Lack of updates - More of a pattern

It has been just over 3 weeks since my last blog post... I'm still here, though feeling a general lack of interest in XI. The lack of updates isn't limited to just me either. The few XI blogs I follow are also down to almost no activity, including GM Dave, Talint's blog and of course, Kanican.

This is... despite the new content added so far, announcements of the next level cap increase, new armor and everything new that we're doing. It's not that we aren't doing new stuff... we actually are doing a lot of new things now (VNMs, Abyssea missions/NMs, even MMMs are now part of the regular stuff.

It's just... it's not really that exciting to blog about.

I guess a big part of it is my general feeling that everything happening in FFXI is transitionary. We've been promised a level 99 cap, and the level cap is increasing at (now) regular intervals of barely enough to get your jobs and subjobs up to the next cap. The level cap increase also means that things that we struggle with now will be a cakewalk in a few months.

It also means that nearly everything we are currently working toward will be obsolete shortly. The most obvious example would be how the new Abyssea Cruor armors completely obsoleted all the ZNM and Nyzul gear, and is obtainable at a fraction of the effort. It really reduces the incentive and reason to go after get and do events since you know that at level 99, there will be some other piece of gear to replace whatever you're currently working on.

Finally, the one thing that might not be transitionary is the Trial of the Magian weapons, or Empyrean weapons. However, there are two major things working against this.
1. SE continually revises the requirements of this trial... and revises it downwards, meaning if you just wait a little, you won't have to put as much effort/time into it
2. The trials become easier as you go up in level

Last Wednesday CTR fought Kukulkan, one of the Abyssea popped NMs that is for the Abyssea mission line. This mob drops a fang that is a requirement for the staff Empyrean weapon. To upgrade the weapon, you need 50 of these in total. The mob can drop between 1-2 fangs. It took our full alliance (really closer to 24 people) 3 weeks to farm and pop this mob 3 times, in which a total of 4 fangs dropped. Furthermore, this wasn't exactly an easy fight. Each pop took about 30 minutes to complete with quite a few deaths and complete concentration from the tanking PLD/NINs and their support crew to avoid wiping.

Granted, we only spent 2 hours per week doing this. It would be, in theory, possible to coordinate an alliance to focus on gathering items and popping this mob to farm fangs. At a rate of 4 fangs / 6 hours, you'd need 18 people to spend in total, 75 hours working on this just to gather the 50 required to upgrade one weapon. And... keep in mind that this is only one stage in god knows how many stages. The level 80 weapon would probably go on further all the way to 99, if SE's marketing is truthful.

Wait another week, then another few months, and possibly in another year, two people could probably duo these mobs on their level 99 jobs. Of course, by then SE probably has some other mob that will need 50 drops from some super-mob that requires 18 people to kill and 4 weeks to farm one pop set if you're lucky. (Supreme Virtue? Omega Warden?)

So, there really is no point in working seriously on Empyrean weapons at this time. Just wait a bit, and the requirements will drop, you'll get stronger, and who knows, maybe SE will offer to sell it to you for purchasing another $50 trinket (or attach it to a FFXIV subscription! Have access to a relic as long as you have an active XIV character!)

On FFXIV
Another big reason behind the transitionary feeling of FFXI would be the imminent launch of FFXIV. Who knows how many people in CTR are planning on quitting XI to go there? Would we be able to field people for upcoming XI events? Is the item that you help someone get going to go completely to waste as they quit XI to go to XIV?

Too many changes at one time is just leading to me not really getting into XI enough to blog about it... Other games beckon for now.

(Side note, my prediction of FFXIV is that it will launch buggy but strong, then rapidly lose people over a 6-18 month period until the SE directors come out and blame the XIV failure on their catering to the stupid western audiences)