Up Goes The Level Cap

This seems like the logical first thing to talk about, since it clearly has the most impact on the game. It was announced that the level cap of 75, which we have learned to adapt and build around since 2003, will be gradually raised to level 99 by the end of the year.

This is going to have enormous implications on the way the endgame of FFXI is played, as well as on me because it takes about 30 years for me to level jobs in any capacity. What job will I try to level up first? Will I try to go on with Scholar? Or will or break out my Red Mage, and use the “Refresh/Haste” route to speed up progress? Possibly even go White Mage first, and curebomb my way to the new pinnacle? Will I even GET to 99 by the time 2020 comes around? We shall see.

Along with this will come new chances for different subjob possibilities, and of course, more new magics. Just what I need for my broke ass. Better start saving the gil now to save myself time later…

Three New Addons

Announced in tendem with the level cap increase was that there are three new addons coming. But not some lame story stuff. Actual battlefield type stuff, with new loots and better chances for leveling up! Yes, I will buy all three. Yes, I will try in vain to complete them. Yes, I will be the Scholar Master, lol.

Trial of the Magians

This is one of the cool things they announced that almost got buried beneath the other bombshells of the night.

The Trial of the Magians is a new branching quest line, which will allow you to upgrade your armor and weapon in ways that you choose.

Now I am not really in a position to upgrade things like Relic or Mythic weapons, but I think this could definitely help with the possible issues that will arise with the raising of the level cap. I personally think this might be one of those things that doesn’t catch much buzz at first, but as people catch on and see how it is, it might be one of the biggest things to come from all the announcements.

The FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta

So yeah. It seems the beta test will be starting very soon. They announced alpha testing has begun, and that will last as long as it takes through player feedback. I wonder if I will be a part of it…

The FANTASY EARTH ZERO Beta

Starts this Wednesday! Extremely excited to FINALLY play this game in English, and not be afraid of being banned because I’m speaking English. Genuinely excited for this.

Other Stuff

Let’s see here. Work still sucks. As if there’d be anything different to announce on that front, lol.

Might be going on a trip out to an “exotic” place later this spring. Not going to spill the beans just yet, but it’s someplace nice.

Been playing Persona 4 recently. That game is a piece of work, lemme tell you. If you haven’t played it, GameFly it. Rent it. Buy it. Something. This is one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. So dust off that PS2 and get going!

There’s your update! See you online!

More thoughts on the huge VanaFest Announcements late today. I need to sleep, lol

A big thank you to those who endured all the extra runs where just about everything drops EXCEPT the G feet.

Who Wants Some Kirin?

So the first order of business for me to reflect back on is the first Kirin fight in the history of Evolpmal. This was my first time even laying eyes on Kirin since back in the days of DownRightFierce on Cerberus over 2 years ago. This would also be my first serious NM fight on Scholar.

Some confusion at the beginning of the fight when he spawns the "mini" version of the four other Sky Gods was a bit silly, but the group pulled itself together, and bested those. The task of taking care of Kirin afterwards took some time, but for a first time being done as a group, the battle went very well.

The reward? W. Legs. The recipient of those? Surprisingly, ME. To this day, i still don’t have a very good screenshot of me wearing them, but I did end up getting the HQ version (Blood Cuisses), and only yesterday paid back the load the linkshell gave me to scoop those up. To say I am very grateful to them for allowing me to get them is a huge understatement.

Sorting Out Other Loose Ends

In the time after getting that done, especially heading into the holiday break, I had decided to tend to some things I hadn’t gotten to. Here’s a summary of what went down:

Leveling Subjobs

With the help of Fields of Valor, I managed to get Dancer to 18 at a relatively quick pace, and with that I finally, FINALLY, achieved level 37 on Ninja, which allowed me to use that scroll of Utsusemi: Ni that I’ve had in storage since 2005 at least!

Getting Diabolos

In one of those "Well I wasn’t expecting to get THIS done" moments, with the help of the great folks at Evolpmal, I have acquired the avatar Diabolos. I think the battle against his "Prime" form lasted all of 2 minutes, and 1 minute of that was just prepping to start attacking.

Now if I could just get Fenrir, maybe I could start leveling Summoner? Although, with how long it has taken me to level the three jobs that currently have at 75, it might be 2012 before I see any other job at 75.

Nearing Completion of "A Crystalline Prophecy"

After completing "A Moogle Kupo d’Etat" back in November, I have been wanting to get the other add-on scenarios done, but like most things I would like to get done, it’s taking quite a bit of time.

I am happy to now report that I am on the final mission of "A Crystalline Prophecy", and could very well have the add-on completed by the end of the month!

