Final Fantasy XIV Online

So I've been playing a good deal of Final Fantasy XIV Online, since the collectors edition got a head start last week, and once i got past the quite steep learning curve, i've been having a good time. The game is beyond beautiful, graphics and animations, but i'd expect nothing less from Square to be honest. The controls are very similar to the single player Final Fantasy games, and once i plugged in an Xbox 360 controller, it played way better in my opinion, although it seem most Japanese players play with only a keyboard (yikes!). I'm curious how the Playstation 3 version will be next year when it gets released, more options are always good. Along those lines, man does this game polarize people, either people love it or hate it, so reviews are pretty much useless, especially ones that don't spend enough time to get the flow of it. It's a slower, more deliberate game than others, button mashing is pointless and actually not a good practice as you can queue up actions. That is where some people are complaining of lag, it's not, they just already selected an attack and are waiting for it to shoot off.

Shot of my character at the loading screen wearing a grey hempen cowl:

Classes are something else people are seeming to be confused by, you can be any one you like, just equip the weapon, and you can level up those skills and pretty much use any skill with any class. Very nice, want to fight with swords and cast spells? Go right ahead. You can also wear whatever gear you want, although some isn't "best" for what main class you want to be. You can also equip any level of item, but won't get the best stats until you are the 'optimal' rank it says. Worth noting is that you have a separate "physical rank" that levels no mater what class you are using, disciples of war, magic, hand or land, you get ranks. Chopping trees, get xp to increase your botanist rank and physical. Weaving things, get weaver ranks and physical ranks. etc, etc. I tend to do lots of different things, so my physical rank is around 22 right now, but my highest job rank is like 14, weaver and botanist.

Which leads me to my few complaints. The story line quests are triggered by what rank you are in a job, not physical. Get one at creation, then 10, then 15, 20, etc (so i've read). These are fun and interesting, with interesting story and such. The rest of time it's levequests, eight of regional, eight of local, every 36 hours or so, reset at a set time server side, not when you do them. I do realize that most quests in most games are just kill X rats, prettied up, but it's nice to have that motivation, i'm not much of a grinder really. So i'm hoping they add something to either cut that time, or add more quests. Seeing as there is a tab for "quests 0/16" in the journal, but no one seems to have found who gives them out, if anyone yet. Also worth noting is that there are no "!" above people who give quests. You kind of have to pay attention, read, and explore, which i kind of like.

My awesome hair style:

Crafting and gathering are actually fun and interesting mini-games, not just click and go make a sandwich. Pay attention, get stuff, it works. Although couple complaints here too, no in game guide on what recipes need, although you don't need to get them like other games, you are told them in game and either write them down or look them up online (second one, really). You can try to make anything you have the mats for, but will most likely fail if they are too hard. Mats are the other problem i'm having right now, as most recipes need varied items from all different crafts (although more realistic when something with leather and metal needs both) but the market wards is borked right now and no way to search it sucks. Also it sucks that most people are selling useless things, not what others really need, so you have to wade through people trying to find what you want, and failing. They have said they will make it searchable, or add an AH later, but for now it sucks. Best off crafting what you can with what you can make yourself.

A shot of me in Ul'dah, just hanging out:

There is a neat official site with info, recipes and more called The Loadstone, with blogs attached to your character. I'm not exactly sure if this will work for others, and haven't written anything in the blog yet, i think this is my site there. It's sort of like the WoW armory, but with a more social bent, and less a "get better gear n00b".

Neat little sig generator for forums and such at this site, which has several styles and looks like this:



So yeah, people probably don't care about this, or don't play, but i'm having a blast.

Sweet Crunchy Keyboard

I've been sick for the past week or so, stomach thing from hell, as the Simpson's put it, "Giving birth to a food baby." Good times. No, not really, mostly resting, bathroom, repeat. Like several times an hour. Wondering what i ate that did this, although i'm hearing a lot of people talking about getting "something" not fun like this. To top it off, allergies from hell as everything is blooming, and if i open the windows, my allergies kick in big time. Ugh.

So i've been sitting in front of the computer at the kitchen counter when i've not been doing the above. That is where the title comes in, i spilled soda on my laptop and now has crunchy keys. I tried to catch it really fast, but wow i wasn't so fast at all, ugh. Thankfully they all work, but i have some crunchy keys on the right side. Not as bad as the time they didn't work at all, not easy to type passwords when you can't actually type them in. heh. This is another pain though, one laptop has a dead graphics card, so i pulled out my older alienware which i mainly play MMOs on and now that is randomly disconnecting me from WoW. I'd use my newest powerful desktop, but for some stupid reason it's now randomly entering powersave mode. Ugh. This not counting the iBook i want to get the logic board fixed, but it's pretty damn old now, seven years, and it's mostly because i have a couple things i'd like to have. Yes, i do have a LOT of computers, heh.

One of the few things i have been doing though, besides the above, is playing World of Warcraft again. since i'm sitting there, i figured "why not?". I've also tried new things. I decided to brave the random dungeon finder. A little history here, i have had horrible, horrible luck with joining people in dungeons and raids. I don't belong to a guild, so it's all random people. I'm not the greatest player, so my dps isn't the best, and my healing could use work. Normally i just do pvp battlegrounds at level 80, and get whatever honor gear i could. I also would hop into lower level dungeons and see how far i could get solo, and i don't skip mobs either, i go for a full clear but not the zerg method. I know, i suck, but it's how i play. So feeling like crap, i decided to hop on to a random non-heroic. Ended up at Halls of Lightning with me as a healer. I had pretty decent gear, with a gear score of around 4k (pvp gear though). We didn't make it past the third mob group. Tank went down in three hits, everything aggroed me, and i died. This happened twice and i got booted. It was my worst fear. I know, it's just a game, and these people don't know me. I just hate that feeling of letting people down. I almost decided to quit WoW for good. I felt like physical crap, and on top of that emotional crap too.

I decided to give it one more try, this time not as healer role but dps in my shadow spec. It was heroic Utguard (forgot which one) Heroic difficulty. What happened? We blazed through, i was burning down mobs, healed in a pinch when the main healer accidentally aggroed an add (this must make no sense to those who don't play, lol) and kept everyone else up while the Death Knight kept it on him. It was my first good run in many, many years, before Burning Crusade actually. I had a blast. I've been running every random i can get into, with as many goes as i can. Even though running as dps means a 10-20 minute wait, i don't mind. It's nothing compared to the hours wait i had before the random dungeon finder for any lower level one, and all told i've had only a handful of bad runs out of tons of good. The bad included people with huge egos, people posting Recount scores (when no one is hurt and mobs drop) complaining, and the odd afk leach. Mostly good though, quiet most of the time, but one last night was hilarious. Overgeard players just going for their frost badges, flirting back and forth.

So anyway, as you can see below, i've gotten enough badges to get three pieces of T9, and achievements up the wazzo. So what's the point of all this? I don't know, except that i have a new favorite activity in WoW, random dungeons. I just wish i could go to the lower ones, never have stepped foot in the Burning Crusade or earlier ones, and raids too, that would be fun. I actually can't wait until Cataclysm to start over another character and see the new lands and old dungeons i missed over the years. Not what i expected after the game being out five years.



On bunny news, Kitty is being more herself, misses Zack like me, but is acting more like she used to. She even did a bunny dance when i played "chase the bunny" in the kitchen. That made me happy, haven't seen that in a while, even when Zack was around, she could probably tell he was sick. Now if the vet can figure out what is up with her skin, although where the fur has come out is coming in better and nicer looking. Who knows, doesn't seem to be mites or what we feared, so that's good.