Bored with WoW, FFXI update, other things

On WoW:
Quick update on WoW... the reason why I haven't been on as much is... simply... I'm bored of it. I reached level 47 (which incidentally is the same level as my Night Elf Druid) and I got bored of repeating the same quests over and over again in another zone. Gathering herbs and grinding alchemy hasn't been that interesting so far, and combat has basically been the same 4 spells over and over again with virtually no excitement. Got to 50 by being guided through dungeons with 3x exp active, not much has changed.

WoW really does need some other hook to get past this "dead" zone... that is, if there is something else on the other side of things. At least FFXI had missions and quests that were more than 'go collect 15 rat tails' as a nice distraction.

On the "good" news is... because I referred Ghiren this time around, he can grant me levels whenever he is ahead of me. This means that I don't have to play to get out of this dead zone, which is good since I haven't been motivated to play at all. If there is something more interesting in WoW beyond level 60, hopefully I can get there to find out.

FFXI:
So, one nice part about the whole cutback on FFXI is that it makes things a lot more relaxing... No more rushing from event to event... still, I am doing stuff, sooo... what's happened recently:

- Limbus: Finally got an Omega win... it's been a while since we've defeated Omega :( We also have two half-sets now, so hopefully we can get some more Omega done and finish more sets.
- Dynamis: Finally getting bored of doing the whole DNC/SAM thing in Dynamis where I'd have to keep on switching mobs and healing a party full of DDs... so I've switched to SCH where I can fool around with Aspir-ga spells! Nothing like filling up my entire MP bar by Aspiring 7+ mobs for more than 100MP each! I think I have a screenshot or two of this somewhere. Plus I can actually do something when it's time to nuke the boss instead of stand around and look pretty.
- ZNMs: We're progressing nicely along with ZNMs, with people showing up more on time than before, and we're getting things done. We have a really high number of Tier IV pop sets, so we really need to get full attendence for the next few weeks so we can use these pops and start the paths again. I think our recent recruitment has gotten us at last to levels where we can do this again.
- Nyzul: On a whim, we started this up again last night. Main changes are Vanh filling in for Kurai and me coming as SCH instead of BLU. Vanh's normal Thursday group was on hiatas for a long time due to Fuuji's move, so he agreed to come with us... we can share him, right? He's good luck!
- Merit: Done with Fan Dance now... that is... I have the merits for it, but I keep on forgetting to upgrade it. 5/5 on Fan Dance, which gets the recast time down to... I think 3 minutes. I still have to get 4 merits to upgrade Saber Dance once before I'm complete done with Dancer merits. After this will be HP merits, then we'll have to see... I may do some elemental magic merits since I'm nuking a lot on SCH. For merits, I'm mainly just doing merits with Vanh on Sunday afternoons when I'm around.





Other:
Meanwhile, I've been playing... Star Ocean: The Last Hope! Wow... an offline JRPG! It's really pretty on the 360 with HD, though maybe a little too bright and colorful. Gameplay is kinda weird... fast action-type with lots of button pressing. I've never completed a Star Ocean game before, so we'll see if the story can draw me in. So far it seems like any other JRPG, kid somehow becomes the focus of a plotline and has to go run around different towns(planets) doing various little quests.

Problem with today's world

Completely off topic rant about the U.S. situation... these are all my personal thoughts, and may offend people. There is no political correctness to be found here. Read at your own risk!


// rant on


So when I was growing up, the United States was always a place of wonder... where miracles were made, technology was developed, and of course, Disneyland. It was a place the rest of the world looked up to. Unfortunately, that all came crashing down... what happened?


Here's a rant about what I find wrong with the U.S., and to a certain extent, the whole world



1. Capitalism taking over society
Almost every part of the current economic crisis can be traced back to capitalism... that is... the pursuit of money no matter the cost.

- The "American Dream" of owning a house -- Nothing more than a well-crafted marketing campaign to get people to desire a house even when it does not make sense. While yes, there are emotional aspects of owning a house, from an investment point of view this is not necessarily the best investment, especially considering the additional expense of upkeep of your property. Yet, many people out there buy houses that they cannot afford to own due to their desire to fulfill the "dream".
- Similarly, Hallmark and all their holiday cards, diamond rings, "black Friday", the commercialization of Christmas, Mothers & Fathers days, Valentines day... all can be traced back to marketing campaigns designed to make people spend money for no good reason!
- The whole mortague crisis came about because the mortage companies and banks were greedy and figured out ways to work within the letter of the law, or to hide their intentions when they basically loaned money to people who had no business borrowing that much money in the first place!
- California energy crisis, oil prices, Madoff... need I say more?

