I'm still around...really!

Yes, yes, I am still alive, regardless of what anyone else says. So it's been 5 stupidly long months since I last posted anything onto my main Blog. Would you like to know why? BECAUSE I HAVE HAD NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT!. Actually, that's a lie, I have a lot to talk about, I just can't be bothered type up everything I have been doing. 6 more weeks of this term, then I'll officially have no more lessons, at least, for the rest of this year, but I'll be thrown into the big world, and funnily enough, the start of my life. Maybe I'll actually write more stuff on this Blog!

Eh, who am I kidding, none of that will ever happen. But honestly though, I started this post late February and now it's mid March, that's how lazy I've become with blogging. I really used to like it, it could just be that GM Dave is stopped posting things regularly because of his new baby daughter. He used to motivate me. Him and his Jormungand. I miss those days. But I get the impression that I should have been more social in my first and second years because now I'm starting to regret meeting some relatively cool people so late into university, you know? I'm starting to wish I'd met these guys sooner. I feel that I wont be seeing them again after our exams are finished. Unfortunately, there's nothing that I can do about it, as much as I hate it. But the world is strange and mysterious place, and I believe that we'll see each other again, in the close or distant future, but never say never.

But I feel it's relevant to do a shout out to some of my Uni friends who have actually made my 3 years possibly the best 3 years of my life.

Andre and Faolan, we're the Leicester boys, traveling together, joking together, me and my constant 1-liners. I've seen you guys change, for the better, I've always enjoyed watching your music videos, keep it up, I'll keep watching and rooting.

The Dans, Ali, Nat, Jo and Tomasz. Sadly, I only met you guys this year, I really wished we knew each other earlier, more things we could have done together. To Nat and Tom, you guys were awesome for helping me with my film, which as I speak is around 70% done. You made concessions for me, and I'd easily do the same for you guys. Ali, this is going to sound weird, but I've known you longer than two weeks! I'm obviously messing around with the whole 2 week thing, but I'm glad you're a Leicester girl, so we wont be far apart, at least for a while. Jo, I do actually think you're a sweet person, you're an absolute delight to converse with, I can't wait to see you around during your master's year! The Dans, I just think it's sheer awesomeness that you both have similar qualities to each other, I mean, I know people with the same birthday as me, but not the same names and possibly personalities!

Kelly, Jamie, Zeem, Tom and Adam. I pretty much met you guys at the beginning of this year, so it hasn't been all too bad, you guys are a barrel of laughs and I'm thankful to Kelly for introducing me to you. Also Kelly, I'm glad we are friends, and strangely enough, have a lot in common (I.E Kingdom Hearts, Manga, Pokémon etc etc :D) there aren't many people I know with similar interests.

Liam, Arielle, Jenkins and Sam. We ARE the Confetti crew, and always will be. If it wasn't for you guys, I probably would have stayed in my shell, but you gave me confidence, in myself and others. Being in Nottingham and going to Confetti have definitely got some of the most memorable moments. Market Square? I'm there! You know you loved it. No 7up? Whiskey please! Mc Donalds? No, we go to WHIMPEY, like REAL people! We're hardcore like that. Damn Women? me and my occasional grammatical errors, I obviously meant Damn Woman, but even so, even saying this sentence was a spur of the moment thing.

And the last for now: Spencer and Joe. I don't care whether you think this sounds gay or not, but I absolutely fucking love you guys. Seriously, never have I had an absolute horrendous amount of fun with the amount of fucking around, drinking, taking the piss out of each other, funny ass conversations, copious amounts of "your mum" no matter how far you took it (looking at you Joe, making a facebook named "Chris' Mum".) You were also the first people I ever talked to when I started Confetti. I know all you wanna do is have a laugh with me all the time, but every now and again, lay off the mum jokes aye? They're only 2 years old. The best way to keep a running joke alive is by not using it so much. And pretty much what I said about Ari, Sam, Liam and Chris, you helped me come out of my shell, and I thank you.

I know there's a lot of names I haven't mentioned or said anything about, but honestly, this post has been going on long enough, so I'll give it a rest until next time. Until then good luck to everyone with their studies and coursework.

Thank you, g'nigh, mach lav.

I'm not dead, I can assure you!

I'm NOT DEAD as I can assure you! (To those who don't actually know me), but honestly, I just haven't had time to really update my blog as often as I used to, which sucks, because I actually do like blogging. But with everything that is coming up in my final year of university, It's gonna be hard to update this a lot.

In my last post, I mentioned video logging, but I doubt that I'll even be bothering with that anymore, or at least, for the time being.

As for my final year, here is what I have to do:

Term 1:
Maya Render assignment
Do most of my project report and start getting actors for my film
Start working on my Advanced Imaging Tech workbook and my general techniques
Finish my treatment and start looking into techniques into how to create the "teleport" effect used in Jumper

And THAT is only in term one, but thankfully, I'm on top of most of that, so I'm not entirely worried about anything at the moment.

In terms of gaming though, yes I'm still playing FFXI, have been for the past 5 years! I know right? FIVE YEARS. To be honest though, I really can't get enough of it. Unlike a lot of my friends, when it comes to computer games, especially RPGs, once I start one, I wont stop until I feel some sort of self-satisfaction, which is why I'm still playing things like star ocean 4 hell, even Star ocean 1 and 2, I even feel like buying Star Ocean 3 when get the chance purely because I didn';t play it as much as I probably could have when I borrowed it off my best friend.

