Friendlist {|Do you need it?|}

A few days back as I was sitting in Ru’Lude Gardens after browsing the auction house, I took a look at my friendlist and realized every single person that I’ve ever put on there has quit the game. Nearly 15 people that didn’t bother me as much as the rest of the populace and were actually respectable, all gone. That got me thinking; is the friendlist even needed? The people in my linkshell will never need to be added because I can just ask something in /l and get an answer, as well as a half-dozen idiot responses. Most people that play this game with their friends know when they’re going to be online and usually talk on AIM or something because they’re cheaters that use a windower. It’s not exactly an exploit or hack, but it does break the ToS. So cheaters most of you are, and cheaters most of you will always be. That being said, if I ever get around to actually downloading it I’d use both the windower and one of those parsers just to publish how fucking half-assed most of the people I’ve partied with really are. I nice list of people, what kind of shitty gear they have and how they fuck up would certainly make the blog more exciting. Encore, being the only ls-mate I’ve been able to XP party with probably ever is an exception. He did exactly what black mage is supposed to do in the Jungles (that being nuke and not die), even with a ninja tank and a severely gimped Drk/Nin (Ninja tanks in the Jungles and Drk/Nin before level 30 both being future blog entries.). The most bizarre thing the friendlist does is show when people are logged onto PlayOnline, but not yet on FFXI. To me that’s very reminiscent of a dog watching out the window, waiting for its owner to return. If SE removed the friendlist completely, would anyone really be affected?

The What?, Where?, and Huh? of Farming

In all the years I’ve been playing FFXI, I’ve wanted the best possible gear for whatever job/level I was. However, the economy isn’t very kind to new players, as most of the items early monsters drop aren’t worth shit. There are a few exceptions, though. What you farm is up to you, but I’ll share a few of my own farming favorites and tactics. My list has no elementals/crystals on it, because I think they suck.

1. Beehive chips were probably the second most farmed item in the game due to the huge number of zones with bees in them. Even though a nice portion of the gilseller populace has been eliminated and prices have plummeted, they remain right near the top in most farmed items. Zegham Hill in North Gustaberg has about 2 dozen bees on it, as well as Stinging Sophie. Farming there has always paid nicely, but there’s often competition so be ready. By “ready” I mean do your best to use enough profanity in /say that the other people get tired of it and go away.

2. Slime oil. A major ingredient in Silent Oil, the most popular item on the auction house according to the official Census. While there aren’t nearly as many slimes as bees in the lower-level areas, the oils drop at a pretty good rate and have been selling better than almost anything from what I’ve seen.

3. Silk thread was the item du jour when it came to farming pre-price drop and are still heavily farmed. I remember when they were nearly 40k/stack, possibly a little higher. Crawlers are everywhere outside Windurst all the way to Mhaura, and any Windurstian that doesn’t take advantage of that should be kicked out of town.

4. Lizard skins have always been fairly popular because almost every melee job will wear lizard armor in the high teens (all the way to the mid-20’s if the person is really stupid.). I’ve never actually farmed them so I don’t know about the drop rate, though I did get a few when I was gathering Twinstone Earrings in Meriphataud Mountains. The earrings are for a repeatable quest in Windurst that gets you 900gil. That the ones in Meriphataud drop skins and earrings make them a better choice for farming than the ones that are in Konstacht or Valkurm. Farming in Valkurm will usually rile up the stupid noobs out there though, since they level off the lizards you’re farming.

5. Raptor skins like lizard skins are something I’ve never actually tried to farm. The little bastards hit pretty hard even at the lowest levels in Meriphataud, and from what I’ve read the drop rate is shitty at best. Still, for 40k/stack on the AH it might be worth the pain.

