Postcards from Vana'diel: 2007 in Screenshots

I've talked about some of my latest exploits without really providing any visual aids. Apologies for that; it wasn't that I hadn't taken the requisite screenshots but rather that I was simply too lazy to sort through them and post them to my Photobucket. So, albeit late, I give you "Postcards from Vana'diel: 2007 in Screenshots."

We start with Atomos. Atomos serves as the gate keeper to the past in the Wings of the Goddess expansion. He literally sucks you up from the present (or past) and spits you out in the opposite location. This brings us to the next screenshot from Wings of the Goddess...

While there has been much speculation on BlueGartr about the sexual preference of Cait Sith in Final Fantasy XI, he comments that you, the player, have the ability to manipulate time. Looks like we'll be required to save the world for a fifth time.  Despite being released to very poor reviews by the fan base, Wings of the Goddess did allow for one of the more breath taking screenshots I've ever had the pleasure of seeing...

But Wings of the Goddess is not the only story line that I finished this year. This year also brought about my completion of the Rise of the Zilart, Treasures of Aht Urghan and Chains of Promathia storylines...

If you've been reading my LiveJournal regularly, you've heard me talk about lolSky. There was a fun photo opportunity that arose the other day while waiting for Limbus to begin and so, I present to you "The Manthra of lolSky."

Nay, you can't find a single male shouting that they have large sums of gil in Jeuno or Aht Urghan Whitegate without one of these fine specimens of femininity close by. Look for it next month: The Manthra of lolSky Calendar! On sale for the suggested retale price of your pride. Through lolSky I've had large amounts of success.  Here are some of the more prominent pieces of equipment I've gained during my time with that linkshell...

2007 was also a time of great drama for the game surrounding the exploits of Taj, seeing not only the exposure of a series of confidential email on the part of FFXIclopedia, but also the exposure of the FFXI-App database prompting many users to ask...

Are you on the list?

I was on the list three times.  2007 also brought us many new memes...

And so with this, I say farewell to the year and look forward to the next. Jya ne. ^^

Tallying Conquest Results... Tu'Lia -> lolSky

We fucking owned Sky tonight.  Things went smoothly for the most part except for me tanking a couple of NMs that are designed to completely fuck over a blink tank.  I died pretty quickly to Zipacna just because I couldn't time Utsusemi: Ichi properly.  I've always had issues with timing that spell... its one of the primary reasons I consider myself to only be a mediocre player.  Surprisingly though, I didn't die when they asked me to tank Faust, and I totally expected to.  Compliments to the lolSky mage line, they kept me alive and at no time did I have any close calls, even when I was waiting for Utsusemi timers.

One thing I make it a habit not to do is bitch about the level of raise that I receive when I die.  In fact, I always ask for a Raise 1 because it tends to piss people off when people get bitchy about "R3 onry."  I was WHMing in Sea as Aenphire one night and Kaisho died (as did I).  When we were all back up, I was raising people while still weakened--not uncommon--and I gave him a Raise 1 because it was all I had available at the moment.  He immediately started in about Raise 3 and I walked away.  He had R1.  He could either get up or not.  I'm not going to make special concessions for bitchy people.  Its far more important to get the alliance back on their feet quickly than to bitch about 3000 experience points.  3000 experience points is a couple of Besieged's, 3x Campaigns or about 15 minutes of meriting, so STFU about R3 vs. R1.  If you don't like it, cap out your exp buffer on your 75 jobs that way you don't have to worry about de-leveling.

Anyway... Not only did we sex up Byakko, but Nezzie took his money shot in the form of a Byakko's Haidate which leaves me one step closer to receiving one.  In fact, I might be at the top of that list now, but I'm not sure.  Suzaku was a whore though and couldn't follow through. :<

Tomorrow I turn in the items to transform my Ninja Kyahan into a Ninja Kyahan +1.  That's some sexy stuff right there. :3

"exp is better than no exp"

If you've played Final Fantasy XI, you've undoubtedly run across someone who's attempted to convince you that you should participate in their horrible party set up using the phrase "bad experience is better than no experience." There are a couple of reasons why this isn't true which I will go into, but first I'd like to dedicate this post to a couple of noobs on Hades named Yunabell and Wolfmpb.

