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