Sign of the times. Time for a change. DC Universe Online.

Below is a message I gave to my fellow Linkshell members almost a month ago.

Happy New Year.

If the holidays were good to you, that is great.

After much deliberation and discussion with my fiance, Foulei, we have decided to take a break from FFXI for a while. The way the game has been lately, both social and gameplay, it has raised many questions and uncertainties, not to mention confusion. The game content raises many questions; tons of gear pouring out but little in content. Final Fantasy 14 showed promise but after its release it was as if.....well.....all of the worst dates you have had all combined into one MMO such as 14; saying this took great effort I assure you but like the way it is and what FFXI seems to be for the time being, its like a shiny new car but without an engine to run it. Abyssea is a two-way streak in my eyes. It has given us enough to keep things going for a good while and that is fine but it has made a majority of players lazy and complacent, making it difficult to do things outside of Abyssea such as leveling, seeking help, to name a few things. Keep this in mind, I say this to not ruin any fun that everyone else is having with it, it is just how I feel right now with FFXI.

Ironically with the disbandment of The Interlopers LS and things are running quiet with a group that Fou and I are with for the time being, I have free time and I could do things like skill up, attempt to level a job, that kind of thing. But, after much thinking and putting time off the game these past few weeks short of helping some old friends with missions it has been feeling good to stem away from the game for a while. I myself can't make up my mind on what to do at this point anyway first since there is a list as long as my arm on what need to still be accomplished on this game. With all of this said it is best to just step back and take a break to clear my head as well as devote time to other things while doing so.

I also say all of this to clear any assumptions that were made last time. I myself have the honesty and decency to go out of my way and give my reasons to my friends and aquaintances for my actions. There's people out there who don't even do that. This is a game that involves teamwork and in order for a team to function one of the important foundations of that is communication. And I have been in groups that have had such poor communication it left people with bridges burned, confused and cheated. In conclusion to this matter, I have no matches, torches, flamethrowers, etc. Let's leave it at that since I've said my peace.

As for the Walk of Echos group that BB, Minsc and Oz I will have to step down for the time being for all the reasons I have mentioned until I return, whenever that will be.

On a much more good note we have had the chance to play the DC Universe Online beta and also the full release as of yesterday. The game has been fun, and quite a dream come true for me on a personal note since I've been wanting to try out a Superhero MMO for years. I had a hard time to decide on City of Heroes and Champions Online when I tried them both out as a trial run. While those are good games DC Universe presented an opportunity to start out fully fresh with everyone giving it a shot. The gameplay is fantastic; not really much grinding at all in levels since you get exp doing missions and there's pleanty of that so far. The powers and skills you set and enhance determines your role as you progress as well. There is actually a good PVP system in here too which I haven't tried yet (fou has though). From what I've been told about it you have to be tough to deal with it since everyone and your grandmother will be fighting each other. The servers come in PVP or PVE and you can choose between the two. I don't know yet if you can hop back and forth though. I doubt it. I will devulge more info about DC universe online on my blog, facebook and here, moreso on facebook and my blog.

Well until then everyone, see you when I see you.

Peace.

-Rusty.



Even before I wrote this there was a minor issue with the group as well but to be peaceful about the situation and with a lot of uncertainties of FFXI as a whole right now, I took advantage of the situation and decided to take a break from it, probably indefinately. If I do decide to quit the game, the last thing I will do will be the missions on both Aht Urghan and Wings of the Goddess.

Heck, I may just change servers entirely! I really don't know right now but it is best to just take a break from it with all the changes going on.

As for this blog I will keep it but it will be dedicated to other things, not just my adventures of FFXI. From this point I will make it into a Social/Geek website.


Firstly bear with me in advance if this thread may start of a little vauge but I will do my best to give you as much information as I can about DC Universe Online and I will post pictures and a few vids up later today.

I managed to play the beta for a week or two before its full release and purchased it since I've been wanting to play a Superhero MMO for quite sometime now.

There is a great degree of addiction to this game, heh.

