Final Fantasy XI Then...

[mikewl]

I used AK for everything that was not clear from playing the game.

If there were no guides or information on the game I wouldn't still be playing as progress would be so slow as the game hardly ever points you in the right direction.

However I think SE wanted things this way because its adds alot to the online community for the game, also as for finding out things from players in game is no different as they likely got the information from AK anyway and are just passing on the same source of information.

As for AK and IGE its dissapointing and I will move onto the site Rare suggested.

Makes me wonder how many must buy gil in the game, although ive never been impressed by bought equipment, Rare/Ex is where praise should be placed.

[Tsingtao]

Not entirely sure what to make of the Alla thing yet, don't want to knee jerk. I know its the same umbrella as IGE but to be honest I continued to buy Nestle products whilst they were killing babies in Africa (most did) and this is somewhat less serious than that.

All the same I've ended my subscription to them but this does seem to be quite an over reaction so far.

Interesting really we're prepared to make a stand on somethign that affects our play time yet when it comes to serious issues like the Nestle one we stay happy consumers and carry on eatting Toblerone.

[Darwock]

I don't eat toblerone, the strange shape hurts my mouth.

[Tobal]

and toblerone tastes funny, makes me feel sick after 1 piece.

[Tsingtao]

I love toblerone it's like my favouritist chocolate I think its the added evil that makes it taste good. I'll have some alter after my starter of osprey eggs, followed by veal and chimp burgers.

God it lovely here, I need a barbecue to go to, come on don't be tight someone put on the LS cook out ^^

[C']

[Tobal]

Didn?t do much at weekend, but got my Ninja to 30, camped the Orctrap twice and got no drops, got another merit to give me upgrade 6 for great katana, and we pieced together a right rag tag team to take on San?d mission 9-1, 9-2

9-2 was a sent up of Pld, Pld, Nin, Sam, Brd, Drk. Lacking the role of healer, we had one Pld sub whm to make sure the npc that would be fighting with us would stay alive. Part 1 involved a 12 mob fight, which went pear shaped quickly after the warmachine cast curega waking up all the mobs which beat down on wedge without mercy. They next came after me, held out for while, rav the pld cured me and kited the mobs around the arena using invincible, wedge got back up and slept the mob while we beat them done 1 by one, sadly wedge in a weakened state took a second dive. We recovered by kiting and sleeping the last mob, and went into the final round vs NM orcs, sadly they resisted sleep and wedge got whacked Leader of the Orc?s, still we managed to carry on and won out in the end.

</salute> Wedge

Still have to finish all the cutscene?s to get rank10?

[Darwock]

I had a good saturday and a frustrating sunday - saturday I had no real aims, went out to lend my scythe skills to rare/meric in order to drain that kodachi of trials thing (wth the help of rare's equipment and food I was even able to hit some of the enemies)... later on I managed to catch a beastman invasion of Al Zhabi which was great fun, but once again it seemed the warning comes too early and there were too many people there by the time the attack came.

What I did notice is that the mobs that come in are EXTREMELY high level, my best nukes were doing around 16 points of damage (fire 3 did 0).. and after the invasion was over I was awarded a whopping 36xp and even less imperial standing. Conclusion is that 'besieged' is a complete waste of time for anybody less than level 70. Although maybe my contribution would have been rated higher if I'd been healing rather than trying to hurt the mobs, I don't know.

After that I was back to having nothing special to do, so I went to do a couple of quests in the Gusgen mines. While searching around for my quest I clicked on a ??? and out popped an Aroma Fly (no drop)... I knew from this thread that meant it was my RSE week.. it was also firesday so I had lots of opportunity to find a pattern, and find it I did

I also had 4 pick axes left and I've been stuck on the samurai quest for aeons (I died to the bomb trying it solo at level 35) due to not having any oriental steel.. could only get another lump in exchange for darksteel ore, so I hit a mining point and got darksteel ore with the first attempt. Then finished my quests and went to Jeuno to get the RSE gloves.

