over there. More than likely it'll be pretty slow and horrible if I have much of one at all. I guess we'll see. At least until then, my ps2 seems to be working so long as I don't play it too much. The thing is 8 years old now. lol

Beamr is currently at 72 pld. I don't have sky/sea, limbus, dynamis, or any of that yet. I should just go look for some shouts in whitegate to see if I can help someone/get help with doing it. I've found that relying on IRL friends to work on that doesn't work real well. bleh. I think to keep up with lvl'ing him, I'm just going to be sticking him in campaign as much as I can. Chromia at this time is sitting at 11 war with no subjob yet and I'm just about to finish San D'Oria rank 1. I started her 2 days ago so she's progressing well. I actually started lvl'ing her with axe/shield rather than sword/shield like i did with beamr when i started him out... I like how that's working too.

anyways... back to the game! /run *whoosh!*

Back in it

2008-04-27T06:38:00.003-05:00

I really haven't played much for the past few months. I played a little bit in January and February, but I just kind burned out in feb. I had actually changed servers. I have a couple of buddies i work with that are on Valefor (currently) and then a couple of my friends from back home in Indiana are on Ifrit. Thinking it would be fun to play with my friends from back home, I went to Ifrit... Oh god...I had no idea how much this server sucked. Odin is the largest server on FFXI and while that's not great for hunting hnm's and stuff of that sort, it certainly makes it easy to form pt's. Ifrit on the other hand is probably one of the smallest servers so the change was pretty drastic... The friends I went to play with barely logged on or at least they were never there when I was on and this newbie (or rather n00b-e) filled server was extremely frustrating. I have spent most of my time lvl'ing lower jobs that I can probably solo (dnc is actually quite fun!) because otherwise, I'll have to deal with the actual ppl on Ifrit and that is frustrating as hell. JP players seem to hate the NA players more than usual and the NA players are somewhat ignorant of some basic things... I guess different servers are used to doing things a certain way? There was a guy in one of the linkshell's I joined that tried to tell me that the dunes used to go by a different name and they only changed the name in the past couple of months. *coughbullshitcough* Also something about GM's turning into raribs and running around the game spying on ppl. Yeah... I dunno.

Anyways... soon after that happened, my PS2 started to not work right. It was freezing up all the time, I couldn't log on and sometimes it wouldnt' even load up the game. So I just stopped playing all together for awhile. I tried the thing again last week and it seems to work fine again so I guess I can get back to playing. PLD is sitting at 70 right now so I've got a little ways to go still. I can change servers again on May 4th, so I'm going to go back to Odin or head to where ever my co-workers are going. They've been talking about leaving Valefor for Phoenix or Asura. I'd be ok with that. Visinshu and Raydin/Carmine usually start up a kick ass HNM/sky/sea/dynamis LS and keep telling me they'll get me up to speed with the lvl's and equipment they have. That and I always hear Visinshu come into work the next day and say how his LS "killed Kirin again last night!". Sounds like fun! Sign me up! :3

Odin I miss because it's my old server of course... so I miss all my e-friends there. I don't really know anyone there in person so it's kinda weird to say that. I was a little less than productive there. I spent a lot of time PL'ing and helping people with quests/missions only to see that person pass me up in lvl not long after that. It was pretty frustrating. Since my PS2 died not long after my server change, I didn't have much of a chance to tell most of the people there that I had moved. I may have pissed a couple of them off. oh well.

Anyways, I plan on putting in a pretty solid week of playing next week to try to get caught up.

bleh

2007-12-16T21:47:00.001-06:00

BTW... Campaign is AWESOME! Much better than Besieged and the exp is better as well. Spent a lot of time today tooling around in the past fighting Campaign Battles with Ryasha.

Got a little aggravated with two of my LS's today. Not necessarily the LS, but more so people in each one. One I think was just a misunderstanding. I'm not used to this guy and his sense of humor... the other one...well, I know the guy is a bit of a jerk. He has a reputation for it. It's his role I think and it always seems like he enjoys playing it. Strange how some people play jobs that reflect their personality. Dark Knights always seem to be either emo or a bit rude. Paladins are either egotystical or a bit overly anxious to help everyone and be the hero (maybe for attention... i'm somewhere in the middle of that though). I'm sure I'll figure out stereotypes for the other jobs. heh

I met nearly none of my goals this weekend. I don't know what the heck happened. I slacked off I guess. /sigh No... people asked for help and I, like I always do, dropped everything to go help them. >.> Need to stop doing that. I want 75 on pld before I take leave for Christmas. I've probably got a little less than a week to do it. *grumble*

breaking the slump

2007-12-16T03:17:00.000-06:00

first... this drawing of Beamr and Shize. :3

Did this a couple of weeks ago and just hadn't gotten around to posting it. I'm posting things a couple of weeks after they happen it seems. I dunno, we're not really ever like that ingame... or out... But I thought it was a sweet image. I like it. (shize does too thank goodness). I think I think too much about what the connection is or isn't between us. I really just think too much. Either way, this is among an ever growing amount of ffxi drawings I've done with Shize in them. I like drawing her. :)

