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 :)

Hogan. Paladin. November Update. FFXI'S fate.

To everyone who has been viewing my blog, I am sorry for not updating as often as I should. On a personal note I have been devoting more time to looking for a new job since I was laid off from my first one. And I know many of you agree that real life comes first before FFXI. I did manage to land a new job thankfully.

Speaking of which I've been feeling rather....uncertain about how FFXI will be once FFIXI (14) comes out. In recent runs with dynamis and a limbus group I joined up with called Altana's Assassins, I've been surrounded with talks of people saying FFXI will be no more in the next six months. But the thing is, nobody really knows for certain and yet people still play. Right now everything is up in speculation because we really don't know how FFIXI will be as well as how people will either play both or stay with one or the other. And yet, some people treat it like its 2012?

I admit, FFXI is an old game now, and many people have quit the game for many reasons, not just becaue of FFIXI. Hogan, a long time friend of mine and fellow Galka has decided to quit the FFXI and the end of the month, simply because he's lost interest. While I will miss him and Ratchety, his son, I do understand and respect his decision and will never forget the fun times we had; from leveling together to doing missions to doing crazy amounts of KSNMs and BCNMs, to hunting NMs together. If anything when it will be my time the memories of good times will always be there at the very least. Hogan and Ratchety I will miss you guys greatly but.... I will continue kicking more butt on FFXI in your stead!

(Seeing Hogan for the last time)

So while everything is uncertain I will at least do that and enjoy FFXI as much as I can and for everyone I enjoy the game with.


The past several weeks have been steady, eventful, busy, perplexing and entertaining. November's update has brought about some good things such as job adjustments to Beastmaster, Summoner and Ranger. And while it has brought about more WotG missions, new Notorious Monsters, and new synthesis recipes, there's a few things I'm puzzled with such as the new Synergy method that's out. As an up and coming crafter I should look into this and see what it brings.

Shortly after CoJ's disbanding I joined up with Altana's Assasins Linkshell. Its made up of some dynamis linkshell members. It did take me time to make the choice to join. It wasn't easy at first but in the end I felt it was for the best to just continue onwards.

I'm still doing dynamis of course but it has become increasingly frustrating lately because we've been having Dynamis-Xarcabard taken constantly by a rival LS; well I wouldn't say rivals since we never steal zones from people but still.....
Anyhow, aside from that our runs have been steady thankfully......

(.....well, to say the least, thanks to my 5 star-now3 star rated pulling dang it)

The new add-on, Shantotto's Ascension has drawn a lot of attention as well. In fact people have completed it in under a week! I noticed because last friday I caught Bradly with some new pants on, for once not with his pants down :-P



(Every time I see Bradly in this set up I always think about the Robin Hood: Men in Tights movie:-P)


I've been helping Foulei with his missions for it the other day. While I haven't started it yet and still need to complete Kupo D' Etat, I enjoyed duo'ing with Foulei as I always have done. We make a good team I would say!




(A galka duo picture is worth a thousand adventures)


(yes, Galkas CAN read)

In between all of this I've been leveling Paladin, which is now level 69! Six more painfully long levels to 75! Whoo hoo! I am excited to get to that level so I can help out with tanking for both Dynamis, Limbus, and Sky linkshells as well as missions for people. Not that I am unhappy with people needing my Thief and sometimes my Warrior. In fact I've grown quite used to being on my thief more often. But I've been getting both good pointers and praises from people about my tanking on Paladin lately which I thank and appreciate friends and LS members for.

(Partners in crime: *left to right* Jadewolf , Foulei, myself, Jakary)

Well that's all for this entry folks but I leave you some words of thought; enjoy FFXI for what it is that makes you enjoy it, even if it's old and a new version is coming out. Sure, nothing lasts forever but that doesn't mean you should stop enjoying something you like doing.


Peace.

Money Making. Mantis. End of CoJ.

Well I will not beat around the bush at all on this one but sadly, CoJ, the LS I helped out Limbus with has disbanded from doing Limbus entirely. I haven't been too thrilled about it even though at the same time we're at the point where I think we really need to focus on other things individually. Plus it was getting really hard and difficult to maintain anything with such low attendance. As much as we did in keeping the LS alive with limbus with the manpower we had, every time we were at our peak it would trickle down to 7-8 out of 20+ people we had in our roster that would show up to every run.
The other factor is the majority of people we do have said they will be having tough times to come attend due to real life obligations and that is understanding at the very least. Real life comes first.
So yes, CoJ is done with Limbus it seems. However I want to give my thanks and everyone's cooperation, patience, and persistence until the very end. And though we may go our different ways in game events perhaps, don't be afraid to hit me up sometime and say hello or whatever the case may be.

