Final Fantasy XI Then...

[C']

This is sad news.

Part of me always held out hope that all of us would return at some point but for you guys to make it so final and cancel your accounts is a shame (although I guess you have 3 months to change your minds).

Personally I can't bring myself to cancel my account. Rarehero was a massive part of me and to see all that work go for nothing is just something I cannot do, even if it means continuing to pay the subscription costs for a game I don't play.

Also, gutted that you didn't say sooner which WOW server you chose. As luck would have it Ces created 2 characters on Hellscream so you should be able to contact him (one of his charas is Horde, the other Alliance) however I chose a different server and I'm probably beyond the point where I feel I can start all over again >_<

Good luck for the both of you though ^_^

[Tsingtao]

Well that was one intense day of play, Darwock, Caladbolg and I started leveling together around 11am. At about 20:00 we finally broke up having gone from 46 to 49. What a party, fantastic exp, lots of locations (Crawlers Nest -> Quicksand Caves (out of east and west altepa) -> Yhoater Jungle), lots of people but everyone of them a star.

Right now I feel like my brain has been fried it a light butter and garlic sauce.

Next comes Genkai 1 and at last level 50, finally getting ready to start the game properly. The LS beat Genbu last night and soon I want in on that action.

Good to see truehero back on the LS, if you've not been gone sorry I missed. If you're just back on welcomne back to Seraph, come on in the waters full of rusty buckets.

[Darwock]

Flargh, blarghm (dribble)

[Tobal]

I?ve reached my 1st real goal in a while - lvl65, and I ended up dropping my WAR sub for the 1st time in a EXP party for THF and shocked to see the kind of damage I was doing, Now either Yukikaze and Gekko easily to SATA 800-900 damage with no attack buffs and while I lose double attack and strong normal hit, I found in recent parties there usually only one melee so my meditates/fast TP building goes to waste.

G4 now complete and I?m 2/2 on the solo ENM(still no ring), it time go back to leveling my THF(32) and WAR(34) to 37, and complete the next set of Rank missions (hopefully up to Rank8) and hopefully a few ZM/CoP

[Darwock]

Right, that hot feeling has finally gone from my brain and I can now think more or less straight, so time to reflect on mission 5-1:

->Open Spoiler<-

On my previous visit I had noted that there were only 2 goon skeletons flanking the big boss; after discussions with Tsing he had revealed that in his fight (with a full party) there were 8 to deal with. Based on this me & talizker decided to go and check it out, as we were hopeful that the fight varied based on the number of people who went in. Wrong assumption, heheh.. we checked out every inch of the battlefield including the two side chambers off the main corridor, there were no mobs in them. But when I stepped into the arena and ran back for the exit, a whole bunch of skeletons came piling out of the side chambers - they obviously spawned when the attack started.

Tal made it out, I died (thanks to that stupid 'event skipped' thing when you're hit while trying to confirm). We did one more attempt to see if pulling the main guy with carby while sneak was up allowed us to fight only him, but the skeleton reinforcements went straight for me regardless. Died again, but was worth it for the information gathered!

Tox was in the arena attempting 9-2, and he clued us in that we only need to kill the boss man. Right now the possibility I can see is get as many red mages as we can, so they can chainspell and try to take him out before the other skeletons reach us. It would also help to get everybody with sneak and in position around the Archlich so everyone could start attacking at the same time. I could try a sleepga on the others but I'm not hopeful for it sticking on undead.

Tsing do you know if Caladbolg also needs to do 5-1? That would help for the red mage thing... also with your Invincible abillity, do you take magic damage? That could also be useful for an alternative strategy. Not sure how long it lasts either - ending it quickly would no doubt still be the priority.

[Tobal]

5-1 should be easy with a standard 6-man exp party, as long as you leave the RNG's at home , as tox says just take the big guy out and you win.

[Hohum]

Monks are very good for 5-1 - get them to use hundred fists on the main mob and you'll win very quickly. Regarding the surrounding mobs, I don't think they're particularly tough. Back when I did the BCNM last year with my drk I used a GS weapon skill when I hit 100% TP (Shockwave, AOE), and it killed about 5 of them instantly - so don't think they have much hp.

[mikewl]

Just saw this picture: this was probably the best moment in the game for me where it felt like this was the reason I got to lvl 60 and its the old Static

[Darwock]

Well blow me down, that's me made level 50!! Somebody pinch me. Astonishing to think that if I'd been playing before the expansions this would pretty much be me at the end of the game!

Now I might as well get comfortable cos I intend to be at this stage for a looooong time. I don't want to move on until I've cleared rank 5 and got as many of the level 40 missions out of the way as possible.

Completing quests and obtaining gil are going to be my main objectives from now on.

[C']

Darwock, although the level cap was originally 50 it was raised to 60 prior to the release of the expansions so don't feel you have to restrict yourself.

Also, I would seriously question whether you would be able to achieve Rank 6 at level 50. Mission 5-2 would be a definite struggle at that level without high level help (which is not the way to defeat one of the greatest battles in game). I do get what you mean (if the level cap was originally 50 and end game missions were the rank 6 ones). However, it is difficult to confirm whether all missions were available prior to raising level caps and even if the difficulty of battles was altered along the way.