To sum up the plot real quick it goes like this: In the near future the villans and heroes make a final stand with each other, with Lex Luthor being the victor...or so he thought. Then good ol' Brainiac steps in and takes over but not before stealing his item(s) called Exobytes. He then travels to the past which is present day, releaseas them into the earth.

Here's the catch; The exobytes contains powers from both heroes and villans. When it is released into the earth many humans are bestowed powers. The future Lex Luthor warns the League about the upcoming threat before he takes his leave. Its up to the League to guide the people with their newfound powers and guide them in both use of their powers and to combat the threat of Brainiac as well as other villans.

At this point you start off with the character customization. It's easy in a nutshell though not quite as diverse as City of Heroes(coh) and Champions online(CO). You can make a custom to suit whatever you want or you can pick a premade set up based upon ispirational characters like Superman or Mister Freeze.

At that point you can select a weapons type (brawling, hand to hand, one hand, dual weild, etc), primary and secondary powers/skills. Keep in mind the powers you pick will determine your role, with your secondary powers playing a more active role as your primary will help you with traversing and combat. For example when I made one my first character I chose Staff/Acrobatics/Nature; a defensive healier. My partner on the other hand chose Two Hand*ex; great axe/Acrobatics/Fire; an offensive tank. As you progress you can manipulate your powers to be either offensive or defensive or something in between and you gain more abilities and skills along the way. Armor and weapons help influence your stats, much like how it is here on ffxi so you want to be wary of your role and the stats to make sure you pick the right weapons and armor needed of course.

Also, during the process you can choose which mentor to have and what allegence you want. The mentors are Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman for good, Lex, The Joker, and Circe for evil. Your missions will be different with whom you are with while some missions will be the same epending on the situations.

Once all this is set up, you start off trying to escape one of Brainiac's ships. You get a vocal advisor to help you get through the ship and off to freedom. Throughout the game you'll have many guides to help you and send you off missions like this. You will get rewards doing missions such as money, weapons and armor as well as a huge chunk of exp and you dont lose exp when you die. I forgot about that; the exp grind is very easy and freelowing, not like a grindfest that we would deal with. You can also do a majority of missions by yourself or with a friend.

There are two different types of servers; PVP and PVE. I'm only on the PVP since I want to enjoy the game without having some joeschmo attacking me out of the blue every 5 seconds on PVE whereas on PVP you can set up a match with a person and fight 1 on 1, 2 on 2, whatever. I have yet to try it out still but my partner tells me its great but you need to invest in PVP gear since your armor and weapons get damaged in the game. You can repair them though, and while it is not costly it can be if you decide to be hardcore. Thankfully the economy is not influenced by players like how we have the AH and that is influenced by players.

The only downside I've witness is a few minor bugs in the game such as not getting the credit for the some of the missions you would win which my partner has had a few problems with and has reported it to the developers and once in a while my character would get "stuck" if i did certain actions like lifting something but it has been fixed apparently over the last few days. I am sure the Sony and the DCUO team are fixing and addressing these issues as time goes on. I for one have been patient.

So far, the level cap is around 30 from the last time I checked and they have added some additional content. It is 15 bucks a month and you can make up to 6 characters per server with no additonal fees. You can also set up for a lifetime suscription of 200 bucks but personally I'd rather wait until how things play out much further with DCUO in the coming months before I shell out that kind of money. The first month is free to play but you have to buy the game to try it out rather than download a trial version, which I'm sure they will do hopefully.

So there you have it in a nutshell. I personally love the game, me being a comic book geek :-P At first I was going to try out CoH or CO but since this came out it made more sense to me to have a fresh start with something new.


My partner's Character.

Costume Change customizations.

As you go along the game you can "collect" the gear you obtain. What this means is even if you decide to sell it your menu "memorizes" what you have sold and you can therefore customize how you want your character to look even though you may have something else equipped. Its to generate a more uniqueness of your character while equipping the appropriate stats you may have.:


Fire Tanking. Though he died a few times he did last quite longer than most other job combinations, save Ice which I've heard, is another tank type you can use.



