Fun random Ascy pics!

Time for some random fun Ascy pics! All taken over the last month! It's been a while since I've uploaded some random fun pictures...

Large train to zone!

So... somehow in this really weird Limbus, I was consistently outnuking the BLMs >.>

Ascy in IM gear...

Seems like many parties appreciate me on PLD xD

The... 30 second

fight that was Bahamut V2.

Dynamis-Tav Astral flow!

New Dancing outfit for Ascy!And finally... new shorts for BLU!! xD

Looking for PLD gear advice

PLD 67 now, almost 68... Getting parties on PLD is a little too easy... as in, I rarely even put up my invite flag... I thought SCH was good at getting parties, but on SCH I could easily watch an episode of anime before an invite. For PLD, just being on the job seems to be an invitation for an invite. Longest I've gone without an invite with flag up on PLD is about 5 minutes o.o; Longest without flag up is 15 minutes...

Coming up on the final push to 75 now. I have a feeling this is going to involve a lot of Imps... which is an interesting challenge due to their status effects. So far it hasn't been a problem, though a few times it did get messy due to me being both silenced and having amnesia xD

Now, the annoying part about PLD is that... unlike SCH, I can't quite get away with using nothing but AF and random pieces of gear that I had lying around... at least, not do that and be effective in events. So now I'm looking for some gear advise from people!

So far, this is what I have lined up for PLD75 (with key stats in parentheses):

- Head: Iron Ram Sallet (enmity +5), Gallant Coronet (enhances "cover")

- Body: Gallant Surcoat (vit+4, enmity +2) or Askar (str+5, Atk+12)

- Legs: Gallant Breeches (enmity+2), hoping for Homam Cosciales soon (haste +3%, fast cast)

- Feet: Gallant Leggings (shield skill +10)

- Hands: Homam Manopolas (enmity +3, haste +3%)

- Weapon: Macuahuitl +1 (enmity +4)

- Shield: Koenig Shield (vit+5, enmity+3)

- Ammo/Ranged: Bibiki Seashell (vit+4)

- Earrings: Suppanomimi (+5 Sword), Brutal Earring (Double Attack), Cassie Earring (vit+1, 50 HP, on loan from Vanh) and Ethereal Earring (3% damage to MP) when I get around to doing Apocalypse Nigh

- Rings: Hercules' Ring (enmity +3, latent regen/refresh), Rajas Ring (+str/dex)

- Neck: Parade Gorget (latent refresh), Harmonia's Torque (enmity+3)

- Waist: Swift belt (+haste), Warwolf Belt (enmity+3, vit+5)

- Back: Boxer's Mantle (shield +10)

What can I pick up to augment/replace things? Stuff that I can pick up from the AH, or various CP/IS/AN items preferred... If it's a rare/ex item, I'd rather it be something that I'd still use at 75 rather than something transitionary.

Suggestions?

Britain's Got Talent

So, I've been listening to the Scott Mills Daily, and was hearing a lot about this show Britain's Got Talent...

So... you HAVE to go watch this... it's awesome :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

And for those who want a funny British podcast, you can listen to BBC Radio One's Scott Mills at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/mills

Another night, another disappointment, getting tired

Another long night with no Dancer drops in Dynamis... I've lost track of the last time any Dancer relic actually dropped in Dynamis. I don't know the people waiting for Hachiryu armor in ZNMs stand it... with the even lower drop rate there. I'm about ready to give up on Dynamis (and by extension, most of FFXI) with this stupid low random drop rate system.

22 people, 9 AF drops over 3 hours. That's 9 AF for 66 man-hours of work. At US minimum wage levels, that's 9 AF spread across ($7.25 x 66) = $478.50 of work, or $53.17 per AF piece. I'm fairly certain that most people going to Dynamis are worth more than minimum wage, so double/triple/quadruple that as you see fit.

Anyway, vote on the poll to the right. I'll see if I'm in the mood to do anything on FFXI tonight... might be my first chance to level PLD since last week, but with the game reaching retirement, I'm getting tired again and losing motivation to login.

On a different note... I figure more "off-topic" posts might be less depressing. Any suggestions on what I should talk about?

Interesting info for FFXIV

Here's some interesting info from the SE E3 Press Conference specifically for Final Fantasy XIV

Rather... picked out the ones that are probably most interesting to FFXI players.