A lot of my time playing while Shize is actually on as well is spent following her around like a lost puppy. I can't say that I mind it though and she doesn't really ask for me to (though I'm sure she doesn't mind either. I'm not really how she doesn't get tired of me. I ask her questions all the time and probably bug the heck out of her. :D I think I sort of have that effect on people in game. well, nah... not really. At least I try not to sound noobish and not completely annoying all the time. I find that if you say most everything with a bit of humor, people tend to be a little nicer when you don't know what you're doing. something to that effect. ...actually that sounds like I try to get pity by playing dumb. >.> ok... no. That's not it. I'm getting side tracked. anyways... (above picture should be captioned "look! I think he likes you!") Seems a lot of people really like Shize... I kinda wonder sometimes if I'm grouped in that catagory. (I'm thinking about this whole thing too much again... ugh. anyways)

I was fairly productive today. Did a skill up with Norris and Erkz this morning at Kuftal Tunnel for WS's around 114 to 140 ish. I worked on my staff skill and got it up to around 121. I think Erkz was lvl'ing GS for his DRK and Norris was... working on marksmanship maybe? I can't remember now. To the left here is the impressive crab train Norris pulled as we left Kuftal. lol I didn't get all the crabs in frame. I'm pretty sure there were at least a dozen or so probably more. Anyways... a good time was had by all! Or all of us anyways.

After that I tried seeking a pt as PLD for a little while while trolling the AH to see if any items popped up that I might need. No such luck on both accounts. feh. I ended up getting an invite from Ryasha (a friend of Shize and her brother Darkwolf) asking if I wanted to do Campaign Battle. I was more than happy to go do that, except that I've not done much of anything involving the new expansion. Honestly... I JUST started working on the ToAU missions a month ago. I'm such a slacker. Anyways... One of the things I wanted to get done this weekend was to get more Maws to access the new expansion areas so I tagged along and was able to finish the quest to actually participate in the Campaign Battles for Sandy. There's so much running around to do in WotG... it sucks. No chocobos...what's up with that? Or at least, none that I've come across. The new monsters are cool (so long as they don't kill you) and the music is rather nice. :) I only died once going through there. Course, I died many more times as the day went on. ugh. I think I'm just prone to it, but for the sake of NOT seeing me dead, here's me giving Rya a raise! (she's a 68PLD... I was 67PLD in the pic) Before actually getting to do a Campaign Battle, Rayasha ended up having to leave. I decided not to go it alone and just went back to Whitegate to find something else to do.

I ended up lvl'ing DRK for awhile. It's honestly not my favorite DD job, but it's like the anti-pld job so I play it to get a break from PLD now. (i like thf and mnk better) Ended up in a pt in qufim which was rather difficult. Set up was DRK, DRK, SAM, MNK, DNC, and WHM. see a problem? No tank. It got worse later on. I ended up being main tank somehow... not an easy job as a DRK, but somehow I managed to pull it off. I died 4 times doing it and only advanced 1 lvl while all other pt members went up 2 or 3, but oh well. I'm starting to get used to that. Not that it doesn't still suck... it really does. After wasting a couple of hours to do that, I went and changed back to PLD and actually got a PT.

I've been hesitant to lvl PLD lately. I've been stuck on 67 for a week because I die so much or just get crappy pt's... or i get someone telling me how I should be playing the job and what gear I should and should not have. No... I don't have a parade gorget yet. No... I dont' have a jelly ring. I tank a hell of a lot better than most pld's my level though so I think that should speak for itself. Still I get crap in NA pt's if I dont' have what a typical cookie-cutout PLD would have. I even bring extra gear incase the pt doesn't have a refresher (god forbid at this lvl). Today however went really well. Two hours and thirty minutes of PT'ing with an all JP pt and I ended up getting almost 40k XP with no emp band on... in my favorite place no less. Caedevire. (DIE! DIE AND GO TO HELL, IMPS!) Set up was RNG, BLU, BLU, BRD, WHM, and me. the rng and blu's made killing the mobs go very fast and all my emnity gear kept them glued to me as far as hate goes which was nice. The BRD keep refresh going well and I actually never even had to rest which was something I've not had for a long time. I ende up getting 68! I was so freakin' excited about it which is kind of funny. It's not any sort of significant lvl really... just a hurdle that i hadn't gotten past yet. I even had a nice xp buffer so I wouldn't lose my lvl if I died soon. Another nice thing in this pt... no one complained... no one randomly checked me over and over... as long as I was doing what I was supposed to and getting the job done, they didn't care what gear I had. THAT'S the way it should be. It annoys the living hell out of me to be randomly checked by people I don't know. If you're another PLD looking to see my setup, cool...that's fine. If I know you or your in one of my LS's... sure..understandable... but checking a PC as soon as they come into a pt to tell them what they should and should not equip...f'ing rediculous. This has always been a pet peeve of mine. Anyways... as soon as I got my lvl, I sent /tells to Screamer and Shize to say this: MOTHERF'ING DING! lol I was pretty excited. maat fight is only two lvl's away now. *cracks knuckles* I'M COMING FOR YOU OLD MAN!