As for "A Shantotto Ascension", well, check back in a few months, and maybe I’ll have it done by then, lol.

The Return of An Old Friend

Excitement filled the air, as an announcement hit the web of beta sign-ups for the North American version of an old friend of mine. An "old friend" that I have actually covered previously on this very blog. The friend?

That’s right. It’s baaaaaaaaaack.

The FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta

And finally, we’ve also had the announcement of beta sign-ups for FINAL FANTASY XIV. Of course I signed up for it, and I’m really hoping I can get into either the PC or PS3 versions. Of course that’ll be just about all I’ll say, as acceptance and/or taking about the beta is under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. So don’t expect anything from this blog about if I get into beta or not. I’ll only post about any information that is put out in press releases or official website updates.

And there you have it! I am very sorry it took so long to get up a proper post. Again, building up the new Evolpmal website, and the work schedule I had during the holiday season made it difficult to post something big, since I wasn’t playing FFXI as much as I would have liked. Maybe now I can post I much as I would want to, lol.

But there’s your update on what I’m up to! See you online!

Yes, I know this hasn’t been updated in over a month.

No, I’m not killing this blog.

An actual post will be coming by this weekend. Promise!

Big thank you to the gang at Evolpmal again for helping me get this awesome piece, as well as dealing with my ineptitude in non aggroing everything around a lamp.

Goliard Win Group Shot With Evolpmal

A Little Backstory

It’s very well known amongst those who play FFXI with me that I seem to have an inherent ability to fall way behind in doing any expansion content. Especially with Treasures of Aht Urhgan and Wings of the Goddess.

It seems like people burn right through the new content that gets added for these things, and thanks to work, or other reasons, I get left in the dust, hoping for help.

Much the same was happening with these two recently released Add-on scenarios, as my progress with “A Crystalline Prophecy” was (as still is) stymied on a battlefield area, and it was the same with “A Moogle Kupo d’Etat”. Then came the good ol’ folks at Evolpmal.

Roar! A Cat Burglar Bares Her Fangs

So the first piece of wonderment was the battle against the three Goblins, with special guest, Mithra cat burglar extraordinaire, Nanaa Mihgo.

With the sole exception of my macros deciding to change pages mid battle, and making me kneel instead of curing the tank, the battle went smoothly. The Goblins went down really quick, which was kinda comedic to me for some reason, but Nanaa Mihgo seemed quite formidable.

After that it was off to Northlands and lots of running around to be done…

A Challenge! You Could Be a Winner

Running around Beaucedine Glacier and Xarcabard is not fun. Not fun at all. But!
Celebratory Stoogle Moogles popping off fireworks within Castle Zvahl as always fun to see.

Smash! A Malevolent Menace

So the fun of the Moogles turns into a weird final battle against the Don Mecca of the Moogles, Riko Kupenreich.

Two tries were needed spread over two different days, but we pulled off a great win!

Victory! Come Get Your Prize

Selenian Cap is mine! Whoohoo!

And there you have it! That takes care of my first FFXI related blog post in over a month. Maybe one will come sooner if I can pull off getting “A Crystalline Prophecy” done quickly, lol.

Again, I will try to update more, but I have a lot going on like making and running a website for Evolpmal which you can find at http://evolpmal.rianon.net!

Today, Mandze became known as Mrs. McDowell, as she got married out in Hawaii!  So the next time you see her, be sure to send well wishes to her… or you could just ambush her blog with congratulatory comments, lol

Leveling Up!

So with the recent triumph of getting Scholar up to level 75, I have been going back every now and again, leveling jobs which I have been meaning to give a fair shake through their lower levels.

So the jobs of choice for these undertakings were Ninja and Dancer. ninja because I have really gone too long without having that damn job at least at 37. I mean, I even got Dark Knight to 37 oh so long ago, so what the hell has been my issue with Ninja? (HINT: Not wanting to EXP in parties might be what’s the problem.)

While in the process of that, I decided to go and give Dancer a try. The only thing I can really say is that Dancer is very, very broken! Soloing Toughs, and doing so with relative ease has been quite a lot of fun. I think if there is any non-mage job that I could level in the near future, I found it.

Tying Up The Loose Ends

Also, in the past few weeks, I have been catching up and doing a couple other things. Along with the usual bouts with Limbus with Evolpmal, I have been catching up on a few things I really should have doen a long time ago. Paramount among these was:

In addition, I joined up with a few LS folks to try a Fey Weapon battle out in Grauberg [S]. I grabbed a Fey Staff for my Scholar, and went on out.

