God>> lol douchebag

Yes, God hath laughed at me. Hardcore. Last week Mini's little reformed shell did a xarc and ended up getting a smn horn. Meh, bad luck happens to the best of us... including me. You can't win em all, even if I am up to 19 straight runs without seeing a horn so much as drop much less be able to lot one. Then I see this shit today and, well, I got very very upset.

This is more than is needed to push me over the edge and just call it quits on this stupid ass game...

circling the drain?

I honestly feel like FFXI might be dying. The people who I used to see on all the time aren't on as much anymore. The people whose blogs I read on a regular basis don't update them anymore, and the people who used to frequently comment on my own blog don't anymore. I honestly think FFXI might be in a decline in membership. The hardcore vets either did everything they've wanted to do in-game or are just simply fed up at the lack of REAL action against RMT.


Sure, every 5-7 weeks the STFU (Special Task Forces Unit) hits about 250-500 RMTs but there are more than that on each server. In the old days RMT camped and monopolized NMs, claiming Roc, Serket, Argus, etc because those were mobs they could bot and the NMs dropped gear everyone sorta needed. Now, RMTs are smarter. They craft. There's no need to camp a NM when you can HQ craft shihei, melon pies, sole sushi or tavnazian tacos 24 hours a day all day long. They pump out the same stuff, undercuttig themselves so that they can sell faster.

This guy and another have destroyed my Melon Pie market....

Here's an RMT gearing up for his day of synthing 10 straight hours of sole

These "players" have ruined the game for me. It's not enjoyable when you see your goods' values drop 50% in 1 month because of RMTs. Soon expensive items will be 5000g and the gil you get form Goblins will once again be of value. Haubs are hovering around a mil, weskits are 18k... nothing has any value. A game shouldn't annoy you... this one now annoys me.

Transplant

My PC got major surgery this week, only keeping the NIC, SoundBlaster card, 80GB HD, and the CD/DVD-R drive. I bought a brand new CPU (P4 3.2 GHz) a new mobo, new case, new 450W power supply, new memory (2GB DDR2 5300) and my centerpiece... a new GigaByte 7600 GT.

I've gone from an average of 10 FPS to about 35 FPS but I haven't really overclocked it yet and I have all my settings maxed completely out. I have some tweeking to do tonight but I had to reformat my stupid HD and reinstall XP and FFXI (what a fun 6.5 hours of updates for FFXI and 3 expansions!). My only issue thus far is my mobo hasnt recognized my sound card so I have to do some driver downloads and hopefully have some sound to go with FFXI. I also got my 32" Samsung LCD HDTV replaced after what seemed like forever. I am curious to see how FFXI looks when I use the TV as the monitor.

well, can't really complain

No horn in Dyna-Xarc last night. I mean, it's hard to complain when I have gotten 2 pieces of SMN AF2 in the last two runs... but still. That horn has eluded me for so damn long... I heard it dropped in Mini's run this week. How lovely. Oh well. This weekend was spent leveling WHM, skilling up Staff, and fishing. I was able to get this done FINALLY:
I can now spend alot more time soloing Lesser Colibri's now that I can steadily get some MP back from them at each WS. I also spent half of Saturday morning getting my WHM to 63, then dropped a good 600k on it because it was really needed. I sold my Aurora Mantle and finally picked up an Intensifying Cape. This can also replace my SMN's Blue Cape which is great because instead of HP-15/MP+30 the Intensifying Cape is HP/MP+30 and my SMN now has 1015 HP and 1147 MP. It's nice to see 1k HP and MP on the bars. Anyways I digress... I also picked up an Insomnia Earring which was 15HP and 10MP more than my gimpy Enhancing Earring and finally I sold my Electrum ring for an Ether Ring. That adds 10 more MP and I don't lose the 20HP from Electrum. I ended up spending about 600k for 40 more MP, but alot of this armor should take me to 75. Now to find a damn Nobles...

I also spent a few hours fishing. I can steadily pull in Titanictus and for the most part Ryugu Titan. I do have a propensity to break my Lu... which can be annoying since my Woodworking is only 60 and I have to find people to repair it for me. Big shoutout to Frosta, Kristal, and Melena who have been kind enough to repair it whenever I have bugged them for it. Anyways, that's it for now. Omega tonight and a 10 hour maintenance tomorrow. I'll get some FFXII time in or maybe some Gran Turismo 4 in during the maintenance. Watching the Daytona 500 Sunday made me want to get behind the wheel of a racecar again.

1 in 5 months, 2 in 5 days!

That was my record for SMN AF2. Once again I beat the odds and saw not one, not two, but THREE sets of Summoner's Bracers dropped in Bastok last night. I lost the first but won the second, (and the 3rd went on a mule character). That puts me at 3/5 AF2 and 2/2 on the last 2 runs. Man, if horn drops... I'll poo myself. Anyways, once again thanks to Prophets for getting me one step closer to finishing SMN!

p.s. How much SEXIER do I look on PC than PS2?!!

