1 Year

I was going to write one more message since it has been 1 year since my last post. The problem was is I was going to write it on my 1 year from canceling my accounts, but after rereading the post, that was actually October 31. Oh well...

So it has been 1 year since I left FFXI and basically a year since I left FFXIV. FFXI has changed so much since I left. The level cap is up at 95 now and so much of my gear would be total trash if I ever went back. It is really sad because I do honestly miss it. I have thought about going back just to level BST at my own pace but it feels like such a waste because I wouldn't have anyone to do it with and it isn't the most fun by yourself. Not to mention most of my time is now taken up by my girlfriend "not" moving in with me (yeah, she's moved in). Which means my life is no longer my own but everything I do has to be ok'd by her.

Anyways, I was going to try FFXIV some more because that game has changed so much now too but I just can't find the time to play it. They say by this time next year they will have FFXIV 2.0 rolled out and the game will be completely different and much more like FFXI than they originally anticipated. I'm ok with that because I enjoyed FFXI so much and it was really a great game that was balanced well with the grind and the fun stuff to do. The grind back in the day was tough, but still fun and not a terrible terrible time sink because you could still get some advancement every night. It was more difficult to get parties than it was to actually level up. FFXIV has been free to play for so long now that I'm debating sinking some time into playing it until they make it pay-to-play again which is supposed to be at the end of this month some time ... I think. After that, I will have to see how much time I have and how much I'm actually willing to spend and play FFXIV after the huge changes. Only time will tell.

Since no one will probably ever read this post, I will just say one more good luck in your endeavors to all of my old FFXI friends and I hope to see you again in some game in the future.
Treubond Out...

It Was A Good Run

It is official, after 8 years of playing FFXI I have finally retired. Treubond and Screamingeagle have officially been canceled on October 31, 2010, and I don't have any intentions of reactivating them. FFXI has changed so much and has become a big grind again to get to the highest levels and I don't want to have to do that again. I had to do that for my Maat's Cap and now that that elite piece of gear is only ok now I feel that SE has told me to move on ... so I did.

I am now playing FFXIV basically daily but not hardcore like I was FFXI. I have changed my name and only a few of my RL friends know my new name or server. If you read this and are curious let me know and I'll think about letting you know. :P

14 has been kinda fun so far, but nothing amazing. There are a lot of issues still and my BIGGEST complaint is the stupid Market Wards. I LOATHE MARKET WARDS!!! Let me say again, I LOATHE MARKET WARDS!!! It is just a place where people throw they're retainers and hope people see them and hope those people that see them actually want something on their retainer. Or if for example I want to buy some ore, I'm just as likely to find it in the leatherworking ward as I am the ward specifically for ore. The only difference is you get taxed 2% for selling items in the proper ward instead of 5% ... woo. Sunday night I literally spent HOURS looking for crap in the market wards and didn't find it. What a waste of time looking for stuff just to HOPE you find it there and sold at a reasonable price. It really irks me because it feels like a huge chore to find new gear or crafting items to make the gear I need. That is one big thing that I miss from FFXI, the auction house. It was a great way to have a centralized place to buy things that was organized into basically market wards. Now if they only figured out a way to incorporate an auction house into the market wards that would be just swell.

The other big thing that I'm really having issues with is searching and partying. There really is no way to search for someone, at all. And if you do know that they are online, you have no clue where they are. This also becomes a problem with partying because no one understands how to use the partying system because it is not intuitive. I watched a video of someone explaining how to use it, but that doesn't help anyone else because they don't know how to use it. It was nice to be able to just throw up your party flag in FFXI and add a comment if you wanted and people would know you want to do some sort of exping or partying. Knowing that partying is going to play a big role in getting your DoW and DoM jobs ranked up means they need to enhance this system or people are going to get to 20 or so and just get sick of it and quit. I'm starting to feel that way because it is quite a grind to even get to 15.

One more kind of annoying aspect of the game that I really don't understand how they didn't implement but I guess I can live without right now is sorting your inventory. STUPID!!! That is something that should have been thought of when they CREATED THE INVENTORY. Obviously they don't have people with any sort of foresight at SE or even knowledge of their previous games because I'm pretty sure there was a way to sort your inventory in FF1, yes, that says Final Fantasy 1.

I could keep going on little issues and annoying aspects of the game that shouldn't be too difficult to work out but hopefully most of these bugs and lack of functions will be fixed at the end of November or beginning of December when they do their big updates. Here's to hoping or I'm gonna have to find a new hobby...

FFXIV

The game is out and in my possession. It has been installed, updated, and registered.

Mazer Rackham at your service. For those that don't recognize the name, go read Ender's Game. Mazer is now rocking out with some good classes and I'm learning a ton about the game. I still need some insight into where I should be leveling and how I should be leveling but I'm making some progress none-the-less.

My favorite class so far has been Lancer. But I have to admit that Lancer is more fun with other class' abilities to attach to it. Like having Cure that I can use while on Lancer is nice because then I have a way to cure myself during a fight. Also, when I get PUG to rank 6 I can get Second Wind and have a basically free self cure every 60 seconds. Combining all of these jobs is so much fun its crazy. I really like how it is based right now but I have still yet to get into macros and seeing how gear swapping works too. Another thing is when I get my classes up higher I'll have more wiggle room with abilities and can cross over more which will make things REALLY fun.

I am not sure how the skill up tapering works though yet because I haven't really noticed a difference, just that as I rank up the mobs get easier and I get less skill points. It was nice teaming up with Disdain Kirai last night though because we were taking on some stronger mobs and getting really good skill ups. Duoing definitely seems like the way to go from about 6-10. We were doing Dodos near Camp Horizon (I think) at rank 8 and were doing pretty well once we figured out that Disdain should be tanking because he had the free self heal and the much higher physical level to mitigate the damage. Dodos were doing about 100-150 per hit on me but seemed like only about 100 at most on him. The other nice part is that they don't really have any devastating attacks just more of debufs like slow, blind, and sleep. Getting 250ish skill points on average from them is way better than getting 100 max on the lower level mobs I was killing before.

Hopefully tonight after singing I'll be able to get my PUG going and get to 6 then be able to swap back to my CON and LNC and get those to 10 for more abilities. After I get those out of the way I may swap to THM to see what I can get out of that. This is getting fun!