In Jeuno I noticed a shout for carbuncle's mitts, so I responded and it turned out it was just a single red mage looking. I stuck it out anyway (this was after midnight) and after about an hour we got a full group. I was a little bit wary as we all know how pick up groups can go, but I've been desperate for these mitts for ages so I chanced it. Early stages didn't fill me with confidence... we got aggro just inside the locked door and had to contend with a magic pot, about 4 tonberries and the manipulator NM that came up from below all at once. We scraped through that, but the first shot at the NM was started without any warning (so we had no protection against the searing light at all). I was certain I would die, but it hit me for less than 100! Also it is exactly as I feared, you can't sleep Carbuncle because he isn't even in the room until the searing light comes.. he just appears, uses it and vanishes. I took a hit from every single one and it never even did treble figures on me... in contrast our level 70+ members were getting battered by it. Due to a monumental error in judgment we were also fighting on lightsday. Again, we scraped through and got our first set of mitts without any casualties. We set about clearing the room again, and I get a black mage testimony in the process. 3 more fights follow, no problems and I seem to have natural resistance to searing light... then it's my turn to go (last) and it's turned to darksday so I'm confident. Spawn it, bang I take 700 points of damage! Where the f*&k did that come from! I'll never understand how this game works, lol. Luckily it was the first one of the fight or I'd have probably been killed.. anyway that was the only drama. I finally have my mitts and can happily go back to levelling

As for Sunday.. the previous day I'd noticed a useful pair of xp trousers for black mage (finally) at level 64, druid's slops.. drop from a Corse NM so no chance of obtaining them myself. Was waiting for the next to appear on AH and they did on Sunday. By some miracle my teleport-vahzl scroll sold and took me over the 700K (highest price history for the slops). Not enough. Rare loaned me 20K to get up to 750K to try.. again not enough. I spent the next couple of hours chasing thundery weather to farm clusters and clawed up to 800K.. not enough. Just as I'm about to give up my platoon gun sells and I get 900K... which is enough! /cheer for me and /slap for the seller.

I've now got 8K left, as soon as I can I'll get the 20K to return to you Rare.

Next I think I really need a shaman's cloak so I can maximise my int gear elsewhere... hmmm... not to mention still needing quake and stonega II.

[Tsingtao]

Another steady weekend for me, steady in the sense that steadily I'm running out of gil again. Things are going nicely though, have taken the NIN for 20 - 29 since last Thursday and look on course to reach 40 in quite good time. Pick up the final weapons upgrade for my NPC at 300k below the last listed price which was nice and got a light spirit pact to complete the set for my SMN.

Next piece on the list is the levl 30 Katana dropped by orctrap, howver I think I may resort to spot of farming as orctraps drop rates seem a bit on the poor side. Think I may find myself ram hunting for a few hours to sort it out.

Thursday I'm also going for my first try at farming god triggers, if anyone else is interested at 68+ let me know. No idea how bad this will be but I'm going to go find out, Koenig here I come.

[Tobal]

I'm game for trigger hunting.

[Tsingtao]

Trigger hunting is with a new HNMLS I was offered a pearl for, I don't know half the people in there and do know there is some trash. Swordsaint is the shell holder and they're starting on triggers this week. 17:00 EST which I think converts to 22:00 BST, they're going both Tuesday and Thursday but I can only make the Thursday one.

I'll drop them a /tell for you tonight Tobal, even if its not an amazing LS should help to give a feel as to what its like. ^^

[C']

Well for the second weekend running I've been amazed at what I've achieved.

Started on Friday with a party invite in Bibiki Bay. Originally focussed on Goblins which I hate tanking nowadays and I didn't think things were going to go too well when our puller got a link on the third pull killing me and the party leader which was shortly followed by one of our 2 RDM leaving. We managed to get a SMN to replace and moved camp to focus on the dhalmels (with a few goblins) and really started tearing it up. Literally non-stop EXPing and level 72 was mine.