6. Coeurls. The ugly-ass mutant cheetahs might as well just drop money for you, as everything they drop will sell. These stupid cats made me my millions in the summer of ’05. Whiskers, meat and hides all sold for good amounts, and I single-handedly ran the hide price up from 1.5k each to nearly 10k. Thanks to the economic decline, nothing’s worth what it used to be. Whiskers and meat have also plummeted, but the meat sells quickly. I don’t know what recipe cooks use it for, and I don’t care. They want it, and I want their gil.

7. Like Raptor Skins, Tiger Fangs/Hides are something I’ve never tried to farm, but there are a plethora of tigers in Carpenter’s Landing and the zone seems fairly empty most of the time. From what I can tell, the drop rate of tiger fangs and hides are much better than the Raptor skins and the drops seem to sell quickly.

It has nothing to do with farming, but here's a screenshot of my NPC and me killing a crawler in Rolanberry Fields.

Tigers Are Goddamn Assholes, and Quit Farming My Pets!

Having hit level 28 again as a bst, it seems there aren’t many places to camp and still get good XP right outside Jeuno. I’ve tried Batallia Downs because more of the tigers are starting to /check as EM with Toughs spread around. Unfortunately, an EM tigers will maybe get a T down to about 30% before it dies. That’s more than enough HP left to kill you and then crap on your remains. I’ve died 10 times just on level 28, a new personal record. Sauromugue might be pretty good; I’ll have to look into it. I had been getting pretty good XP using crawlers on crawler in Rolanberry Fields, but for the last few days people have been farming all the crawlers and bees in the zone. Since I camp in F-7, I’ve asked several people if they can farm somewhere else in the zone, only to get {|I don’t speak any English.|} in response. I know most of these stupid fucks speak English; they just don’t want to give a reason for being a fucking asshole. That pisses me off more than when these douchebags run right past me to provoke the crawler my pet is headed towards. If you want to be an ass that’s fine, but at least have the balls to give a real answer. I know I’m not friendly. I never have been. I play FFXI for me, not to make friends and dick around with a bunch of fucking kids. I still enjoy the game very much, despite its fundamental flaw: Other people play at the same time you do, and as MMORPGs are mostly a young man’s pursuit these people are younger and so fucking stupid it is maddening. The vast majority of them, anyway. Immaturity is something I do not deal with well, nor the adolescent male’s never-ending need to act like a retard in lieu of sexual release. Get laid, and then calm the fuck down before you spoil my FFXI experience any further, you stupid fuck.

Every Family Has One

After an interesting exchange with MoogleArmy’s resident dumbfuck (the one that replaced Zithe), I’ve come to the realization that no matter how desperately I may want it, fucking morons will be allowed on the Internet. Those that appear to be the stupidest end up doing their best to ruin online gaming for everyone else however they can. I suppose they needed to either be hugged more or beaten more as children, for now they pollute my fucking chat log with their bullshit. Desperation so great you resort to attention whoring in a game must be a sign of something much more; Do these people not have friends they can go hang out with, get drunk/high with? Play Halo or Ghost Recon or Smash Brothers with? No spouses/lovers with whom they can explore the Kama Sutra? (Anyone that can do that one should, it’s totally worth it.) Are their lives really so shitty they have to try to make everyone else as miserable as these stupid cunts think they are? I’ve said it many times that if you have a computer and can access the Internet you don’t have much to complain about. I’m too old and have worked too hard to put up with this kind of bullshit from students living off mommy and daddy.

Farm, Dumbass! Farm!