Not that capitalism itself is bad... it's the humans behind it who are unethical, abusing human behavior patterns and taking advantage of people. Are we a society that only seeks for the best personal advantage at the cost of the rest of society?


2. Lack of responsibility on actions

Ugh... I love this one... nobody ever wants to own up to being wrong and taking the consequences of what they do. Everytime I hear the word "bailout", its just another example of how we let people get away with the mistakes they make.

- People taking out mortagues that they can't afford

- People not knowing what they're getting into in the first place when they buy a house. What part of "Adjustable" do you not understand in a 5-year ARM?

- Not paying your mortague that you contractually agreed to just because you hope the government will give you money. Trashing the house you can no longer afford to pay for because you didn't understand your own actions and refuse to take responsibility for them (see a trend here?)

- Auto, airline and other industries, including the banking industry who are asking for money to prop up their businesses, claiming that without them, the entire industry will fall. Bad business decisions were made and now the companies SHOULD be paying for the consequences. Companies that made good decisions should be allowed to reap the rewards. Instead, we have this weird situation where the government is keeping these companies alive on life support, dragging this downturn out in a zombie state for months, even years.

- Octo-mom... having 6 kids, then having another 8 kids. Erm... I'm not sure HOW someone is going to raise 6 kids, much less 14, and already behind on mortague payments, probably expecting the government to bail them out... >.>

I'm of the opinion that people need to be responsible for their actions and pay the price, even if it is painful in the short-term. Let companies that have made bad decisions fail, let people who took out stupid loans that they can't afford be foreclosed on instead of having responsible people pay for their mistakes. All these bailouts do is teach people that they do not need to think about the possible downsides of their actions since the government will save them. It's the same thinking that has people spending beyond their means, and not saving a cent for retirement.

3. Everyone is *not* equal

Not everyone is qualified for everything. For example, compared to a big bodybuilder, I can't do anywhere near as much manual labor. However, the U.S. seems to subscribe to the illusion that everyone is equal and that you cannot be allowed to get ahead of other people.

The U.S. education system is designed to keep everyone on a "level playing ground". However, this means that the "no child left behind" act prevents the truly intelligent from getting too far ahead of their classmates as everyone is supposed to be equal. This same education system also has what amounts to race quotas, taking opportunities away from people who should be given the opportunity to excel and giving them to less-qualified people just because of their ethic group.

I think this education system does a disservice to both sides. The education system should be training people on how they can become productive members of society, not telling everyone that they can all grow up to become president. The education system should help them figure out what they can, and want to do and give them the necessary training and discipline to reach their full capabilities instead of coddling them like... well, children.

Anyway... these are just three of the things that I think are wrong with today's world... I have lots more which I'll leave for another day :)

FFXI & WoW update/schedule

Wow, looks like my little off-topic post about organs has gotten the most feedback so far! Most comments from different people, and off-blog conversations :D Maybe I should post off-topic more often.

However, this is an on-topic post :)

Funny thing about having both WoW and FFXI at the same time... people on FFXI think I'm off playing WoW, people on WoW think I'm doing events on FFXI and meanwhile I'm off watching TV without logging onto either game :D Watching a little TOO much this season, both in terms of TV & anime... Current weekly watch list is:
TV: Heroes, Knight Rider, Lost, 30 Rock, The Office, Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse, Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad
Anime: Gundam 00 Season 2, Rideback, Sora Kake Shoujo, Tytania, Viper's Creed, Marimite Season 4

So, erm... ya, that's a lot to watch. I'm also behind on playing a ton of non-MMO games. I have a small stack that I've bought but not played or finished yet including: LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles, Mirror's Edge, Prince of Persia, Fallout 3, Street Fighter 4, and more coming on the way >.> Game developers are becoming smarter, always releasing limited or collectors editions of games which I can't resist ; ;

Taking a break from MMOs is quite welcome!

Meanwhile, here's what I've been doing:

FFXI
FFXI is pretty dead in terms of AP activity. On an average day, I see... Utaru and Raselin on. During event days I might see Connie, Dexie, Fuuji and Wu as well, but that's just a small fraction of the week.

