RL is getting in the way

The closer we get to the holiday season, the more I expect RL to get in the way of FFXI. Usually, I work weekends on a Christmas tree farm between Thanksgiving and Christmas, driving tractors and lugging trees. This year, Ia and I are also trying to take care of some home improvements, which are eating up my play-time.

Before going out-of-town for an anniversary getaway, I managed to ding 68. I could have gotten close to 69 but I was waiting for Vay to get back to do some BC/KS/missions. Unfortunately, he never showed up, so I ended up just staring at my computer until almost 2AM. I just knew that as soon as I got into a PT, he'd show up and feel like I left him hangin' after making plans to do stuff in-game.

Ia and I went to a local casino for the night. We had a room package deal which was really incredible. We had a blast spending time together, gambling, and enjoying the peace and quiet of NO KIDS. I wish it could have lasted longer...

I'm not sure how much I'll be online this week, since we're trying to get the kitchen done before Thanksgiving and house guests. Maybe I'll be able to hit 70 or 71 in the next week or two.

Posted Nov 16 2009, 05:54 PM

Some missions, some XP

Not a whole lot has happened in-game in the last two weeks. I was hoping to be able to get ~5 levels per week on BRD, but haven't been able to devote any time to levelling yet this week because I've been doing ToAU missions w/ Vay. Currently, I'm ~8k from 66. A good XP PT should get me close to 67; maybe tonight. I might be able to get 1 or 2 more PTs before Saturday, so I might be able to ding 68. I'm really looking forward to hitting 70 so I can equip my Joyeuse and do some campaign battles when I don't have time to PT.

Vay and I duo'd Shields of Diplomacy, the khimera-13 fight. We just had to keep the taru NPC alive while she blasted the thing with spells. I've got my CS done and am ready for mission 29: Puppet in Peril. Apparently, this is also duo-able by 2x RDM, so we're gonna try it. Once we get past mission 29, we won't be able to low-man any more of the fights, so we might slow down a bit.

I saw a shout for CoP 5-1 & 5-2 last night, but it was before the girls went to bed, so I couldn't join 'em. They were @ 5/6, too.

Posted Nov 11 2009, 11:18 AM

5/5 AF and the Ability to Wear it (kind of)

I ended up just buying Mage's Ballad II and made short work of picking up the other coffer keys that I needed for AF. With those 'barriers' out of the way, I went back to levelling BRD.

I had a few mediocre parties in the mix (like BSTx4, RDM, BRD in QSC and a taru PLD sync'd to 37 in East Ronfaure {S} who couldn't keep himself alive with the help of two healers) and a great one which resulted in dinging 60 (Oct 30, 2009) and into the final piece of BRD AF. The 'great' PT was DRK, SAM, DRG, WHM (rep'd by SCH later), COR, BRD in Wajoam Woodlands, at I-7. When I started this PT, I was about 1k from 55. When I finished, I had just dinged 60. We often ran out of mobs to kill after all of the birds and bees were dead. I was the sync target, so it was nice to be able to eat my new scrolls when I dinged. It was also nice because it allowed some of my skills to get closer to cap (except for string, which is almost 100 points behind...).

I had planned on lfp after the girls went to bed, but instead found myself in a PUG doing CoP 4-3. There were 11 of us there and more than a few of them seemed like total retards*, especially the BST that was in the PT. The leader wanted me to come BRD (for some strange reason), which was a bad thing because I only had 178 experience points for a buffer. I ended up dying 5 times, so I'm not about 1k from level 60 again. I stuck it out and eventually got the win, so I finished up the CS that I needed and am ready to do 5-2, which is Promy-Vahzl.

I'm glad to finally have that mission done, since it looked like it was going to be difficult to get enough firepower from the LS. Hopefully, I can find enough willing folks in the LS to help with Vahzl, since I trust everyone to know/do their jobs more than I would some schmucks that I meet via /shout.

Hopefully I can get a few more levels on BRD this week (60-65 would be great).

Also, SE just announced that they're going to give an in-game reward to everyone who purchases all 3 mini-expansions. The reward is a cape that can be used every 40 hours and allows you to teleport to the leader of your PT (certain restrictions apply). I think that it is safe to say that I will be buying the last expansion for that reason, not to mention that one of the leg augments that you can get is movement speed +8%, which I will be able to wear for BRD, RDM and WHM (no herald's gaiters or Crimson Legs required!). I still need to finish the missions for the hat. I'm not ashamed to say it: I bought all expansions for the gear. I also bought the security token for the satchel. The augments are very nice and reasonably priced, too.

* For the sake of everyone else, please prepare for missions, quests, group activities, etc before joining a group. There were a few people last night who had not cleared their fomor hate before heading into the Sacrarium. These few people were responsible for more than one wipe, and wasting an hour of everyone else's time. It pisses me off because I take the time to study the missions, know the monsters, read through strats, and generally be prepared before I even begin doing something new for the first time.

Posted Nov 2 2009, 04:24 PM