Pretty, but dumb. Pretty Dumb.

I actually wrote this out in January, I'm just lazy about posting.

Finally got to spend a day on FFXIV. Not on my own computer (or "rig" if you're a douchebag), but on my brother-in-law's. You know this type of guy: Has to have the newest and best of everything the day it comes out no matter the cost, then ends up selling it within a month. I should've taken pictures the damn thing has enough LEDs to light up the street they live on. LEDs make people respect you, right?

Anyway, I got to play FFXIV for a whole day. The game looks incredible. After playing fallout: nv for a while, ffxiv is jaw-dropping. I wasn't able to make my own character, so I got to play as a really tan and muscley human guy. My bro-in-law calls his computer a "rig", so the muscley guy's not compensating or anything. I'd like to know how this game got released in the shape it's in. I'm pretty sure you've all had a chance to read some of the reviews that have been given for the game, and while they might be a little harsh they're not that far off. This game has major, major problems and I don't know if SE can fix them before they just say "Fuck it" and make FFXVII into an HD version of FFXI. I hope they can, since MoogleArmy had pretty much moved over to ffxiv before WoW's siren song took them all away and back onto the pig wallow that is Azeroth. Here's hoping, I guess.

Final Fantasy XIV: No You Can't.

Since nearly the entire Moogle Army was headed to Eorzea I figured I should too with Final Fantasy 14 being released within a month or two. The benchmark finally came out a couple weeks ago, so I got downloaded it, crossed my fingers and hoped. While my computer could probably run ff14, the settings would have to be at minimum as a maximum. I'm not interested in playing a fancy new game if the graphics aren't going to be much better than ffxi. So, I'll just buy the PS3 version when it gets released. This also means I'll have to buy a PS3. That's not too big a deal, what with my wife completely uninterested in the system. She'll probably just complete her stranglehold on the xbox. I didn't play it anymore, anyway.....


With that news, I've decided to head back to ffxi until I get 14. SE, realizing that the game doesn't have much time left, has decided to life nearly all the level caps from Chains of Promathia areas. Sounds awesome, but it's still impossible to get people together to do missions. Fuck them, I won't be here much longer anyway. Visions of Abyssea, on the other hand, is how SE should've been doing most endgame-level events the whole time. Quick trip through yet another Cavernous Maw, join an alliance of people and start killing. There aren't any xp chains, but the amount of xp you get slowly builds as long as you kill the same type of mob. I wish I had a screen shot of the time I was getting 600xp per mandragora. That makes it possible to go from 75 to 80 in about 4 hours. I went from 77 to 80 and maxed merits out. After I got back to my mog house and spent those merits, I went back the next day for a couple hours and maxed them back out. Then I noticed I stopped Beastmaster at 46. With the level caps gone, I could go get a gaudy harness and get back to it. Getting the subligar didn't take long, and the harness looks just as fruity as I remember. I've decided to run with that, so I went back and got another subligar. I hit level 50, so it's sexytime:

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig.

After I quit FFXI, I decided to give World of Warcraft a second chance. “I like playing MMORPGs, and this is the biggest ever. They’ve got to be doing something right. Surely this will tide me over until FFXIV comes out,” I thought. As is a popular theme of this blog, I was so very, very wrong. Most of the “people” I encountered reminded my why I quit playing WoW the first time I gave it a shot: They are fucking retarded. Day after endless day of encountering lowbrows, no-brows and ignorammi, ceaseless unfunny quotes. Granted, you can put people on an ignore list pretty quickly. The problem arises when it is every. Single. Person. Doing this.

Over.

And over.

And over.

And over. Alliance or Horde, it was everywhere and all the fucking time. It doesn’t take very long to just get tired of having a chat window when everywhere you go looks like the old /sh fights in Lower Jeuno a few years back. Except it’s about mudkip instead of “Sephiroth/Kefka/Anime Character is the greatest villain of all time! Of all time!!”

I have found that Warcraft does have a few good qualities:

It is so stupidly easy any idiot could do well.

You don’t buy maps.

Hunters get permanent pets. FFXIV should let whatever they call BSTs do that.

Spiders look like spiders. (In 2 models! Woo!)

Very easy to make money.


Of course, there’s always bad to go with any good:

It is so stupidly easy any idiot could do well.