As for FFXI, things have changed IMMENSELY. It's so weird that level 75 isn't the highest level anymore, now I'm level 85 BLU and DRG, still need to work on NIN, aint bothered with RDM at this time and DRK I'd like to get to 75 at least. But thanks to Lorddraco, I managed to get my DRK from 67 > 69 (close to 70) in Abyssea and made more progress in one night than I did in a few months, however, most of my DRK's skills are extremely gimp, like for say, I have 206 Scythe skill at the moment, and I'm MEANT to have 230 something at 69. Yeah...

But like, in terms of University, things have been great apart from my loan not coming through yet! Since my loan hasn't come through just yet, I took the liberty to spend time on some of the programs that I'm using like after effects and Maya. I really like after effects! I've been looking at the stuff that you can do on it and it just looks amazing, so I've been watching tutorials on youtube and stuff.

But for now, I'm still working on my treatment, I'll try and write another post later in the week, so if anyone who reads this is still out there, I hope you're still alive and still following!

Video logging?

I'm thinking about it folks.

But if I do, it'll be during the next year.

Then i've got to think about what I want to Vlog.

Then i'll start doing it :).

Can't be bothered.

Seriously, after all of yesterdays troubles.

I can't be bothered to edit this news piece.

Sure, I can slap together a few bits of footage and call it my feature story, but it wont be anywhere near as good as my hard news story.

Well, thats how I feel.

I've been here at Confetti since 12:30, and all i've mostly done is youtube and facebook.

But mainly, my reasons for not being bothered are:

• I want to really finish off my film and audio work.
• News... just isn't in me i'm afraid, sorry Jen, it just isn't.
• Somehow my DV tape that had the footage on got damaged.

...

Huh?

My DV got damaged?

Who?

When?

How?

Funny that, i've had my tape in its case in my bedroom for 3 weeks, how did it get damaged? I don't remember exposing it to light or anything.

I believe that all technology have their own little minds and find the opportune moment to really pi$$ you off. It seems to be true, too many "unexplained" things have happened in this world.

Well, at least I have Monday and Friday to look forward to. Next week is gonna be a CRAZY week.

Well... bugger me

I don't think you guys know yet, but as part of my second year, I am doing a news Module where I am given 3 weeks to research, script, film and edit a news story. And then I have to make 5 news story categories and put them into one whole news package.



Anyway, 2 weeks have passed since we were given this 3 week assignment.



Now i'm on my last week.



...with nothing filmed or edited.



Good going Chris, procrastination ftl.



My only reason for not getting this news story filmed is mainly week 2 where I was doing this podcast for trent FM.



Oh dears! Not a good time to choose to do a podcast now is it?


But now that I have been put in this really tight situation, i've now only got a week left to film, interview and film all of the footage I need to edit to hand in for Monday.

Not to mention that i've barely started my Genre Essay... Not that its hard, but still, the fact that i've barely made an effort is rather... sad?

I only have 2 more weeks to hand in everything!

Anyway, back onto the subject.

So yesterday, I was looking through news article after news article to find something to do my feature news story on. After looking for 2 days and not seeing anything that particularly interests me...

BAM!

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. Leicester's Bowstring Bridge. PERFECT!

The bridge is quite close to where I live, so getting GVs is easy. Even phoned up Stuart Bailey and got an interview easily.

At the time I was thinking "Oh my god! This is awesome!". As i've clearly expressed, I was very happy.

Then after that, Wednesday just seemed to turn extremely weird from there...

The first thing was forgetting to take the kit I booked out with me (!?), I only remembered after I bought some KFC and my news story came across my mind, and my exact thought was:

"I could have sworn I was meant to carry more than this..."

So I headed back to confetti to pick up my kit. Weird, because i've never forgotten kit that i've booked out... so I thought that was the worst of it over.

No.

Such.

Luck.

For THURSDAY just took the piss.

In a list, this is how Thursday went, from 12:00.

2:00: Finally decided to log off FFXI after doing Salvage.

2:01: Just realised that I hadn't watched Waterloo Road. So decided to watch it.

2:59: Waterloo Road finished and then decided to watch Bleach... and didn't. So I watched =3 instead.

4:30: Fell asleep, well, i'm sure I fell asleep around this time. Yes, I watched =3 for an hour and a half.

8:30: Wake up reasonably late, considering I wanted to be up at 7:30...

9:20: Leave my house to catch the bus to the train station.

9:54: Arrived just outside of the station, keep in mind, this is when the train LEAVES the station.

When all hope was lost, I decided to wait for the next train, then find out the train I wanted was actually delayed, and I was minutes from missing the delayed train.

10:05: JUST made it to the train, and even though I was partially late for my interview, I thought everything would be okay.

10:15: MADE IT to Loughborough (you didn't know before, so you do now), now for the easy bit, to get to-

To get to-

???

OH F^*K! I completely forgot where I was going and lost my sense of direction. Not to mention I neglected to print off a map.

Yeah...i'm never doing that again.

Okay, to this point, I really DO feel like I have rambled on FAR too much and too the point where I feel I may be boring you guys. I'll continue this in another post another day, for now, I shall do my scripting.

...yeah.

Fooking Limbus.

Right, my first FFXI rant for a while.

I love how people make out that my luck is generally sh*t when it comes down to Limbus. But you know, its just my poor choice in the decisions I make. I also love how people blame me for stuff that usually isn't my fault.

My biggest mistake in the whole time in playing FFXI was leaving my original Limbus shell to join my best friends Limbus shell.

Now I bet you're asking yourself "How is this bad? You're getting to play with your best friend". That wouldn't have been such a problem if he didn't change his mind like the wind. We did limbus for about 2 months, then we decided to go back and join Ephorate, my old linkshell.

