Out of Gil 2: The Quest for more Gobbie Bags

Well it's happened again. I've run out of money.

On the bright side I now have 65 inventory slots, so it was totally worth it.

I guess now would be a good time to review how my last gil-making scheme has been going.

The goal was to get into gardening in order to avoid having to constantly farm every day to cover expenses. So far it has been working out. I found out some seeds can be harvested in just three days, so I was all over that like a cat on catnip. After spending a few months fiddling with growing elemental ores over the course of 3-4 weeks only to have the results be rock salt instead, this was a huge improvement for me. No more month long waits and disappointment, just a small steady stream of crops.

I may as well let you all know what exactly I used, no point in keeping it secret.

The secret formula is this: 1 pot + 1 bag of grain seeds + 1 fire crystal +3 days of waiting = lots of TaruTaru Rice.

Or if the random number generator feels fickle, you'll get a handful of ice crystals or a red rock.

It's not big money, but it's enough to get by on day-to-day expenses.

Funny story though; When I first got into the market, TaruTaru Rice was selling like mad and for 15k per stack. Holy money making agriculture Batman, I thought to myself, this is where I need to be. Well after a few weeks something in the market shifted and the price dropped to 10k. Alright, still reasonably profitable and the 15k was probably just a brief spike in price and this is the market stabilizing itself.

Well maybe not.

See, the price on my server hasn't stopped falling. From what I can tell we have about 7 stacks of rice on the Auction House for every one stack that gets sold. The market is in free-fall. Stacks are going for 4k and still dropping.

It's actually been pretty amazing to watch. At this point I just want to see how far it will fall before everyone bails on it entirely. I'll still be there though, since it hasn't hit the point where selling stacks of seeds is more profitable than growing them yet.

In the meantime, I'm still running low on gil though so it's probably time to go farm something. So much for not having to farm again, huh?





Who is driving these chocobos?

Genkai 2

*sigh*

"Underwhelming" is the only description that springs to mind.

Tonight my Linkshell took it upon themselves to run me through my second Limit Break quest. This one involved defeating some Notorious Monsters in the frozen northlands of Xarcabard.

I had wandered up to one earlier in the week just to see how hard it hits and it floored me in less than a minute. It wouldn't even be worth attempting to solo, unlike Dark Spark where I could see a glimmer of hope poking up just beyond the horizon.

Stomping on them with three higher level players helping just didn't bring me any satisfaction. It made the whole ordeal trivial, a chore, a minor inconvenience. I knew this was going to happen too. Hell I didn't even have to properly research the NMs, we just wandered up there and slaughtered them.

This was not an adventure.

I really need to make a point of exploring the Shadowreign era. It turns up cool stuff like this.

Warrior is the Batman of FFXI

It's true.

Worse yet I think Warrior is starting to grow on me, especially since I've started taking it to Linkshell parties.

I just spent the night in Spore Hollow and had a blast. We were syncing to 25 and our puller was clinically insane. At any given time we had two to four Funguar on top of us, and no one to sleep them so it was up to me and the Ninja to make sure they didn't eat the mages. I'm not sure the Ninja was up to the task when synced so low, but I sure as hell was. Firing arrows as two Funguars come in and provoking the third as our puller cackled maniacally, leaving the Ninja to hold the first one as the rest of the party wailed on it.

You know what gets a monster's attention better than insulting its mother?

Hitting it in the head with a gigantic axe.

At any given time I could wander up to a mob that wasn't eating the ninja, wallop it in the face and it would decide I was tastier. I'm not sure it quite counts as tanking, but I was eating enough cures that it kept me on my toes and I couldn't use Provoke carelessly. Heck, half the time I was switching to target a new mob just to make sure I kept hate until the rest of the party could start wailing on one of the held mobs.

I'm pretty sure we were making less than 5,000 experience per hour, but damned if it wasn't fun.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go soak my head and put my head between my knees until the desire to abandon Red Mage and level Warrior goes away.





