Dancing on the Eve of the Apocalypse
First, I finally finished college this spring and have been hunting for a job fairly hardcore ever since. This past week I interviewed for an intern rubber engineer position in Florida and got the internship with a lot of signs pointing towards having a full-time job afterward. As I went to college to become a rubber engineer, need an internship to actually graduate, and approve of warm weather on principle (one too many times getting stuck in the Michigan ice will do that to a guy,) this seems like about as good of a position as I can hope for. I start the job in just over two weeks, which gives me a bit of time to get things in order here up in Michigan before heading down. I’m not going to pretend I’m not more than a bit nervous about this since it's a big move to a far-off place where I know nobody, but I am hopeful.
At about the same time as I was doing my now-successful job negotiations, AXI was going through its death knells, racking up an unfortunate number of failures including, but likely not limited to, losing a Byakko pop (the person responsible suffered no penalty and, in fact, got a Haidate), losing a Proto-Ultima fight (at least one person with reraise that could raise just laid there under the excuse that nobody specifically told them personally to get up), and deluding themselves into thinking they could win a Dynamis - Qufim with 13 people (40 min in and less than half way to the boss later they switched to farming accessories due to outcry, but the whole run was just sad). Plus the usual AXI problems - I’ve talked about all this stuff in past Ereblogs so no real need to rehash.
Jojoe, AXI’s leader, finally admitted that he was just burned out with the game and how things were going (though, in retrospect, did very little to prevent it) and made some decisions. AXI would officially stop calling itself an endgame shell and everything would become optional, yet they’d run the same events and still use the same point system. I’m a bit confused there what that was supposed to accomplish. He also divided the majority of the LS bank among members based on attendance. After a couple of years of AXI membership I received a whopping 428k-ish That’s less than a single Khroma ore sells for at the moment that could have been gotten in about an hour’s worth of work, but definitely was money I never really expected to ever see from the shell ever.
There was talk of rebuilding and reorganization and I was almost sort of willing to put up with it and see where it went. What I didn’t fully appreciate was the fact that the people I like most in AXI would desert en mass almost immediately. Shad, Kisa, Moggerz, Raist, Val, and Santi all expressed a desire to join SX or applied and got in. I was actually in SX for a very short period in late 2007/early 2008 before it disbanded itself due to drama that still confuses me. With several other friends having gone there before such as Shpen, Rush, and Wise, plus generally having a lot of respect for the shell and most of the people in it, it seemed like an easy choice. I long since passed the point in this game where I cared less about what event I was doing and more about who I was doing it with.
Long story short, it seemed that more than a few members of SX didn’t or don’t like me, and while everyone else got in very easily, there was a lot of drama over my application that took close to a week to be resolved. In the end it came down to officer and leader decision and they decided to accept me. So I am in SX now. I can’t really elaborate on this story if I wanted to because I don’t know the details, and it would seem foolish to want to even if I knew as I am almost certainly under heavy probation right now It would be naïve to assume that people from SX wouldn’t see Ereblog at some time or another. Speaking of, hello people from SX!
I haven’t done a heck of a lot of stuff in SX yet, but what I have done has gone well. It’s nice to be in a shell where there’s more going on than people rolling in at event time and that when they go do an event it goes well. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.
I would like to move on from the past as much as I can right now, if only for my own sake, but I want to sum up what’s happened before all this went down. So here goes: a random picture dump of the things that have been going on before all this started up!
Oh screw you Nyzul. First time this has ever happened to me.
Did finish the Goliard set though. I think the static’s dead now though due to the SX changeover but nobody seems willing to quite admit it. Alas, apparently.
Sure no Morrigan’s, but they were dropping free, so I picked one up.
I actually got this freelot too, oddly enough, on what may have been my last AXI dynamis. That gave me full Valor, which has never been functionally cool but looks so sweet with my character’s model. I should have been a main paladin. Maybe in FFXIV!
Picked this up on Independence day right before going out for fireworks. With dancer body this was one of the two things I really wanted from dynamis, and definitely the more rare of the two. BLM ftw.
Cool dat moded swimsuit. Took this on the day that Moggerz finally got sea access. We helped him finish up the other missions the other day. Grats man!
I love Lani. I think I’ll miss her the most in AXI. I hope all us leaving won’t make her quit entirely. I still want to do wacky things with her off SX event hours whenever I can.
Picked this up mere hours before getting my SX pearl, which is a bit unclassy. I might still do Limbus with AXI though if they can keep it together, as SX doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in doing Limbus, plus I don’t want to just get gear and run even though that’s pretty much exactly what happened largely through circumstances.
Sure it’s 100% but I didn’t have it. This puts me at 12/15 for Morrigan’s, lacking the 35 feet (which I saw drop in a pickup yesterday but lost, GAH), and 25 / 35 crown. Sadly it seems my salvage group is dying a slow death as less and less people show up / have assault points / seem to give a damn about doing it. I’m almost willing to just go full time with SX people as that would involve going under Shpen’s leadership (despite leaving his group I do strongly respect how he does things, especially Salvage) except this would mean losing my position of authority and the beautiful tracker, both of which I have grown to love. We’ll see.
