50th Post Extravaganza!

I didn't think it had been so many already, but here we are: fifty posts! I considered doing a specially-themed entry but I'm going to keep with another update from my last week or so of FFXI. Let's get right to it, shall we?

First up is this week's Draco Raise Duty! My brother and our friend Saruka were duoing in La Theine Plateau and they got slapped around like little girls. I played nicey-nice and picked 'em up off the grass.

Just last night good ol' Dyce was out in Lufaise Meadows exploring carelessly. Silly pirates getting killed; you end up with a Raise and a screenshot for great justice! (By the way, props to Dyce for knowing ahead of time he was going to get blogged and being a good sport about it.)

I was in Northern San d'Oria (as I often am) and what do you know? I caught Illmatic outside the Mog House again! This time we were both on our alternate main jobs, so it was worth another screenie.

While traipsing through La Theine, I happened to run into a Notorious Monster that I've heard of but never have seen until now: Trumbling Truffle. It was nice enough to drop a Sleepshroom for me.



I have taken Monk back out and have been trying to get it through the XP grind. So far it's not going all that great, which is disappointing considering I've acquired quite a bit of nice gear for it. I've now done nearly two levels solo. Can't get an invite for the life of me on this job, it seems. When I go to build a party (which is how I usually level-up) I can't get all the components. However this leaves me with plenty of time to take screenshots of my Karate Kid moves.

Combo:

Shoulder Tackle:

One-Inch Punch:

Backhand Blow:

I got to 36, died minutes later which killed the level, and Galb came out to Raise me and get me back to 36 before we took off for the evening.



TheSolonavi now has a purple sister-shell called NecessaryForce for strategical events. Our focus at the moment is Assault, with ToAU missions as a secondary objective. It would appear our goal is to flow into Salvage runs and who-knows-what-else down the road. Thus far I've gone to a few Assaults and I enjoy them quite a bit.

Here's the party for my first run through Leujaoam Sanctum, which was won handily:

The next time out, we hit Periqia for one of the more interesting and enjoyable objectives I've done: Escorting a pirate through a dangerous area.

I'm very close to shifting away from events like Einherjar and Dynamis, despite only having recently gotten into each. There are many reasons for this. One of which is my current play time schedule. It's not terribly easy to set aside large blocks of time for events when I can't pick exactly when these events occur. Assault, on the other hand, is a 3 to 6-person ordeal that can essentially be done whenever I'm online assuming I have people available. This is just as easy as setting up an XP party, assuming of course each person has access to the mission in question.

Furthermore, Einherjar so far has been a massive failure. It's not that we're doing horribly, but we're sure as hell not doing very well. The LS is new and it's still learning... gaining experience with a battlefield proven difficult with few successes across all FFXI servers thus far. I think it's great to be on the cutting edge in this game, but quite simply that's not the kind of goal I have for myself. No one is going to look back at 2007 and say "Gee, I'm sure glad Draco helped break new ground in Einherjar." The only reason I have been going is for the fun and eventual rewards (See entry: Revelations) but it's not fun to get slaughtered every time and by corollary the rewards are nil.

Dynamis of late has irritated me more times than it has made me happy. When coaxing Sodako into joining up, I mentioned to him that Dynamis has an interesting property to it: At least for me, it seems that I dislike it during the run, but the day after I feel that it was fun and I'm anxious to get to the next effort. He agreed after attending a couple runs. I'm unsure if anyone else relates to Dynamis similarly but I'd be interested to find out. Overall I do like Dynamis but it's a long event. Couple that with my lack of getting anything I want and I'm looking at a cost/benefit analysis that sends me swirling down the proverbial drain.

It should be noted that the lack of proper attendance for endgame events is irritating. To be fair, I've skipped or missed a couple runs in the last few days but with specific reason. My rant involves the fact that some members just stroll in whenever they feel like it with no regard for anyone else's time. Life issues are more important than a videogame, of course, but the incidents I'm referring to are just kids who don't seem to care enough. Dynamis in particular is bad with this because if we're supposed to gather at 7:30PM, many of us show up at that time. What do we do? Wait. A lot. The LS may not enter until near 9:00PM which is just ludicrous. At most, a half-hour of getting everyone invited into the alliances and so forth is adequate. That a four-hour event is further marred by well over an hour of prep time is unquestionably distressing.

In job-specific news...
BST: Remains @24, stagnant since the first two duo sessions with Sodako.
BRD: Remains @67, though a Mary's Horn has been acquired in a joint venture with Fmtwo.
MNK: Now @36, with all gear except Jujitsu Gi (Lv. 40) ready to go if I could manage a party.
WAR & DRK: 52 & 41, gear sent to mules until needed which isn't going to be soon.
THF: Remains @65 with little reason to bother moving it.
COR: Now @13, possibly going to be leveling alongside my brother and/or some friends.

Wings of the Goddess is released soon. A related (propaganda) event has been unleashed upon the masses in promotion of SE squeezing a few more bucks from our collective wallet. The reward for a fetch-quest is a pair of sunglasses. Red ones, which actually look decent on yours truly.

Yes, I've purposely avoided discussing the speculation around any WoG content such as new jobs, events, areas, and storylines. Honestly I just don't want to bother putting thought into this expansion until it arrives and can be seen objectively. I had my fun speculating about the last couple packs and I'm just not that excited this time around.

Finally, I'd like to post this picture which originated in a forum thread and made me laugh quite a bit. I have been itching for an excuse to interject the pic into the blog, and now I have one. 50th post = crazy, random picture. Enjoy:


It's supposed to be Hideo, me, and Yojo (from left to right). I'm not going to bother explaining it 'cause it really wouldn't make up for the shock of seeing the image itself. Fifty posts in the books, and another fifty on the way. Until next time~