Graphics. I know FFXI is not a very pretty game, but good god damn. Even on the highest settings, World of Warcraft looks like somebody puked neon paint all over an early ps2 game. Seriously.

The player vs. player gets old after about 3 “Battlefields”.

Grinding. What was supposed to be a complete opposite of FFXI’s sit in town lfg/logoff after 4 hrs is instead just as boring. Cleverly disguised as Quests, they slightly change the dialogue on the same 4. “Gather me X of Y and return, oh noble dwarf.” “Kill me X of those nefarious ‘whatever the mobs is in this region’, brave hunter.” “Slay X of slightly different colored Y’s, and bring me the Z’s they have stolen from us! Your honor demands it!” “Use this flaky, white rock to scrawl expletives upon yonder mountainside so that when the orcs look upon it, they will become aware that they suck!” I’m sure there are more. It did not lessen the monotony as much as I thought it would. Oh, but you make money doing them, and you can get awesome items!! You want some dumbass tabard that has a poorly drawn dragon head on it? Get ready to do the same quests I just described with slightly altered dialogue every day for a couple weeks until you can get it. Want to ride a wolf instead of a horse? Better be near one of the levels ending in zero if you want to have a good time on the pvp battlefield.

Endgame. Just as bad as FFXI’s if not worse. Since so many more people play, endgame guilds are pickier about who they allow into their little groups. Most of them will not help you level your character; they’re only interested in making you pay money to redo all your talents to accommodate group play. Mine were all wrong for that, since I’d only been playing solo to the cap of 80. I then had the schedule of events explained to me using as many acronyms as fucking possible. Guess what? Acronyms don’t do me any fucking good if I don’t fucking know what they stand for. Of course my gear is crappy; I played solo the whole way. Anything on the Auction House is obsolete in about 5 levels, so I didn’t spend much time there. “So I only need to do a few runs through this dungeon to get what I need? Can you guys help with that?” Of course they couldn’t. So I’m supposed to join a different guild to get the gear I need to join the guild I first made the mistake of expressing interest in, after they asked me if I’d like to join. Reminds me of that dynamis shell that wouldn’t let me join unless I had Xarcabard access, but wouldn’t help me clear Jeuno and Glacier. Of course, I had those two cleared when I was in that one linkshell with Mogwae. Too bad he’s moved to Pandemonium.

I logged off WoW that night and cancelled my account. A couple days later, POL was updating itself and I was back on FFXI. I’d seen a little bit about the add-ons SE released, and decided to get the first two. If they were good I’d get the last one. As anyone (if anyone) who reads this knows, warrior is the only job I’ve gotten to 75. Naturally, it means that the final battle of A Crystalline Prophecy is a massive pain in the ass. Summoners, Rangers and Samurai Rangers can apparently clear the battle with few problems, if any. Guess what? My friend list has maybe 2 people still active on it, and I don’t think Bass has Ranger or Summoner at 75. So I have to /shout for help and hope I can get people that know what they’re doing even if they aren’t the “proper” jobs. 0/5 on that last BCNM so far. For 10 bucks, why not just let us download the stupid armor itself? The add-on’s story is stupid and contradicts several things you learn about earlier in the game. I haven’t even started on A Moogle Kupo d’etat. So far, it looks like I wasted 20 bucks and a few hours. Could be worse, I wasted a couple months and 110 bucks on WoW. About a week after I returned to FFXI, I got an Askar Zucchetto in a random Nyzul Isle group. No more fugly turban for me. Here's a nice pic of that:



Now, let's all count the days until FFXIV comes out.

Who Are the People Leaving Your Neighborhood?: Me!

The Bahamut server is home to a very diverse group of people. Pretty much all of them suck. Severely. There are some though, that have managed to prove themselves not as stupid or annoying as the rest. Most, if not all, of these people belonged to the MoogleArmy linkshell like I used to. This week I’ll be posting my own answers to my own questions. Groundbreaking, I know. As always, questions will be in BOLD. All responses are unedited and will appear in ITALICS.

How long have you been playing FFXI?
I made my first character, a Hume Red Mage about 4 days after the NA release on the Fenrir server.

How did you choose your character’s name?
Honestly, I didn’t. I hit the name generator until something I thought looked good came up. I was almost Caldyr.