I soloed all of RDM AF including AF3, as well SAM AF3 for Shad, all on DNC/NIN. The much-feared ghost was easy on DNC, with me evading most of its attacks and taking its HP down fairly quickly. I almost got killed once in the SAM BC due to general sloppiness and bad luck but did win without other major issue. This puts the AF I have fully soloed at WAR, BLM, RDM, SAM, BRD, and DNC. I have to admit I have lost solos on PUP and COR - both are fairly nasty BCNMs clearly not designed to be soloed by one person.
In other news, I did stop leveling RDM for good. I wasn't really enjoying it much and didn't see any real reason to continue. I'm also stopped on COR.
Oh, right. Izzy. You can stay mad and keep writing snarky blog entries if you like, but you’re not going to see that 600k you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you have coming. I am sorry things couldn’t have gone better between us, I really am, but I don’t see the need to throw money away to appease the fact that you had to become a madwoman and tried to renig on a deal because you were angry. It’s been amusing seeing how many of your blog entries revolve around me (and a bit flattering) but it’s becoming sad and stalkerish. All I hope at this point is that you paid Brandy her share of the gil from the drop. As far as anything else, I couldn’t care less about you, what you do, or what you claim about me. I have nothing further to say on the matter, suggest you move on with your life, and wish you luck in the future.
In final current news, all this travel and time sitting around in airports and potential time camping things with SX has convinced me to buy a DS. Okay, that’s a complete lie. I actually found out that they made a FFIV 3D remake with voiceovers in scenes and general balance changes and harder bosses and more kickass stuff and being able to travel with it is just a bonus. I mean, it has the most beautiful fully CGI opening movie I have ever seen in a video game ever. Couple shots from it that I took from a youtube video of the opening:
Rydia closeup during her scene in the opening. Some people playing summoner in FF11 wanted to be like Yuna, or Garnet, or the FFVII characters with their material summons. I wanted to be like Rydia. Easily my favorite video game character in the history of gaming ever. She could kick all their asses at the same time while simultaneously stealing their hearts.
Rydia and her mist dragon. Even though it sort of resembles Leviathan, it’s definitely mist dragon. They should add mist as a light-based avatar in FF11.
My current desktop background. Basically all the most baddass characters in the game (and in RPG history!) in one shot. I wish we got better views at the CGI models of the four elemental archifiends.
I’ll probably totally break down and write a FFIV-based entry in the next few days. I’ve barely been able to put it down. I also got Chrono Trigger and FF Tactics A2 (both of which I like) but that's it for now. Anyone have any recomendations for other games?
At about the same time as I was doing my now-successful job negotiations, AXI was going through its death knells, racking up an unfortunate number of failures including, but likely not limited to, losing a Byakko pop (the person responsible suffered no penalty and, in fact, got a Haidate), losing a Proto-Ultima fight (at least one person with reraise that could raise just laid there under the excuse that nobody specifically told them personally to get up), and deluding themselves into thinking they could win a Dynamis - Qufim with 13 people (40 min in and less than half way to the boss later they switched to farming accessories due to outcry, but the whole run was just sad). Plus the usual AXI problems - I’ve talked about all this stuff in past Ereblogs so no real need to rehash.
Jojoe, AXI’s leader, finally admitted that he was just burned out with the game and how things were going (though, in retrospect, did very little to prevent it) and made some decisions. AXI would officially stop calling itself an endgame shell and everything would become optional, yet they’d run the same events and still use the same point system. I’m a bit confused there what that was supposed to accomplish. He also divided the majority of the LS bank among members based on attendance. After a couple of years of AXI membership I received a whopping 428k-ish That’s less than a single Khroma ore sells for at the moment that could have been gotten in about an hour’s worth of work, but definitely was money I never really expected to ever see from the shell ever.
There was talk of rebuilding and reorganization and I was almost sort of willing to put up with it and see where it went. What I didn’t fully appreciate was the fact that the people I like most in AXI would desert en mass almost immediately. Shad, Kisa, Moggerz, Raist, Val, and Santi all expressed a desire to join SX or applied and got in. I was actually in SX for a very short period in late 2007/early 2008 before it disbanded itself due to drama that still confuses me. With several other friends having gone there before such as Shpen, Rush, and Wise, plus generally having a lot of respect for the shell and most of the people in it, it seemed like an easy choice. I long since passed the point in this game where I cared less about what event I was doing and more about who I was doing it with.
Long story short, it seemed that more than a few members of SX didn’t or don’t like me, and while everyone else got in very easily, there was a lot of drama over my application that took close to a week to be resolved. In the end it came down to officer and leader decision and they decided to accept me. So I am in SX now. I can’t really elaborate on this story if I wanted to because I don’t know the details, and it would seem foolish to want to even if I knew as I am almost certainly under heavy probation right now It would be naïve to assume that people from SX wouldn’t see Ereblog at some time or another. Speaking of, hello people from SX!