After a few missteps, we did finally get the kill on the bastard Quadav, and my Fey Staff…is pretty bad, lol. Enhancing magic +7 seemed as though the only option the damn thing wanted to give me ><;

And finally, just a few days ago, with a KSNM30 run, I did manage to get a few drops of value (Fuma Suna-Ate & Adaman Ingot) to help bulster the bank a little more. Did I mention again how "PRIMO" the folks at Evolpmal are?

In Closing

Well, that was really it in terms of things done as of late. There could have been more, but with the events happening in my life recently, it’s been kinda tough to focus on anything really game related. Although, outside of FFXI, I have started playing The Last Remnant on my Xbox360. Seems ok so far, but the texture pop-in for like every other scene coming in from a load is BAD. We’ll see how it goes there as I progress.

Final note here, if you haven’t checked it out already, I redid the "PROFILE" page to kinda pull together the recently completed separate jobs page, and have it all in one spot. In doing so, I also made the items into separate tabs, so you can just click, and it’s all right there, with minimal scrolling required. I’m still working on all the points I have placed into merit abilities, so bear with me until I get that done, lol.

And that it! Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you online!

My Grandpa Shane was quite an amazing man. He was a man who personified selflessness.  He was always willing to give people a helping hand, whether he knew them or not, and it showed by his 43 years of service to Jenkins Township, PA.

One of my earliest memories with Grandpa was how all of the family got together to swim in the “huge” swimming pool in his backyard.  Mind you, the pool was a normal size pool, but I was 3 or 4 years old at the time, so in my eyes, the pool was almost the size of Lake Wallenpaupack.  He was a jokester, through and through.  In the pool, he would act like a big shark and chase me and my older sister Tanya around the pool.  I couldn’t really reach the bottom of the pool yet, so I would frantically try to swim away, and somehow, I would always get away.

Another memory is whenever I would stay at Grandma & Grandpa Shane’s, I would always be doing one of two things: Reading the newspaper, or watching the Weather Channel.  Mind you, again, I am only 3 or 4 years old when this happened regularly. Grandpa caught on to this very quickly, and never did change the channel while I watched the TV, and encouraged me to read more and more (especially the Sports section and the Horse racing information).

Speaking of horse racing, we also took many trips down to Pocono Downs so he could play the horses, and I could marvel at watching them race by, and come up close so I could pet them or whatnot.  He always had me run up to the railing at the edge of the track and shout encouragement as the horses whizzed by.  I always loved going to the track with Grandpa.

Perhaps the most memorable moment for me came when I was about 6 years old.  You see, my Grandpa worked for the Jenkins Township Road Dept., and that entailed that he drove many vehicles, including dump trucks, recycling trucks, plow trucks, and the garbage truck.
Being a boy and all, I loved seeing all these trucks up close, but never got to actually be in one.  But one early morning, Grandpa woke me up and gave me a huge surprise: I was gonna go with him and drive in the garbage truck.  I was so excited, I couldn’t control myself, and kept jumping up and down.
So I got in, and just marveled at how high up I was as Grandpa also showed me what the endless buttons on the inside all did. We went along all morning stopping and going, waving at the people who stood on their porches, waiting for Grandpa to go by, as everyone knew who he was, and was very friendly with him.
When all the pick up was done, we headed on up to the landfill to take everything out, and then he got out of the cab of the truck, and I was there all alone.  I remember staring at all the buttons, wondering what would happen if I could just push this or that button just once. But then I pictured how angry Grandpa would have gotten if I didn’t do as he told me. So instead, I sat there, just looking around outside at all the endless big trucks and diggers.  It was such a great day, and I remember it fondly and vividly to this day.

One other thing I wanted to share is a little thing he always said when talking about me.  He always said this little rhyme with my name that went, “Robert Knight, go fly a kite.” To which I mustered up my own back at him, “Grandpa Shane, go grab your cane.” He answered back the first time I said it, “My Cane? I guess like how you don’t have a kite here, I don’t have a cane, so we’re even Robert” and then let out that signature laugh of his.

There are many more memories with Grandpa that I have, like the first time I tried Piggies with him, Grandma, and Aunt Uka, and the terrible reaction I had to it the first time I ate it because I hated cabbage.  It turns out, the last time I ate at Grandpa’s with him, there I was eating Grandma’s halushki, proud that I finally gained the taste for cabbage, and other traditional Polish foods.

So, there you go. I hope you enjoyed these few moments from my times with my Grandpa Shane from over the years.  These are just a very, very small piece of the many fun times we shared together.  Times that I will cherish forever, and will never forget.  Just like I will never forget my Grandpa.  And I hope just, that over the course of my life, I could be as good a man as him, so that I could see him again, someday.

I love you Grandpa.