My Seb project has been going quite well. His WAR is up to 30, his NIN just dinged 23 about 5 minutes ago, and his cooking is stalled at 99.0 for lack of Royal Jelly. I'll throw up a mishmash of pics to give you an idea...
Going to get my Kaz keys...
So... I hit the ??? and nearly got three-shotted by the three leeches. (It's like being one-shotted but it happens 3 times, get it?). DS did a good job of getting me there in one piece and keeping me alive. And afterward...
So I had to give that Dhalmel NM a try, and he destroyed me:
And I've started gathering my Cooking Skill items. A Hocho popped on AH and I nabbed it, and I schlepped Seb all the way to past Windy for one of these:
And Lexi helped me track down some Turtle Soup one day for me to get this:
And I've started gathering my Cooking Skill items. A Hocho popped on AH and I nabbed it, and I schlepped Seb all the way to past Windy for one of these:
Another thing I've been having fun with lately is Seb's Mog House. I want to make it look like a chef actually lives there, and yet still maintain the proper elemental alignment to gain Moghancement: Cooking, once I'm done with my GP items. So, it's a challenge, but it'll be fun.. and while I'm not going to show the whole thing off until I've got the Cordon Bleu set, you can see one of my more prized furnishings above.
Doing newbie quests with Seb has also been fun...
Doing newbie quests with Seb has also been fun...
Switching gears for a bit...
In the land of GYS, there's been a bit of a shake-up recently. Or maybe not so recently. One of the shell's earlier
members and leaders, Quince, received the first (and so far, only) Novio that dropped for us. He immediately stopped coming to events, citing health issues. Lately, he's been back in the game more and more, but not in the shell at all... and finally Bamimapa, our leader (and the guy who so kindly passed the Novio to Quince) asked him to return the Novio since he was obviously not interested in remaining in the shell as a leader or even as an active member.
Quince, of course, refused.
It's quite sad, for many reasons. I feel foolish for having stood up for the guy when people disparaged him. After the second or third member from the social shell he leads joined GYS, looted what they wanted, and left... well, that should've been enough of a sign. This ties in to some remarks I'll make later on regarding some of my endgame musings. Anyway, it was a bone-headed and awful thing to do, and for that, Quince, I salute you:
So... with that unpleasantness out of the way, just what else has GYS been up to? Well....
In the land of GYS, there's been a bit of a shake-up recently. Or maybe not so recently. One of the shell's earlier
members and leaders, Quince, received the first (and so far, only) Novio that dropped for us. He immediately stopped coming to events, citing health issues. Lately, he's been back in the game more and more, but not in the shell at all... and finally Bamimapa, our leader (and the guy who so kindly passed the Novio to Quince) asked him to return the Novio since he was obviously not interested in remaining in the shell as a leader or even as an active member.
Quince, of course, refused.
It's quite sad, for many reasons. I feel foolish for having stood up for the guy when people disparaged him. After the second or third member from the social shell he leads joined GYS, looted what they wanted, and left... well, that should've been enough of a sign. This ties in to some remarks I'll make later on regarding some of my endgame musings. Anyway, it was a bone-headed and awful thing to do, and for that, Quince, I salute you:
Kiddx got our first LS Algol, and I got the meat for use on Seb...
We've done some sky...
...and some Nyzul Isle...
Maxbebop recently finished our LS's first Nyzul set - Denali. Congrats! I'm 3/5 on Askar now and hoping to finish up by the end of the year. Here are some funny "fazed" poses from Nyzul:
...and we seem to be focusing a lot on Proto-Omega lately:
Kriza and Thalestris have gotten body, Neosutra's gotten legs, Albatross has gotten feet, Thanos has gotten hands, and Exhumedx got, err, head. Yeah. I feel like I'm leaving some out - we've been doing that many Omegas. Which isn't bad, because we have a buttload of Homam lotters, but it leaves some of us still hoping for Temenos AF pieces high and dry.
What else? Oh, I got the happy couple some things...
What else? Oh, I got the happy couple some things...
...and some other assorted NM's...
Let's see... some random stuff before we talk about WoTG...