May I present....

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

friggin crafters, they've destroyed the game

Everytime I start making food to sell I find more people spamming the AH with those foods, flooding the supply and destroying the value. Case in point, 2 people on my server whom I believe are RMTs (Cfhbn and Myun) make Melon Pies all day and all night. Those 2 people account for about 85% of the pies sold on the AH and do you think they are driving the prices up?

Hell no.

They undercut themselves 1k every sale because they are making them faster than they are selling them. This game's economy is already gone down the drain, it's now on it's way to the septic tank... Nothing has value hardly anymore. A stack of Melon Pies +1 use to be 100k (now 34k), a stack of Sole Sushi used to be 60k (now 24k). Hedgehog Pies used to be 50k (now 20k). Nothing is worth anything anymore, and it's only gonna be worth 10% less tomorrow. There's only about 5 things in game that are holding value. What are we supposed to do when Haubergeon is 100k, a Scorpion Harness is 80k and a Igqira Weskit is 3k? Once crafts are dead, how else are you supposed to make money short of camping NMs for drops?

This game's lifespan is nearing it's unfortunate end. RMTs and morons (who'd rather make 40k now instead of 80k tomorrow) have ruined the economy and I don't see it getting fixed.

weekend pics

Well, I sorta fished and cooked all weekend, watched some movies, cleaned the room. Was very lazy. Took some pics though.

First is KA camp, what a joke this has become... people holding Knight Crabs for 10, 15 minutes. The person who killed this has a Sonic Belt +1. Anyways, moving onto less drama filled ventures...
Capped my Summoning Skill and I didn't even know it. I got all SMN'd up and ran out to start spamming avatars and checked my skills... and I was capped. What a anti-claimactical way to cap skill (without ever knowing it).
Cooking is fun when you can HQ 5/12 (even if I failed on the 6th HQ...).

finally

I think fishing skills up maybe 100x as slow as clothcraft did... anyways, yay!

SPATtacular!

Hurray! Hurray +1! After approx 3 months of trying to get into Windy to get the only good piece of armor for SMNs at the leg position... I finally got my Summoner's Spats. Just like my 1st run with IRON when I got my Summoner's Pigaches... I got my AF on my first run with Prophets. There were 2 others lotting, so unless I had sole lotting on the item I always felt like I was going to lose.

We entered Dyna-Windy with 25 which isn't a lot but I must admit... these guys are damn strong and kill very fast. It was honestly one of the most efficient Windy runs I have ever been on. We did have one wipe but it was totally unfair... the Leviathan woke up and immedietly used Tidal Wave. I guess it could have been avoided and slept away from the raid but honestly, we were killing mobs so fast it never seemed to be an issue. Barring that one misstep we farmed the hell out of the zone. My BRD says he has to leave for work, and it just so happens he's one of the other 2 people lotting against me. Within literally 5 seconds of him disbanding one of the birds dropped the Spats. I was damn surprised but that didn't mean I would win. The first lot came up as a 349. Not great but it's not horrible either. I was psyched but didn't lot right away, thinking that the BRD had left already. No lots came up so I hit the old Cast Lots button.
Holy Macaroni. That wasn't what I exected to see. That's usually what I random when I'm gambling (9+6+9= 24 which is a bust...) and only the BRD was left to lot. He tossed up a 140 something and I finally got my spats. I was quite happy, even if a few people were saying they were crap. They really aren't... they are technically the only armor on the leg slot that decreases BP timer, which to a SMN is our main damage. It's like saying Swift Belt is crap or Walahara Turban is crap. Lower BP timers equals more BPs over time equals more damage from SMNs. Technically the "helpful" only leg armor for SMNs is:

• Evoker's Spats (MP+15, avatar acc+, enmity-)


• Vendor's Slops (HP/MP+25, MND+2, Acc+3)


• Zenith Slacks (50HP->50MP, MND+4)


• Summoner's Spats (MP+20, MND+3, Blood Pact delay -2)

After seeing that no one else was lotting I waited for them to drop, and within about 1 minute of seeing te Spats we got our 2nd RNG hands. Eventually the spats dropped and I was one hapy SMN.Thanks to everyone in Prophets who came and helped me get 1 step closer to finishing my SMN armor set.

Gurfurler the Annoying

Last night was event night in my new LS "Prophets" and we planned to head out to Gurfurler the Menacing. Not for any real reason, just to say we did it. He drops a Gurfurlur's Helmet that desynths into a Scintillant Ingot and also some stupid ring called the Mercenary's Ring which is VIT+5 and then phys dmg -5% while in Beseiged. It wasn't for drops, just to have soem fun.

