WotG-y stuff
So. :) With Christmas break here, I've had a little bit more time to play lately. I got the expansion safely installed and registered for both Lexa and my little slave taru, Regn (though not the kinky kind of slave, because the character belonged to my ex-boyfriend and it would be very, very awkward for me), thanks to a very, very nice gal in England, and my long-time buddy Raz in Norway. :D They both sent me registration codes for my stupid EU version of the game. :)
Now, before I set out to explore the new areas, there was one more thing I had to do in the old areas, so to speak. (What do we call ToAU now that there are newer areas out? Middle areas? Neither-new-nor-old areas? Anyway. One thing I had to do.
Hi, bitch!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Second Lieutenant Assaults with a shout party?! Well, I do. XD Whenever I had time to play, I'd log on and shout for hours. I was averaging one person an hour. And after they responded to my shout, it was a game of chance to see if they'd stick around long enough for the rest of the party to flesh out, or if they'd leave because they got sick of waiting. I am still missing an absolutely horrid amount of SL Assaults, but at least I got my rank up!
Finally, after more than 30 total hours of shouting.
I also got to try out a couple of First Lieutenant Assaults. The Khimaira one is really not bad if you have a balanced party of 75s (we lost once, but beat it second time - we would have beat it first time if we'd had Stona in the party. The Hydra one is evil. Evil. EVIL!
It seemed to easy at first, but looks are deceiving...
It starts out all nice and easy and really slow-hitting - then eventually it just goes amok and hits as fast as it's HNM counterpart and it was just a horrible, horrible deathfest that ended with Home Points for everyone, since it dispelled our RRs.
So. Wings of the Goddess.
Ironically, even though Lexa's expansion was installed first, Regn got more exploring done, a week later. Lexa barely peeked her little snout into the Shadowreign zones to snatch up a few Maws, while Regn did the whole tour. Maws, map quests, Sprinter's Shoes, you name it.
Tarutaru Maw cutscene = WAY WAY WAY better than hume.
I was giving Pat the guided tour of what little I did know, and as we were muddling our way through present-day Jugner Forest (I do believe we were going to the Batallia present day Maw), we happened across Fradubio. :)
Dropped jack shit, of course, but still, was good fun. :D
Since I am a somewhat inexperienced BLM, we traded off sleeping it and kiting it back and forth as we slowly whittled it down. We got lucky and it didn't spawn any saplings until the very, very end. :)
It wasn't until last night that I finally got around to actually do something on Lexa. XD But I am now a member of the Fourth whatever in Bastok. :) I must say, I do not regret switching nations to Bastok. I feel much more at home there than I did in San D'Oria. Maybe because it's an industrial town, and I'm kind of a city rat IRL?
Bastok[S] mission cutscene.
I must say, I like Campaign. :) It was a little confusing at first, but once I got out there and saw how it was done and what NPCs to talk to, it's a piece of cake, and I got a 2k buffer, now. :D (I was very close to delevling my PLD...)
Besides that, I've been trying to get in touch with my roots a little bit. I started another character on another server. When I started playing FFXI, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know what jobs were good for what races, and vice versa. I didn't know what job I wanted to be. (I initially wanted to be a DRG, then a WAR, then a SMN, then a PLD.) Had I known I'd develop such an affection for PLD, with an interest in MNK, I'd definitely have gone Elvaan.
Well, this new character - let's just call her FakeLexa - is what I didn't get to do the first time around. :) I must say, I enjoy being a lowbie again. The though of some of the things I have ahead of me is intimidating - Kahzam keys, subjob items, limit breaks, missions, and GUH - CoP missions. x.x However, on the whole, I really enjoy having her. I don't play her a lot, so her progress is slow, but it fits me. :)
Yesterday was an Extra Grand Adventure. See, two weeks ago I was exping in Ronfaure, when I noticed Windy had control over the Ronfaure region. This week, apparently Sandy decided to get even, and snatched Sarutabaruta. So I switched into a level 1 job, then made the trek all the way from Sandy to Windy, and got the OP Warp for Saruta. From there, the journey went to Jeuno to pick up cheap armor and such, before finally going back to Sandy.