Looks like my FFXI playtimes have evolved to:
- Monday: ZNMs all night
- Wednesday: Limbus late night, after TV
- Saturday: Dynamis & Limbus all night
- Sunday: Meriting with Vanh, sometimes helping Wu with KS99

Sadly, no Nyzul, which is the event I actually enjoyed the most. (even with horrible drop rates)

As expected, the drop rates for all events are horrendous. I can't remember the last time that we took an item off the ZNM wishlist anymore. Dynamis drop rates are horrible from every time I've shown up, and I keep on hearing about Dancer or Scholar AF that drops on Wednesdays which I can't make it due to school. It's making me consider dropping Dynamis. Horrible drop rate, only making 1/2 of the events and the event itself starting at an inconvenient time for me makes me feel that Dynamis is a big hassle not just for me, but also for the organizers.

Utaru is doing his best to keep Limbus going, and he's doing a really good job at it too. We've cancelled quite a few runs in the recent months due to low attendence, but Utty has managed to recruit more people and get a sizable force going again. We have one Omega pop set, and most of another now. Whether we can start doing Omega again... well, we'll find out this weekend!

As for meriting... Vanh seems very persistant about leveling on Sunday afternoons, so I'm tagging along. I'm in the process of finishing up my Dancer merits, 4/5 on Fan Dance now. I just need... I think 9 more merits to finish category 2 merits on Dancer, then I can move onto other things like HP or attributes.

Ironically, I haven't been playing Dancer all that much lately. While I prefer being on Dancer for any healing role, I won't come Dancer if it's a kited fight, if there is any amnesia involved or if it is mainly a nuked fight. Interestingly, I've been asked to come SCH for many events now as mainly a nuker. Healing is a little too dangerous for me as SCH since I do like to do a lot of AoE Cures, but I'm fairly effective at nuking. Spells hit for about 3/4 the strength of a BLM for 1/2 the MP. My gear is horrible (mainly AF plus a few random pieces I've picked up), but if that's what people want... Easier on me anyway since SCH doesn't take as much concentration as DNC!

Since I'm doing a lot of nuking on SCH, I'm starting to wonder if I should pick up some nuking gear... if you have any ideas on what might be good (and cheap) to pick up on the AH, post in the comments!

WoW
Level... 46 Blood Elf Warlock as of last night, but that will probably change really soon. 3x exp makes it easy to level, except I don't really find that many reasons or opportunities to level. I'm getting bored of WoW (again), which isn't too surprising since the last time I played I got bored and quit at level 47 ^^;; It seems that WoW hits a rut at around this level since I don't get any new abilities, and it's basically been the same routine for the last 10 levels or so... quests are the same with similar objectives, no interesting storyline or characters to get behind.

WoW schedule seems to be:
- Thursday: Dungeon crawl with Ghir, Vargie, Aqqy, Zu and sometimes Fro
- Friday: Quest with Ghir (3x exp ftw!)

I might try to sneak some WoW time in on Tuesdays, Saturdays or Sundays if I'm int he mood. A few weeks ago I was in the mood, but more recently I haven't been in the mood to run around and do quests. The good part is that at least this gave Ghir a chance to catch up a little in levels :)

Tonight I'll probably switch my minion around a little and try a different playstyle for Warlock. I've been using the Succubus as damage + crowd control, but I'm realizing that she doesn't do that much damage anymore relative to my spells, and I don't really need crowd control when I can just attack them all and kite mobs around. Maybe this will help break more boredom with WoW :)

I'll continue playing for at least until the 90 day 3x exp thing expires... by then I should be at (the very least) level 60 and also have my zebra mount! Ironically, but then I should also get my free month of gameplay, so... I guess it's at least 120 days of gameplay coming up in WoW? Maybe things will change at higher levels...

Off-topic:
One more month until I'm completely done with grad school... and coming out to a world which is in shambles. I'm considering putting together another off-topic blog post to talk about the economy and world situation, but it could be a little contraversal, so... I don't know... do you want to hear about my thoughts on the world situation?