The new expansion is producing fashion disasters like this. I am displeased.

Some guy was shouting for mission 2-3, the one where you fight the dragon, tonight. I managed to rope most of the Linkshell into helping with the fight. Afterwards we adopted him and had an awesome party in Jugner Forest.

Dark Spark: Round 2...FIGHT!

I've learned two things from my fights with Dark Spark:

• Blood tanking is horribly inefficient

• I might not be cut out for soloing

The other week I decided to do a dry run against Dark Spark as a level 55 RDM/BLU and hit the dirt so fast it wasn't even worth writing home about.

After spending some time lollygagging about on Warrior, Samurai and hunting the odd Notorious Monster, I decided it might be time to make another go at it.

The basic strategy was to bank on Cocoon, Phalanx and Stoneskin providing enough damage mitigation for me to simply outlast Dark Spark. Sadly this was not to be.

Dark Spark delighted in tearing through my Stoneskin with remarkable speed and once that was down, even my formidable defenses weren't enough to keep him from devouring my face. I held out longer than I expected though. I think I managed to knock off a good 20-25% of his health before I died.

As I said before, blood tanking just wasn't efficient. I burned through my MP way too fast. Even if I had been a bit more calm during the whole thing I would have simply run out of MP at some point and that would be the end of it. I can certainly see how using Utsusemi shadows would be a lot more efficient, but I just don't have the gil for it and there's a few other things that bug me about it, like the prospect of having to manually turn off shadows when recasting Utsusemi:Ichi. I'm fairly certain that alone would be enough to get me panicking and screwing up everything else. While I'm used to killing things really slowly on Red Mage, NMs seem to be on a different scale altogether. Usually I'm fine with killing things so slowly because they hardly ever manage to land a hit. Dark Spark was pretty much the other end of the spectrum, and that adds a lot of stress to the ordeal.

So my Linkshell found out what I was doing and decided to come out and help me kick Dark Spark's ass properly. Afterwards we had some fun just goofing off and beating up demons. All too soon it was time to return to Jeuno.

How long has it been? A few months now I've been trying to get these gloves? While many would say I wasted my time fooling around leveling Blue Mage and even attempting this solo, I think I'm better off for it. I've learned a bit about gearing for melee combat, I've learned the fear and stress associated with trying to solo a monster that you have no chance against, and I've also found what could very well be my favorite subjob for Red Mage. For me this entire ordeal has been an absolute success.



Dark Spark:1
DrJones: 0


The cavalry arrives.


Stlyish gloves!

Warrior Revelations

1. Playing Warrior in a party puts me in a very aggressive mindset.

2. Face tanking proper is all sorts of awesome fun.

3. Linkshell parties are awesome.

Tonight was some of the most fun I've had in a while. My old Linkshell reformed itself this week and tonight we went out to do some exp partying. There were four of us, so we had a few slots taken up by interlopers but it was still a lot of fun.

It got especially interesting when the Dancer and I both came to the conclusion that our incompetent White Mage needed to die. I had to beg this guy for Regens in a jungle party...that's pretty damn sad. The idiot was just cure-bombing, which screwed with efficiency and on occasion, hate management. The proper course of action was of course to see if we could get away with killing him once a drive-by PL showed up and attached itself to our party. Goblin tossing a bomb at you? Run towards the idiot mage.

Yeah, as two guys who play mages as their main jobs we had so much contempt for this guy. Spamming Cure III is not how you main-heal a party, ok? Jebus...

So yes, there was all sorts of wonderful face-tanking tonight. Often with two mobs showing up to camp when we only wanted one. Juggling between Berserk, Neutral, and Defender modes was an interesting exercise in judgement. Most of the night was spent in Neutral, with Defender going up mainly when goblins showed up. My face was very delicious.

After all is said and done, I think I managed to gain about 8,000 exp over the course of five hours. I died a lot and it was a romping good time.

Mandy in a box!