Farming for gil is the second most boring way to make money behind camping NMs. Standing around for an hour just to have some gilseller dickface out-voke you sucks ass. Farming is, however, a relatively painless way to make gil if you’re farming mobs much lower than you that only take a stiff breeze to knock over. Unfortunately farming usually isn’t something that can be done in a single day. It will take a lot of time to farm enough of whatever it is your farming, and more time for it to sell on the auction house. In some cases, it will take months of farming just to get that next kick-ass piece of armor or weapon. Having thf leveled to at least 15 will reduce the amount of time significantly. Some people also swear that having certain items in your inventory will increase your drop rate. The 4-leaf Mandragora Bud is mainly dropped by Mandragoras in the Jungles outside Kazham, but they might drop from the ones closer to Windurst. I don't know, I've never tried to get one. Rarabs in the Buburimu Peninsula drop the Wild Rabbit Tail which I can actually confirm as working. Crawlers drop the Lucky Egg in Boyadha Tree, but those bastards are in the 50’s or 60’s, so just running out there and getting one real quick isn’t a very good possibility. The increase in drop rates isn’t anything drastic, but if you’ve ever farmed for a long period of time you’ll see it. Supposedly the Millionaire’s Desk does something to raise luck, but I still haven’t seen any payout from that waste of money and Mog House space. Most people will eventually grow bored with farming and want to get back to leveling. Leveling with gimp gear should be illegal, but since it’s not I’ll advise you to tell that part of you that wants to go level to shut its goddamn face. Get yourself the best gear you can, so when you fuck up I’ll know it’s not because you don’t have decent gear but because you actually suck. Nearly any job can farm efficiently, though most of the mage jobs will be farming outside the starting cities for longer than the melees. If you chose to start in San d’Oria, I feel sorry for you. From a purely gil-making point of view, Bastok and Windurst kick the shit out of San d’Oria. From a purely personal point of view, Elvaan are fucking gay and their town sucks. Enjoy your rabbit hides and bat wings you stupid bastards.

My Linkshell Rules (Marking 1 Month of Blog entries.)

When I first created Omael, I was barely leveled into the teens when I was invited to a linkshell called DragonSouls. Its leader, Yindragon, wasn’t all that bad as far as leaders go. He did have some really fucking stupid ideas, though. The worst was having a meeting. Not one just through ls chat, but where the entire linkshell meets in Windurst Woods. Even the lower-leveled members were herded all the way from Bastok and San d’Oria to attend. It was the stupidest thing I’d seen someone do on FFXI at the time. It was also one of the few times I’ve seen a character with male hume face F7B. It was on a character named Kaboom. Yes, the Kaboom everyone knows and loves. Everyone knows, anyway. It’s too bad you can’t see him in either of the screenshots I still have of the actual meeting. This one is from near the end, where most of the ls had left.



I hit level 30 there, and after a long while of nobody helping me unlock any of the extra jobs Yindragon was told to fuck off and I quit the shell. A few weeks later when I was leveling ninja in the Dunes, Kaboom is /shouting for a linkshell that’s recruiting. He was a Taru by now but oddly enough, remembered me. With little fanfare, I joined Ignited. Its leader, a hume female named Meenah seemed pretty cool and actually helped me unlock Summoner and get rank 5. Unfortunately, that was the only decent thing she’d do for the rest of the time I was in the ls. Her apparent boyfriend, a colostomy bag of a mnk named Kisame was a fucking asshole to everyone at all times. Not just being in a generally disagreeable mood as I often am, the stupid fuck would try to start shit with people, I guess to impress Meenah. Together, those two used pretty much everyone in the shell to reach endgame, where they promptly abandoned it. I logged on one day to find my linkpearl no longer existed. That was too bad, as there were a few good people in there. Endrium, a Red Mage extraordinaire helped me several times, and Kaboom himself was usually entertaining. Every linkshell has a stupid attention whore in it, and Ignited’s was a Galka named Ropeguy. The only asshole Galka I’ve seen since I was on Fenrir, he told us he was like 14 and I shut him the fuck up shortly after. For two years I worked in the adult film industry at a video store/distribution center, and after a couple stories of what that’s like he got real quiet when I logged on. He was probably gay and in denial, so discussions of a sexual nature got him uncomfortable. A few weeks after Ignited broke up, I believe it was Kaboom again that recruited me into MoogleArmy, the linkshell I’m currently in. Its leader, a Taru named Kyssandra is easily one of the nicest people I’ve met in game. Ever. She’s always been considerate when it comes to helping people out, and I don’t think I’ve seen her be a bitch to anyone. She probably has at some point, but I wasn’t there. MoogleArmy’s also got the greatest concentration of people that don’t piss me off I’ve been online with in a long time. Kaboom was a member, but I think he quit which sucks ass. Coldwind seems willing to help anyone with anything, and he’s a Galka which reinforces my earlier statement on most Galka players being better people than the other races. One of these days I’ll have something to ask him for help with. Katsumoto is one of about three people I’ve ever met whose bullshit threshold is nearly as low as mine. If any member, new or old, is acting like a fucking moron Kats very quickly puts an end to that, which saves me from having to do it myself. I don’t want to be kicked out of the only good linkshell I’ve been in, so I’ll stop naming members and commenting on them before I get to the people I don’t much care for. If you’re curious, just send me a /tell the next time you see me.

