Final Fantasy XI Then...

[Bayan]

About BCNM 60, Unfortunately due to work i dont get home till 11pm-12am on
Thursday, Fridays and some Saturdays. So i cant do any BCNMs in the next few days

[C']

I agree with what Darwock says but have found it incredibly difficult to stick to my guns and avoid having missions/quests ?spoiled? as many times the descriptions of what you need can be so incredibly vague.

ZM5 is a prime example. I spent ages to get through the ZM4 completion cutscene as I was paying exact attention to what I was supposed to do next and even then I was left confused. There was mention of going to Zepwell Island which was meaningless to me (and was until Darwock said it was the island with Altepa Desert). Nowhere, that I can see, on the map or region info screen is Zepwell Island specified. The there was mention of the Cermet Headstones. Now I had been lucky in my travels to have found some of these already (found the first one after about 6 months of playing) but with me being told to go to Zepwell first, then the headstones being mentioned, I wasn?t sure what to do first.

Like I said I had seen a fair few of the headstones on my travels but I know for a fact that is no chance I would have found the one I did last night without Bayan showing me the way.

Then there is the supreme uselessness of the Mission/Quest menu screens. They really need to update as you work through the quests, especially those that have multiple parts to them. Sometimes I can do part of a quest, then be told to do something else for it (not a new quest being active) then leave it for months, but the quest description in the log still relates to the first part. I?ve got a San d?Oria quests where the description says I have to found a certain person, I have found this person ages ago and he asked me to get a certain item which I have yet to do. The quest description still says ?Find this guy?. Useless.

[vwilsonuk]

Is it visable now!

It is, and very deep and meaningful it gets too!

Ropey news with the cars, there really are some retarded people in the world.

As for WHM raising the dead, are they raising the dead or are they healing the sick? While we all refer to K.O. as "death" that's not really what it is.

Darwock - you're right about people not wanting to "play" the game. I think we do quite a bit of play as an LS compared to "the norm", and squeenix are certainly keen to encourage people to explore more. In a recent interview the top designer responded to a question about how many new features would be included in the next release by reminding the interviewer that most players have only explored a fraction of the gameplay present in current releases, and that they are reluctant to add more until that situation changes. Hopefully those that aren't interested in getting the best out of the game will get bored, and the percentage of the server population that are interested in genuine play and exploration will increase. There is probably a conflict of interest between SE development and SE finance on this issue!

[Tobal]

At least SE have improved that side of things with CoP, quite clear one where to go, if a little tight on the actual secrets to handicapping a boss.

Zepwell island can be found mentioned in Bastok Mission?s regarding the Gatekeeper(Galkas spiritual leader) stuff i think, so as party based game it would have been odds on you would have bastoken with maybe a rank 6-10 doing ZM5, or a very adventurous person?

[Darwock]

I've no idea where i first learned it was called Zepwell island, but I obviously picked it up somewhere. I do think it's bloody stupid that they call the region 'Kuzotz' when the island is called something totally different.

A lot of these paper-chase type quests do become easier as you gain 'world knowledge' but then they can blow the whole thing through stupid design. Like with my CoP cutscenes, I correctly guessed the right NPC to talk to from what I knew about the windy inhabitants, but it was too soon to talk to him!! FFS. Trouble with consulting the web for every step, none of the details you would have otherwise learnt are ever going to stick.

Then of course you get the completely stupid stuff like needing a wyvern scale to open a portal. Someone should be sacked for that!

[mikewl]

Cant do BCNM60 not enough beastmen seals

[Apathye]

///edit, was messing around and posted by mistake!

[mikewl]

Just thought I best check.

Was anything planned for Sunday, im available if anythings happening, it has to be something fun though otherwise its all 360 time

[Daragon]

On that note, when does the xmas event thingy start or has it already? Been far too wrapped up with my 360/uni work to have logged on over the past few weeks.

Speaking of 360, anyone with one might be interested to know (if you don't already) January's issue of OXM has the FFXI 360 beta on the cover disk - here's taking bets on that'll be the next thing to show up on ebay for ?60 when the damned magazine sells out within 30 minutes of hitting the shelves

[mikewl]

On that note, when does the xmas event thingy start or has it already? Been far too wrapped up with my 360/uni work to have logged on over the past few weeks.