I haven’t done a heck of a lot of stuff in SX yet, but what I have done has gone well. It’s nice to be in a shell where there’s more going on than people rolling in at event time and that when they go do an event it goes well. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.
I would like to move on from the past as much as I can right now, if only for my own sake, but I want to sum up what’s happened before all this went down. So here goes: a random picture dump of the things that have been going on before all this started up!
Oh screw you Nyzul. First time this has ever happened to me.
Did finish the Goliard set though. I think the static’s dead now though due to the SX changeover but nobody seems willing to quite admit it. Alas, apparently.
Sure no Morrigan’s, but they were dropping free, so I picked one up.
I actually got this freelot too, oddly enough, on what may have been my last AXI dynamis. That gave me full Valor, which has never been functionally cool but looks so sweet with my character’s model. I should have been a main paladin. Maybe in FFXIV!
Picked this up on Independence day right before going out for fireworks. With dancer body this was one of the two things I really wanted from dynamis, and definitely the more rare of the two. BLM ftw.
Cool dat moded swimsuit. Took this on the day that Moggerz finally got sea access. We helped him finish up the other missions the other day. Grats man!
I love Lani. I think I’ll miss her the most in AXI. I hope all us leaving won’t make her quit entirely. I still want to do wacky things with her off SX event hours whenever I can.
Picked this up mere hours before getting my SX pearl, which is a bit unclassy. I might still do Limbus with AXI though if they can keep it together, as SX doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in doing Limbus, plus I don’t want to just get gear and run even though that’s pretty much exactly what happened largely through circumstances.
Sure it’s 100% but I didn’t have it. This puts me at 12/15 for Morrigan’s, lacking the 35 feet (which I saw drop in a pickup yesterday but lost, GAH), and 25 / 35 crown. Sadly it seems my salvage group is dying a slow death as less and less people show up / have assault points / seem to give a damn about doing it. I’m almost willing to just go full time with SX people as that would involve going under Shpen’s leadership (despite leaving his group I do strongly respect how he does things, especially Salvage) except this would mean losing my position of authority and the beautiful tracker, both of which I have grown to love. We’ll see.
I soloed all of RDM AF including AF3, as well SAM AF3 for Shad, all on DNC/NIN. The much-feared ghost was easy on DNC, with me evading most of its attacks and taking its HP down fairly quickly. I almost got killed once in the SAM BC due to general sloppiness and bad luck but did win without other major issue. This puts the AF I have fully soloed at WAR, BLM, RDM, SAM, BRD, and DNC. I have to admit I have lost solos on PUP and COR - both are fairly nasty BCNMs clearly not designed to be soloed by one person.
In other news, I did stop leveling RDM for good. I wasn't really enjoying it much and didn't see any real reason to continue. I'm also stopped on COR.
Oh, right. Izzy. You can stay mad and keep writing snarky blog entries if you like, but you’re not going to see that 600k you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you have coming. I am sorry things couldn’t have gone better between us, I really am, but I don’t see the need to throw money away to appease the fact that you had to become a madwoman and tried to renig on a deal because you were angry. It’s been amusing seeing how many of your blog entries revolve around me (and a bit flattering) but it’s becoming sad and stalkerish. All I hope at this point is that you paid Brandy her share of the gil from the drop. As far as anything else, I couldn’t care less about you, what you do, or what you claim about me. I have nothing further to say on the matter, suggest you move on with your life, and wish you luck in the future.
In final current news, all this travel and time sitting around in airports and potential time camping things with SX has convinced me to buy a DS. Okay, that’s a complete lie. I actually found out that they made a FFIV 3D remake with voiceovers in scenes and general balance changes and harder bosses and more kickass stuff and being able to travel with it is just a bonus. I mean, it has the most beautiful fully CGI opening movie I have ever seen in a video game ever. Couple shots from it that I took from a youtube video of the opening:
Rydia closeup during her scene in the opening. Some people playing summoner in FF11 wanted to be like Yuna, or Garnet, or the FFVII characters with their material summons. I wanted to be like Rydia. Easily my favorite video game character in the history of gaming ever. She could kick all their asses at the same time while simultaneously stealing their hearts.
Rydia and her mist dragon. Even though it sort of resembles Leviathan, it’s definitely mist dragon. They should add mist as a light-based avatar in FF11.
My current desktop background. Basically all the most baddass characters in the game (and in RPG history!) in one shot. I wish we got better views at the CGI models of the four elemental archifiends.
I’ll probably totally break down and write a FFIV-based entry in the next few days. I’ve barely been able to put it down. I also got Chrono Trigger and FF Tactics A2 (both of which I like) but that's it for now. Anyone have any recomendations for other games?