Why did you choose to make your character a Hume?
Elvaan are fucking gay, I thought the Mithras were okay if you like being hit on by sad, sad basement nerds. Galkas were interesting, but I didn’t realize the gap in stats between Humes and mage Galkas or Humes and melee Tarus was so small. I should’ve just flipped a coin between Galka and Tarutaru, but when I saw face 7A I had to pick that one. When I was in college I grew a beard out exactly like it.

I usually see you playing as a WAR. What other jobs do you enjoy playing?
Scholar, actually. I know I didn’t think sch was all that appealing when WoTG was released, but once I started playing it I had fun. Being as versatile as a war in magely matters was cool. Thief also had its moments once I had SATA. Same with Samurai, it had cool moments.

Which do you like less: Norg or Aht Urhgan Whitegate?
Whitegate, easily. Norg might not have anyone in it or all that much to do, but it’ll always be a nice town you can just /sit down in and relax. Whitegate usually had some kind of morons /shouting at each other about something fucking stupid. Nobody cares that you think FF7 was the most awesome of all games ever. You are wrong.

Which do you like more: Jeuno or San d’Oria[S]?
Jeuno is always fun as long as the /shouting idiots aren’t around to ruin everything. The city itself also has a pretty cool design. I won’t let myself get started with what’s wrong in San d’Oria[S].

You’re a pretty big jerk, you know that?
Yes.

Are there any linkshell members you really dislike?
Where do I start? Just scroll down and see if your name is on the bad half of the list.

Are there any members you like more than the others?
Everyone on the good half of the list. They’re what made this game tolerable and occasionally enjoyable for a long, long time.

What would you like to see SE add to the game?
FFXIV to fix what was wrong with FFXI. I don’t want to play a 3d version of Diablo II, I want to play Final Fantasy online with a bunch of idiots that will make me start a blog to complain about them.

What would you like SE to change or remove completely?
The answer above pretty much covers this question too.

If you could be any ingame monster, which would you choose and why?
A Yovra. Although I never got to “sea”, I did read a few stories about what those big UFO-looking bastards can and would do to people.

When you leave FFXI forever, what do you want people to remember about you?
I’ve already left, and what everyone remembers is up to them. If you see a bearded Tarutaru in FFXIV, you might be seeing me.

THE LIST

As I progressed though the years playing this game, I had to wonder:

About the game:

Is PUP the most misunderstood job ever, even though it took Colibri for people to understand what DRGs were capable of all along?

Is NIN the most overrated job ever? (yes)

Why let WARs use nearly every weapon if they’ll suck with all but 3 or 4?

Can SE’s next MMORPG correct the mistakes they made with FFXI, or will it just be a re-skin of World of Warcraft instead?

Why don’t most NMs use different textures than normal monsters around them, instead of just being bigger? Look at Stinging Sophie or Tom Tit Tat for examples. Make TTT a black Mandragora instead, and people would really be able to pick the little guy out. I can’t remember if Leaping Lizzy’s bigger than normal, but if she spawned as one of those gray lizards, that would’ve been cool.

Have there ever been more than 3 female players using Mithras logged on at the same time?

Why are people playing as Galkas usually the best people?

How did SE get a pretty good picture of me in college for face 7A?

Why didn’t every zone get music?

What the hell kind of retard arachnids don’t even have eight legs?

Are the Elvaan the gayest version of elves ever seen, not counting that LARP guy I saw at the gas station right before FFXI was released?

And about my own life:

How did my wife tolerate all the time I spent on this?

Am I really getting older AND wiser, or just older?

If all I’m doing is getting older, why is everyone else getting stupider?

Why are the people who act the stupidest usually the most successful on this game?

Is the game really worth 15 dollars a month?

Are the people you meet there worth 15 dollars a month?

Will it be easy to forget about everything you’ve done, the friends you’ve made and adventures you’ve had in 4 years, even if it was in a virtual world?

People That Made Most My FFXI Time Worth a Damn In the Order I Can Remember Them:

Kyssandra
Mogwae
Tala
Dozer
Coldwind
Houzukimaru
Eyfa
Katsumoto
Quickswipe
Kyrek
Aricelia
Jedimasta
Cyaan
Kaboom
Endrium
Bassetto
Kiris
Larien
Bhaal
Bermont
Godofangels
Alexandrioz – The only person from my first server I can remember one way or the other.
Chewybum

I know I’m missing a few others, but they’ll survive.