You can find the liveblog of the conference at: http://e3.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/696020/Live-Blog-Square-Enix-E3-2009-Press-Conference.html

Keep in mind this is official from Square Enix, not rumors/speculation

- Characters look the same only "so FFXI players could choose a similar type of race in the new game. For example, in movies, you might have an actor that plays many different roles."

- "FFXI will continue to be supported. There is another year of content planned. There are no plans for the near future to stop development on FFXI."

- "The current plans are to have worldwide servers that are cross-platform and cross-region."

- "We envision users that will hopefully play XI one day and XIV another. They will be independent, but users are free to play both."

- "There will not be any XI character transfers to XIV."

- "We will NOT be using PlayOnline, but friend lists will transfer over."

- It takes place entirely underwater and those flying drones in the cinematic trailer were actually Mutalisks from StarCraft.

My takeaways:

- Two separate games, just like Lineage I & II. No relation, no character transfer

- Current plans are to stop FFXI content development. We'll get the end of WotG (maybe, but I'm betting it'll be rushed and unsatisfying), and the next two "mini-expansions" (definitely for more $ into SE's pockets). After that, FFXI is on life support with at most a bit of token content every year. (Increasing drop rates for MMM weapons by 0.1% in the next update)

- I'm surprised that they would not be using PlayOnline... I mean, after they put so much effort into it, plus the new security token thing

- They're being lazy with character designs... story and background they can make up easily

- More cross-regional servers, so the whole NA/JP conflict, lag times, etc. are still going to be present.

- There is more hype about StarCraft II

It's FFXI being launched all over again. Cross-regional stuff, multi-countries... I guess the game is getting a graphics revamp, and new/tweaked storyline? I'm disappointed that they decided to re-use character races completely from XI... I mean, code reuse is good and stuff, but when it comes to content, I'd rather have something new. Seems like they were too lazy to at least throw in some new races... how about the FFXII bunnies?

Taking a step back and looking at it... so far all it has going for it is just that it's a Final Fantasy title... No gameplay info, nothing on plot, and they are even admitting that they're re-using old material. I mean, Final Fantasy in general keeps reusing certain themes that fans enjoy (moogles, chocobos, etc.), but in this case, they are taking their old races... and... putting them back in with minimal changes?

Compared to the dozen of MMOs out there, this seems like a really weak offering at this time. Considering that they've announced this for just being 1 year out... with this little detail... almost seems like this project is being rushed out?

Final Fantasy XI-2 / XIV

So, breaking news for people who don't have gaming sites in their RSS feeds during this week of E3. SE has announced Final Fantasy XIV for release in 2010 for the PS3 and PC.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

Yes... FF XIII hasn't even been released yet, but that's also consistent with what they did with FFX and FFXI back in the day.

I'm basically calling it FFXI-2 at this point. If you look through the video trailer, you'll see many familiar themes and characters... and I don't mean FF staples like Chocobos and Moogles, but rather, Galka, Mithra, Elvaan, Tarutaru, as well as certain designs that I associate with FFXI specifically such as the scenery of (sky), the airship designs and the design of the mobs being similar to those that you'd find in the Promys.

Now, the big questions are: What does this mean for FFXI? Will people move to XIV? Will I start up XIV?

My guesses:

- Possibility #1: Keep FFXI running side by side as long as it generates more money than it keeps to maintain

- Possibility #2: Open a migration path for FFXI players to move over to XIV in some manner... character migration + some special items/achievements to incite people to make the move

#1 makes the most sense from a business and development point of view... You don't need to spend extra effort coding to support a migration of characters, and you get to keep the revenue stream from your old game going for as long as possible until people finally quit. You can also cut down on the amount of $ you spend supporting FFXI, first by stopping all development to it (will we ever see the end of WotG? I'm starting to wonder), then as FFXIV comes closer to release, shift support human resources over to handle support for the new game and put XI on life support.

#2 actually has some merits for marketing purposes... first off, you'd be able to get a jump start if you succeed in convincing the FFXI players to make the jump over to the new game. That would be a good initial... what, 500k users that would be a good start for a new MMO? Plus it has the advantage of being able to shut down FFXI sooner (assuming that they succeed in attracting people to the new game) and cutting down on support costs for an older game with aging/failing hardware.