Because my friend decided the linkshell wasn't going anywhere.

Now incase you guys don't play FFXI, i'll explain what a linkshell or 'shell or LS is.

If you've played other online games, then its most comonly called a Guild.

If you've never played an online game or game whatsoever before and just reading this, then:

A linkshell is like a room of people, but you can't physically see anyone, you can just see what they type. They're used for all kinds of stuff such as social chatter, setting up events, and if people are nice, they usually give you advice/help.

Limbus is an event you can do once every 3 days (yes, 72 real life hours) that involves doing a few 4-6 different zones that consist of 1-6 floors filled with monsters that you have to kill, and after doing the last floor in these zones, you get a chest which gives you a chip to do the central areas to kill Omega and Ultima. These zones are split up between two different zones that drop different armour sets, Temenos is where Ultima resides and drops Nashira gear, where as Apollyon is where Omega resides and drops the Homam gear.

Anyway, back to what I was saying earlier. It was a mistake that I left because I didn't get anywhere.

At all.

I might have aswell stayed in my old linkshell, but get this:

ALL of my points I originally had were all removed. Ok, I'm fine with that I guess, I did leave the LS after all. But Posty kept all the points he had after moving servers for 3 months and coming back.

???

What?! So wait, they drop all my points for leaving for another shell, but Posty keeps all his points after moving servers? What the f^*k people, What the f^*k.

But i'm past that I guess. I'll just mention it the next time someone does it.

What i'm not past is that ever since I joined AGAIN i've STILL yet to have ANYTHING from the LS, and its been nearly a year and a half. And not to mention you're not allowed to get someone to do Limbus for you.

"Luck of the Draw" Fullen? F^*k off. Its thanks to Whiney little B*st*rds (Madawc >_>) and leaders trying to resolve things that THIS HAS HAPPENED.

So you see, in this kind of event, I'm going to be top of the list for Homam FOREVER! Which makes no sense if they keep doing runs on days I can't actually be there. And its not like they don't know about it either.

I might be sounding a bit selfish, but wouldn't it make more sense for them to do a run where most people turn up?? The only reason why I can't turn up on Mondays is because University Clashes with Limbus, and Real life is far more important. Also, logging on at the train station is a No No, not because I can't or don't want to, its just plain silly.

But hold on folks, that isn't the best bit.

The best bit is that I WAS RIGHT ABOUT WHAT WAS GONNA DROP.

2 feet
1 body

I always have a gut feeling that if something I want that i'm up for drops when i'm not there, it WILL drop.

And I can garuntee that this will happen again.

What the awesome?

Hey guys, you probably may have noticed, but I changed the name of my blog. I actually changed it months ago, but I thought i'd mention just incase. Before it was called "The Days of FFXI" and I called it that because it was going to be a dedicated FFXI blog. However, because of me playing FFXI a lot less than I used to and also doing a lot less on game than I used to, I figured since theres a lot I actually do in real life that I kinda take for granted, I thought it would be a good idea to slightly change the name of my blog and also change the content posted on this blog when I actuallly get round to doing so.

The Mishaps and Rants of A Student Gamer.

As you could probably tell from the title, i'm a university student.

If not, then you know now :).

I also usually have a lot of stuff that I can rant on about or tell about FFXI or University.

Things have hit me such as:

• Finding a new love interest.
• Being drunk with friends is extremely funny.
• That i'm going to miss my friends after this year is done :(.

Back in the day, when I was still at school, Billy Jones had to be one of the funniest people i've EVER encountered in my whole life. I mean, I KNEW funny people, but he put all of them to shame....

Then I met Spencer, Joe, Sam, Jenkins and Liam.

...

What has my life been without these guys?

Mabye my original concepts towards laughter were much different back then? Or mabye my sense of humour has changed since then?

I have to say, I don't think my late teens/early adult hood would have been ANYWHERE NEAR as awesome without them. Why? They are just that damned good.

Joe is like another version of Billy, with his "your mum" jokes, and general behaviour just cracks me up ALL THE TIME!

How does he do it? Even when I went to his 21st birthday thingy-ma-jig he just said a whole bunch of stuff that I would NEVER have thought he'd say that would have me absolutely PISSING MYSELF!

I can't remember what exactly, since I was drunk and took an interest to one of his friends.

You know the one <3.

Then theres Spencer. Jesus, him and Joe are the perfect comedy pair. Sort of like Ant and Dec, but are actually FUNNY AND COOL!

When Spencer isn't around Uni, I feel like theres a hole where my heart used to be because I feel so... lost.

No, i'm not gay, stfu.

Anyway, I should really be working on my Essay/Treatment. I'm going to make sure I keep posting regularly now :).

OH DEARS: The second coming.

Ok, so after I posted on my facebook status that I need to get back to blogging, I actually decided to! As they say, actions speak louder than words. But now i've looked at my most "recent" posts, it seems that I have not posted ANYTHING since June!

Wow.

Thats all I can say really. And because I havn't updated my blog for a long time, I don't remember much of what i've done for ages.

So lets see what i've done in recent times shall we?!

• My second year is FINALLY here, but it just seems like its a slow start. Kinda like last year.
• Bought a new PSP! :D After my laptop annihilated my old one :(.
• Payed for going to Budapest with a bunch of my other friends :D.
• Been drunk 4 times since August, and STILL COUNTING!
• May have found a new love interested :0 (?!?!?!)(the mind boggles)
• Filmed AND Edited a Trent FM future session Podcast :).
• Decided to actually play on my xbox. I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to play on it, even with my new HDTV.

