Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Darwock]

Congratulations indeed to the Promyvion team!

Tal's comment about crap parties reminded me about the red mage abomination I met on Friday night. This was the result of putting my flag up, so your theory is still looking bang on the money mate.

He put the party together and we ended up with a WAR/NIN tank and a RDM/BLM healer (him). The warrior expressed concern about being main tank and warned us that she would fold like paper, but this RDM was certain he'd be able to keep her alive.

Off to Cape Terrigan - on the way through the desert I notice people running on past Rabao, so I say <Chocobo>? and everyone goes OK apart from the RDM who says 'nah'. Well he's got sneak/invis so he'll be OK. Except 5 mins later he goes <Help me out!> and his HP drops down to orange. One of the others dismounted and got him safely into Kuftal tunnel.

He then proceeded to run through Kuftal tunnel with low HP and got wiped out by a Haunt ><

When we eventually got going, he blew all his mp on cures within the first 50% of the fight, he hadn't refreshed himself (or me) and he was resting for MP with his sword equipped. I went for a seal+burst to help finish the mob quickly, as the tank was on the ropes.

He now has a bit more MP but he still hasn't refreshed himself. I point this out and he stands up and casts. Then someone else rightly pointed out that he ought to use convert. So he stands up and uses it. One of the other members then said 'D2 <can I have it?>' and who can blame them. As I was warping them our rdm leader chainspells and warps, then disbands the party without switching leader or saying anything ><

It's a bit of a cliche to say that a crap player must have bought their account, but how on earth do you get to be a level 57 red mage without understanding how sneak/invis works, how to use refresh, and what convert is for??? I can't see any other way!

[Tobal]

I'd say a mixture of Desperate parties and/or other players carrying his deadwood ass

[talizker]

hehehe

It was our BLM that drove me nuts last night...

First, he announced he had to leave as we arrives in Kuftal. Then wanted to rejoin 10 mins later (from Jeuno) which we had to accept as we couldn't find a suitable replacement. When we finally got started he then Melee'd for the entire time which I have never seen before (fortunately!). We went through about 1k exp reasonably well but then the NIN got hit hard from a Pug during recasts and went down, closely followed by the BLM. After a brief chat with the NIN we both decided that it was time to leave, cueing an early night in bed!

Also, why is it that Lv60 players still don't equip themsleves suitably to Sneak/Invis. Surely there should not still be shouts of "Invis please" in the middle of dangerous zones, putting that player and a mage in a difficult situation... *rant over*

[C']

Overall I enjoyed my weekend?s play. Felt like I did a wide variety of activities as opposed to simply focussing on EXPing or farming (although I did do each of those too).

Friday I did stick my flag up hoping for an EXP party but Tobal asked if I wanted to help him fight the NM for Tachi: Kasha. I was too low to tank the monster in question but borrowing Tobal?s Haubergeon I could at least hit away and do some damage. Tobal had some difficulty in rounding up support for the battle so whilst I waited outside Kuftal Tunnel I summoned Fhig and got to work on some more NPC levelling. Managed to get her to level 33. We had to go deeper into Kuftal Tunnel than I?d ever been before but luckily the ??? point was in a pretty safe area (guarded by a solitary raptor that was easily taken down). We only had 5 people (SAM, NIN, WAR, RDM and I think, a BLM) so it was quite a long fight but it got beaten fairly safely.

Saturday I did manage to get an EXP party and managed to pick up about 12k EXP in 2 hours in Bibiki Bay leaving me 3k short of level 67. I focussed the rest of my day on crafting and finally hit Woodworking 60 and moved on to Alchemy which I easily got to level 6 (thanks to infinite and cheap ingredients from a San d?Oria NPC store).

Most of my Sunday adventures are detailed previously but the pinnacle was easily the excellent Promyvion run. Despite considering attempting Holla first , it was instead decided to get Dem (the easiest by all accounts) out of the way and get all members (bar Tobal) up to the same stage (Vanicent and Cassius had completed this previously). The trip to the spire was hitch free and entered the arena. Battle was long but I don?t think there was ever a point where I thought we were going to lose. Was just a case of battling away. We seem to have a really strong team for this, made up of a group of great players so I look forward to attempting Mea and Holla some time this week.

It was agreed last night that our next Promyvion would be Tuesday so hopefully last night?s success can be replicated. Also, if we run another Promyvion on Friday evening. If all goes well we could have Tavnazia access by the weekend. I think when we have more of the LS access to those zones, there will be loads more potential LS activities that can be sorted. More ENM options, subligar hunting (I know myself and Apathye are really interested in obtaining lvl 50 JSE for NIN and THF respectively) and I believe Darwock and Talizker are interested too. There are also plenty of NMs that we could go after too for some cool equipment including Voyager Sallet, Jaeger Ring, Mountain Gaiters etc. And of course further CoP missions. I?m getting really excited about what it is to come

Also, Tobal and Wedge. With 7-1 now out of the way (and what a fight ^_^) we should work on getting 7-2 done and obtaining rank 8. I would really like to farm tonight and make back some of the gil I spent on Promyvion and tomorrow and Friday are hopefully Promyvion. This leaves Wednesday and Thursday as free nights. Would you guys be interested in trying to attempt this then?

[mikewl]

My weekend wasn't too rewarding, Dynamis on Saturday was a waste of time, I went in aiming to get my head AF piece but it just wouldn't drop, got nothing out of it, usually come out with some coins to sell but in this Dynamis LS you have to choose between AF or Money.