This was common sight tonight. I lost count of how many dirt naps I took.


I also spent some time running around in the the Promyvion zones this week. They're so beautiful and eerie.

Front line melee...

I just got out of a party and I'm damn near frothing at the mouth with rage.

Let me back up a minute before I injure myself with all this concentrated hatred.

Last week my friend and I were working on unlocking Samurai and we damn near had it but had to logout before the NPC finished smithing our swords. Figuring it'd be a fun class to tag team with my friend I decided to get off my ass and level a subjob for it, namely Warrior. This is all part of my back-burner plan to level Dragoon some day.

After bouncing past the Dunes levels I spent some time skilling up in the Dunes(oh irony, you slay me). After some time with my flag up I get a party invite to the oddest of places. Rolanberry Fields in the past. Well I haven't been there before so I venture out and it takes freaking forever without chocobos or teleporty goodness or even maps. After burning through a full stack of powders and oils getting to camp I find the party. The setup makes more sense once I learn there's someone Power Leveling the party, but that's irrelevant.

The point being that this was my first party as a Damage Dealer(DD).

After two hours...I have complete and utter contempt for all DDs. It's the fucking lazy man's job, no two ways about it. The difference between playing a front line melee and playing a mage job is like night and day.

The DD does this:

1. Hit things with pointed sticks
2. Use one, maybe two Job Abilities
3. Execute a Weaponskill
4. Repeat

I swear to god, that's all that's required of them and they get a pat on the head and a cookie.

Whereas on Red Mage I get to take care of all this and more:

• Keep everyone alive
• Cure status ailments
• Dispel enemy buffs
• Keep folks Refreshed
• Keep folks Hasted
• Apply Enfeebling magic
• Renew Enfeebling magic
• Sleep links
• Try not to draw hate
• Nuke
• Manage MP while accomplishing all of the above

This is absolutely bananas!

For the entire party on Warrior I was able to play with a PS2 controller in hand.

I can't get away with that on Red Mage. No, on Red Mage I'm hammering macros so frantically I need the keyboard just to jump through 5 macro pages in a timely manner. Don't even get me started on how I have to take in the scope of the battle and give the party the kick in the ass it needs when it comes time to retreat; Setting down the controller and picking up the keyboard to type a message takes way too damn long.

This...this just makes me angry. I don't have the proper words to convey it, just a boiling sensation of rage that the majority of the party workload is getting dumped on the mage. I suspect whatever's left is given to the tank, because the role of Damage Dealer requires no accountability whatsoever.

This...


...turns into this mess.


Shooting bunnies with axes.

The Notorious Monster Addiction

Hi, I'm Cid and I camp Notorious Monsters even though I know better.

Nothing significant mind you, but there is something very appealing about finding and killing a monster that doesn't show up every five minutes. It's even more appealing when you start adding cool treasure to the equation, althogh I'm not convinced that's the sole appeal of the activity.

In many cases it's an excuse to check out new areas I don't usually pass through.

On some level I suspect it operates on the same principle as gambling. Often even finding the monster in and of itself feels like an accomplishment, and then the drop rates are the same thing all over again. Yes, it can be frustrating, but it can also be really rewarding as long as the drop rate isn't too abusive. Once the drop rate gets too abusive I run the risk of repeating the Rambler's Gaiters incident. Trust me, it isn't pretty.

There are some inherent flaws in the system, but I don't think the drop rates or long respawn times are the big ones. The real problem is that most of the treasure isn't level appropriate. Notorious Monsters are robust enemies that will trounce you if you're not a sufficiently high level. But once you reach that high level, the gear they provide is most likely outdated. This is a problem. In order to take down a NM at the level where you would be using the gear, you need to drag multiple friends out to help you fight the critter. Given how frequently these mobs show up and their atrocious drop rates, this means you either can't have nice things or you have to make your friends miserable in order to get nice things. I know FFXI is all about the teamwork and what-not, but this is just silly.