Aside from the bad news I've gone basically back to gil making for now with all this free time I have. So I've taken up Gardening again, farming my butt off; anything to reek in the gil much better than normal. I slowed down on cooking a little bit just so I can do this then continue when I have enough.

Not much in pictures this session because I'm a bit busy with some things at the moment. More will come later but as you can see below I stumbled upon this little critter today while I was out:



I find the Mantis to be quite a fascinating insect. Though scary looking to some people, they are quite harmless. In fact they are helpful to the ecosystem. In some cultures they are considered good luck.

Double. Dungeon Adventure.Dough Making.

(Leveling cooking, with a watchful Galkan Cooking master *lvl 100, /envy*)

Well summer is nearing its end, with 4 weeks untill autumn. I can't wait. I enjoy the fall season for many reasons; the multi colored trees, cold weather, the holidays mainly halloween and thanksgiving, and many birthdays, mine included in the next three and a half weeks.

Many things have come around lately. I went back to leveling Cooking. In the course of a week I went from where I left off, level 30, to level 40. It was a little expensive because in the process I had to make Meat Mithkabobs. While they do sell fast, 4k gil a stack, a couple of the ingredients got for about 12k gil a stack. I overdid it in making so many of them to get to where I am now, making Pie Dough to skill up cooking even further. Thankfully making Pie Dough and selling it isn't so bad. I'm not losing much gil at all really. So I'm in the process of making some amount of gil through cooking at my level. With the game economy being rough, cooking recipes from 1-40 doesn't sell quite as much as it used too but if I play it right I can make some of them profitable. It's a matter of where and when to sell them.

While I have been giving myself some downtime from events to level cooking, except for Dynamis to keep up with my points for a specific reason, I did take some time to do a little dungeon adventure. Foulei kept pulling my tail to get up and go hunt for a Jelly Ring for my paladin. So, we ventured to San 'D'Oria and went down into their "basement", Bostaunieux Oubliette

(They can lock me up but they can't keep me in here *grr*)

Foulei and I got some assistance with the NM unexpectedly from Danille, Thelittlecrash and Royalwitch. Though fighting the NM is doable with a duo team, a little extra help didn't hurt after all. Needless to say Fou finished off the NM with his Red Mage 2 hour, Chainspell, and nuked it to death while the rest of us hacked and slashed at it, even though we did very little damage to it, but hey, every bit helps right?

Offline-wise, I got to see a rather upbeat opening to the new Kamen Rider series this year, Kamen Rider Double. As some of you already know I'm a huge Kamen Rider fan and have been watching the series every year, each year having its own Kamen Rider, different looks, theme and all. I think the opening video will speak for itself. Enjoy!

Kamen Rider Double (W) Opening

The Blue Mage Blues....in a good way. Ballista. Beginning of a new Linkshell.

Fun. Fun. Fun. I'm having way too much fun with Blue Mage this past week!! As it stands now it's level 24 and I have all the current spells at that level. Some of them DID take effort; Blastbomb, Feather Storm, Metallic Body. Regardless it has been well worth it. The only problem is there's so many spells that sometimes it is mind boggling to figure out what spells to use. On top of that once you set your spells it takes about thirty seconds. Too many chiefs, not enough indians. However, what I learned is that playing blue mage, takes patience and planning ahead. Once you do these things it's an unstoppable force.

(FLASH! AH-AAA, Galka of the Universe)

Meanwhile I got a /tell from one of my friends, Horas. He had informed me he decided to make his own linkshell; EndResults. Their main focus is endgame events and getting people through missions, all that jazz. Horas has gathered a good group of friends for his LS and I'm confident they'll do well and I'll be there, whenever I'm able to help them out.

(Horas' LS people, EndResults)

As seen here, there was an LS meeting with EndResults to go over times for events. They're still working things out a bit but I believe they have something going. Just after the meeting many of them wanted to do something that a lot of people haven't done in a very long time; Ballista!