And there are still many more things to come folks. I just need to actually do more posts than whine on facebook that i'm not doing enough posts :P.

OH DEARS!

So! I have finally gotten around to posting in my god-forsaken blog! Its only taken me what? 5 months?

Well personally people, even though this bog was intended to be for FFXI, I don't feel that writing only about FFXI would be satisfying enough for me anymore, and i'm sure others may feel the same way. So i'll try doing a bit of both FFXI and Real Life stories in my blog. As for my FFXI job reviews? yeah, you probably guessed that I gave up after giving Blue Mage so much praise.

Anywho, its been a LONG TIME since I wrote in here, so i'm going to write a short list of things I have done within this time in both FFXI and Real life.

In FFXI, I have:

• Obtained a pair of Byakko's Haidate
• Gained access to Nyzul Isle floor 100 and unlocked all mythic weapon skills for my 75 jobs
• Obtained 75 DRG
• Merited the crap out of said job
• Finally gotten around to capping critical hit ratio (it was level 3 for a long time :))
• Obtained a few bits of Nyzul gear
• Completely finished off Blue Mage in terms of merits
• Still hate RDM out of my 4 Jobs
• Still havn't leveled DRK sub :)
• Laze around in whitegate more than I did before

Well, that was quite a list, though i'm sure theres more than that, but at this time of night? I can't be bothered.

As for real life?:

• Hung out with my friends more.
• Gone clubbing for the first time, ever.
• Seen said friends get drunk and laugh my face off.
• Realised that it takes waaay too much alchohol to even get me tipsy.
• Dedicated 5 entire weeks of my life editing my final projects for FDSC DVBP.
• Passed said course and now have a long 4 month break untill the second year.
• Thinking of a short film idea for year 2 (feedback would be handy! :))
• Realised that Jon Laude is just made of sheer win. Especially when hes drunk.
• Still can't decide whether women are truly worth pursuing or not.
• Had 20th birthday, and still feel exactly the same as I did back when I was 19.
• Bought Star Ocean: The Last Hope for my xbox and completely geeked it up.
• Stopped talking to Sam again because hes acting like a prick uneccessarily, again.
• Gotten a bit closer to some of my other friends.

I believe the first and last points are the points that I feel the most accomplished with. I never really was invited to do things with other people back in the school days. University has changed me so much, for the better, in terms of experiencing new surroundings and possibly being able to mingle, though I CAN mingle, I tend not to.

As for filming? I'm glad i've started taking an interest in it. I've always said to my friends and family that:

"If you enjoy what you're doing in education, you'll do well"

And my theory has finally been proven, due to slightly more perseverance and also my friends. They've made it possible for me to prove my quote. Wheres the fun in doing a HE course if nobody will talk to you or hang out with you? Of course you can pass, but i'm certain you wont enjoy it as much.

Back in collage, I used to think when my teacher said "you need a study buddy in University", I thought it was funny and slightly cheesy, but now actually doing Uni myself, it has made me realise how important this actually is.

Ever since I heard this saying, that i'll NEVER EVER forget. If anyone who is reading this loses their confidence at some point, remember this:

"The world ends with you"

Nothing will happen unless you MAKE it happen. Expand, broaden your horizons, and you'll see your path more clearly.

Blue Mage (BLU) Review!

Before I begin this review, I want you to grab a belt. A leather belt will do. Don't question me, JUST GET ONE! Now I want you to slap yourself on the arm 30 times with it.





The majority of you have probably realised that this really hurts.


THIS IS WHAT YOU LEET BASTARDS GET FOR UNDERESTIMATING BLUE MAGE!


I can't possibly imagine what FFXI would be like without Blue mage, seriuosly. Here we were playing our normal jobs, that get normal invites to use our normal weapon skills on normal boring monsters that we see every day of the week.


And then Blue mage decided to jump into the light, out of the darkness and kicked you in the balls for not having variety in your gameplay. All people on FFXI do is grind one job (WAR/BRD/RDM or SAM, you know, the jobs people have a giant stiffy about) and that job is used for infinity and beyond.

Untill you get BLM 75 that is.

Then its the other way around.

After they released BLU in ToAU, it was the first job I wanted to unlock, and level up to 75. But poor me (not litterally) couldn't install ToAU on my old PC. Apparently, my old PC doesn't have a DVD drive. So, I waited a couple of weeks before I played in the ToAU regions and UNLOCK BLUE MAGE!

Now that i'm BLU 75, it makes me sick to see people say "This job sucks", "Why don't you level a real job Chris?". I'm getting this from bloody BEASTMASTERS. I mean, what the hell is a "real job"? By "real" do they mean "leet"? I believe they do.

Blue mage makes players fight monsters that they have never encountered before, like Dragons and Hyppogryths (probably spelt that wrong, but who cares), and most people complain about having to FIND these spells.

Ok so, it taken me over a year to get 105 spells, so what? I didn't exactly go spell hunting every day of the week, it was more of an occasional thing.

But if SE going in the direction of innovation for new jobs, BLU was their best invention yet.

Red Mage (RDM) Review

I know that its only been a couple of hours since I last posted, but now I really feel the need to review this job.

so... yes, as most of you know, this is not only one of my 3 current 75 jobs, but it was also the FIRST job I leveled from 1-75.

When I started FFXI, I was constantly nagged by my best friend to level this job, because of its "awesome" soloability. I know I know... I went on about this word "soloability" in my last review, but this is stuff people talk about all the time. You hear it about as much as politics and they both have the same concept. They both build up, and then after a couple of minutes, the subject just becomes stupid and arkward, and you feel like shooting yourself. Or in a less harsh way, slapping yourself for even joining/starting the conversation.