I did take the time to call a GM on some fishbots, though.
Beyond that, I've just tried to have some fun, and do small stuff for my own benefit, that I can just put down if I feel like it. I camped Nue, for the most part uncontested, and totally outclaimed a RDM one time. I'm now 0/3, and getting annoyed. :p
Uncraimed NM?
I also did some laid-back stealing of mythril beastcoins in Oldton Movapolis to level my Goldsmithing. I say laid-back, because my /THF is 15, so naturally my steal rate kind of sucks. At least I got Bugbear Strongman a couple of times, and made a few hundred k off that. :D But the most fun I had, was probably with Pat and Cassian. Cassian is a RL friend of mine in Norway, who's sadly leaving the game soon. He left me with some nice parting gifts which I will put towards my Aegis, and so Pat decided we needed to have some fun in return. So he grabbed Cass and me, took us to Lufaise Meadows - then popped Amaltheia. XD
Cass chillin' by Amaltheia and her sheep.
We spent a good two hours kiting that thing ALL over Lufaise Meadows, and we discovered a few funny things. A) It's hilarious to watch all the sheep and rams come running to assist Amaltheia. B) They do not attack if Amaltheia does not attack, which is how we got that screenshot - Amaltheia is sleeping. C) Amaltheia is not aggro. We know this, because if she was, we would have MPK'd all the people camping Megalobugard several times, when we died.
Cass will unfortunately be gone before I can get Lexa back on Valefor, so I'll bid him adieu for now. :/ He's one of the last of the Norway-crew, famed amongst friends for being a fucking pimp, and an absolute beast. He bought his Hauberk+1 during the height of the inflation, funding it with chocobo digging (pre-nerf, of course) and crafting. I still remember when he did 1400+ damage to JoL, effectively destroying all the other DDs present, long before there was such a thing as /SAM sub or all those nifty two-hander upgrades that's happened the past year. He's died more than any other DRK I know due to his hate-stealing damage, and I'll miss him.
So how was your Christmas? :D
Now, before I set out to explore the new areas, there was one more thing I had to do in the old areas, so to speak. (What do we call ToAU now that there are newer areas out? Middle areas? Neither-new-nor-old areas? Anyway. One thing I had to do.
Hi, bitch!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Second Lieutenant Assaults with a shout party?! Well, I do. XD Whenever I had time to play, I'd log on and shout for hours. I was averaging one person an hour. And after they responded to my shout, it was a game of chance to see if they'd stick around long enough for the rest of the party to flesh out, or if they'd leave because they got sick of waiting. I am still missing an absolutely horrid amount of SL Assaults, but at least I got my rank up!
Finally, after more than 30 total hours of shouting.
I also got to try out a couple of First Lieutenant Assaults. The Khimaira one is really not bad if you have a balanced party of 75s (we lost once, but beat it second time - we would have beat it first time if we'd had Stona in the party. The Hydra one is evil. Evil. EVIL!
It seemed to easy at first, but looks are deceiving...
It starts out all nice and easy and really slow-hitting - then eventually it just goes amok and hits as fast as it's HNM counterpart and it was just a horrible, horrible deathfest that ended with Home Points for everyone, since it dispelled our RRs.
So. Wings of the Goddess.
Ironically, even though Lexa's expansion was installed first, Regn got more exploring done, a week later. Lexa barely peeked her little snout into the Shadowreign zones to snatch up a few Maws, while Regn did the whole tour. Maws, map quests, Sprinter's Shoes, you name it.
Tarutaru Maw cutscene = WAY WAY WAY better than hume.
