A new limit break quest for getting to 80. Was kinda expected to be honest. It had better not be a tedious fetch quest…

Still reading the notes, so expect more thoughts later as I see how Abyssea and Walk of Echoes pan out.

UPDATE: Additional thoughts found after the break So I have tinkered around some of the new stuff a bit, and here’s some additional thoughts:

Walk of Echoes

What a huge mess my first experience with Walk of Echoes.  I went out to Xarcabard [S] and was beamed on up, and was surrounded by a gaggle of JPs (it was 8am EDT mind you).  With the JP army, we entered battlefield #1, and were greeted by the crab committee.  All crabs, all the time.  The flow of getting temp items was going well, as the little crabs were going down nicely.

Sadly, the waves got really overwhelming, and death became quite common. Luckily, there’s no EXP penalty, so my fresh new 76WHM didn’t lose the level I just got.

Now the question is, what to do next? I have every intent on meriting the hell out of Scholar, but in terms of maybe leveling another job, I don’t know what road to take next…

Any ideas?

So yeah, we are in the home stretch of the holiday season, so we are going to not talk about that. Instead, I’ll speak up about the goings on in Vana’diel, and whatever else I am in the mood to type at almost 5:00am.

The December Version Update

So the new version update has arrived, and I must say, my feelings about it are mixed.

New Missions

Firstly, I am very much looking forward to the additional missions and such for Wings of the Goddess. I really do not like how they space out the mission additions over two updates, while throwing in the nation quests in between. I really like the main storyline of the expansion, but going so long without doing anything to progress through it is really souring the experience for me. Add to that, I need to still finish the previous set of nation quests to progress is just a pain in the ass.

Scholar and Dancer Relic Added

See the image on the right? That is what I hope to have my Scholar look like one day, lol. We did a Dynamis – Xarcabard run after the update, and although no new piece dropped, it’s good to know that they were added so quickly.

I will need to get used to seeing the name “Argute”, and hope to see a piece drop soon!

Fields of Valor & Treasure Caskets

I have already given these a try, and if you go and look on my Profile page, you can see that my Ninja has actually been leveled up. This is thanks to Fields of Valor. Going out and completing the somewhat simple tasks for a nice bonus of experience and gil is certainly encouraging me to go out and take on the tasks at hand.

As for the Treasure Caskets, I have happened upon a few of those on my new found leveling swing, and it is nice to get some items to help with moving things along quicker, rather than having to stop after every other mob to recover HP/MP. Fields of Valor also helps in that you use “Tabs” you earn and can get a long lasting regen/refresh, or foods to help you along.

All in all, this is a very nice addition Square Enix has added that not only helps low level play, but also could help in bringing people back to the “old” areas.

Of course, they also delayed the Moblin Maze Monger feature from being added, which was a bit of a bummer, but going by what I have heard MogKnight say about the bugginess of the demo at the Fan Festival, it’s probably best that they are delaying the release. Hope to be playing that before the holidays. Speaking of the holidays…

You Changed The Blog AGAIN?!?

File this one in the “You’re never satisfied” folder. I have returned the blog to the first look it had way back when I started doing this a few years ago. A couple things to note are that the layout looks similar to the previous “dark” look, the navigation is much less “MS Paint” in design, and the sidebar actually changes depending on the type of page you are viewing. Well, only the navigation changes, but I am working on getting the picture to change as well.

Please be sure to let me know your thoughts on this “back to the future” look.

Dynamis – Xarcabard, Proto – Ultima, & Bahamut!

Strictly a farming run this time around in the northlands, as there were only 17 of us max. I failed to get a screenshot of the ending when Commander’s controller died, and set an angry mass of demons directly towards us and killed everyone in sight.

Then there was another successful Proto – Ultima run, where I seemed to be the target of many Holy II castings… In the midst of that, there are no screenshots of that wonderful event.

And then there was Bahamut, and another success!

Enjoy the pictures!

There you go! Wow, that filled up a lot of space, lol. Hope to see you online!

Ok, let’s get through the things to update about:

Scholar

Now at level 56.  All of my leveling has been done exclusively through campaign battles.  It’s kinda funny when you sit there whacking on a wall for about 10 minutes for 0, 1, or 2 points of damage (with the occasional critical hit for 4 or 6) and noticing about 10 minutes later I “earned” 1300 experience points.

I never claimed to understand exactly how the calculations work to determine how much experience and allied notes you earn in these campaign battles, but it’s funny to see it working in my favor somehow.

And as for why I am going through this only in Campaign battles, well it’s kinda simple. With the introduction of the “Level Sync” system in the last update, it seems whenever I actually do put up my LFG flag, it seems the only people who notice are those in the dunes, roughly levels 10-16.  And the reason I catch their eyes is because of the sub job I mostly use (White Mage), and it lights up in their head that I could possibly be their healer.

Now, I am certainly not a prick in this regard, and I like to help people as much as I can (That is the whole reason I had leveled White Mage in the first place).  But seeing everything that I had worked so hard to enjoy sitting there shaded in gray because I’m level 12 and not 56, is kinda depressing.  I mean, if it was a group of friends, I would probably do it and not think too much of it.  But for a random group of people, who have no tank or clues as to how to do their respective jobs, to be demanding of me to have stuff cast upon them because they think I can due to what my original level was? No thank you.

Whew. That felt good to get out.  Here, have some screenshots:

Work

While things in FFXI have seemed rather progressive, this situation at work seems to have become regressive.

It almost feels like I am in the middle of a mass exodus, but in reality, it just seems at though children are being children, and cannot seem to understand that in order to earn a day’s pay, you have to do some work.  Kids nowadays seem to think that they can treat things like it’s social hour, talk for an entire shift, do what is essentially the bare minimum of work (if they even do that), and expect not to receive a scornful look from other people who actually are busting their asses to make the money they need to get by in this god awful economy.  And don’t even get me started about cell phones…

I feel like a grumpy elderly person saying all these things.  But then again, why shouldn’t I be?  I feel as though I am a babysitter of teenagers and young adults, and I myself am only 25, lol.

Vacation…Again??

You know, it is never too early to think about the next time you’re planning a getaway for some relaxin’ time. Here’s the thought process running through the ol’ mind:

We have the recently announced FFXI Fan Festival 2008 on December 5th and 6th in Hollywood, California.  I would love to go to this, as just being surrounded by those who enjoy the game much like I do, seems like a veritable wonderland of sorts.  And Hollywood? I would just love to visit California.  And for the short time I would be there, I wouldn’t have to adapt too much to the terrible air quality in the area.

And then there is the idea/plan to vacation out to the Lonestar State (Texas for the uninformed).  For this, I am aiming to head out at roughly the time time I went to Canada earlier this year (Mid-to-late February).  South Texas heat –SHOULDN’T– be an issue in February, so it should be a comfortable trip, at the very least.

It’s interesting to note all the traveling I have done the past year or two.  I seem to have become a nomad of sorts, lol.

Anyways, I think this will finally wrap up this post.  Needless to say, this is the longest post I have made by a long shot.  Think of it as a way to make up for not posting ANYTHING since the beginning of the month.  I would post more often, but I think it would just be sorrowful repetition of the same things over and over again.  As in, “Did some stuff on FFXI, gained no levels. Still working. Probably traveling. Blah blah.”  I appreciate you reading this (I sincerely do), but I am sure you wouldn’t want to be bored with just reading essentially the same thing over and over, am I right?

Ok, this is really the end.  Please leave comments, or sent me a /tell, POL message, e-mail, whatever you can and let me know what you think.  Thank you for reading!