But anyway, a couple of years back, I was told that RDM was the best soloer on the game, and how it has some insane endurance and decent melee skills. All this information completely fell through the floorboards of a creaking old house and landed on a giant rock when I was told that all I was allowed to do was stand in the background and main heal/enfeeble each and every monster to death.

Quite honestly, I don't think that was the idea SE had intended for RDM. In a way, I feel kinda sorry for it, because people still, for some reason, call it the "jack-of-all-trades" which MEANS it can do everything, but not as well. Now I thought because of game development, more people would think of RDM as being just a main healer, or just a support job, but not even close. I find out that this peice of information that I was given to me years back has STILL been passed on to other newbies. So they follow the same path of destruction I did and get kicked in the balls for even drawing my weapon. Or mabye thats just me...

But enough of job information, lets talk about stats and job roles.

The job, itself, has the highest enfeebling magic rating on FFXI, which I commend it for, but the other stats it has are a B or less. Which is perfect for its role of jack-of-all-trades, because it means that it doesn't specialise in anything. Oh but wait, whats this? an A+ enfeebling rating? and WHATS THIS? Highest Enhancing magic skill? This kinda throws the whole jack-of-all-trades thing out of the window, because it SPECIALISES IN SOMETHINGS.

But this could possibly be put back in when you think of the tiers of spells it gets. It doesn't get tier 4 and ancient magic like BLM does and only goes up to tier 3 for regular magic. And it doesn't get cure 5 and curaga (without having to sub it) spells like WHM does. So ok, this puts it back in the jack-of-all-trades area again, but yet again, it will get pulled and thrown out because now it has spells that are overpowered such as Phalanx and Gravity. But I guess this would be the only reason why its such a mean soloing job.

As for job roles, its basically increadibly flexible. Because you CAN main heal, you CAN support your party up to an extent, and you CAN do some kind of damage with the tiny dagger that carry about with you.

As much as i've criticised and booo'd at RDM over the past couple of years, overall, it can actually be a fun job. But this all depends on whether your party members are not retarded and don't constantly whine in your face for refresh and haste.

Beastmaster (BST) job review

Now, I know what you're thinking.

"Omg, hes gonna tear this job apart."

Well, thats what I hope to achieve, because BST can go die under a tractor for all I care. In fact, BST is the main reason why I congratulate people on getting matt's cap.

Why, you ask?

Because this job is FREAKING BORING. The bare thought of someone tolerating the imense soloing of levels from 1-75 on this boring job is an achievement in itself. Now, obviously this is purely opinion, but you can't honestly tell me that logging onto FF everyday to solo 1-3k exp /day with fights that take needlessly long, aka, the kiting strategy, IS NOT MY IDEA OF FUN.

Now, don't look at me like that, I actually like BST....

...on FF Tactics Advance 1 and A2 and ONLY on those games. Not counting FF Tactics: War of the Lions, because BST... sorry, I mean, "Orator" is about as usless as Onion Knight on it. I've never once heard somebody actually say "come BST, it could be usefull".

Now I will congratulate it on its incredible soloability...

...and thats all I will congratulate it for.

You can't seriously tell me that you'd use a BST over a SMN for any kind of events. At least SMN can main heal, what can BST do? send in a pet that uses TP moves you don't want it to?

I'll show you what I mean.

From what i've seen, BSTs tend to use a crab familiar. For those that don't know, crabs have a numerous amount of defensive moves. I can see these moves being usefull while soloing. Even so, it does have one move that isn't have bad for doing some actual damage.

Now, when you tell it to use a TP move, because SE made it so you can't actually tell them what to do! it randomly uses one of its abilities, and since the chance of it using its attacking move is 1/4, that makes it pretty useless.

I don't see them being usefull in an exp party, or for most other things OTHER than soloing.

Nuff ranting about BST, check out the blog soon for the "Red Mage (RDM) job review"!

Sudden decision?

Well, after watching zero punctuation so much, and loving the amount of criticism said about other games, its inspired me a lot and now i've decided that i'm going to start using this blog to review events/jobs/hobbies on FFXI.

I know, I know, my blog hasn't been updated for ages, but better late than never as they say, hehehe, but please keep checking my blog :).

Screw you ENMs.

Yeah, screw ENMs. They are FAR too much trouble. As proven yesterday. For the first time in the 2 years i've played ffxi, I seen Jorgamund, in person (!). No, I didn't get agro by her/him/it/the thing (GM Dave could clarify Jormy's gender). Now, I log onto FF, Craves talks to me (like always :D), then begs me to come do ENM 75 (even up till now, I don't even know WHICH ENM is actually was I was trying to help with).

So, I thought to myself "yeah, this might be quite interesting, i'm just that bored". So I went along, and begged to come along as 1/3 of my jobs I dislike the most.

Red Mage...

Another post, for another day.

Anyway, so I high tailed it (Read: took my time because I was doing the aspir quest :o) to Xarcabard, then, after we all gathered together, we started to head down to bear claw pinacle through the ulgulerand range (h/e its spelt ._., 4:00 in the morning, can't be arsed to spell).

...So I thought anyway, untill we eventually get told, that we have to treck around the whole place, just to get this item.


So, we start to walk through, and apparently, I have "tour guide" written all over my face. Celgar (the leader) kept asking me to take everyone to where we were going.

Now, getting to the top of the slope would be so cool, if it didn't involve getting agro by 5 tauros, 2 demons and an unsleepable eye, then followed by someone who obviously has no patience, to ditch us.