This led me to my task list and my first port of call was Norg where I was challenged by Ryoma to prove my worth as a Ninja by draining the power from the Kodachi of Trials. A combination of solo weapon skills, some NPC leveling (and skill chaining), and a particularly good session with Darwock and Meric where I was able to close some level 3 Darkness and I made good progress. However, the final power was removed when camping Bloodthirster Madkix with Moot. Myself, Meric and Wedge then proceeded to Labyrinth of Onzozo where a battle against a Notorious Monster was enough to prove our mastery of the katana and Ryoma taught us the Blade: Ku skill. A fantastic looking weapon skill.

Another aim was getting into Sky and completing Divine Might to obtain the Suppanomimi earring. Well, logged into Lower Jeuno on Sunday morning to a ZM8 shout which I promptly snapped up. Completed the battle in the Stellar Fulcrum (got detoured personally in Delkfutt's Tower and spawned 3 NMs for a different quest which I still need to finish off) and was all set to leave it at that but the group asked if I wanted to finish it off and as Mosley suggested, it was best to get it sorted whilst I had the chance and after another easy battle Sky access was finally mine.

And then there was Rank 10 San d'Oria which was something else entirely. 9-1 was pretty easy but 9-2 was completely unexpected. When Tobal said the battle was against 12 enemies I presumed he was joking but to enter the BC to see the orc army lined up in front of us was something else. Tobal has already given the gist of it but suffice to say there were several times when I wondered how were we going to survive but we somewhat amazingly pulled it off. Story was really good as well after initally being rather mundane in the earlier missions, it really kicks in at the end (lots of twist and turns). Also, their is an important relevance to some of the earlier missions that I thought were pretty pointless when I did them but are pivotal events which shows I need to trust S-E's scriptwriters more Quick note though, when you achieve Rank 10 guys, that isn't the end of it. There is another cutscene that I activated more through luck that is worth seeing. 9-2 was such a fun battle I'd have no qualms about doing it again.

So where from here?

Well, my Sky plan is only halfway to fruition, Divine Might still needs beating but I would also like to defeat the Crystal Warriors individually too and it has been suggested that we use the solo battles as a practice run before attempting Divine Might. I know Tobal has said he was interested, and I reckon Wedge and Apathye could be dragged in, leaving us just needing a healer and another DD. I do want to make the Zilart story arc my priority now before continuing with CoP.

KSNM30 is also another thing I'd like to do to obtain the Senjiruinkio katana. Usual rules, each member brings an orb and all (non Rare/EX) drops sold and split between the group. If any of the weapons drop (such as the katana) they become free lot to anyone who can use them. I know Tobal, Meric, Wedge and Apathye all have expressed interest so get a healer and we should should be good to go. Perhaps Theanu or Akashi?

And finally a Mannequin. Meric spotted a Mannequin Head in a bazaar for 300k which I have purchased and hopefully a BCNM20 run will get me a body which just leaves me needing hands and legs. Legs will obviously be a Garrison drop so if people want to do that some time I'm game. Hands I will need the assistance of Darwock and Tobal.

If anyone is interested in completing any of the above some nights this week, let me know.

[Tsingtao]

Divine Might is a yes please for me as is completing the Zilart story.

I don't mind how we do it but I'm really up for that, DM we'll definitely need reinforcements for mind I beleive a full alliance is required with a min level of about 70.

[Darwock]

I'm at 27 seals and with the way mannequin prices are tumbling I think I'll forget about getting another cloudy orb and save for a BCNM60 - never done one of those before and I'd like to see as many boss battles as I can. Although having said that I've never done a BCNM30 either, but they don't seem to be very popular.

Gonna be wednesday before I'm free for the charming trio fight anyway... presumably Rare can go as war/nin which should save me and Tobal the cost of ether (mighty strikes would probably end the fight before we could use more blood pacts)

[Tobal]

i wouldn't even need equipment, i'll do it naked.