Despite all this, I've spent a good bit of time camping things. There's just this wonderful sense of satisfaction (or is it vengeance?) that comes from slicing up the monster and finally seeing that shiny trinket fall out of their entrails.

If nothing else it's been something to pass the time while I try to figure out what to do next in game. Also the prospect of having stupid good gear when taking up a second job is very appealing. Oh Dragoon, someday I'll actually level you and it will be awesome.



After 18 kills it's just not worth it when I can buy the belt on the Auction House for cheap.


This one might be worthwhile if I can figure out the timing and placement a little better.


I accidentally killed this one back in the day without realizing it was a Notorious Monster.


You know what else is appealing about camping Notorious Monsters? Being able to do stuff like this while waiting. Nothing like taking on a pack of orcs single-handedly.

On Summoner Burns

Being the sync for Astral Flow burns is boring as hell.

I was leveling Warrior in Gustaberg today and got an invite to one. Let me tell you, standing around twiddling your thumbs for over an hour as folks do the pull is not fun. The exp was great, I guess, but I still have to go skill up now so it's not like I skipped the grind. Jumping into a party is out of the question until I grind up my skills to the point where I can hit things again.

Yeah, not doing that again. A total waste of my time.


None of that...ever again.

Back to partying for a night

Gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear gear!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system I can move on to discussing something someone might actually care to read.

I've been having a pretty dry spell as far as parties are concerned. When you're trying to be at the top of your game on the first job you level, you tend to take a lot of time off to get everything just the way you want it before carrying on. Sure I could zoom to 75 if I whored myself out and did a bunch of bird parties naked, but where's the satisfaction in that? So yeah, side projects of leveling sub jobs and getting awesome gear has kept me away from the party scene for a few months.

Tonight I wanted to hit 55 so I could start picking up some gear for my Dark Spark fight. A bit of an exp buffer would be nice too so I can make multiple suicide runs at this thing. So rather than waste time soloing I decided to flag up since I was fairly close and even if the party was horrible I could still get the exp I needed.

Well off to East Altepa Desert I went. I arrived at the outpost to find a frantic scuffle between the party and a goblin. Someone threw me a party invite and we were off like a rocket powered bobsled! I think it was about four goblins before I got enough of a breather to take a look and see who was playing what job combinations. This may be petty, but it really pisses me off to have to come into a party and have absolutely no adjustment period at all. I'm going to be joining your party but you can't be bothered giving me two minutes to look over everyone and sort out which mage is in charge of what? Oh well, at least we didn't wipe.

We had a Summoner, and a dancer, a Paladin, a Ninja, and a Monk. Weird setup but I'm not complaining, it seemed to be working. I must have blinked because the Tarutaru Summoner up and vanished at some point. Now here comes the crazy part: They brought me a White Mage!

I know, I couldn't believe it either. It was like a dream come true. Truth be told I much prefer to play back-up healer instead of main healer. It means I don't have to deal with status ailments and can be a little bit more focused on handling shit hitting the fan rather than the endless whack-a-mole that is the HP bar.

Things got even weirder when I received a /tell from the White Mage. Apparently I am a "damn good RDM". At the time I got this I was just standing around picking my nose as the party was doing its thing and the goblin was curled on the ground twitching feebly, so I couldn't tell if they were being sarcastic or not. Nope, turns out they meant it. I had done the unthinkable and actually bothered to toss them a Refresh.

0_0

>_<

O_O

For real guys? Are the rest of the Red Mages on my server so inept that they can't figure out how to Refresh the wondrous gift that is another healer in the party? I'm sorry, I'm not that good of a Red Mage but if I'm setting the high mark then I need to make a point of pimp slapping some pretenders to the title of Red Mage.

Gah, it makes me so angry!