People Being Mentioned Because They Suck (No, you don’t get an explanation.):

Meenah
Kisame
Drittz
Oranul
Kelia
Yindragon
Yangdragon
Ropeguy
Thefear
Nephelim or was it Nephilem? Can’t remember the spelling.
Lionsbane
Tifalockhartt
Jammer
Cloudsofflame

Strange how the lists have filled out over the years. Despite not really getting anywhere in any of the expansions’ storylines (CoP is gay) or leveling more than one job to 75, I still think it was a pretty good run and I had a lot of fun despite everyone else. I won’t forget about you guys, and if I ever make my way back I hope you’ll remember me.

Turn out the Lights, Party’s Over

Looks like I won’t be returning to FFXI at all. Slim chance, but the two or three of you still on Bahamut shouldn’t get your hopes up. I’m sure everyone still playing will get over it. I won’t be moving over to any other MMORPG. I played SWG when it first started and it was okay, but FFXI was just more fun. I played WoW for a couple months back when Burning Crusade came out. It’s not a bad game, but it’s just not FFXI. A little cliché, but that’s the way things go. Luckily, I took screenshots of most of my time in Vana’diel so I can present my own experience in my own awesome blog. Which kind of becomes useless since I’m not playing but if blogs are for anything, it’s being useless.

Starting Out


Here’s me on my way out of the dunes finally. I’d just gotten war and mnk to lvl 20, and was exploring Horutoto. Shortly after this was taken, Dopleganger Gog Killed me. Stupid asshole.

Here I am doing what most people did in Qufim, lfg. Back when I started we didn’t have all these fancy-pants “Level Sync” and “Fields of Valor”, and that’s the way we liked it! In fact, the path to Qufim was through the snow and uphill both ways. They changed that to that sissy tunnel right before they put Fenrir in the game.

I’m now at 21, finally getting my chocobo quest done. If you see anyone you know in the background of these, leave a comment. Unless it’s Osker. Everyone’s talked to him before.

I rode my chocobo back to Windurst just in time for the first Halloween. I got a Quadav costume from the NPC and called the whole even retarded. Anyone that was there will agree with me. Anyone that doesn’t agree with me is lying.

Back to Qufim, right outside Delkfutt’s Tower. I don’t know any of these people, but I may have to look them up on FFXIAH.com just to see if they still even play.

Level 24 now, and finally grew my first tree. This would turn into my main source of income when the economy was still inflated. I once had over 35 million gil on me and blew it all in less than a week. Just like real life, the economy is a bitch.

At lvl 30 here, with my shiny new Eisen armor set that came with Chains of Promathia. I never did beat that stupid expansion, but from what I’ve read about it I didn’t miss much. Thanks for trying to drag me through it, Tala. At least you tried.

Sauromugue and killing weapons. Remember when that was new and so very, very exciting? I was also subbing ninja, which is very bad at 30 nowadays apparently. Stupid kids and changing things. Everyone knows everything was better the way it was.

Ah, Garbage Shitadel. I never really had a problem with the zone, so I’m not really sure why it’s called that by some people.

Later…

We’ll skip ahead a few levels and witness me in Altepa fighting Anticans. Probably the best beastman race of any MMORPG I’ve ever played. They’re ants. If they’d just add a Queen Antican the game really would be finished. If they have added one, let me know.

As with most jobs, being a warrior all the time gets boring. I decided to unlock Samurai, and had to beg and plead with the douchebags of Ignited to actually come and help with any of it. Unless Eyfa was on. As s/he was a solo dragoon, s/he was more than happy to come help out as long as it meant killing something. As Eyfa was a Mithra, I have to use the gender-neutral “s/he” when talking about him/her.

Leveling sam can be a lot more fun than war simply because I didn’t really like tanking. Actually, I fucking hated it. You never have to worry about that on sam, though. I don’t think they’ll ever be considered great tanks for any level, unless you’re going to try to turd count (same definition as splitting hairs, nit-pick btw) and tell me they can tank some stupid monsters I’ve never seen and will never see. Up yours, turd counters.

As with most jobs, being a samurai all the time gets boring. I went back to warrior and used my gardening riches to get a shiny new Luisant gloves and a Walkure Mask. I couldn’t find anything exceptionally better than leaping boots, so I’m wearing those. Yeah, I’d be lynched for that nowadays. Well, those weren’t nowadays so fuck off.