If you want to try and find out more I recommend the following page:

http://ffxi.somepage.com/links/

One of the links on that page will take you to Babelfish translated Update Notes for updates that occurred prior to the US release (which the US POL Viewer does not contain). You could probably use those to try and find out if Rank 6 was attainable prior to the upgrade from 50 > 55 level cap.

[Darwock]

Ah, OK, well regardless I'm not in a rush to move on. Don't have space for another set of gear for level 50 (not even considering AF) so I want to clear as much Chains of Promathia stuff as possible. That won't be until after the end of May anyway (assuming it'll be a group of folk from here that tackle it)

[Tsingtao]

Well having a few days rest before I get back on the trail, my next goal in Genkai 1. I need to go get my Exoray Mold from usuprisingly an exoray in CN, Ancient Papyrus from a lich in Eldieme and of course lets not forget my Bomb Coal from an explouse in Garliage.

I've got high level help lined up for this one and I'm intending on taking them up on the offer. Got 2 level 70+ thieves, a 70+ RDM and a 70+ WAR who are willing to lend a hand if the timing is right for them. Have a feeeling I'm going to get started tomorrow as I have the day off work. Hopefully this won't take to long and the one day will be enough.

One question to do you need to get to 50 and activate the quest before going to get the items or can you get the items then hit 50 like the subjob quest items?

After that I'm taking a brief level break to craft some more (goldsmithing to 10 - 18, woodworking to 22 - 30 and alchemy to 23 - 40) before I start levelling again and heading for 50 and then AF2. That's the plan anyway but I've never been able to turn down an xp invite

Ah Darwock forgot about CoP I'm ready to go the Aquaducts as soon as we can get an aliance together. Maybe we should take a Sunday in a few weeks time and shout up the alliance in Jeuno and get that one done. 5-1 I'll come anytime I'm on, only thing we need is a MNK as far as I know. The rest is just standard xp, did mine with PLD - RDM - WHM - THF - MNK - DRG was over in about 3 minutes.

[Marvelon]

Hello all, at the moment we have only deactivated the account, we didn't delete our characters. In about 2.5 months time our characters will disappear completely I think. I'm not entirely sure what happens to a Linkshell when the Linkshellholders character is deleted from the server records... It could mean the linkshell ceases to exist. This was something I/we hadn't considered at all. I always considered the LS as all of ours rather than Mahlory's ^^.

As for Wow, we've been playing for two weeks now, me and mahl both have several characters going at the moment. Mahl has a Human Rogue on Earthen Ring whose name escapes me atm. I've got two characters at the moment, I can't really decide which is my main and which my secondary yet ^^. One is a Tauren Hunter (24) on Hellscream called Bucky, the other an Undead Rogue on Earthen Ring called Wretch.

So far we've been greatly enjoying wow. The PvP situation is simple: when you start you are non-pvp enabled. On a PvP server it's very easy to become pvp-enabled, going into contested or opposite faction territory means you enable it. On a PvE (Player vs Environment) server you have to actively start fights or manually enable pvp to get into fights, so on the pvp servers the honour system thing is more of a problem than on normal(=PvE) and RP servers (which we play on).

I'm shocked at how this game has grabbed me and mahl; after FFXI I didn't expect that to happen at all.

[Darwock]

Nothing in those updates about missions being added prior to the increase to a 55 cap... I'll keep reading to see if they were added later. Found the following hilarious translations:

/names off and text command/names on were added.
Please use it by taking a picture the screen shot to copy the name.


Please use it along "Use guideline of 'Play online' book" when using it on fan site etc. where "Play online" book including the screen shot is privately managed.
I will refuse other use hard.

lol, I always do turn off names cos I think it looks better but I didn't realise you could be "refused hard" for not doing it, haha!

"Felt-tipped marker burst system" that led to a coordinated technique by magic was introduced.
- Level 1 coordinated technique
Shrinkage: The dark Impact: Thunder Dissolution: Fire Explosion: Style
Vibration: Water Penetration: Light Cutting: Soil Stiffening: Ice
- Level 2 coordinated technique
Gravity: The dark and soil Resolution: Thunder and wind Curve: Water and ice Cacnets: Fire and light
- Level 3 coordinated technique
????･･････
Usually achieving a big effect of magic by making magic corresponding to the attribute of these coordinated techniques become a hit well in timing at time became possible. This is a felt-tipped marker burst.

From now on I'm going to do felt-tipped marker bursts.

OK I've scanned up to the release of the 1st expansion, and the only mission update I've seen is this one - "The mission since rank 6 is liberated" which was in that last update. So I'm not really any clearer. hmm.

[Darwock]

Tsingtao, you don't need to be on the quest to get the limit break items and you don't need a thief - me & talizker both got bomb coals when we did our Garlaige gate breach with rarehero and wedgemoon - there were bomb coals to spare for us, and we weren't even specifically fighting those mobs.