We headed out after what seemed like forever and finally got into the heart of Halvung. We farmed our 3 keys we needed:

• Halvung Brass Key
• Halvung Bronze Key
• Halvung Shakudo Key

Once we got our 3 keys we headed into Gurf's area. We cleared some Trolls to the base of his spawn area and then engaged. As soon as he is engaged he calls 4 Hilltroll Elite Guard which are NMs and can't be slept. On top of that they can't be killed or he will summon another Guard right away. We made a holding party for the 4 guards and a main alliance for Gurf. I was on SMN and in the tank party. My main job was to spam Earthen Ward on the NINs andPLD/NINs. I eventually ended up using "Mr. Thong" for some very nice Mountain Busters.

We stumbled at first, and within 10% we had 2-3 adds. We were able to kill them and recover. He's not too hard from 100% to 20%, but just like all FFXI HNMs the last 20% always has a surprise in store for you. He really only has a handful of moves, but they are annoying ones.

First off he uses a move called Arcane Stomp. Turns ANY magic damage on him to healing magic. That means Drain heals him. That means that doing a skillchain heals him. That means using Diabolos to spam Nether Blast heals him. So BLM are pretty much useless because he resists most stuns anyways. He does a multi-hit move called Incessant Fists that is like a Troll version of Asuran Fists. He has a massive single hit called Head Snatch (1k + damage) and 2 AoE moves he uses. One called Haymaker is damage + Amnesia, the other called Sledgehammer is damage + Petrify. These can do anywhere from 400-800 to mages WITH stoneskin on (yay). Finally, his annoying move he does when he is below 20% is called Pleiades Ray. It's damage + AoE and you get all these effects on you at once:

• stun
• silence
• paralyze
• blind
• slow
• poison
• virus

That's... fun... I mean it's not as bad as something like a Gates of Hades, but if mages don't react to the debuffs right away tanks could drop like flies. Oh yeah, and his 2 hour is Hundred Fists...

Now, like I said we did really really good 95% to 20%. I was spamming Ward, and while Titan was out I was able to get a steady 300 dmg on Mountain Buster (which is VERY respectable versus this high defensive of this mob) and a few times I hit a 633 and a 734! Once we got him below 20% we looked out for P-Ray, but we had a few factors to deal with. First, called for help on 2 of his 4 NM guards so the guards were hitting on the main alliance during most of the fight. Second, we had 2 BLMs which could have been utilized far better. Honestly beyond that I didn't see any glaring mistakes. No screw ups, no stupid moves. In the end we had a PLD 2 hour right as Hundred Fists went off, and we got him down to 3%... but couldn't do the final push. Funny thing was when we wiped he says in /say "I is Gurfurlur, I rule Halvung, you is dead." Now that shits funny... gotta admit. In the end I was somewhat disappointed we lost because I hate giving up, but Narbie told me AD didn't make it past 19% the first time they tackled it. It's not saying "Prophets > AD!! OMFG!!!", but AD is a good LS to use as a litmus test for most mobs, and we still did very well.

In the future if we had 1-2 more people on the guards and we didn't CFH on them, and we had the 2 BLMs come as either SMNs or melees, we can beat that thing. All in all I had fun and was glad that I was able to offer some nice steady damage from Titan.

Holy RMT effect Batman

@ work...
bored as hell...
found this website Remora's Most Wanted

Check this... I was reading about how screwed up some of their bots/rmts are but this was amazing. One of their RMTs seems to farm High-Quality Eft Skin. I looked that the sales on FFXI Auction House (learn it live it love it) and I started digging and found this...

yeah... steadily 25-30k a skin. Now my server's prices:

how insane is that...

migrations are afoot

So many people are moving to WoW. Most of IRON has gone, now some people that I knew back on Odin... I refuse to give in. That game ruined my experience with IRON, not to mention it looks way too cartoony for me. Sure, FFXI didn't give the IRON vets what they wanted but had WoW not existed I doubt they would have left Vana'diel. They would have just stuck it out.

Back to Bismarck... I've made a 200k profit in just 2 days, churning out Tacos and Melon Pies +1 stacks. It's really not that hard, and I am only crafting 1 stack of synthable materiels each time. If I spent an hour or two on crafting I'm sure I could double if not triple that income because the food doesn't last more than 12 hours on the AH before it's sold.

Last night was a Cerberus which wetn awry because some people free stun for no reason and then a Gates of Hades goes off because people's stuns are down. This isn't a tough concept, and these were 1-2 highly decorated players screwing up stuns which bothered me even more. Lunies took it at 5% and killed it (not the way I would have done it but hell, I hear they let Prophets take a second shot at it so it's not like they stole it) and after we did a Proto-Omega which was a joke. We took it from 100% to 4% in under 10 minutes then held it for 4 gunpods netting poze of shell powder, 6 coins, a smalt chip and DRK AF+1 item. Drops were 2x Homam feet.

