Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Darwock]

Getting time off work is one of the reasons I didn't make this trip years ago, I always thought getting three weeks would be turned down flat but I was worried about nothing. Hopefully it will work out for you so you can still go in October as well.

[Tsingtao]

I snagged 3 weeks off back in 2000 and have to say it was very nice. Actually having plenty of time to explore where you are is great, though I have to say it ended up being quite whirlwind in the the end. Not done anything as long since but I feel an itch to go explore somewhere, looking out the window anywhere would be good right now

We've just had a tornado in Birmingham would you believe, July weather {Can I have it?}

[talizker]

Reasonable weekend but can't help feeling I missed out on a big chance to get my most disired piece of equipment pre Lv58 /sigh

Friday and Saturday nights were spent finishing off a few quests and purchasing some of the equipment I have been after. I now have the following pieces which I have been after recently:

Dark Staff
Light Staff
Ice Staff
Wind Staff
Earth Staff
Promise Badge
2 x MND+3 Rings
2 x INT+3 Rings

Last night I was hanging arround in Jeuno looking for something to do when the shout came out i've been waiting for for a few weeks. Phomiuna Aqueducts Subligar Do you need it!

I end up in a decent looking Alliance of 16 people, some of which want Subligar, some of which want COP Mission 2-3. Phomiuna Aqueducts is a tricky zone to negotiate, especially with the unpredictable nature of an Alliance. We head off towards the Minotaur with the plan of killing any required Fomor's on the way. Apart from a couple of mishaps, one of which was nearly costly, we complete the Mission relatively easily. On the way we killed a number of Fomors, only one being the RDM that I need, but unfortunately no drop.

Once we were ready to start Subligar farming, half the alliance made their excuses and left, leaving 7 of us camped near the library's. While I was there the only mobs we saw were THF & BRD and WAR & RNG parties which we dispatched well with only a couple of deaths. I was lucky enough to get the Subligar drop from the BRD (Libra BRD/RDM) but we did not see any more Red Mage's. It then got to Darksday when the drops stopped and by the time is was 2.45am O.o so I had to leave.

Certainly from what I saw the only RDM Fomor was partied with SAM and PLD so an Alliance is definately needed for that. It is going to be hard getting back into that position with a good Alliance, at least until Rargh! get there which is a shame as I want the Glamor Jupon for exping until I get my AF Body

I can't turn the Libra Subligar into any JSE (Cerise Doblet Acc+3 / Att+3) because I already chose the Scorpius Subligar / Glamor Jupon at the start of the quest. On the positive side, the Libra Subligar has MP recovered while healing +1 which can be used along with Dark Staff for healing.

Wedge, just to confirm I am definately up for 1 or 2 BCNM40's this week if you can organise them. In fact as I have all my macro's set for Lv40 after last night it will be ideal

[Tobal]

Mixed bag at the weekend. Levelled my Blm to 30, and now I?m a mission level my whm to 30 to which going from the 1st couple of parties in dunes wasn?t going to well, constantly wasted 170mp every fight to keep piss poor parties alive, you would think whm/blm/smn/thf/mnk/war would be perfectly fine, but now the war wouldn?t provoke and often didn?t correct his direction resulting him not even swinging his sword at the mob, which left the Thf/war to tank as the monk had a thf sub?.. lucky got in to good party after a complete wipe out against a IT crab(resulting all the melee dying) and levelled to 15 on Fly?s.

Also spent from of time doing the event quest with Wedge, we both managed to get the +1outfits after some trouble with windy?s moogle(they checkpoint are well, well hidden on the west side), would have preferred them using clue?s like the Genkai4 method of knowing the cities and npc?s, instead of ?go west/go east? way?s.

Also tried out clamming for the first time, wedge came as well and I think we spent 1-2hrs just clamming, its just like black jack, 500g gets you bucket that at 1st holds 50ponzes(a weight measurement in ffxi) and then you dig up items that to ideally reach a weight of 45-50 to get the next bucket upgrade(100,150 and finally 200) or you can bank in onthei tem you get? the skill comes from the problem knowing when to gamble for the upgrade which could bring in much better items but risk breaking the bucket losing all the items if you overweigh it. Well I found it addictive and managed to make a profit on m 2nd go (got a 200 bucket and dug up 32k worth items) and a bit more later on for nice total of 43k vs 10k spent on buckets.

Also in bit more news, Bayan going get some help for us 2 Sundays from now for a Hat run for Akashi and me, and I can finally get back to levelling my sam again ^^.