Normally I'd dismiss option #2 as simple wishful thinking on the part of existing players... except that the video shows what looks like a FFXI environment and characters, making it possible that they would try a link between the two... If it looked like a brand new world/story (like most other Final Fantasy games), I'd definitely assume that it would be option #1 and evaluate it just like any other brand new MMO.

Now the next question... what does it mean for players? Would people move to XIV? I can't answer that... but I can answer it from my own personal perspective...

I like shiny new things. I like new toys and tend to pick things up pretty quickly. I like the cutting edge, which probably also explains why I've leveled both DNC & SCH instead of the older jobs. Unfortunately, that also means that I'm attracted to shiny new games, so... when FFXIV comes out, I'll definitely be looking to evaluate it.

However, if SE choses option #1, then that would put FFXIV back on the same playing field as any other MMO on the market... While I'm generally a fan of Final Fantasy games, I haven't been too impressed by SE's handling of FFXI players as customers... lack of communication, respect for people's time, and issues with 3rd party tools. On the other hand, there are also lots of other MMOs coming out in the near future, that is... around the Fall'09/Spring'10 timeframe.

Personally, I'm more excited about the new Star Wars MMO "The Old Republic".

On the other hand, if they go by the 2nd route, then... that will most likely mean that I would at... the very least check out XIV ~.~

Of tanking and other fun things

So, I don't remember why and when I got bitten by the tanking bug... but I suspect that my recent research into enmity for experimenting with DNC tanking contributed a little to it. Once I got past the initial boring stages, PLD actually became quite a bit of fun. Since 30, I've been enjoying the job quite a bit, Sentinel, Flash being the two main fun skill. Now I'm at 61 with Reprisal and just waiting for my final new ability Rampart at the next level.

What I've noticed so far on PLD:

- It plays very differently from my other jobs. Instead of being a reaction-type job (SCH & DNC with Cures/-na spells, BLU with Stun), it's more of an... anticipation job where you anticipate what the mob, and other party members will do and budget the hate tools you have in order to keep the mob's attention.

- Gearing up for PLD is quite different. In BLU & DNC, I'd focus on accuracy items, then haste and strive for a decent balance of those two and Dex/Str. For PLD, I'm looking for +enmity, then defense/vit, then haste and finally accuracy.

- For keeping hate (at least in exp parties), doing more damage is better to maintain hate compared to stacking on more defense. During our LS parties, I experimented a little with using Defender vs. Berserk... I found that I lost hate more with Defender up, and it didn't really reduce damage taken. On the other hand, Berserk let me put out more damage (especially with Vorpal Blade which can nearly hit 400 at 100% TP) makes it a lot easier to hold hate.

- Heavy armor looks nice! Ok... I admit it, I leveled PLD cos the AF looked cool xD Iron Musketeer armor also looked good, though I never really got to wear it effectively due to all the level sync parties.

Other fun PLD things... I think partying with Dexie & Zu also gave me a lot of training/practice on holding hate. The one non-LS Lesser Colibri party I had ended up with me holding hate against a DRK using Souleater + a THF SATAing him, and a RNG doing his best to get killed. I had to Cover the RNG a couple of times, but overall it seems that I'm doing okay... got two friends requests out from that party :o

So... I'm really looking forward to getting PLD up to 75 and coming to events as a new role. I've enjoyed doing that as a nuking SCH, various roles as a DNC, and a tank would be an interesting change. I still need to figure out how to gear up as well as I can without breaking the bank or spending days camping random NMs.

Other fun things

Other fun things include... some minor accomplishments this week:

- Finished PLD AF (well, of course!)

- Finally finished one set of "endgame" gear... Got my Denali Jacket from a random pickup Nyzul group Saturday afternoon just before Dynamis! Now I have something to run around town in xD

- Got Karou a set of Askar pants... at long last... though we desperately need some Askar head drops for everyone now x.x

Somewhat failures...

- Dynamis drop rates are low as always... annoying event... at least I had some fun by changing things up a little and being main assist...

- Limbus failure... not sure what went wrong here... can't quite figure it out. Really need Utty to be leading this. It should have been an easy zone with 6 people. Guess I pushed too hard?