Mission demo. This was on the beta version, with my character here having some fun. Needless to say I was rather levid when I couldn't keep my character from the beta, I got lucky getting the Deadman Hoodie dammit lol :-P


TotalBuscuit's thoughts.
A person me and my partner subscribed too on youtube, a show he hosts. He's raised some really good points about MMOs in general and the beta, etc. It's a bit long but definitely listen to what he has to say; very sage words if you ask me.


I will be posting additional pictures later tonight sometime so stay tuned :)

Fan Art Contest results. Update viewpoints in-deph.

(29th is BBQ DAY. Artist: Miyoshi)

Although this illustration above did not make 1st place it is my personal favorite :-P Notice the special snack at the fire, heh. You can check out the rest of this years artwork and final results here.

Last night after a frustrating assault run of the Supplies Recovery mission which we lost to 5 times before winning, and some MMMs with Bayni, Floppymonster, Donkielicious, Foulei, Capession and myself I went to the Nomad Moogle to break my level up to 80 as well as start on the quest for my Assault rank up. I lost on the assault rank up test so I have to try again sometime today. As for leveling to 80, I've decided to take my Paladin job up first. Truth be told, in the last several months I've been having a lot of fun on Paladin more than the other two level 75 jobs I got. Yes, Thief was and will always be my first job I've leveled, then at midway through levels I got so hooked on Warrior I took that to levle 75 first at the time, with Paladin in tow as my third job to 75. Talk about a roller coaster ride!

Foulei and I did some surfing around FFXI threads and forums over the update in terms of armory and items. The majority of them are noteworthy as well as looking into, whereas others are in question. Here is an example:

Here is a list of the entire Pearle armor set, here

Pretty impressive stuff, right? Now as you can see the leggings are good compared to the Unicorn Leggins which I currently have. It's a tough call though simply because I just had the U.Leggings made by a friend and it's signed no less. Additionally, I have a set of Hecatomb Leggings I use as a macro piece for both Thief and Warrior weaponskills. If I did not have the U.Leggings and Heca-feet I would consider these as an overall alternative. However, this would be good to have for Paladin and I'm sure they will be handy with the other jobs that can use them. Heck, if anything the entire set would be a noteworthy set for a Paladin Damage Dealing set up as far as my opinion goes.
























In some cases such as mine, I feel that what I have is not obsolete though some people will say otherwise. But why change something that is obviously not necessary? In other cases though and with other types of new armor and items out there from this update I can understand why certain pieces of armor would become no use. It's really a case-by-case situation with the new armor and weapons out there. Also, a lot of these new items are obtainable through running or attending the new add-ons so I do not see why one would buy these since players are putting them on the auction house for a fortune. You have to love the money sharks, huh?

/Sadface on Mogbanaza. Overwhelmed upon the update. Staying the course.

Well the update is here! The assault static didn't have a run that because of the installations so I took time to organize some personal things offline and do some net surfing on some important information as well. The next day however I was looking forward to logging on to check things out.

But when I got home from work and started to log on I suddenly felt....overwhelmed at the prospects of the update. Many things have changed at how us, the adventurers, will play. Its like from going to driving a car with an automatic transmission to a car with manual transmission. That kind of transition have people befuddled. I sure as heck was at the time.

What I learned from experience and some advice from Foulei was to deal with one thing at a time. It's the best way towards achieving goals, well for me at least. I'm not as hardcore as many others and that is fine considering that I'm a casual player by my standards so I am happy with my situation. So I will stay the course of my current plans which are to enhance the Paladin job, leveling Blue Mage, level Cooking, Campaign like crazy, and do assaults with the static group. Everything else I'll do in between when I can and push on through without wavering.

("A warrior must take care that his spirit is not broken"-Author Unknown.)

Yesterday the mog bonanza announced its numbers. Unfortunately, I didn't land on the higher ranks. All I got was a choice of a statue. I choose the Shadow Lord one. It's fine since I never got anything at all in he last Mogbonanzas anyways :-P Still, it would've been nice to win something bigger. There's always next time.

So, when I logged online the night after the update and our Limbus and Salvage events, Foulei, Capsession and Bayni invited me over to level with them.....in Promiviyon-Holla! I was like, "wha?0.0". They told me that the update has added a ton of new mobs, hence why a lot of old areas are overcamped when they were setting up the party.


