April Update

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!

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

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*

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

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...

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!

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.