Yes, that's me, wearing the Spelunker's Hat from Nyzul Isle. Sigh. Edwina has redecorated her MH about a dozen times since this screenshot was taken. Yes, that includes pushing the beds together.
On to WoTG! I got it the day it came out and was all set...
..but haven't really spent much time in the past since that first couple of days. I guess I'm still really pre-occupied with finishing SAM merits (2 more HP, 1 more Third Eye, 1 more Archery, 2 more Evasion, 2 more Parrying, and all 8 Ninjutsu), and leveling Seb so he can equip Hocho. Not much time for Campaign or Ops or things like that. Plus I'm really getting anxious about starting on my Maat's Cap quest. I did manage to grab some screenshots:
On to WoTG! I got it the day it came out and was all set...
Someday I'll explore the past more thoroughly, I just don't think I'm quite ready yet.
Before my musings on FFXI's endgame, here are some e-peen numbers from the past few days (post-nerf), which no update should be without:
Before my musings on FFXI's endgame, here are some e-peen numbers from the past few days (post-nerf), which no update should be without:
That last one bears some explaining. I was testing out NQ AF Hands with HQ Roshi Jinpachi and Tonosama Rice Balls (for lack of Shoguns). You see, I have a buttload of T.Rice Balls from Seb as failed HQ attempts, so I use them when soloing birds out in Wajaom. The tests were going very well and I was very excited to learn that the TP gain from Double Attack more than made up for the loss of Store TP. So much so, that I was killing these birds before they had a chance to use any TP moves on me. It came to be time for Nyzul Isle, so I swapped Love Halberd in so that I'd do less damage than Amano and give the birds more TP at the same time. Well, the above is the result. It still took a while for me to get a bird that would stay alive long enough to eat my food, and everyone had to wait in Alzadaal for me. Weak.
So... what's all this about endgame?
Well, this is my first (and only) MMO, so I don't have the benefit of experience that some people have in endgame scenarios. I have, however, been peripherally aware of how other companies tend to handle these sorts of things, via news stories on slashdot and the like. It's a combination of planned obsolescence and consolidation. What I mean by that is, if the MMO was profitable enough to warrant a follow-up of some type, the game company strategically plans to move its user base from one to the next. At the same time, the remaining servers and users are consolidated down to minimize operating costs until the service is essentially free to run since so few people will want to continue playing it.
Of course, there will always be die-hards. I have a feeling that FFXI will have its share of die-hards (myself included), while the majority of people will move on to the next big thing. So what are the ramifications of this transition period? The markets will fluctuate, server population will decline, players who were once in rival shells will need to band together, and once all the remaining FFXI players are all on a single server, all 1000 of us or so, we need to be able to get along.
I feel I'm waxing rhapsodical about a concept I don't fully have a grasp of, so I'll shut-face. Anyway, the whole business with Quince got me thinking about it. Mostly because he was someone cool who turned out to be not so cool, and I have a feeling he'll be playing the game for a while and this will stick with him. That's all.
So... what's all this about endgame?
Well, this is my first (and only) MMO, so I don't have the benefit of experience that some people have in endgame scenarios. I have, however, been peripherally aware of how other companies tend to handle these sorts of things, via news stories on slashdot and the like. It's a combination of planned obsolescence and consolidation. What I mean by that is, if the MMO was profitable enough to warrant a follow-up of some type, the game company strategically plans to move its user base from one to the next. At the same time, the remaining servers and users are consolidated down to minimize operating costs until the service is essentially free to run since so few people will want to continue playing it.
Of course, there will always be die-hards. I have a feeling that FFXI will have its share of die-hards (myself included), while the majority of people will move on to the next big thing. So what are the ramifications of this transition period? The markets will fluctuate, server population will decline, players who were once in rival shells will need to band together, and once all the remaining FFXI players are all on a single server, all 1000 of us or so, we need to be able to get along.
I feel I'm waxing rhapsodical about a concept I don't fully have a grasp of, so I'll shut-face. Anyway, the whole business with Quince got me thinking about it. Mostly because he was someone cool who turned out to be not so cool, and I have a feeling he'll be playing the game for a while and this will stick with him. That's all.