We get to Promyvion-Holla and climb up to the top floor, but prior to that we spot one of these new mobs pictured here. Boy, this little guy was kicking our butts; it attacks fast AND hard, not a pretty picture let me tell you! After the near death battle we continued up with our 6th coming in tow. Once assembled we leveled for a bit before I started getting sleepy and I tottered off to bed after getting a replacement.

Ok, so far now I am enthused about the update because it brings out many good possibilities despite the small amount of shortcomings of it. If the good outweighs the bad, go for it! An old saying to live by :)

B and B adventures. My update viewpoint, and more.

First and foremost I am looking forward to this coming weekend, which marks me and Foulei's birthday and our anniversary, which lands on Father's day. It's one of the busiest times of the year for me seeing as how I have to juggle all three somehow but I usually manage to pull it off. The one thing that stinks this year is I may have to work on Sunday because of inventory and it is mandatory that everyone attend :(



Additionally Foulei and I have been having some good adventures lately. He has been leveling Beastmaster and I have been putting some time into Blue Mage as well. We've even been doing a few duo runs together through FoV or when I need spells for my Blue' and have been having some fun while we were at it.

Foulei has reached levle 55 on is Beastmaster and wanted to get his AF in order. We got a good portion of his AF set accomplished in the last few days, fighting NMs, spending hours getting Coffer Keys, you name it.

My Blue Mage has been on a bit of a slow progress because I'm still trying to get the rest of my spells up to current before my leveling progresses. Plus, in between, I've been attending events with Fou' this week. I, er', ended up skipping out on our Assault static run which we have every Monday and Friday but I had a good reason. My first and old static leader, Scudmissile (yes, that is his name no lie) needed some help with the Black Coffin mission and needed a Paladin. I asked the assault static if i could help him out and they said yes. Though I thought it was only going to take a while, it turns out that it didn't because Scud''s group needed to get some of thier CS' done. So we ended up taking longer and the assault static decided to make our night a free night. I felt bad about the situation but everyone was ok with it, since I had explained I wanted to help Scudmissle and his group because I owed him big for getting me a good way through CoP all those years ago.

I also did it because, well, I miss all of the doing adventures on the fly by helping people, weather its total strangers or friends. And with all the advancements I've made through experiences with Dynamis, Sky and Limbus I wanted to see how well I have been doing. What good is it when one has gained skill and gear for one's character on this game if it's not being used? It seems like I've improved a lot^^.

With the update on the way I am looking forward to it because it's an open door to many possibilities, which I don't know why a majority of people being so fussy in the forums over it. I can' partially understand their reason, with what the increased level cap. We all have been working hard to get to level 75 all these years to the point where it's become a livelihood. But at the same time this gives us something to do to shake the boredem away as well as make some gil in ones pocket by crafting consumables and armor.

Speaking of armor:


Many Many Many thanks goes to both Xan' and Kamille for their help in the Unicorn Leggins for me. I really appreciate it guys and I'll pay you back when I can Kam, I promise ;)

They have been a big help for my Warrior, both in haste and the STR factor.

As illustrated :-P

FFXI AH & Blue Gartr trolling; really guys, nobody cares what you think. Latest updates.

(Fraggle Force Farewell)

In the recent weeks I had recently made some posts of pictures and chit chat on FFXI AH forums just for kicks. A few times I came across internet trolls there or people who would /sigh over what I post. I had spoken with Foulei about this and he told me people will scrutinize over what I have in terms of gear because they are elitists.

You know, I have to say this not because I'm annoyed, far from it, but because it's silly and pointless on both victims and instigators but really guys and gals, trolling is stupid. While there are means to delete and block people who troll others those that are trolling are nothing but either losers or attention junkies that want some sort of entitlement because their "elitist" words will be immortalized. Nobody really cares what these elitists have to say in the end so why fuss? They don't pay your 12.95 a month do they? And remember one of the rules of Internet 101; Don't feed the trolls. Internet bullying is about as intimidating as an ant biting an elephant, especially over a game.