I managed to get Hidetada and Atherine in on this since they've been wanting to revive Ballista. A lot of people haven't had any interest in it so it was difficult to get people to do matches with. My friend Xanathos stated his reason for not doing ballista because he hates the restrictions placed upon Ballista which was equipment changes. Once you change gear while doing a match you can't move for a moment. While this could be a hindrance there's the strength of a good challenge, and that's what I see.

Camaraderie. Progression. More friends.

(3 out of 5 Homams^^. Many thanks to CoJ members for this!)

I've become quite the popular Galka these past several weeks not to mention I have people who come through for me as well.

Granted I've been extremely busy since my last update offline, whenever I have been online I've accomplished a lot for both my friends and myself.

But before I get to that I do want to talk about July's update. I like it and hate it; more pros than cons at the very least. Granted I haven't messed with Kupo'De'Tat (if that's spelled right lol) just yet my pals tell me the rewards are pretty sweet and I still have yet to decide which reward I want for either my Thief or Paladin.
The Union addition to Campaign Battles is really nice and the new armors are good, despite some people's misgivings about some of them. Also, the new Blue Mage spells and Ninja Abilities are decent according to what people have told me if used properly.
The major con I have with the update are two things. Firstly, the annoying unforseen agrro of some mobs WHILE there's a campaign battle going on, particularly the Greater Amphiptere in Xarcabard (s). Secondly, the Greater Amphitere's period :-P Last I checked if you're engaged in Campagin no mobs that don't have anything to do with Campagin don't bother you. I guess SE watned to be evil this time :-P. For now I just avoid that area.

Now, as for what's been happening of late. Children of Jenova, the Limbus linkshell I'm with has been quite busy since we formed a merger with another LS. Now that we have enough members we started to push forward with events. We banged out tons of Proto Omega, and now have started to do Temenos floors again. Granted, the merger process was a little rough at first but understand that, yes, sometimes sacrifices are ment to be for the greater benefit for everybody.
I think we'll be ok overall.

I started doing Nyzul again. Foulei, Atherine, and Hidetata wanted to help me with floor progression. So far, with effort we managed to get from 19-40 in a matter of a week or two.
In addition I went back to leveling Paladin again, which, now, is level 62^^.

(Fighting a boss on floor 20; Fafnir.)

I've been called upon lately on my paladin. I guess it goes with the territory. I'm glad really because it gives me the chance to practice tanking, which has improved immensely. And believe me, I WILL have my exp capped to its fullest once its level 75 because I got this nagging feeling my Paladin will be "abused". Heh.

(bcnm 60. good tanking practice i gotta say)

So July has been rather fruitful in both doing a lot of things with friends and progression. This galka is finally going places once again!

Juggernaut Axe. More Dynamis Pulling. 4th of July

This week has been good; hectic, but good. I threw in this little comic illustration for two reasons. One is because Foulei and I went to a comic book store this week and well, did some shopping there. I know things are tight right now due to the economy but we really needed to do this for once since we've been so strung up on FFXI for weeks, so it was good to get out and do something and we haven't picked up any comics in months, and for him its been a few years. The books we both got were well worth the cash since they were well worth reading. ^^

The other reason for the image is after much saving up on gil, selling things and a very generous donation from Foulei, I bought the Juggernaught Axe for my Warrior. Out of all things, it has been the most sought after item out of anything else. I also bought a Magnet Knife for my good ol' Thief, per advice from Zidaneii, my fellow Thief friend and, yes, mentor (there Zid, i said it! happy? lol).

Both weapons are great, moreso the Magnet Knife; good for farming if you run into any trouble since it slows down the movent of the mob you would be fighting, the damage is really sweet-it shows on Sneak Attack/Trick Attack-and even though there's a -10 on Evasion it doesn't really effect anything if you have Evasion capped, close too capped level (ex; 5 lvls) or merits. Its a very well rounded knife if you don't have the "big guns" such as Siccoro Kukri, or Blau Dolch.