Speaking of 360, anyone with one might be interested to know (if you don't already) January's issue of OXM has the FFXI 360 beta on the cover disk - here's taking bets on that'll be the next thing to show up on ebay for ?60 when the damned magazine sells out within 30 minutes of hitting the shelves

Subscribe to the magazine

[Tobal]

Random update post from the weekend,

Friday started as the usual fishing skillups, followed by farming. Warped back to Jeuno to get a party invite around 11.30 to Sky, I thought I could need another merit point. Turned out to be a god move, 30k exp in 3 1/2 hours getting me 3 merits and a 2nd upgraded for my mediate(now 2:48), I?m hoping the new improvement so the system allow a job skill to use 10 upgrades in combo?s so I can fully upgrade both mediate(2:30) and TP store(+10tp). Saturday I did sod all, fished a bit then headed out to the glacier to see about farming dolls there and ended up camping a few NM spawns(nothing popped) and looking around Pxo. Sunday was much the same outside a trip to skillup getting my sword to 151 and getting my first AoE weapon skill at last.

I hope they release the list of new equipment asap, it only thing in the update I?m looking forward to ^^

[C']

This was a really enjoyable weekend. My focus was on levelling Alchemy which was at level 7 when I started and I?ve finished up at 15. Made a massive amount of gil whilst skilling up (did Mercury all the way from 7-15). This is a profitable stage anyway (or at least break even depending on AH prices) but I completely avoided the AH and as a result made even more gil.

I farmed my own Lightning Clusters, a couple of times in Korroloka Tunnel whilst farming Slime Oil (again even more gil) and other times in the Tavnazian Archipelago (lots of Thunder weather there). Then it was a trip out to Bibiki Bay and buying as much Cobalt Jellyfish as possible from the fishing guild shop there. Stacks of jellyfish ranged from 288gil to 384gil and I needed 4 stacks to make a stack of Mercury which would sell for 25k.

This involved a lot of travelling around but I enjoyed myself doing it.

Moving onto Poison Potions next which again look to be massively profitable. The recipe is:

Water Crystal + 1 Vial of Mercury + 1 Pinch of Poison Dust

Sadly by the time I had decided that Poison Pots would be the best way to move on my mercury had already sold so I?ll have to synth some more. I managed to find an NPC vendor that sells Poison Dust at half AH price too. I envisage another fun synthing session tomorrow night

Mania seemed a little perplexed that I would go to the trouble of farming Lightning Clusters when I could still profit by buying from AH but I?m able to combine the cluster farming with other activities (i.e. Slime Oil farming in Korroloka or NPC levelling in Lufaise Meadows) so it?s quite productive.

Last night was also some of the most fun battles I?ve ever been in too when we helped Bayan against Bugbear Matman again. Our group was RNG, SMN, BLM, WHM, THF & NIN and we had 3 triggers, 2 belonging to Bayan and 1 for Rabs. First pop went without any trouble and we got no drop. Second was a tougher spawn and True got caught with the AOE in the middle of group buffing Stoneskin leaving us without a SMN for the rest of the fight. But we pulled through it and Bayan was rewarded with his Rutter Sabatons.

However the third on was an incredible battle. With Matman down to about 50% health he landed another AOE attack which dropped both Rabs (THF) and Bayan (RNG) taking away our 2 main damage dealers. Felt like I was tanking it forever as the BLM and SMN took over dealing the damage. This meant the time taken to beat him was longer than anticipated and it was getting dangerously close to the time when Moblins were due to repop which would have linked and wiped us but we killed him just in time and got Rabs Rutter Sabatons to drop as well. Brilliant battle.

Update tonight which is always exciting. Like Tobal equipment update lists are always fun but I?m also looking forward to some of the other announcements (new Dynamis and NPC developments especially).

[Tsingtao]

Well for me the weekend basically invlved no play at all, but managed to do a few little things here and there.

* Swapped all my mules bar the jeuno one over to Earthern Flowerpots to start growing Taru rice.
* Completed all the soloable ZM5 headstones
* Got to the middle of one f the more pointless quests in Jeuno

This week I'm hoping to start the real ZM5 NMs, my guess is either Wednesday or Thursday night we'll try it. What night would be good for people?

Talizker which night is best for you to get on earliest?

[talizker]

This week I'm hoping to start the real ZM5 NMs, my guess is either Wednesday or Thursday night we'll try it. What night would be good for people?

Talizker which night is best for you to get on earliest?

Wednesday or Thursday are both fine for me and I should be OK to get on about 8pm

[C']

BAM!

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/information/1212.html