Macross Frontier "Lion" on electric organ

Whenever I tell someone that I play the electric organ, I normally get one of the following responses:
- A nod and smile, then staring at me as though I just grew a 3rd eye
- Immediately asking: "So you must be very religious"
- Some perverted joke about playing an "organ"... or worse, an electronic one >.>

No, I'm not religious at all. I'm not crazy. The organ is an instrument that seems to be more common in developed asian countries and virtually unheard of in the U.S. for some reason. There are schools where parents to bring their little children to and make them learn how to play the organ, just like the parents here in the U.S. bring their children to learn the piano, violin and other instruments for the sake of a "well-rounded" education.

Anyway, here is a very talented girl playing her re-endition of the Macross Frontier Opening song "Lion" on an electric organ:


At first glance, it might appear as though she were playing some parts of the music with extra music added in. She's actually playing everything in the song with no other recordings or players. Most people aren't quite able to keep up with everything going on with her playing this complex instrument, so I'll break it down and explain things a little:
- 2x main keyboards -- Playing two different instruments. Right hand is mainly for melody, left hand for chords
- Left foot -- 3rd keyboard on the floor. Listen closely and you can hear the bass in the background. Also, it's linked to the background music so she can hold onto each note and it will automatically match the rhythm without her having to constantly lift her foot
- Right foot -- This pedal is for main volume control, but it also has additional switches that you can't see. One is definitely on the left side of the foot, but there might be another on the right. If you listen carefully, you can hear cymbals during the song. She's triggering them with this switch. Also the "twinkling" noise is probably triggered the same way. At the end of the song she increases the volume for the finale.

So, that's all four limbs accounted for... additionally, there is tons of extra programming work that had to be done before she even started playing:
- Drums in the background -- If you look closely on the left side of the organ, you can see some red LEDs counting the beat. The background drums you hear are pre-programmed and when they kick on/off is determined by when she starts playing
- Chosing the instruments -- Each keyboard can have one, or more instruments linked to them. Try to figure out which one she's using to play which instrument!
- Instrument changes -- There are a series of white buttons/LED between the two keyboards. Each one represents a set of instruments that were programmed by her. It used to be that you had to hit the buttons really quick to switch instrument sets, that is, the instruments the keyboards are configured to sound like, but it appears that she programmed the switching to occur in time with the music
- Instrument volumes -- Besides the master volume, each instrument has it's own volume meter as well

This is an incredible example of a really good organ player. I'm nowhere near this good, especially being years out of practice since I can't find anywhere in this country that has one that I can play. These organs range from $2,000 - $15,000. I used to play Yamaha organs, and I'm pretty certain that the one she's playing is on the higher end just judging from the foot pedals. The basic organs only have one octave of left left foot pedals, and only one right pedal. In the past, there were organs with three keyboards, but this was before more advanced electronics made it easier to switch between instruments.

So... what instruments can you play? Can you put up a performance like this? :)

WoW update - Warlock 35

Let's see... a fast update in what's happening in WoW.

Level 35 Warlock now. I'm enjoying this job a lot more compared to Druid, which I took the last time. While Druids are very flexible, able to shift between the tanking bear form, to the heavy damage feral form to the flexible spell-casting form, all the shifting did was confuse the heck out of me. WoW is also significantly faster than FFXI, where split second decisions need to be made. Spell casting time is either instant, or measured in a few seconds, where in FFXI, a basic cure spell casts 3-4 seconds to cast. As a Druid, I'd often screw up, not healing in time or worse, switching forms at the wrong time and using up all my MP for nothing!

Warlock is surprisingly fun... Basic strategy is simple: Throw up as many DoTs as I can against the mobs I'm facing, then drain their life to keep my own HP up in a technique known as "Drain Tanking". It's surprisingly effective, and even though I don't have that much HP in the first place, I can easily take on 4-5 mobs that are equal level to me just by throwing up DoTs and keeping myself alive this way. On Druid, I'd be lucky if i can take on two mobs that are the same level.

So... grinding through the levels through quests. I'm moving a little slower compared to last time since I'm actually exploring the zones this time instead of blowing through levels like the last time with Vivid, and I'm holding back so that Ghiren & I can quest together and take full advantage of 3x exp. Still, WoW is reaching the point again where it is starting to get a little boring as we do basically the same things over and over again... Aqqy, Varg, Ghir & I are trying to mix things up a little by doing dungeon instances every Thursday night for a change of pace. I'd also like to drag Ghir out to try some PvP again! Maybe a Warlock would be a little more fun compared to a druid!.

