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