Final Fantasy

King for a Day We’re used to being challenged on our FFXIV story nights, but it sure didn’t look like any sort of challenge was in the cards last night. We did start out with Ifrit (Hard), but essentially the same encounter as the normal Ifrit with double the players just wasn’t memorable. Maybe before FFXIV started shoveling great gear at new players, and people had to gear up… but with ilevel 115 gear cheap in the auction house and ilevel 120 gear easily obtainable via poetic tomestones, most of the fights that included gear checks are pretty trivial – Ifrit included. ...

[embed] Well, the truth can be told: Yes, my character was vital to completion of Final Fantasy XIV’s main plot. I can only imagine that player after player was wondering who this “Nina Tanglewood” paladin-type that always seemed to be the star of every cutscene. Frankly, I’m surprised I’m the first “Nina Tanglewood” out there, considering how central she (and that is to say, “I”) is to the main plot. ...

Me, after saving the world. By myself. Everyone’s a hero in their own way; You, and you, and mostly me, and you! Kasul and I finished the last two “full party” encounters of the main FFXIV scenario last night. I honestly don’t know what it was like for Kasul as one of the two healers, probably chaotic, but as a tank it was BORING. I didn’t know anything about anything, the other tank would tell me where to stand occasionally, and nobody let me take time to watch the heroic cutscenes where I, the heroine of Eorzea, the Champion of Light, the one who whipped the Scions of the Seventh Dawn into shape when their incompetent leadership failed at the task, single-handedly saved the world. ...

My Magitek Armor!!! The aftermath of the Garuda fight and the emergence of the ancient, god-eating, Ultima weapon left us more than a little discouraged. All this, and the Garlean Empire was just going to cause another Calamity to match the first one, just out of spite. Some problems are just too large to solve, and all you can do is solve the little ones and hope the big ones take care of themselves. ...

I don’t have time this morning before to work to write up last night’s FFXIV Story Time, so I’ll just leave you with this until later :) Kasul and I doing a jig in front of Castrum Meridianum, as we prepare for the penultimate (their words!) encounter in the story of the fight against the Ultima Weapon. ffxivjig.mp4 The Jig is Up! I don’t have time this morning before to work to write up last night’s FFXIV Story T ...

[gallery ids=“11638,11636,11637,11639,11640,11641”] It’s tough to be so close to 50 but not actually BE 50. I figured I’d better work on that. Sunday morning I used a combination of roulettes, hunting logs and fates to bridge that gap. The level 50 quest was suitably wonderful, and goddammit if I didn’t feel like a member of the Sultansword afterward. I can’t imagine how I’ll feel the next time I get a job to 50 – oh wow, looks like I (yawn) saved the world again, and just in time for brunch… The first time means something. I imagine the job quests didn’t always grant both an iLevel 50 and iLevel 90 armor set. I’m grateful that they give newbies like me a little head start, especially since I’m not planning on buying Heavensward just yet. Level 50 is the hard cap for me now. ...

Confronting the MothBirdQueen It took a surprisingly low number of stupid fetch-this quests to get to the point where we could meet our new challenge: defeat Garuda, the primal of the Ixali bird people. Though Garuda herself looks like a bird-moth hybrid, so maybe a bug crystal got mixed in with all the wind crystals used to summon her.** As with the lead-up to the Titan fight, the various NPCs are fully aware that they are just wasting our time. Where with Titan, we were gathering obscure foods for a feast, here, we were continually sent to gather the wrong type of crystal to allow Cid’s airship the ability to reach Garuda’s hurricane-shrouded perch. ...

I’ve been wondering lately if we play classes in MMOs that reflect our own personalities, or if our personalities (in game, at least) are shaped by the classes we play. I consider myself pretty much a loner in real life, but I don’t enjoy soloing in MMOs; I never have. What I really did like to do was to joke around with people while someone else provided a nice selection of fun activities. My only job here was to show up, really. ...

[gallery ids=“11618,11619,11620,11621,11622,11623”] The Chronicles of Spellborn lives… sorta… I took some time to get the beta client for The Chronicles of Spellborn and connect it to the fan-run server this morning. All you can really do is just run around the main city, but dang, how I would love to see what Spellborn would have become if it had made it. Developed at a time when many new MMOs were content with iterating on the EverQuest/World of Warcraft model, Spellborn was a picture storybook come to life. Player gear was non-visible; you could pick up new display pieces, but they rarely influenced your stats. The intense visual style was entirely appropriate for a game set in the shards of a destroyed world; everything looked alien to some degree. ...

You want some? YOU WANT SOME? Kasul came on tonight after work. I had wasted a lot of time tonight getting my camera all set up to catch the Venus/Jupiter convergence (no dice; thanks clouds) and I’m not sure what else, but I logged in kinda late. Omuro and I did Haukke Manor with me as paladin, because my marauder is one level shy of opening that dungeon. I do love that dungeon. I did Tamtam as a conjurer on roulette, since it said it needed healers, made level 20 and did the level 20 quest. I did the roulette guildhest as lancer, because it said it needed DPS. First time I’ve seen it ask for DPS, but I did as it bid and lanced. ...