Managed to get Bst to 43 and not far off 44, I called it a night after two close but failed fights.

Finished the day harvesting my tree cuttings which w nt totally wrong, wanted tree saplings but ended up with lightning crystals and iron nuggets.

[C']

Completely agree with this. I always make sure I have Silent Oils when travelling to a zone where Sneak will be needed. All I ask of mages is a first Sneak at the entrance (or at the point in the zone where Sneak is needed) where things are safe, after that I rely on nobody but myself. However it does infuriate me when other members of my party have not taken the same precautions and put themselves, and the rest of the party in danger, for the sake of saving a bit of gil, especially when I?ve gone and spent that gil myself.

Actualy this reminds me of a different incident that also annoyed me somewhat. Few weeks ago we had a party decide to go to Bibiki Bay (I have no idea where PTs at my level did before CoP, as it seems to almost be Bibiki exclusively) so we get a Teleport-Mea. As Mea chocobos tend to be the price was pretty high but I saw members riding off so stumped up the 2.5k myself. We get to camp and I am surprised to see a member still in Buburimu Peninsula. Turns out he had decided that 2.5k was too much for a chocobo and decided to run instead. What annoys me was if he said something earlier we could have all ran and saved some gil. Having 5 people get to camp 10 minutes before the healer is a waste.

[Tobal]

I looked up 7-2 last night and we have 3 of 6 jobs we?ll need. BCNM fight vs 5 mobs, the plan would be for Wedge or Blm to sleep the field, then to beat up to the 2xWarmachines which should be quite weak, then to move on to the DRG, PLD then RNG last(cos of EES). All we?ll need is DD, DDorBlm, Healer(rdm/whm). I?m not sure if more than 6 people can go in.

Say 7pm tonight I?ll start shouting for members, we could easily get it done by 9pm.

Then I say we could wait for the rest of the LS san?d?s to get rank8(7-1/7-2 are recommended at lvl65+allience) before moving onto the harder NM fights.

[talizker]

More ENM options, subligar hunting (I know myself and Apathye are really interested in obtaining lvl 50 JSE for NIN and THF respectively) and I believe Darwock and Talizker are interested too. There are also plenty of NMs that we could go after too for some cool equipment including Voyager Sallet, Jaeger Ring, Mountain Gaiters etc. And of course further CoP missions. I?m getting really excited about what it is to come

I think anyone who wants to do the COP missions could make use of their JSE. I think that these pieces are specifically designed for the Lv50 cap missions - certainly there is not another RDM body piece at Lv50 with the stats of the JSE.

We will need as close to 12 people as possible for the subligar hunting as many of the Fomors are in parties... Some jobs are easy as hell to get the subligar for, some are not.

Also, Harvest Earing (Dexterity +1, Agility +1, Mind +1) drops of a mob in Lufaise Meadows

[mikewl]

Sounds good Tobal, I will be available for that mission tonight.

[talizker]

Why Final Fantasy XI Rocks Online http://www.tomshardware.com/game/20050910/index.html

[Daragon]

I should point out that the above review DOES contain visual spoilers. Don't read it if you've not beaten the shadowlord.

[Darwock]

That was a good read. Obviously written by a big fan (although how could he describe the Star Sibyl and the Star Tree as one and the same!). I mean the 500,000 players is miniscule compared to WoW's recently publicized 4 million for example.

It also actually revealed a few things I never realised. Mainly that you can only level 1 craft above level 60. WTF!!! That really sucks. So are they trying to encourage co-operation between people or are they trying to make people pay for extra characters?

I didn't realise the thing about the number of drawn characters differing between PS2 & PC either - I mean, I had noticed this since starting on my laptop, but figured it was down to the low specs. Makes me feel stupid as the first time Claude visited Lower Jeuno I told him to go and stand by the auction house thinking he'd be awestruck by the number of people, lol. He was probably thinking 'what the hell is he going on about??'

I'm also a little worried that it states CoP 'expands' upon the Zilart story. I hope this was designed in such a way that you can do them in any order, because I don't want to wait for level 75 and Zilart completion before I progress through CoP.

[Tsingtao]

Well another weekend of fun for me, tried a chocobo run to another town quest thing for the first time. I found out it's not all pages from the dragon chronicles as after 20 mins and 54 seconds I was rewarded with a whole bunch of gryshal greens of my own.

I ventured out into West Ronfaure with DRG and BST for the first times and have to say though both were ace. Unfortunately as always when you have a lowbie job out there I saw Jackedy Eared Jack pop, claimed him and set mobs on him was going ok and hic was on her way then the thing lety off an AoE as I was legging it to heal. Just before Hic arrived another BST level 9 showed up claimed it and then the total scok puppet called for help killing the drop. Oh well you live and learn I guess

Other than that I set about yet more crafting and finished my woodworking to 60 and my goldsmithing to 28. I now however have a load of thief's tools to sell if anyone uses them they are available at discount prices!

Once you guys have finished the promyvions I would really like to get a LS run to take on the next mission together. Been waiting for a long time to go on this one and woudl love to get it done soon, the one after too...

Oh and you can level more than one craft past 60 what you have is a cap on the number of points over 60 you can have across all the crafts.

[mikewl]

Someone posted about this awhile ago, for those interested you can hear some samples from the cd at the official site.

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/onion/index3.html

Not bad in my opinion.

[talizker]

Someone posted about this awhile ago, for those interested you can hear some samples from the cd at the official site.

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/onion/index3.html

Not bad in my opinion.

Cheers Wedge! They sound superb I want it now...