Eventually, we get to the top, start to slide down the slope, only problem is, we missed the ledge we were supposed to land on.

Twice.

Do you know what missing that ledge twice means? It means I spent nearly 3 hours walking around a dangerous, to get an item to help someone that I didn't even bloody get in the end. The word twice has all this in a nutshell my friends.

This may sound silly to you, and you probably think that you could do it yourself. Put it this way, unless you have a POS hack, or have done this climb a numerous amount of times, or have some stupidly good luck, there is NO CHANCE of doing this.

Next time i'll post some screenshots.

Lack of posts :/.

Wow folks, I can't believe its been so long since I did my last post!!
been way over a freaking month already! just been caught up with uni work and such that I forgot to update this blog!

Don't worry, i'll get back to posting a lot more regularly during the christmas holidays.

Craves.

No, not the feeling that women have for chocolate.

This is my best friend on FF.

This is a short post, but its dedicated to her.

Once again, I would like to congratulate her on getting her Byakko's Haidate. She put a lot of work into getting them and also, so i'm very happy that she got them!

Congratultions :)!

First Lieutenant Quest.

Mabye a lot of you don't know about this quest. And if you do, then this means you nearly killed yourself doing it too.


Yes, I said Too.


This quest...


DROVE ME ROUND THE BEND.


For those that don't know what that means, it basically drove me insane. But "drove me round the bend" sounds better.

Anyway...


This quest has 3 parts to it. The first part is about qiqirns disguised as humes, and you have to use your "phychic" powers to tell which ones are humes and which ones are actual qiqirns.



Now, I quote "phychic" because SE somehow think that every player on FF has phychic powers. Believe me, this part is a lot harder than it sounds.



The second part is talking jibberish.

...

Well... it came across as jibberish to me.


Basically, you get given a manual of words that are equivalent to some words of the english language, and have to memorize them. Or you could just look in ffxiclopedia. This language is kinda like the al bhed language in FFX, but this time, it doesn't make sense.

This part is easy, because you only need to select the same words the order that it comes up in.



The third part is EXTREME ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS.

Again, this is highly exaggerated by me yet again, because the minigame is actually called BCG (Beetle, Crab, Ghost).



Tell me though, the last time you played rock paper scissors, did this involve holding a mine/bomb/ or any other explosive device? and the loser gets blown to bits? I think not.



And if you did, then you're retarded.



Retarded like this minigame is.



Its pretty simple actually, but it is just needlessly time consuming. I spent a whole hour doing THIS PART alone, and not the actual fights that taken long, it was that damn cutscene.



Anyway, parts 2 and 3 of the minigame are retarded, but are horribly simple.



...part 1 however, is horribly retarded, and incredibly difficult unless you're stupidly lucky.



Have you ever been kicked in the face before? Well, I know i've not, but this minigame certainly made me feel like I had...



The first time I failed, it wasn't too bad.



Chrishh>>> Oh, this minigame makes no sense, I'll try it next time.



Then next time came along...



Chrishh>>> This minigame is stupid. I'll get it next time.



Next time came along again...



Chrishh>>> Bah! I was just unlucky. stupid minigame. Next time i'll devise a plan.



So, as promised, I devised a plan, and made a note in my notebook about the order of the qiqirns.



[Chris's Notebook]



1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12



I would scan this in, but i'm too lazy.



Basically, when I had to inspect the groups, I would circle which group it was.

For example, when I went to check groups, I chose numbers 1-4. When I chose a group on the computer, I would circle that group in my notebook.



1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12



Now from this, it will tell you whether this group would have any qiqirns in it or not, but you only get a limited amount of tries. And everytime you lose the first time (you get 2 chances in one go) then it will change the order completely. And you can't over inspect qiqirns either.



So... for example:



1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12



(The red numbers are the inspected ones. Te blue number is the one you guessed and may get wrong)



If you were meant to only find 3 qiqirns, but then chose 4 because you wern't sure, regardless if the red numbers were all correct, having that blue number still when you check to see if you were correct about which qiqirns were in disguise, will STILL make you lose that round.


Silly huh? But then it would be too easy.

Then Square Enix had to go the extra mile and make this minigame TOO difficult. On a side note, I lost this minigame 9 times in a row. Also, there are 3 rounds of inspecting qiqirns, which go up by 1 more inspected qiqirn per round.

I tell you, some of these quests that Square Enix make take things too far. And don't even get me started on the new Mythic Weapons.

Fastest... Nyzul... Ever

After Sea yesterday, I felt really bored after, so I felt like actually being bothered call for people for Nyzul isle. I did see a shout for another floor, but apparently elitests that level DRK think they're superior to BLU.

Chrishh>>> Hey, can I join your run?
Darksky>>> which job do u have?
Chrishh>>> BLU75/NIN37
Darksky>>> Sorry, I don't accept blu
Chrishh>>> NIN?
Darksky>>> SAM (Do you have it?)
Chrishh>>> No I don't

I mean, what the hell was up with that? The guy is 75 BLU himself, but doesn't accept them? After him shouting for another 10 minute, I tried my hand again.

Chrishh>>> You sure you don't want me to come?
Darksky>>> no, i'd rather spend time shouting
Darksky>>> sorry man

That was a low blow man, I died a little inside, because BLU is one of the jobs that destroy nyzul isle. So I just ended up shouting myself. I bet if someone said that to [GM]Dave about DRG, hed feed them to Jormy.