Now on to the updates.




First the bad news. At the end of April, FraggleForce, the dynamis ls, has officially disbanded. It was a VERY hard decision to make on Sindari's part, our leader of FF, but a reasonable one. With all the radical changes happening-from people quitting the game, to constant competitions of zones with other ls'-it became to a point where we as an ls have exhausted our options to try to keep things going. However, it goes without saying that I had a blast in the two years I've been with FF and you have to admit they lasted as long as most other dynamis ls' have, in the 5 years they've been running. To me, that's very impressive. I've learned so much about my three present lvl 75 jobs and more as well as made some good friends out of it so it hasn't been a waste. Who knows, perhaps I'll join another dynamis ls in the next few months but for now I'll enjoy the free time I have to do other things which leads to the good news.

After the disbandment of Fraggle Force, event leadership went over to Capsession after Sindari stepped down and the LS bank went over to all of it's members who have attended the runs in the last months which was distributed fairly. Needless to say, I used some of my share to upgrade some equipment for my Warrior job and the rest will go to leveling crafting and Blue Mage :-P

The Fraggles as a whole are still together, still doing Sky and Limbus events and Capesssion is planning to start doing Einherjar once he irons out everything. Untill then I've been doing Salvage and Assaults now with a handful of the members. I've been having a pleasant time and it's good to have the freedom so as to catch up on things such as getting merits, doing campaign to build up points and so on.

Things are looking up I would say.

Good News.

(Joytoy Musketeers^^)

Ok, the good news first.

I cannot tell you how happy I am for me, Foulei and Zidaneii/Thegreatmoneky (he has two characters) to have your Joyeuse's. And we got them all in under two days! It took me two years of hunting this thing on my own with whatever help I could get. The first time I thought I could solo it on my Thief but at the time I didn't know the requirements to try to solo it let alone at the time my evasion wasn't at around 290, which is where you want to be around in when facing Charby. Anything lower than that and you're asking for trouble. The second time I had gotten a lot of help for it but when it dropped someone ninja lotted it from me the bastard. It's ok I blacklisted the whole lot of them for doing that since they didn't give me any explanation. The third attempt was with one of my game mentors who was a Ninja but things got out of hand since we didn't have a healer and by the time we got up some people showed up and took the claim while we were recovering. Attempt #4 was with another ninja buddy of mine and an RDM friend. We were doing great but right around 2% of its life our rdm accidently got aggro from an elemental which messed up our flow and we died.

Attempt 5 was Foulei and Zid, then when it was my turn for mine we got some help from a few other folks. My thanks goes to everyone for trying to help and have had helped out big time!
The sword is pretty handy after all despite my misgivings about it. I'm just really glad Fou and Zid got it for thier Red Mage jobs which I know its helpful to them in that department. While I don't have Red Mage leveled I know too much about it ironically. Between me leveling it on Kujata with an old character I had then and my 1st CoP leader being lvl 75 himself I could write a book about the job....well, kinda lol.

Happy New Year.....All late!! 0.o

1000 apologies everyone!

My lack of updates have a really good excuse though. I was laid off/letgo (it's really complicated) from my old job and I had to spend time to find a new one which I did back in November and I've been working ever since. I had a lot of adjusting to do though and some life changes were made because of the job change.

But I hope everyone is having a good start of 2010, the year of the RustyTiger (yes pun intended, heh). It's funny too since in Chinese culture I fall under the Year of the Tiger and I'm a Libra. A strange but interesting combination I assure you.

So not to stray off I hope you are all enjoying the updates SE is handing us so far. While I'm not too crazy about our level cap to 99 at this time it does leave many open doors and possibilities. My concern is the difficulty of players vs. mobs. As I said and SE has stated there will be a level cap of 99 but I'm told the mob difficulty will not be increased.

Aside from that there are many other things going on with this update that it's too much for words in a good way. And since it's been weeks now since the announcement, no need for me to post a link.

Again, forgive me everyone for not updating like I should but expect more to come in the next few days or weeks from now so continue to read on :)