{|JP PT Only|} 忌々しい性交している神!!

Kind of odd what comes out of babelfish when you translate "God fucking damn it" into Japanese and then back to English. Anyway, is there any more annoying reply to a /tell when you’re desperately trying to assemble a party? For about a year, I worked nights and had the joy of being able to play FFXI during the early morning hours. As most of FFXI North American players are students or some combination of drug addict/alcoholic/nocturnal hermit, most of the people playing at that time are Japanese. Or at least they want you to think they are. I sat in Jeuno one morning and watched a couple people my level have a conversation in /say in English while I was browsing the auction house, the three of us with our lfg flags up the whole time. I sent each a /tell inviting them to join, hoping maybe today I’d actually be able to do something other than farm. Having better gear than everyone is nice, but getting past whatever level I was would’ve been better. Mid 50’s, I think. It was Pre-Aht Urhgan. What response do I get from these two douchebags? {|JP PT Only|}, of course! If they didn’t want to party then why the fuck do they have their flags up? I asked one of them that, and they replied they were waiting for the rest of their party to log on. That guy didn’t seem too happy when I told them what he could do with that light staff he had equipped. I don’t know if people do it anymore, but they used to talk about getting into an all-JP party like it was the holy fucking grail. Playing in the mornings, I can tell you it wasn’t. Japanese players seem a little more forgiving if you mistimed your weapon skill/magic burst, and they aren’t nearly as obnoxious as the majority of dumbfucks that I’m forced to share this great game with. Other than that, they’ve got all the under leveled subjobs, severely gimped gear and bullshit chatlog spam as everyone else. I guess since a lot of North American players think the Japanese people are some sort of higher beings that eat only noodles and shit gold, they ignore it when they’re just as bad as the rest of us.

Your Title: Destined Fellow

Finally, SE puts in something useful that doesn't require a goddamn alliance of people to accomplish. The fellowship quests were implemented a while back, early 2006 I think. I never actually bothered to attempt them until recently. There's a skeleton NM fight in the Eldieme Necropolis that might be pretty hard if you're around level 40. As my warrior is sitting at 60, the fight was laughable. But also disconcerting; if this was too easy, how hard would the burning circle fight later be? Turns out, the dragon is actually easier than the skeleton as long as you have lvl 40 gear since it is capped at 40. This comes in handy as a BST, as the 30% cut to XP the NPC brings isn't too bad and having someone else around to take a few hits is nice. I need to figure out a way to take screenshots of the chat log, as my new NPC and I hit XP Chain#3 twice in a row to level me up to and a little past 27. I just wish I’d paid more attention to the list of names you can pick from, as my NPC is a female Taru named Pakurara. While I’ve only actually spoken to a handful of female Tarus, for the most part they’re among the most respectful and trustworthy people in Vana’diel, so ending up with one is a pretty good deal. I wonder if SE was just softening people up with an easy quest that rewards you with an NPC who is more than happy to fight at your side. The quests to unlock the Aht Urhgan jobs are a complete bitch for the most part, and while the Corsair’s tricorner hat does look pretty cool, I’d have to be a Corsair to get it. Not a goddamn chance of that.