I have a good Saturday group and we've been progrossing through the floors. Our seup contains Me as either RDM/BLU, Humie as either NIN/RDM, Guyledoche (yes, funny name, but hes actually really cool) as SAM, Skenton as SAM, Braveheart as THF, and we've just gotten Dhalsim as a new 6th member, however, on Saturday, Braveheart couldn't make it, so we got another linkshell member to come, Freshy.

After a few bad weeks of runs after getting my Goliard clogs on the first run wth them, Saturday definitely made up for it. We did floors 1-5, 6-10 and 16-20.

Now, I thought Saturday was crazy, I actually was daring enough to make my own group with a pickup party. First off we had Me as BLU, Caldron as DRG/WHM, Evangela BLU, Lilunulu DRK, Toadstool RDM and Syruss as NIN. At first, I thought that this group would only be able to 'Just' make it up to floor 15. But the run was fantastic.

Our floors were basically Lamps (Order) > all mobs > Lamps (Register) > NM Normal monster > Lamps (Order). Everyone hates the Lamps floor, and particularly the order ones. Well, I did hate this floor untill I had this all sussed and I got floors 11-15 registered on my disk.

Anyway, after this, Caldron couldn't do another assault, so I got Josith to come along as DRK. Hes one of the few DRKs on the game I can trust, I tell you, the guys a legend.

So our setup was now, DRK DRK BLU BLU NIN RDM.

Before entering, we had a small discussion about who would get what if the HNM monster on floor 20 were to drop something. Then, we started talking about what items to get when we enter. This part of the convo made me laugh:

(Chrishh) When we enter, there is a box before we move up floors, in there, there are items you can get and purchase them using Nyzul Tokens.
(Chrishh) NO BUFFS untill we move up to floor 16, and I will give us all 1 minute before we move up, to get items out of the box.
(Lilunulu) *Explains what items to get, can't remember*
(Syruss) Huh? wheres the NPC in nyzul isle?
(Chrishh) ...
(Chrishh) Were you listening just now?
(Syruss) yes but, wheres the NPC?
Josith>>> <.<>

He obviously wasn't getting the idea that there WASN'T AN NPC, so I had to set the guy straight.

Chrishh>>> There is NO NPC, its a box, lol.
Chrishh>>> Well, call the box the NPC if you want to.
(Syruss) oh

Now, this convo not only made me laugh, but made me wonder if this party could get up to floor 20 and kill Behemoth (OOOPS SPOILERS).

So, we entered nyzul isle, I timed the 1 minute we had for items using my stopwatch (not the PC program, the item you wear on your wrist...) as soon as 1 minute was up, I immidiately moved us up. First of all, we had to do Lamps (Order), which I thought would have doomed us from the start, but I was wrong about this. We did this floor in less than 1 minute.

After we progressed a few floors, and were close to floor 20, I looked at my watch to see how good we were on time.

[Chris's watch] 00:08:00

Now, I thought this watch was incorrect, or mabye I was just seriously tired, because we've just done 4 floors IN UNDER 8 MINUTES, not to mention the 1 minute we had for getting items. We were all shocked about how fast we did this as you could imagine (if you're wondering, we didn't get a free floor, thats only ever happened once.).

(Chrishh) Holy crap, you do relise we've just COMPLETED 4 FLOORS IN UNDER 10 MINUTES right?!
(Lilunulu) This is the fastest nyzul run i've ever had XD
(Chrishh) VERY good job guys!

So after that, we ACTUALLY had time to wait around for healing, MP, buffs, using items etc.

Now, through stereotyping, you would have thought that our whole party were heavily pimped out in gear.



Nope, we were all either half decent equips - craply equipped. Then, we went to take on Behemoth. Half way during the fight, I pulled hate and it did Thunderbolt (No, not the move Pikachu uses ._.) and stunned me for like, 30 seconds.

30 second stun? What... the... hell?

Then I started to kiss the floor.



Well, at least we killed it, but didn't get a rare/ex armour drop, but we did get a Swordbreaker.

I laughed when someone said:

(Partymember) Why is it called a sword breaker?

I thought it would be obvious, but it really must not be. its a WEAPON THAT BREAKS SWORDS, hence the name SWORDBREAKER.

Limbus and salvage.

Well, yet again, I couldn't find a use of words for this post, so now i'm a few days behind. Therefore, I am going to do 2 posts in one day! I'm going to do this post in past tense and because of demand, I will start using names.

So as usual, I find myself missing a few days, because I coulda swore it was monday yesterday. But as usual, I was wrong, it was actually Wednesday yesterday, which means today I have limbus.

...which also means I can barely make it due to my uni timetable.

But today, I thought I WOULD be able to make it. This proved incorrect, because my old man was using the computer when I got back. This also happened to be Omega day. My dad tells me he doesn't like computer games, however, everytime its omega day he ALWAYS seems to want to use the computer.

At the same time of course.

I think he reads the time schedules and "claims" that he knows nothing about anything I do on FF.

So, as i've implied, I missed the omega run. However, so did one of my other friends, and sounded quite annoyed about it.

So we went to do Temenos to do a bit of farming.

Myself, Wooooodum and Myojin



Yes I know, I don't have byakkos haidate. People try telling me I can't tank without it. This is incorrect, because I tank absolutely fine. However, I would love the haste and dex+15.

We did the first floor, with some ease, and Woody (or Parrot boy if you like, its what I call him) got the second item for his COR af+1.

Then on the second floor, I started to taste the cold floors of Temenos.



What killed me you ask?



MNks, GIANT MNKs. I hate those guys. I wish they got shot in the face.