the usual suspects

2007-12-14T05:11:00.001-06:00

These are the three that i've kinda been hanging around for awhile now. L-R Screamer, myself, Shize, and Forix. We're not all actually low lvl... Forix had us standing around and then going out to kill random mobs for some sort of video game video/report/essay/thing he was doing for a class. I think I was a 10thf/5war in this picture. Shize was a NIN, Screamer a SCH, and forix a ... DRK... I think. Either way, we were all playing jobs none of us normally play. I ended up kind of liking THF and have since lvl'd it up to 17. ^_^

I'm starting to get more into DD jobs. I think I like the idea of hitting the enemy instead of being hit by it. Crazy concept huh? I've still been having terrible pt's for my PLD (i'm still at 67), but oh well. I'll get through that. Last night I actually had a pretty decent pt. Rather than going to Caedavire Mire, we ended up at G-8 in Bhaflau Thickets fight Date Eruca's rather than Heraldic Imps. The result was much faster kills, more exp, and less down time because of stupid status effects like silence and amnesia. I hate fighting imps. Ugh. Left my pt last night with about 10,000 TNL... which isn't bad I guess since I started out at 28,000 in the pt. I came in to replace a NIN who was their main tank, so of course they all didn't stay together as long as I would have liked, but the fact that the pt was doing well while i was with them was nice. I'd like to try that again tonight, but somehow I have the feeling I won't get it.

Over the weekend, i'm going to try to get to 70 and get a couple of rare/ex items I need to PLD. (parade gorget, jelly ring, and bomb queen ring). Stuff I might need to continue lvl'ing with suitable gear.

After the pt last night, I ended up running around with my artist LS; Odinartists (a group of artists who all play on Odin... duh?). Ahvi (a 30war) was needing to do a run for Bastok 2-3 (dragon killing! yay!) so a bunch of us volunteered to help her. I kinda came in late on it, but still got to go out and slap that dragon around. heh. I think all together it was Taiso, Norris, Erkz, Teg, Ahvi, and myself. We ended up breaking the record for beating the dragon by nearly 3 minutes. ha! Anyways, I like this LS. It's not too over-crowded... stays fairly active... and I tend to get along with the people really well (Norris and Taiso are great guys.) There's a nice mix of 75's and lower lvl's in there and a lot of people that are willing to help with stuff. I occassionally do to so I actually feel like I contribute to the group. heh. fun stuff.

not going to die for you

2007-12-01T00:48:00.000-06:00

Something I did in reflection of the crappy parties I've had in the past three days. I've actually had lvl 67 three times in three days. How messed up is that?

Kinda bored tonight. Thought I might PL some people. That turned out to be even more boring. Found out Daggy from deviantart is on Odin server now. Looking forward to meeting her in game. ^_^

lvl up!

2007-11-29T04:51:00.000-06:00

Happy birthday to me. I am now at lvl 26 (years... old.). I of course have work today. We have a busy workload plus I have an appointment with my commander and a flue shot to go get. yippie.

<- sketched this a couple of days ago. the choco is a little bit, but I kinda like it. Gonna color it over the weekend i think. :D

A couple of people in one of my linkshells a couple of nights ago suggested starting a little static party since we all seem to be on at the same time. Ickypoo (a 67 blue mage) and Eysis (a 67 white mage) and I all decided we'd try to be on about the same time to start pt's. Well, I think Icky suggested this more or less and then I somehow got volunTOLD to start the PT. ok. No problem. I'll start a party when I can. I'd rather wait for an invite. As a PLD, I'm usually in pretty high demand at my current lvl. there aren't a lot of tanks.... much less paladins.

Started the pt not long after Icky sent me a /tell to say he'd be ready whenever. I had been making a yagado bead necklace run for Shize so she could quest for Utsesumi (sp?) to lvl ninja. Anyways, I get around to starting the party, get my two static members, and find a drg, rdm, and a sam to go along with us. Not long after starting the pt, Icky says he has to go. Ok. No big deal. I can find a new dd. Then the drg (Chiodos) says he needed to leave ASAP. *grumble* He finds his own replacement and we press on. Eysis then says she needs to leave and the sam says he's going with her. They find they're own reps too. We're good to go still but becaues of the amount of members swapping in and out we have barely gotten started on getting any xp. I was only about 9k tnl. >.> I should have lvl'd. the RDM decides to leave. Ok. Good. This guy (who may perminately be on my shit list) I didn't mind leaving.