There were so many things wrong with this party:

• The lack of adjustment period
• The Paladin cockblocking my Refresh with his tab-Refresh
• 3 people running off to tackle a new mob while while the healers remained stationary
• The Dancer learning that one of his Weapon Skills hits everything in an area leading to a partial wipe
• I forgot to change subs and came /BLU

However, by far the worst part of tonight was the misconception that I am somehow a talented and accomplished Red Mage. This means there are some truly horrendous Red Mages running around out there and that makes me shiver in fear.

Here we are...before things went haywire.

That's how I like to start my mornings

Camping Notorious Monsters I have no business camping.

Aggroing four angry Quadavs when I was trying to pull just the one.

Managing to let Refresh drop when I was down to 22 MP.

Somehow managing to outlast three angry turtles before one lands a lucky critical hit and swats me to the floor.

Ah, adventure...smells a lot like dirt.

Aesthetics are important

Screenshot Spectacular, the second

Recently a few of my friends have been bugging me to try out Dungeons and Dragons Online with them. Now I'm pretty deeply entrenched in FFXI at this point, but I'm not opposed to branching out and expanding my horizons a little. Besides, slicing up goblins with friends is usually pretty hard to mess up.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't really new to me either. I'm one of those guys who ran through the Baldur's Gate series and then proceeded to spend a whole Summer raiding his local library for all the 3rd edition rule books and supplements he could find. So what the hell, I thought, I'll give it a try.

While I was waiting for the client to download and install itself I decided to take a look at the game trailer on the website. Boy was that ever a mistake.

The world I saw in the trailers was the standard fantasy setting, yes, but it was also brightly colored and gaudy. It was not the kind of world I associate with a good D&D campaign. In the back of my head there was a little voice screaming: "World of Warcraft clone". Usually I try to ignore this voice but the similarities in the color schemes were a bit too similar. The whole palette was over the top. Garish cartoon colors and architecture littered the video.

This is not what I want from a game. When I want a D&D game I'm there for immersion. I'm there to get sucked into the world, not be constantly reminded that I'm playing a game. When you litter your environment with sharply contrasting colors, it's very jarring and prevents me from losing myself in the game.

FFXI has done a phenomenal job of avoiding this and also providing the correct balance of realistic color scheme with a dash of fantasy. Combined with the insane attention to detail it makes for a world that feels very much alive. The crazy fantasy zones aren't so pervasive in the world that they intrude upon the perception of the game as a fully realized world.

Thankfully the game wasn't able to install itself on my PC on account of a missing .dll file for DirectX, so I was able to scamper away without having to bother with D&D:O anymore. I'll stick with FFXI's world sprinkled with a bit of fantasy rather than a fantasy sprinkled with a bit of world, thanks.



It may be a slow week in terms of gaming progress in Vana'diel but that hasn't stopped me from finding some good photo opportunities.



I think this was somewhere in Ghelsba Outpost. I spent some time there hunting down some Blue Magic as well as a nifty spear to put in storage for that rainy day when I decide to level Dragoon.


Valkurm Dunes: for all the horrors of leveling there, I just don't mind hanging out there on my own time.


I want to raise Notorious Monsters instead of a chocobo next time.


My friend doesn't believe me when I tell him there are small children in Gusgen Mines. Even when they're right in front of him.


I really like the lighting effects of the lamps at night. Could it be better? Yes, but it still looks cool.


This is something of a running joke. My friend gave me lots of grief when we were starting out because his monk had better Mind(MND) than my Red Mage. Then he got an MP pool and got even more uppity. Now I Refresh him for giggles.


Arguing over who gets to steer the ship on our way to Mhaura. I have no sense of direction but he has no maps.


Don't let that passive face fool you.



Bunny Punching. Seriously, this is one of the highlights of the game for me: punching bunnies full of electricity. There may or may not be a song about this later.


Drogaroga's Spine has always been an impressive land mark.


Tahrongi Canyon has beautiful skies at dusk.


Man those are some stylish pants.

Does anyone know of a way to get better resolution screenshots that doesn't involve breaking the EULA? I'm rather discouraged with the built-in screen capture and how it degrades the quality of the pictures.