Oh yeah, so here's an update on my interface. I've finally figured out a good balance between 3rd-party add-ons and how I want things laid out:

Basically I put all the text in the bottom part of the screen, giving room for actionbars to go just above the chat box on the left, and the combat box on the right. Unfortunately, my actionbars have been growing upwards recently, and the interface is taking up almost the entire bottom 1/3 of the screen. I still use a 4:3 monitor, so moving things to the left or right sides of the screen isn't really an option.

Addons I currently use:

- Titanbar (top bar) -- Mainly for a status on my current ping time to the server + how much gold I have

- Necrosis (weird circles in the middle) -- Warlock management tool. Keeps my Soul Shards under control and gives easy access to common, and rarely used Warlock spells. Also has really cool verbal prompts to tell me whenever I can trigger certain spells, like when Shadow Trance procs

- QuestHelper -- I'm pretty sure EVERYONE has this

- ActionBars 4 -- Easy to move those bars around

- Omen4 -- Threat level gauge... though with drain tanking, I'm almost always at the top of the threat list

- Gatherer -- Keep track of where I've gathered herbs... also lets me find out where my AP guildmates have found things!

- Auctioneer -- Helps me easily manage auctions. I think this, or another addon also lets me know how much things vendor for, making it easy to figure out which item I should toss when I'm out of inventory

- Chatter -- Formats the chat boxes nicely. Also prevents chat from fading away and alerts me whenever someone says my name.

- BuffBars -- Changes buffs from being icons to bars with durations remaining. 

Truthfully, I'm not sure if I'm even playing Warlock "correctly" since half the game I'm soloing and experimenting, and the other half I'm with Ghiren, who is even more of a newbie to WoW compared to me :) We'll have to see what happens when I go for some real fights!

How to retire early (aka. how the rich do it)

Sorry for the lack of blog posts recently. I've been on "enforced vacation" at work due to having too many vacation days, so I haven't had time to blog since I do most of my blogging at work when I'm bored :P I have about 4 topic ideas right now on various topics, so there's lots of material coming!

Going to go a little off-topic today and talk about RL matters for once!

Some of the reasons I went back to grad school was to find out more about how the business world works, why some people can make 7-digit salaries and how to become one of those people myself. The sad part is that the answer is simple: Connections. If you have the right connections, you'll easily slide into a spot making millions without any special talents in the business world. All you need to do is have the right friends (and possibly relatives). If you don't have the right connections, it'll take a lot of luck to get there. Simple hard work does not work.

Why hard work does not work:
The average person (say... 95-99% of US society) will live a life similar to the following scenario:
- Grow up, become an adult and enter the workforce at around age 20
- Work between ages 20-65, maybe 70, then retire. Maybe change jobs a few times, but ultimately be working for some organization for a salary
- Retire with anywhere between 5-20 years of their life remaining. The reward is "not having to work". However, by then, your body will be old and you won't be able to do as many things as compared to when you were younger.

However, for the average person, this sad scenario is actually necessary. By the time someone is 65, they will no longer be able to do much physical work to make a living. Their mental faculties have fallen behind the times and they can no longer keep up with technology. In order to have enough money so that they do not have to work as greeters at Walmart, they have to have enough savings when they retire to be able to sustain themselves for their remaining years.

To actually be able to retire and not have to work, you'd have to save anywhere between 5-20% of your salary for 40 years of working. Most Americans do not save anything at all and end up having to work during the years that they are supposed to be relaxing. (American saving rate at -0.5%) What's worse is that the American work ethic is such that they live to work, that is their entire lives are based around working. Add to this that Americans on average have 13 days of vacation days, this paints a very depressing picture. This means that on average, Americans only get 5% of their "Mon-Fri" working days off. Even the Japanese have an average of 25 days of vacation.

So... what hard work gets you:
- A lifetime of working for organizations or corporations just to save up for retirement.
- Spending your life working for an organization that will easily lay you off in order to make the "books" look good, not having any time to have fun on your own.
- Barely having enough to survive day-to-day after you retire. Your goal is to keep from being kicked out onto the streets

I don't know about you... but this sort of life story isn't really for me :) I'd rather go out and have some fun while I'm young!