Still, the hat is pretty cool…..

{|Death |} and People That Suck.

Death on FFXI has never been something I've been willing to accept. The XP loss certainly compounds things, but the fact that you're laying face-down on the ground is a brutal reminder that you’re doing something wrong. The Valkurm Dunes are no exception to that. A lot of the people there are partying for the first time, and still need to learn how to execute their party role. I've seen quite a few thfs and mnks insist that they can tank, since their brand-new subjob is war. Not very many jobs can tank for shit at that level, and thf or mnk sure as fuck aren't on the list. Later on, once you’ve gotten past the dunes around lvl 20 or so and head for Jeuno and Qufim people would have finally gotten their party roles right and for the most part they have. As soon as everyone’s getting near 30 and head to Kazham though, everything goes to shit. It must be the Goblin Smithys that sit near the town entrance that get everyone’s brains all shitified. Long ago, before I lost faith in partying, I was in the jungles leveling up like a common schlub. I was party leader, and had assembled what looked like a pretty good group: nin/war(me), thf/nin, rng/nin, war/mnk, whm/smn, smn/whm. I asked the smn which avatars he had, and he summoned Fenrir as a response. I took that as a good sign. Once we arrived at camp, we ran into a problem. I transcribed this conversation from about a year and a half ago onto Notepad and have been using it as a personal example of how fucking stupid the majority of FFXI’s populace is. I just wish I had one of those programs that lets you take screenshots of the chat log, as they deserve to have their names here.

ME: I’m the NIN/WAR that’s supposed to be the tank, but I’ve got a ranged weapon so I’m supposed to pull too?” (I had that stupid Rogetsurin at the time)
THF: I know nins can do it, my main is 74 drk. I’ve seen it. {|Ninja|} {|Incredibly tough|}

(At this point I’d already /checked everyone and saw the thf had the same Rogetsurin I did.)

RNG: I don’t want to waste any ammo since I’m already kinda low, because I’m a fucking moron that’s too poor to properly play one of the most expensive jobs in the game. (Everything after the comma is my own commentary, but she should’ve said it herself. Stupid bitch.)

ME: thf/nin and rng/nin can’t fucking pull? I’m the main tank, and war/mnk is the backup when I need to recast utsusemi. One of you two need to do it.
WAR: Can somebody loan me gil for courage rings?
RNG: I don’t have the ammo for that, {|I’m sorry. |}
ME: Are you kidding me?
RNG: {|I’m sorry. |}
ME: Fine. THF, I need you to pull.
THF: I don’t have {|Ranged Attack|}
ME: The fuck you don’t.

(I /check him again and he’s unequipped his Rogetsurin.)

ME: Are you fucking serious? You unequipped your boomerang just to get out of pulling?
THF: I never had one in the first place, n00b.
ME: Fuck you then, you stupid bastard.

(THF gets kicked and blacklisted shortly thereafter.)

ME: SMN, would you be willing to pull with Fenrir?
SMN: The THF and I are in the same ls so I’m going to party with him, since we’re such good fuck buddies I need him to keep sucking things really bad. Especially me. (Again, everything after the comma is my own words, but I’m pretty sure they’re all true. Elvaan smn are usually fucking faggots.)
WAR: Gil {|Can I have it? |} anyone please?
ME: God fucking dammit….

The party disbands and I head back to Kazham and then to Jeuno. While I’m looking through the auction house I get a tell from the SMN telling me that the THF was just being an asshole on purpose because he was tired of pulling. SMN didn’t appreciate being told that he could go fucking himself so he got blacklisted too. About a month later I see the same two fucks in the Crawler’s Nest, and the THF has “Master Puller” in his /search comment. I sent a /tell asking if he’d pulled the SMN’s dick off yet, but I forgot to take him off my blacklist so I never got a response. I’m assuming he did.