I was giving Pat the guided tour of what little I did know, and as we were muddling our way through present-day Jugner Forest (I do believe we were going to the Batallia present day Maw), we happened across Fradubio. :)
Dropped jack shit, of course, but still, was good fun. :D
Since I am a somewhat inexperienced BLM, we traded off sleeping it and kiting it back and forth as we slowly whittled it down. We got lucky and it didn't spawn any saplings until the very, very end. :)
It wasn't until last night that I finally got around to actually do something on Lexa. XD But I am now a member of the Fourth whatever in Bastok. :) I must say, I do not regret switching nations to Bastok. I feel much more at home there than I did in San D'Oria. Maybe because it's an industrial town, and I'm kind of a city rat IRL?
Bastok[S] mission cutscene.
I must say, I like Campaign. :) It was a little confusing at first, but once I got out there and saw how it was done and what NPCs to talk to, it's a piece of cake, and I got a 2k buffer, now. :D (I was very close to delevling my PLD...)
Besides that, I've been trying to get in touch with my roots a little bit. I started another character on another server. When I started playing FFXI, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know what jobs were good for what races, and vice versa. I didn't know what job I wanted to be. (I initially wanted to be a DRG, then a WAR, then a SMN, then a PLD.) Had I known I'd develop such an affection for PLD, with an interest in MNK, I'd definitely have gone Elvaan.
Well, this new character - let's just call her FakeLexa - is what I didn't get to do the first time around. :) I must say, I enjoy being a lowbie again. The though of some of the things I have ahead of me is intimidating - Kahzam keys, subjob items, limit breaks, missions, and GUH - CoP missions. x.x However, on the whole, I really enjoy having her. I don't play her a lot, so her progress is slow, but it fits me. :)
Yesterday was an Extra Grand Adventure. See, two weeks ago I was exping in Ronfaure, when I noticed Windy had control over the Ronfaure region. This week, apparently Sandy decided to get even, and snatched Sarutabaruta. So I switched into a level 1 job, then made the trek all the way from Sandy to Windy, and got the OP Warp for Saruta. From there, the journey went to Jeuno to pick up cheap armor and such, before finally going back to Sandy.
I did take the time to call a GM on some fishbots, though.
Beyond that, I've just tried to have some fun, and do small stuff for my own benefit, that I can just put down if I feel like it. I camped Nue, for the most part uncontested, and totally outclaimed a RDM one time. I'm now 0/3, and getting annoyed. :p
Uncraimed NM?
I also did some laid-back stealing of mythril beastcoins in Oldton Movapolis to level my Goldsmithing. I say laid-back, because my /THF is 15, so naturally my steal rate kind of sucks. At least I got Bugbear Strongman a couple of times, and made a few hundred k off that. :D But the most fun I had, was probably with Pat and Cassian. Cassian is a RL friend of mine in Norway, who's sadly leaving the game soon. He left me with some nice parting gifts which I will put towards my Aegis, and so Pat decided we needed to have some fun in return. So he grabbed Cass and me, took us to Lufaise Meadows - then popped Amaltheia. XD
Cass chillin' by Amaltheia and her sheep.
We spent a good two hours kiting that thing ALL over Lufaise Meadows, and we discovered a few funny things. A) It's hilarious to watch all the sheep and rams come running to assist Amaltheia. B) They do not attack if Amaltheia does not attack, which is how we got that screenshot - Amaltheia is sleeping. C) Amaltheia is not aggro. We know this, because if she was, we would have MPK'd all the people camping Megalobugard several times, when we died.
Cass will unfortunately be gone before I can get Lexa back on Valefor, so I'll bid him adieu for now. :/ He's one of the last of the Norway-crew, famed amongst friends for being a fucking pimp, and an absolute beast. He bought his Hauberk+1 during the height of the inflation, funding it with chocobo digging (pre-nerf, of course) and crafting. I still remember when he did 1400+ damage to JoL, effectively destroying all the other DDs present, long before there was such a thing as /SAM sub or all those nifty two-hander upgrades that's happened the past year. He's died more than any other DRK I know due to his hate-stealing damage, and I'll miss him.
So how was your Christmas? :D