Other options
So, the big question now is how the heck do we break away from this "norm" of society. How can us ordinary people break away from the rat-race? A few dreams out there include:
- Winning the lottery (right)
- Starting a company and becoming rich (Need the right idea, plus only 1/10 or 1/100 startups make it)
- Marrying someone rich (mmm... okay)
- Sit around and collect money -- passive income streams

It's the last option that is something I think us as average people might be able to pull off. The basics is that we'd want to enter "early retirement", that is, we'd regain our own time so that we can do whatever we'd want with it... play games, travel, watch TV, instead of having to keep going to work for 3/4 of our lives. In order to do this, we need to first answer the following question:

How much do we need
Think about your life. How much income do you actually need to be happy? Is it the bare minimum necessary for living + TV? Or would you like to travel around, buy new games as they come out? Depending on what your desired lifestyle is, how much you'll need will vary. However, the amount you will need is probably going to be higher compared to when you're working since you'll be planning on having lots of free time.

So, let's set a conservative rate of $60k/year for all your fun activities and keeping you alive.

How are you going to get this?
Now while $60k/year may seem like the average worker's salary, keep in mind that we want to get this money for doing absolutely no work. We want to be sitting there and collecting money instead. This isn't a dream. Consider your savings account at a bank. You get interested for doing absolutely nothing, just sitting on your money.

Now while bank savings are a pretty safe example of passive income, it's really difficult to live on just bank interest payments. To get $60k/year at 2% interest, you need about $3M in the bank. Look at it this way: If you have $3M, you can safely retire and simply live off interest! $3M isn't that much money, it's just 6 years salary of an Obama-approved CEO. For people in tech, it's also one lucky job at the right startup. Administrative Assistants and fresh-grads from college who joined Google months before IPO each walked away with over $5M and have since retired.

Interest is one way we can get money for doing nothing. However, the up-front cost is very high. You need at least $3M in capital to pull this off. What other passive income streams are there for us "ordinary people"?

Passive Income streams
Here are some of the classics:
- Rental property -- Buying residental property and renting it out to people. As long as the rent covers the mortage payment, you're essentially getting the apartment for virtually free, just tying up the downpayment that you need to buy the property. You don't have to pay the full cost of the apartment up front, just 20% of the value and then wait. Any rent beyond the mortage payment goes into your pocket. Once the mortage is paid off, all the rent goes into supporting you. Think about how much you pay in rent, then consider how many units you need to rent out to support yourself.
- Small (profitable) businesses/franchises -- Here's something interesting. All those small shops out there are not necessarily owned by the people working there. Many of them have a non-present owner that owns the shop, but hires managers and workers to run the day-to-day business. As long as the shop is profitable, the owner can continue to hire people and pocket any profits. Franchises are the same way. As an individual, you can buy or set up a Rite-Aid, or a fast-food chain with the right initial investment.

The two ideas above do require that you have some up-front cash in order to start things. Setting up a rental property requires some sort of a downpayment in order to buy the property in the first place. However, consider apartment prices throughout the country. Let's say you buy a $100,000 apartment and rent it out. You'd need to raise around $20-30k for your initial downpayment. That's about the cost of a car, and it will give you income down the road. This is a reasonable amount to save even from a normal salary. You'd need more to set up a small business, but the government has small business loans to help.

Other methods:
- Online Websites -- So this is an interesting one. If you have a sufficiently interesting site that people are willing to either pay a subscription to read, or you can put up advertising, this is in effect a passive income stream. It may not be much money, but as long as it makes money and does not take any of your time to maintain, it's a win! I believe this is the reason why we have so many domain squatters. Domains are so cheap that the very basic advertising that they have on domains is enough to not only pay for the domain, but also give the squatter some income. Sites like digg.com and Slashdot.org were created by people who had compelling content and ended up making their creators millions
- Write a book -- A book is a good example of a passive income stream. Write it once, sell it many times. If your writing is good and the book is popular, you can sit back and collect money. You can even write more books to add onto the income stream. The barrier to entry for publishing books is rapidly being reduced with online publishing and "print-to-order" services. The only investment you need to make here is time.
- Others?

So, the basics are, if you can come up with enough methods of earning money that does not require you to work for 1/2 of your waking hours, you can retire at any age. The question now is which one of these can you pull off successfully enough to retire. Additionally, the best time to do this is when you're young when you can afford to lose everything you own!

Myself? I'm still working the startup angle, though I'll be investigating the other avenues at the same time soon. Do you have any ideas for passive income streams?