Back to Zidaneii for a bit now. On friday we had our usual Dynamis event. I log on and out of nowhere Kamille and Zideneii request I come as Thief. I'm like "oh no...they want me to act as puller for the linkshell, joy...". I was ambivalent because we were going to do Dynamis Beaucidine and since i'm still in training i didn't want to do the dreamlands areas since they're more time senitive. I got lucky and we ended up doing Dynamis Bastok instead since the other zone had been taken by another group.
I did enjoy being puller in a dynamis zone this time as opposed to last time so I'm kinda getting the hang of it. Zid' said I'm doing fine but I pull too slow. I will have to work on speeding it up. He's a good teacher, though he likes to poke fun at me, which is fine. It gives me a sense of humor behind his helping me out with theif and he has been very helpful :)

Well, I hope everyone has had a good holiday, The 4th of July :) Foulei and I did for sure. We went to a cookout at a friend's house to celebrate Independance Day as well as her Birthday. We had a good time.

I hope you all did too :)

-Rusty.

75 Thief. Goodies. A Crystalline Prophecy. Paladin.

My, oh my, I have not updated in so long! My apologies everyone!!

The good news is I got so much accomplished over the course of three and a half months.
Getting Thief to 75 was one of them.

Thief 75, Completed!

In a playful sense, there's good and bad news on this. The good news is both the Sky and Limbus Linkshells call upon both my Warrior and Thief nowadays. The bad news is they get to abuse my Treasure Hunter >.>. Seriously it's good to be needed on both of these jobs. Recently I've been "in-training" by a few thieves and a good friend of mine, Zidaneii, in the "art" of pulling in Dynamis. It's coming along ok, though my terms were that I be trained in the nation zones, not the dreamlands, since the dreamlands areas are more time sensitive you can't botch up. Zid' says I'm doing ok but just need to pull faster; but then again he likes busting my chops anyway :-P.


AAAAANNNNDDDD.....!! As you can see, I finally got a pair of Byakko's Hidatae!! Both Foulei and Simi, one of our Sky LS leaders got pairs too, all three of us on the same day! That's uncommon for this particular NM for more than two pair in one sesson.

Our thanks goes to the Sky LS, FragglesGoneWild, for thier help and contributions thus far.

Also, (not pictured unfortunately), a week later, I also received a Kirin's Osode when we did a Kirin run. Even the LS were surpsied at the turn out of me getting both these sought out "Goodies" in as little as two weeks. I pays to save up points ;)

I took some time off from sky, a much deserved break if you ask me, to tie up a few loose ends. I started by working on the Add-on SE put out a few months ago; A Crystalline Prophacy. Zidaneii, Foulei, Bradly, and a few other people (i forgot thier names atm, sorry) got together to work on the last battle. We had so much fun doing it, though Zid' and Foulei were having fun killing my clone >.> since the final boss kept spamming it out more than thier clones.

After finishing and much much thinking, I chose this as my prize:

MirkeWardecors

Other than all of this I've been helping some friends with CoP a bit. Since I've been leveling Paladin, they've grown to have use for it. I've been doing ok tanking on missions for the most part which is fine since I need the practice. My paladin is now level 57, and I will continue to level it once I build up some gil again.

Well that's all for now. Take care everybody!

Samurai, 37. Back to Blue. Feild Manual. Street Fighter 4.

Yes! As you can see folks, I've gotten Samurai to 37!! The funny thing is I "dinged" (what people online say when they gain a level on this game) at 0 exp! Talk about strange odds!
Playing the job of Samurai was an interesting experience; the abilities and job traits are really good. I can see why a lot of people level it beyond 37. Its been very helpful for Warrior as a very good subjob option.

Now that I've completed this task, I went and geared up Blue Mage afterI sold off the samurai gear I used. With Theif drawing into the 70s range and sam out of the way I have more freedom to start another job besides Blue Mage. Paladin will be next in line as well. Those two jobs will be slow starting however since I have to finish meriting Warrior.

I went back to Sand'oria and zoned into West Ronfuare to level Blue Mage a little bit last night before bed. I had forgotten that the last recent updates came out with the Fields of Valor manuals. I hadden't tried them out yet untill last night. It's a really impressive feature! Not only do you get a really good exp bounus from completing the tasks that you have to follow, you also get exp normaly from the mobs you kill. I reeled in about 1.5k exp in under 5 min just following a task. I'm told there's other features using Fields of Valor but I have yet to look into it personally.