My pt now consists of two new rdm's (Algirl and Kisti), a thf (Battlebabe), Lazerus (some kind of dd...forgot his job), and another sam. Not the best combo, but we work with it. Battlebabe I like. She's been playing as long as I have and is a good player. Algirl seems to be the same way. Anyways, we're camping Imps, Flies, and Jhuns and we're probably a couple of lvls too low for that, but we seemed to be alright. Well, a fly spawned in the middle of our camp, so I tell Battlebabe who was pulling and we start on the fly. Someone was AFK and I died. No big deal. I die all the time. I'm a pld, it's what I do. Algirl revives me and I stand back to let the sam, thf, and drk (ah ha! that's what Lazer is) take it for a little bit. The sam starts to get pretty low on hp, so I jumped in with a couple of cures and threw up my 2hour (invincible). That was a dumbass mistake because now I've got crazy hate that will stick while I'm weakened even after invincible wears off. Invincible wears and I head for the zone. The pt was about to wipe and I've got all the hate... Might as well do what I'm supposed to and save the pt right? The sam tells me to stay. Basically "die again! we can kill it!" - yeah right. I pause for a minute which was my own mistake because at this point, the fly catches up and drops me like a sack of potatoes. The sam gets angry, says "this isn't working" and leaves. Without any hesitation or question. wtf? We replace him with a blm from Al and BB's LS, but by this point it's late and I've been trying to manage this pt for 3 hours. I'm exhausted and falling asleep at my keyboard. I let the pt know and since by this point they're all pretty much friends... they're ok with that so long as I can keep hate and keep taking hits. We ended up deciding to disband the pt, but just before we do... I die again. The blm went afk and apparently nobody knew. ugh. I had lvl 67 and then went back down to being 1500 tnl. I guess I can get 67 today for my birthday. :P We'll see I guess.

I'd love to start a big list of people I'm just going to refuse to pt with now or associate with all together, but that would be sort of juvenile of me. Posting that list that is. heh. I'm glad to have pt'd a couple of times with Battlebabe in the past few days though. I've seen her around as long as I've played and never actually met you. That and I always wondered if she was actually a female or if it was just a cleaver name. I never take for granted that people are what gender they appear to be in this game.

Anywho... back to Caedevre Mire tonight. Need to get a step closer to Maat. >.<

good to be home.

2007-11-25T16:07:00.000-06:00

I just started playing again. It's nice. I've really missed this game. As I left the game in 2006, I was a 62 pld with rank 5 in San D'oria. I've barely done any missions and I had only done the quests I needed to to get by. I was playing a lot back then to try to keep up with a friend who I started on Odin server with.

I started playing this game originally with my friends Lee and Brandon (Leenk and Yoinokuchi on Ifrit). We had all rp'd together in various message board rpg's... transformer stuff mostly. We're all gamers, geeks, and all three of us like Final Fantasy, so FFXI seemed like a natural thing to get together and play. I went off to basic training for the Air Force (in 04) and Lee and Brandon started playing while I was gone. Lee a DRG and Brandon was a... uhm... whatever mood struck him at the time. I think he started as a whm and now plays pld mostly. I ended up moving to Germany and finally found the time to play when I wasn't working. However, those two started having to deal with other things and didn't play nearly as much. Thus, I was a little bit alone to figure things out. Shouldn't have been a big deal, except that I didn't have lots of time to do that. Enter Angie... LagunaL8 in the art clubs I've known her from before, and Screamer on FFXI. I found out she was playing on Odin and that being back in the days before world transfer, I started a new character and played with her. She was always on so I always had someone to talk to in game and lvl with. It was kind of nice. You don't really want to feel alone in an MMO ya know? Ang however passed me up pretty quick because she was able to play so much. I feel pretty stagnant on lvling and finishing quests. No biggie. I was having fun anyways.

August 2006, my son was born. I took a long break after that to be a dad. I still am of course.

I just started playing again. It's been 15 months. Some of the people I started playing with in Odin are still around (Alphonze, Shize, Screamer, Croce) but most aren't. It's not bad, in just a week I've upped in rank (from 5 to 6), gained 6 levels on pld (66pld/33war now) and finished a few quests here and there. The new expansion is out so I've got those missions along with a few dozen from previous expansions I've not finished. I've got a long way to go. No big deal, I'm still having fun with it.

testing

2007-11-15T06:47:00.000-06:00

this is just a test. obviously.
new ffxi blog. more to come later.