[C']

Prety uneventful. Markets of the items I was trying to sell on AH were really slow so I didn?t have much opportunity to do anything. On Friday I did try levelling Woodworking some more and I person I was synthing with days earlier had suggested that at 51 I should move over to Scorpion Arrows. Checked the selling price, and ingredient prices and looked like a nice profitable synth so got to work. First synth got me a 0.2 skillup so hopes were high. Then it was breakage after breakage with no skill whatsoever (even on the few that I did synth). Decided to gain at leats another level on a synth I was more confident with so did some Ice Arrows yesterday and finally got it to 52. Hopefully Scorp Arrows will be better now.

Last night me and Vanicent started the Sunbreeze Event quest. Was actually quite fun and I liked the way it requires you and your partner to work together and communicate to find the items you need. We started in Southern San d?Oria and first go Van just couldn?t get the correct Check Point so we started over. We then went to Windurst Waters and got a second one there so we got both of the NQ swimsuit pieces. Finally we headed over to Bastok to do Bastok Mines. However we had time to kill as we needed to wait another Vana?diel day to do the event again so we went into Korroloka Tunnel to camp Cargo Crab Colin to get Van a Nadrs. Remarkably he popped first time killing placeholder and dropped the sword. Considering how many times I camped this thing without a drop, I have no helped 2 people get him and both have gotten drop first time.

After that we headed back to town (encountering a close call with a gigas, his spider pet and other spiders in the zone) and got our first +1 swimsuit piece. Hopefully plan for tonight is to do the event in Port Bastok, Windurst Walls and Port San d?Oria.

[mikewl]

Talizker two bcnm40 runs sounds good, maybe one this week and another next week or something.

We have

Pld - Tsingtao
Brd - Wedge
Rdm - Talizker

Now the last three places need to be

Whm

DD - Rng, Drk, something with a Stun type ability.

DD - same as above unless the above job has the Stun situation sorted, then maybe we could take a thief or samurai etc.

[C']

hmmm I thought this was just routine maintenance to fix issues post patch but it seems like it is actually an update in a more traditional sense with a download to go with it. Here are the changes:

[Important Update Details]
- An issue in Azimuth's Circle where it was not possible to obtain the Pumimi or Hopipi doll has been addressed.
- The behavior of Fellowship NPCs has been adjusted.
- Fellowship NPCs will now disappear after defeating a predetermined number of enemies even if the NPC remains in battle mode.
- Signal pearls will now fail to activate when the number of members and Fellowship NPCs in a party totals six or more.
- An issue wherein the special properties of certain equipment intended to affect a player's wyvern or avatar extended to Fellowship NPCs has been addressed.
- When asking for a new signal pearl, the relationship between a player and a Fellowship NPC will now worsen slightly.
- After certain conditions are met, players will be able to keep their Fellowship NPC around for extended adventuring.
- An issue where Stona did not cure Level 5 Petrify has been addressed.
- An issue where the birds in Bibiki Bay known as "tragopans" did not drop crystals has been addressed.
- An issue where players would not gain experience for defeating certain notorious monsters has been addressed.
- The message "(Monster name)'s strength is impossible to gauge!" will now be displayed when using the "check" command on pets summoned by notorious monsters.
- The notorious monsters listed below will slowly grow in strength after a certain amount of time has passed since being claimed:
King Arthro / Simurgh / Roc / Serket / Capricious Cassie /Lord of Onzozo / Behemoth / King Behemoth / Adamantoise / Aspidochelone / Fafnir / Nidhogg
*This time period will vary for each notorious monster.
- The name of the notorious monster "Macan Gadungan" has been changed to "Kirata."
- The number of "glass sheets" produced by synthesis has been changed.
- The drop percentage for "silica" has been adjusted.
- Certain other monsters will now drop the item "silica."
*Changes in relation to the item "silica" have already been partially implemented. Further changes will be made during today's maintenance.
- It is now possible to mine "silica" in Tahrongi Canyon and the Maze of Shakhrami.
- An issue concerning the ability to earn experience points from a wider range of monsters (implemented in the July 19 version update) not functioning correctly for levels ten and below has been addressed.
- An issue where spells such as "Dispel" and songs such as "Magic Finale" did not affect the white magic spell "Stoneskin" has been addressed.
- An issue where mannequin poses did not function as selected has been addressed.
- A new command "/blockaid" has been added.
"/blockaid" has the following effect:
Magical assistance (such as "Cure" and "Protect"), trades, party invites etc. from non-party/alliance characters will be blocked.
The "/blockaid" effect will be canceled if the player temporarily logs out to the PlayOnline Viewer, logs out, changes areas, or is KO'd.
Command/Subcommands:
/blockaid on
Activate the blockaid effect.
/blockaid off
Cancel the blockaid effect.
/blockaid
Display current blockaid status.
- Players will no longer receive "Trade" offers from characters on their blacklist.
- Players will no longer be able to use spells or abilities to claim a monster as soon as it appears.
If players attempt to use spells or abilities to claim a monster before a set amount of time has passed since it appeared, they will not be able to use those spells etc. again for a certain duration.
- The incomplete synthesis recipe for the "A Moral Manifest?" quest has been corrected.
- Several other minor issues have been addressed.