Last weekend I finally picked up my copy of Street Fighter 4 for playstation 3. While I don't normally buy ps3 games once they come out, I gave this one an exception for two reasons: 1. I've become mentally frustrated with ffxi lately. No lie. On top of that I got this wonderful console, the ps3, and all I been using it is for ffxi, not the other games I do have, which are very few. Might as well "milk out" my ps3 to its fullest potential. 2. With what I've said to number 1, I need an outlet, so Street Fighter 4 will be that outlet for a very good while.

The game is great and its good to play a fighting game again. My only bane is my partner when he uses Zangeif! >.> They-Capcom-tweeked Zangeif to where now its tough to beat him, skilled or not. Normally Foulei doesn't play him but hes grown rather attached to the "so-called" Red Cyclone because of these tweeks. So i've been getting my butt kicked (won't tell you who i play, sorry folks, secret :-P)!
The online pvp feature is pretty nice. No lag, a few disconnections here n' there but that's about it. You can host matches to random people or pick and accept challenges from your friends only. So there's a lot Street Fighter 4 has to offer!

Ready. Fight!!

-Rusty.

Trolls, they scare me but not really.

The image says it all. A few weeks ago I was looking around profile images on a FFXI site, called Final Fantasy Players. I had a pic posted there ages ago back when I was new to MMO and wanted to get a peek at what others looked like behind their characters. I haven't used it in years then. Looking back, and how many people deal with jerks online, both on the game and on forums or whatever, I remember some of the pictures I seen and I gotta say, nobody's got nothing to be threatend nor afraid of. Its true, the internet is where you can literally be someone else and use it, also, as an extension of bringing out your true colors. However, behind the keyboard and without a computer some of these "trolls" are less than ordinary and really, nothing to be afraid of.

Foulei once told me, "Don't feed the trolls". A good example was when I made a post on one of the forums pretaining to FFXI and I made it clear to people that i did not want any aruguments amoungst themselves when they answer a question I've made. Sure enough nobody made a single post, whereas prior to the post I made one before that without the warning and tons of people answered and argued between each other.

So really everyone don't be annoyed or angry at the internet trolls out there. They're nothing but hot air, and is it really worth getting angry at someone that could be half a continent away, let alone behind a keyboard? Really.

Samurai. Shinkenger. Stress Test.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger



Yes, yes. It looks "Power Ranger" esq but you know what, that's how Disney bastardized one of the best Tokusatsu series. I knew of Sentai long before "Power Rangers" kicked in the 90s during one of my channel surfing days as a kid, bored out of my mind after Godzilla Hour and Kung Fu Theater were over on a typical Saturday afternoon. Anyway, I watch the fan sub japanese originals every year, thanks to a good friend of mine who's into the same thing and told me of a group who fansubbes Tokusatsu shows like Sentai and Kamen Rider.
This year, finally with a Samurai Theme after all these 30+ years of sentai, this is Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (above)!!

As a kid I've always been fascinated with the ways of the Samurai of Japan. I've studed whatever I could find to understand more of Samurai and so on; the traditions, famous Samurai Warriors, etc. So when this came out last week, I was more than happy to see both something I've admired and watch a tv series on a yearly basis at the same time.

Ironically, I don't think i'll ever level samurai to 75 like I intended. I know, its strange and its got nothing to do with Foulei "stealing" the job I wanted to level first; yes, we kinda had a competition thing going to see who would surpass whom in levels for a while :-P. Honestly though I think its because there's so much competition and demand with the job in terms of gear, use and events that I dont want to stress myself out with it. Besides I got one melee job at 75 anyway.
The good side at least is that I have been leveling Samurai and will continue to do so this week to finish getting it to 37, with it now being around 33 so I'm close. I also managed to try it out as a subjob with Warrior and I gotta say, I'm impressed with the results. I can do weaponskills much quicker now and do more damage. So while my desire to level Samurai to 75 waned over time, I will put it to some good use with my current main job, Warrior.

Part of the reason of it progressing from 24-32 this week is because I took off from work for two days. I was having a lot of chest pains on Monday night for about 3 hours, barely having any sleep. On top of that I've been having these pains for almost a year now in some occurances. So I stopped ignoring this issue and went to the doctors on Tuesday. Given my family medical history of prone to heart problems, the doctor inisted upon me taking some tests; blood work, chest/heart x-rays, stress test. So I have my work cut out or me there on these tests in the next week or two. I just hope its nothing serious.