I immediately called bullshit on the party set up when I realized that we lacked the requisite Bard or Red Mage:

[18:04:28](Dardi) Umm...
[18:04:33](Dardi) We've got 2 WHMs?
[18:04:37](Dardi) No Bard or RDM?
[18:04:43](Wolfmpb) nope
[18:04:45](Yunabell) no brds or rdms
[18:04:46](Wolfmpb) there wasnt any looking
[18:04:47](Yunabell) :/
[18:04:47](Dardi) ...

Then came the truly magical moment...

[18:05:40](Yunabell) i've pt'd with worse
[18:05:50](Yunabell) exp is better than no exp

They even tried to further assure me...

[18:06:54](Dardi) Without BRD or RDM there will be a lot of down time.
[18:06:56](Wolfmpb) says u
[18:07:01](Yunabell) nah
[18:07:06](Wolfmpb) called healing in shifts
[18:07:13](Yunabell) yep
[18:07:15](Wolfmpb) u take 2 battles i take 2 battles

Except he didn't take two battles. He sat there on his little Tarutaru ass while I did all the real work. I'd cast Barfira, I'd cast Haste. I even Pro'd and Shell'd the party all while serving as the main healer. What did he do? He cast Regen and a couple of Cures. I should preface this by saying that I'm not a great White Mage. I consider myself to be mediocre, so when I say that someone is a bad White Mage they've got to hit a new level of stupidity.

Bad experience is not better than no experience. "Why?" you ask. Well mainly, while you're sitting in said horrible party, you could have been seeking a better party that isn't full of noobs. Secondly, bad parties are usually formed by the stragglers that can't get into the good parties, or are willing to settle for bad parties. These are not the kind of players you want to get experience points with.

Oh and one more gem from the chat log. When I reminded Yunabell that we had no Dispel to break the Magmatic Eruca's cocoon effect, she said this:

[18:43:49]Yunabell>> ya my bolts put defense down act as a dispel in a way

Fucking retards.

Success Through lolSky

I took a small sojourn from Final Fantasy XI over the summer because another linkshell breakup had left me without the means to advance once more. Honestly, I might not have come back to the game if it had not been for my friend, Richard. Richard is one of the leaders (called "sack holders") in a very good end game linkshell on Hades.

I should preface this with a bit of a history lesson. When the game was first released in North America, I purchased it and started playing with a friend from work named Andrew. It was my first experience with a game in the MMOG genre and I quickly grew bored with it because there seemed to be no sense of direction; no guiding force. So I de-activated my account only to re-activate it a year or so later when Sisco picked the game up. We were all noobs back then, and it was fun. Richard, Derigible and I started on the Midgardsormr server and when Hades came online we moved over to it.

I was a little hesitant at the time, as was Derigible (as I remember). We were in an active linkshell called NubletsOfDesire and while the leader (Fluffybear) was a real dick, it was still a good linkshell. But Richard was determined to world shift and Derigible and I followed. On Hades, we continued. I leveled Red Mage to about level 27 if I recall correctly. Then World of Warcraft came out. Like many others, I was tempted by World of Warcraft and left Final Fantasy XI. But World of Warcraft is a very different game after level 40, and it wasn't the game for me. It was about then that Jon and Brian convinced me to return to Final Fantasy XI.

So I created a new character on Gilgamesh to play with them. I think Brian lasted a week with Jon playing off and on for about a year, but in the end I was on my own. An MMOG without friends is a lonely place, and after several linkshell breakups, I had simply had enough. Then Richard came along and I moved my character to Hades again and joined the linkshell that he was in, lolSky.

Since I joined lolSky, I've had a tremendous amount of advancement in a short period of time. I've only been with the linkshell for four months now, but in that time I've obtained a Kirin's Osode, leveled White Mage to 65 (in addition to already having Ninja at 75), finished the Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia and Treasures of Aht Urghan storylines and I've met some pretty amazing players (Mojo). Oh, and I also got a Novia earring, Suppanomimi, Ulthalum's Ring, Rajas Ring and a Senjuinrikio. Some of those are bigger achievements than others, but over all it represents progress.

It's funny though, no matter how much I accomplish in the game I keep realizing that I still have a lot of things left to do. I need to finish White Mage and merit it out. I need to level Dark Knight to 37. I should level Summoner to 37. I need to finish the Windurst missions and the third Wings of the Goddess mission. The list goes on.

As long as I continue to have fun with the game, I'll keep playing and I've got a solid linkshell to help me out.