Certainly that /blockaid function can serve 2 purposes. 1 it should be able to allow people who wish to level without a Power-level (god I hate those -_-) not to but more importantly (and probably the reason why it was implemented in the first place) it prevents the dubious tactic of players (mostly, but not exclusively, used by gilsellers) of spam curing you whilst you fight an NM to get hate then using a massive hate spike abaility (such as Invincible) to rip hate from you and run with the NM until claim is lost.

Also the inability to immediately claim any monster (and a penalty if you try to claim too early) is a nice change.

Good job S-E.

[C']

Interesting interview with the FXI producer here:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142462

Has some interesting points regarding a lot of the recent patch changes and forthcoming plans for the game including future content and the Xbox360 version (whhich is looking all the more tempting as the days pass). The interview does state that voice chat will not be included in the XB360 version (thankfully) but for a reason I had never even considered (but actually makes a lot of sense).

Oh and the interview seems slightly dumb and words his questions in a way that makes him sound like a 12 year old fanboy but I guess that's amateur website journalism for you :/

[talizker]

Interesting interview with the FXI producer here:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142462

Has some interesting points regarding a lot of the recent patch changes and forthcoming plans for the game including future content and the Xbox360 version (whhich is looking all the more tempting as the days pass). The interview does state that voice chat will not be included in the XB360 version (thankfully) but for a reason I had never even considered (but actually makes a lot of sense).

Oh and the interview seems slightly dumb and words his questions in a way that makes him sound like a 12 year old fanboy but I guess that's amateur website journalism for you :/

Excellent interview, thanks for the link Rare. The XB360 version does indeed sound interesting and will definately be worth looking at. Hopefully I can afford both a XB360 and a suitable LCD HD TV towards the end of the year (but shhhhhh - don't tell the wife...!!)

[Tsingtao]

Tal if you decide to pick a nice HDTV up have to let me know, we might be able to wangle a discount if we buy 2 at the same time . Think I'm definitely going to get the 360 version of the game and the associated TV for added fun. I'm dude a new one had this one 8 years now!

Anyway in FFXI related things it's been a bit of a slog of late but after the weekend and yesterday I've finally got a bunch of things sorted. Notably I've finished almost all the quest in windy, just a handful left to go and I'm finally getting there with fame in all the cities. Reached max fame in both Bastok and Sandy with my Windy fame now at level 6. Raised clothcraft from 10 to 22 which was mightily painful but is now done and just waiting for the markets to recover to sell all my crafted gear. Last but not least on Saturday went from 20 - 23 for WHM with Moot in Qufim, had to leave otherwise would have finally made that 25 I need for cofffer hunts, prism powder is costing me a fortune.

So looking forward I need to get 5-3 done soon, I want to switch allegiance to Windurst to get the tag to open the 3 mage gate solo so need to complete my open Sandy quest.

[Darwock]

I know there was talk of us all doing the shadow-lord (5-2 right?) together but don't wait for me, it's not looking likely I'll be ready for it any time soon and you've already waited long enough.

[vwilsonuk]

Logged on last night, the first proper time since I came back from Sardinia. Those summerfest outfits are neat! New update looks good too. My biggest challenge right now is money - I'd spent a load of it on crafting before the holiday and so much time has passed that I've forgotten how I was making it! The longer I spend in the game the more I enjoy crafting and trading, over and above levelling and even questing to an extent.

Hope everyone is doing well.

[mikewl]

Seems like there are problems logging into FFXI at the moment, the AK forums are going crazy as usual.

I do hope its working again for tonight though.

[Darwock]

Had a moment of sheer joy tonight when I finally saw a sorceror's ring listed at the AH - bid 200K in my eagerness - unable to buy... 300K unable to buy... 400K unable to buy.. 500K unable to buy.. 567,432K unable to buy. Then checked the price history and it's been pushed up to 1,000,000 gil.

**** off FFXI.

[C']

Sorry to hear that man. I know all to well of the experience of saving up for an item only to find the price has gone up when you get the gil together. However I don't think I've ever had a price rise as high as that.

Also OOF! to anyone who planned to play next Monday and Tuesday (i.e. most of us)

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news5154.shtml