Xanathos' Wedding. Return of a friend. Appreciation of Level Sync and friends.

While last week had its ups and downs-from the cancellation of the Nyzul run to CoJ's victory over Omega-some good things came in the direction of my adventures and others on the game. Just last tuesday, before attending Xanathos and Ororodos' wedding held in South Gustaberg I "paid my respects" to a rock mount on Vomp Hill. I needed to do this, strange as it sounds, to give thought to friends and aquaintences who are present and those who've quit the game.

It has been, as of this coming March, 7 years playing FFXI. Though I don't have as many level 75 jobs or experienced the game to its maxium potential (Salvage, etc) yet, and though there have been some rough scrapes socially to the brink of wanting to quit the game I still keep going. I want to give it my all even if i don't finish everything 100% on this game. I do it for those that have left the game. I do it for family and friends who have passed on in real life. I do it for myself most especially. I've learned that life, yes, delecate and short. So you want to give it your best. A few of my friends who have quit the game have no regrets that they had not finished thier goals; because while yes, its good to have goals one thing is certain: the game is just digital....the friendship and good times are real. That is more important. Everyone, never forget that ok?

After Vomp Hill, I headed over to the base of the lighthouse where I ran into the rest of the wedding party.

(The wedding party meets up with Syrynx, the chaparone and Best Man *me*)

This has been the 3rd time I've attended a wedding and the 1st time experiencing one outside of a nation city. Everyone was assembled when I arrived, and a few others followed. Surprisingly half of them I knew so it was great seeing old friends. It stunk that Foulei couldn't make it but only because he had to work the day of the wedding. It couldn't be helped since it was arranged by the Weddingmaster GM of the specific day. Syrynx, a long time friend of many, gave us instructions on what we needed to do once we were taken up to the top of the lighthouse. Afterwards she provided us with drinks and fireworks so when the ceremony was over we could celebrate and take screenshots, which are below.

(Wedding party *left*. Bride, Groom, Best Man and Lady *right*)

(Left: Happy Couple;Xan and Orodos. Right: Xan, Luriel, Ororodos, Syrynx)

















(Left: Ororo and myself. Right: Me, Syrynx, Xanathos)

There's more screenshots where that came from which I still need to aquire from Xanathos and the others so expect more images in the near future.


Oh shoot, I should've added this first. Prior to the wedding marked the return of yet another longtime friend; Scarlette!!

( Bumps into Scarlette in Windurst (s) area; brings back old times!)

When I last saw her last summer, she was leveling Dancer. Seems she's picked up where she left off once she returned and is having a fun time with the job. Its good to see her again. In fact she's joined the ranks of CoJ, mostly just to mingle with the rest of us on the linkshell. Currently she's really not into the whole endgame aspect of things right now, which is understandable because, like me, she wants to work on her character progression for a little while.

Progression, the word, has been ongoing lately this week. Last night Foulei, myself, and those who needed completion of Dynamis-Quifim acheived that finally! After about a year we finally got completion. Some good drops came about during the run which I do congratulate the dynamis ls members who aquired them, though I never said so directly. I tend to be rather....quiet during events mostly, as strange as that is.

After the dynamis run was over I hopped on to leveling Samurai. I gained about 3 levels on Thursday, but shockingly enough, I gained 7 levels last night!! Arathas, Envytaru, Dorion, Kirby and Massive invited me, with Foulei as our PL*powerlevel* (prior to the invite Foulei PL'ed me a bit), to join them to level on Quifim Island.
I kinda wanted to keep to myself for the evening but with convincing from Foulei I then graciously accepted the invite to level with them. Sure enough I had a wonderful time and thanks to them I'm now about 3/4ths of the way to getting Samurai to 37 for my warrior! I have to say, Level Sync is a blessing. It really is helpful especially if friends want to get together to acheive a goal such as leveling a job even though the level ranges are so far off. Level Syncing fixes that so there's no limitations to that matter. We did so well and got some fast exp that it was even hard for Foulei to keep up with us as far as healing us goes and I had to ask the group to slow it down to fighting 2 mobs at a time, not 3, haha.
Guys, thank you for the invite and the help. I really appreciated it in the end :)

Well, time flies when one makes posts. It's now noon, on Valentines Day. Its time for me to get ready to spend the day with a special someone after lunch with family first. Have a good day to you all as well!

-Rusty.