On a positive note I downloaded FFXI vanadiel collection and am installing it right now. I am not sure if I can play it (I havemy POL/FFXI codes but not any of the registration codes) so if I can't play it on PC I'll just see if I can use it for Altana Viewer. Guess we''ll see if I can get in or if I have to call POL to get my keys... which will be a major pain.

you're cookin with gas now you friggin idiot

Gambling is bad. Gambling while pissed is worse. Gambling while pissed that you're contemplating quitting FFXI is just flat out retarded.

So I gambled away about 2.4M of my 2.9M last night, placing 200k bets and going about 3 for 13... I decided maybe this was counterproductive and I should try to make money another way. Seeing as I now have about 300k to my name now and since the LS broke... there's not a whole lot to do. So to harkening back to my Clothcrafting Kick of '06 ("I chose to be a weaver")...

I'ma be a chef!


Well... I already am a chef. My cooking is at 95+3 and my Fishing is at 84+4 but still... I'm actually going to USE these crafts now since I haven't barely touched them in the past. My main moneymakers look like they will be:

• Tavnazian Taco
• Hedgehog Pie
• Snoll Gelato
• Sole Sushi
• Carbonara
• Pescatora

Not a lot of mage food, since many mages use cookies and such but those melee burn through the foods daily. I'm also going to use my WW and Alch to get me some Shihei made seeing as that is probably the only reason that the last dude leveled it up. It sure wasn't to play RNG.

bigger they were, harder they fell

IRON is no more. Can't honestly say I didn't see this coming. I read of IRON's reputation when I found out I was coming to Bismarck, and I got a firsthand account of it in September. It was strong, dedicated, and determined. When the weekly "event night" was skipped for the first time I could hear the disapppointment in the leaders and the shell. Slowly, one after another vet was pulled away. Some went to other LS's but most went on to World of Warcraft. Slowly we were down to about 20 members when it was announced a merger with EventHorizon would happen. This happened in November while I took a month off to explore FFXII.

Membership was almost tripled overnight, but EH wasn't the same type of shell that IRON was, and slowly the more casual members of EH left IRON because they weren't all that interested in an endgame LS. By late December we were at a comfortable number but many of the remaining veteran IRON people were slowly growing tired of their new LS members. Some were slackers and never showed for events until drops might be available for them, some of them were just not that educated in what endgame LS means, and some of them frankly were hackers. (I even caught a person who hacked to get to KA on Wednesday night... we left Dynamis and within 5-8 minutes they were at KA camp... and this was a pre-merger EH person wearing an IRON pearl) This past January a few pre-merger EH people got suspended for hacking, and that was not something IRON wanted to be associated with. Finally, a handful of the pre-merger IRON people left the shell to form their own shell.

What was left was a LS with the name IRON that was about 75% EH and 25% IRON (pre-merger ppl). After New Years IRON wasn't even going to camps anymore and most events were sparse at best. The lowpoint came when IRONdynamis held a Dynamis-Xarc run and only 15 people showed up. It seems that the guests that got their flags with us no longer had any desire to come and the actual IRON members that were required to come just stopped logging in.

Last night a meeting was called at the Kobka Hostel and it was laid out for all LS members. The pre-merger IRON people understood, mostly because they knew first hand what IRON was and what IRON had become. Sadly, some of the pre-merger EH people started to say that leadership was quitting on them, blaming not the people who stopped coming to events but instead leadership for the state of the shell. Leaders didn't make Tredvolt, Deidre, Valkerine, Sendo, Winraf, Aidama, Narbie, Luminaire, and countless other amazing IRON people leave. Leaders tried as hard as they could to keep it together, but the leaders are not to blame for the elite players of IRON to either going to WoW or leaving the shell altogether for other LS's.

In the end I'm glad I was part of IRON, I made some really good friends and met some very knowledgable people. I'll remember the first time I fought Ouryu and got slapped after casting Thunder IV on it, or the time when we did a Seiryu which Hundred Fists right onto Winraf and he just stood there laughing and never used Invincible and lived. I'll remember farming those stupid Lamia Kamans for hours, and then the sheer joy from Valky when she made a +1, one of the first 2 on the server. I'll remember the first Jailer of Love we did followed by 2 more all netting Novia Earrings... I'll remember killing Tiamat in 36 minutes and being in awe of how easy they killed it, or the time that Benediction claimed Nidhogg, then flailed it killing the entire Aery. We all HP'd and Aribeth, Moontang, and Lunarian were able to sleep it for almost 15 minutes while the entire LS rushed back out there. We got 2x M Body that night. Those will be the memories I take from IRON. They also helped me get Zenith Mitts and Crown, Pahluwan body, Yigit hands, SMN AF2 and AF+1, and countless other memories.

Thank you IRON.

sup Kuwait