Anyhow, we still got few coins. Probbably the same amount I would have gotten with the entire group. Less if I was lucky.

...

And then, after we were done, I changed back to my social linkshell.

Well, I've got many socials, so i'll just say SecretoMana.

I was on there for about 5 minutes, untill someone said:

(Linkshell member) Hey guys, I got salvage, cya later ^^!

That... was music to my ears, kinda like Coldplay's Viva la vida. Those golden words... "Salvage". This folks, is my FAVOURITE end game event. And especially now that you can make profit for actually doing salvage.

For those reading this and have never heard/done salvage before, you start off completely naked, well, not COMPLETELY naked, weakened stats and this includes HP/MP, no magic or abilities, and no subjobs either! As you progress you through 1 of the 4 remnants (Bhaflau, Arrapago, Silver sea and Zhayolm) from monsters you kill, you get "Cells" that drop, each with a specific role to getting you back into shape. And the first floor monsters are all very weak, so you shouldn't have a problem with them, if you do, its because you're retarded.

Anyway...

I immediately pursued this, asking the linkshell member (I don't remember his name) about who he was going with.

I finally got an invite, ended up going a RDM, though I really didn't think I needed to, I coulda gone BLU. Braveheart seems to think its useless, but then again, I know how to do salvage, just i've not had a real decent group.

I have a sunday salvage in the afternoon, but people either:

1. Turn up one hour late
2. Make up the excuse that they don't have enough assault points
3. Run gets canceled because people can't be bothered to come to it.

Not enough assault points? What kind of rubbish is that. Apparently 1500 assault points is hard to come by.

On a side note, you get 3 tags that each take 1 day to regenerate (Tag 1, 1 day, tag 2, next day, tag 3, next day) and you can get an extra tag by picking on up a day before you're supposed to do assault which results in having 4. 4 if you're Captain rank, same situation as having 3 tags, but this time, you can have 5 tags instead. Also, the majority of assaults give you 1000+ points per run, so if you work it out, you can actually have 7000+ points PER WEEK.

(Linkshell member) I don't have many assault points, sorry.

This in translation really means:

(Linkshel member) I couldn't be arsed to do any assaults this week. Tough balls.

In my personal opinion, its not a lot of work to do assaults, it just requires 2 hours of your time to do, or less even.

Anyway, so I got into this new thursday group, which is quite benficial for me. So I went along with them, they're new, so with my extensive knowledge of salvage, i'm going to toughen them up, teach them a few tricks, and wont need to be cell caller anymore. A bit of a slow start, but we progressed and nearly everyone had their stuff back.

We even tried for the level 35 Usukane feet, no NM of course, but it was a good try.



Then, since time was running out, we tried to do some level 15 armour farming, which sadly didn't turn out so well.

Next time I wil look at my RDM macros before using them.

...

But I feel this group has a lot of potential, not only do they have the right amount of people, but the right amount WITH the right jobs. After i'm done with them, they'll be Salvage machines.

Sky. And DRG again.

Well, I really should have posted this yesterday, since I leveled DRG on wednesday, not yesterday (its 1:37 right now). But somehow, I couldn't find the right words to finish off this blog entry. So i'm doing it now.


Well i seem to have found myself quite lucky today. I actually got a pt invite on DRG... not only that, in less than 5 minutes of logging onto FF. This was obviously a shocker to me, since that hasn't happened since my RDM was below 70.

Oh well, who cares, I got an invite, yay me.

Anyhow, I get a teleport altep from someone who was going to do a swift belt run with my RL friend Josith (the guy is a legend), couldn't stay around to help them because not only did I have a pt invite, I hd sky later on that night... even though I ended up being late to it.

...

Anyway.. the party progressed quite well.



Doesn't the party look fantastic? It consisted of a NIN, DRG (me again)
, SAM, WHM, RDM (Party leader) and a RMTTHF who aparently has the reactions of a snail. I think hes been watching too much Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and thinks slow motion works in all situations.

...

Basically, when we "tried" to make a SATA order on the NIN (the SAM would first voke), he would engage and fight. The beetle is half dead, then all of a sudden, all you will see is:

(RMTTHF) THF SATA TP GO >>>>>

I mean, who in the right mind not only does a SATA so late in the fight, but has the lamest macro EVER for it? RMTs do.

Then half way through the party, the leader randomly says:

(Partyleader) Fuck man.
(Partyleader) Look at Samurai damage, its insane.
(Chrishh) >.>
(Partyleader) DRG damage is also insane too.

Is it me, or has DRG with a polearm smashing an IT beetle with DOUBLE THRUST for 50-200 damage suddenly become invisable, because from what I remember, the SAM was hitting measly 40-80 Tachi Enpi, so how on earth does he think that is crazy?

Did I also mention that I was the level sync designee for a 31 party? If you didn't notice in the screenshot, then you know now.

Anyway, I had to leave the party after an hour or so to get to sky.

Eventually get my RDM gear out to head to sky, in the linkshell I get asked to take one of the members to the Diorite camp. Now, this obviously wasn't a problem taking the person, but if only I knew how to get to the diorite camp myself. I tried my hardest to get to the camp...

...after taking the wrong portal 3 times. Eventually, got there after a LONG time, and then my dynamis leader who is a pearl sack in my sky linkshell, says:

(Partymember) Hey Chris, when you get here, we're going to go to water.

So I basically wasted far too much time getting to the camp JUST to go to another camp. Though, it was quite cool 3 of us fighting pots. Only downfall is that we didn't get any water. That drop rate sucks more than lemon juice.

I will write about tonights events tomorrow, since right now, I need some sleep.