The Shitadal basement. Where dreams go to die, or something like that. I didn’t have that problem in my brand new Luisant Haubert. It was about 1.5 million gil back then, too. So not only did I have more money than the rest of the party combined, I also had that sweet blue Mooglearmy linkpearl next to my name. Beat that, Sparkus and Scarlett! Whoever the hell you are.

The Mooglearmy once got a skillup party going in Fei’Yin, and I got invited to work on my sword skill. The 1.6million Bloodsword demanded it. Remember Truce? I know he was a paladin when I joined and I think he quit shortly after. That’s all I know about him. And look, there’s Bermont back when he was a little baby (white?)mage.

When I finally hit 60, I equipped all my artifact armor just to take this screenshot. Son of a bitch, the war sports bra looks stupid.

Here we go on the way to Aht Urhgan. I’ve got my Haubergeon and some of the Sipahi armor set added with that expansion came out. Goddamn boat ride was like 30 minutes, too.

Almost level 70 now, and I found Aricelia! She always had more endgame gear than me, but she also put in the hours to “earn” it. I have to put quotes on earn just because I think the methods used by most endgame linkshells to distribute treasure is fucking stupid if you don’t have 20+ hours a week to play. You can argue with me all you want about this, but it’s my blog so I win and you fuck off.

This one’s of my Samurai finally getting past 60 in Aydeewa Subterrane. MoogleArmy had been deserted, so I have that ugly-ass linkpearl next to my name. I don’t remember what they called themselves, only that Tala got me in and the leader and his in-game girlfriend (IT’S A MAN!) kept calling each other “hun”. Fucking disgusting, seriously. I don’t remember what happened to the rest of the party in the picture, so I’ll assume I killed them all.

For a while, Kyrek wanted the sword Cancer dropped for his warrior. Or paladin, I don’t really remember anymore. Anyway, I went out there for a few hours and helped Kyrek beat Cancer. He’s lucky it’s a crab, because actual cancer’s not nearly as easy to beat or as stupid-looking as the crabs.

End of Days…..

Here’s me at the closest I ever came to endgame gear, which would be considered a decent starter set. Joyeuse, Maneater, that stupid turban with the name, gay purple haste gloves, surfing pants and unicorn boots. Intimidating, I know.

What Engame is supposed to be about: Killing Byakko until he drops his pants. That linkshell I’m with in the pic was a steaming pile, so even if the pants did drop from that one I wasn’t going to be getting them.

Nyzul Isle, on the other hand was actually pretty enjoyable. Get a random party together than run up 5 floors to fight one of the bosses that might drop part of some nice free armor sets. But the drop rate is low, so most of the time we got nothing. Except this one, where I got Goliard Clogs for when I was leveling Scholar. Being the one mage job I actually liked playing I felt I need the clogs even though I was only level 40.

Finally, me with my second “endgame” linkshell, Kazoku. Except for Mogwae (who got me in) and a couple others, it was a collection of douchebags. Especially the leader, who apparently used them to get into an even more “elite” linkshell with an even stupider name. If anyone knows what “kazoku” means let me know. I’m not looking it up myself. As I didn’t have the prerequisite amount of melee/mage jobs leveled, I’m not sure how I got it without actually filling out a gay application.

Next, and final: The List

Taking a Break….

I’ve made a point of keeping my blog free from commenting on anything happening in my real life (as it were). Well, that’s over for this post. Due to my awesome governmental (it IS a word) HR skills I was transferred halfway across the country, and my wife hasn’t exactly been taking the move well. I blame her idiot younger sister who we now live close enough for her/it to visit on a semi-regular basis. There are very few things in the world worse than listening to an arrogant, (probable) eco-terrorist/militant vegan endlessly preach on and on about how fucking wrong it is to eat meat and how animals have all the rights of people (it’s not, and they don’t). I’m too old (graying hair and all) to listen to some dumbfuck career student/coed whore bitch at me for being omnivorous. The inevitable arguments of “don’t eat meat” vs. “fuck you” have of course put undo strain on my wife, who doesn’t deserve it. As far as I can tell, if she’d ever play FFXI with me she’d literally be the perfect woman. So, I won’t be playing all that much for a while. Maybe not for a few days, maybe not for a few months. I do have a couple more entries written, and I’ll upload them somewhere down the road. In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of most of what I do in terms of endgame activities:



That’s right, hide in the shrubs until whatever it is happens to be dead. Ain't life grand?