The slow death of FFXI (to me)

No, this has nothing to do with why "FFXI is dying" or whether the game will still be around in a few months. This is, however, about how FFXI is dying for me specifically and how I'm finding less and less reasons to keep my subscription going.

Let's see... why would people play MMOs in the first place

1. To have fun in the game content
2. To get stuff from events
3. To have fun with friends

Game content

I'd say FFXI has hard, long and slow game content. Finishing a storyline is quite a challenge, and the fact that there are people who have been playing the game who have not seen the ends of the Zilart or CoP storylines shows how hard it is to actually "play" the game. I think we... suffer through it? Torture ourselves to gather people and get through fights with crazy requirements?

Additionally, FFXI content comes out at a surprisingly slow pace. I understand the need to keep dragging the game along in order to keep the subscriptions going, but shouldn't they do this by releasing further content instead? There are enough timesinks in the "endgame" events already. WoTG was released over a year ago, but the developers themselves have admitted that even after a full year, they still have not released half of the content. How long before we can get the full story? 2+ years at $12.95/month is a lot of money just to see the end of story.

Finally, the recently announced "mini-expansions" just sounds like an attempt to capitalize on their player base. Full expansions typically add new areas to visit, new things to do, but these three expansions currently sound like... long questlines that they are charging you for. What's next? Charging $2.50 to get armor for your chocobo?

Events

So, one thing that was keeping me playing FFXI was the various events that we could do, have some fun in and get some rewards. Let's see what's happened to the various events:

• Einherjar - Cancelled - Low turnout
• Nyzul Isle - Cancelled - No healer
• MMM - Cancelled - No interest
• Limbus - Cancelled about half the time - Low turnout. Questionable if we can tackle Omega
• ZNMs - Still on, but questionable if we can tackle Tier IV
• Dynamis - Only event that is consistently on. However, I can only make Saturday runs

So, in the space of 2 weeks, I went from having 6 regular events to 1 solid event, and 2 events that are questionable. Of these events, I'm not certain Limbus will continue much longer, which leaves me with two events that only take place once a week for me...

Hmm... $12.95 for essentially 8 time-consuming events with really low drop rates? ZNMs have a nice record of 0 drops of the Hachiryu armor that many people want even after we've done it for months. And people know what Dynamis drop rates are better than I do.

Friends

This is a sore point for me... when Aqqy went over to WoW, I went over initially to take a look around and to play with her some more. I came back to FFXI not long after that when I realized that I couldn't play both games at once and there were more people on FFXI.

Then the bannings came and took out about 1/3 of AP. Even those who were temp banned decided not to continue playing. Those of us who were had no part in the banning lost our interest and motivation in the game. Some people even cancelled their FFXI subscriptions in disgust over SE's attitude, leaving even less of my friends around. Linkshell exp parties, which used to be common a few weeks ago, haven't been formed in ages. These days I'd be lucky to see a handful of people on AP at any time.

Last night, I logged into FFXI just to see what was going on. Pretty much no dialog for the entire night until Wu sent me a /tell asking if I'd come help with KS99 (which also got cancelled last night due to a lack of people). Conversely, #alphaprime on WoW has more people, more chatter compared to FFXI.

Right now, I think I can count on one hand the number of AP people who are still playing FFXI like they used to... everyone else has either lost all motivation to play, or is over on WoW.

So, what does this mean?

I'm pretty sad at this turn of events. Two weeks ago, we were having fun, making plans to level more jobs, schedule more events and help people with missions. Today, FFXI is a ghost town for me, with only a select few individuals who I still talk to. I'll still keep coming to what few events I have left, but I'm really losing motivation to login at all.

At tne end of Feb, I'll take another look to see if I'll still continue the subscription. I've let a few people know what my criteria for keeping my FFXI account active, so we'll have to see if these criteria are met. Suffice to say, the points above tie in closely to my thinking.

As for WoW, I still have about week left in my "Scroll of Resurrection" 10-day trial period. I'll probably pick up at least another couple of months since Ghiren purchased the game under my reference and the two of us have 3x exp for the next 90 days. Whether I'll continue the subscription after that would depend... at least in WoW you can easily shut your account off without worrying about being deleted :P

PS: I deleted all my polls after I found out that someone was stuffing the ballots :P