Third time's the charm
Yeah yeah, I know I thought I was gone for good this time again but believe it or not I'm back. Due to boredom and alot of spare time on my hands after work, I decided to give it another whirl for a month to see if it was fun again... so far so good.
Unlike most people, I most certainly did not return because of the news that SE plans to increase the level cap to 99, on the contrary that is the reason I doubt I will stay longer than June when the first increase is expected to take place. No, it was just a combination of boredom and other factors that made me give it another go, and believe it or not I was in a HNMLS a mere two days after returning.
Not only am I back in FFXI and back in a HNMLS, I'm back in good old orange SpikeFlail, the place were past unfortunate events took place but which is now a sanctuary for veteran casuals. Thank you Falcoo for suggesting that I join, I've had fun so far, despite the lack of people who took an extended break to play Linear Fantasy instead...
Anyhow, one of the things I returned for was to get together with Cowboyday to finish A Moogle's Kupo d'etat Add-on scenario, mainly because of the pretty badass reward. I haven't completed Shantotto expansion either, and at the moment I'm not sure I will: Reading up on the missions, it is the biggest pain in the ass of them all for a reward that is just good. Not great. Good. We'll see.
Anyhow, working our way through the missions, pwning the Quicksand BC with little problem, we eventually made it up to the final battle against Riko Kupenreich!
Now the old me would have pushed through this thing within a day or two, but the new me gave it a couple of weeks. I wrote a strategy for the final battle a good week in advance because I realized that it was a tricky battle. Thankfully it paid off to be prepared, we won on first try, though it certainly wasn't pretty.
Thanks to Markos, Skriel and Dangerousdj for coming out to help us. Either way we almost messed up early into the battle, at 75% health he uses a fairly heavy AoE move with long stun duration, and we really weren't ready for it. Thing is the mob takes nearly 3x dmg from anything, meaning we didn't expect his HP to go down quite that fast. But still, we recovered, took it slow, had a few deaths but recovered, and eventually managed to zerg it down. (I was ready to smoke it with a barrage as soon as stun wore off).
But seriously, a 9 month break is a long time when you have many jobs to remember anew, it's still a challange to remember all the macros, the useful gears for all jobs, what JA does what and when to use it, taking in the new things that has happened since I left and so on. Slowly but surely, slowly but surely...
As for other activities, you always need money. I considered selling Lu Shang to get some quick cash to spend but instead I decided to return to fishing, and it's pretty relaxing + doable while on the phone. I've made roughly a million gil since returning on fishing alone, but there's alot of stuff to get. First off I need a Kirin's osode for RNG, maybe a couple of Triumph Earrings, and then I may want to buy some ZNM items, like Aurum sabatons and Naglering. So there'll be much fishing for me ahead as well.
So in sum, I'm still happy to be back, things work decently into my schedule and I'm seriously being more relaxed about the whole thing this time around. I don't have any new job to manically level, nor is there any one item I am just dying to have at any cost. I just try to have fun, enjoying the final days of Final Fantasy XI. And thankfully, I met some old friends and nade some cool new friends in the process.
This being said there are a number of people that I miss, particularly Delicieux, Kirei and Liirian. Summer 2007 may have been the best of my FFXI days. But let's see what's ahead!
Unlike most people, I most certainly did not return because of the news that SE plans to increase the level cap to 99, on the contrary that is the reason I doubt I will stay longer than June when the first increase is expected to take place. No, it was just a combination of boredom and other factors that made me give it another go, and believe it or not I was in a HNMLS a mere two days after returning.
Not only am I back in FFXI and back in a HNMLS, I'm back in good old orange SpikeFlail, the place were past unfortunate events took place but which is now a sanctuary for veteran casuals. Thank you Falcoo for suggesting that I join, I've had fun so far, despite the lack of people who took an extended break to play Linear Fantasy instead...
Anyhow, one of the things I returned for was to get together with Cowboyday to finish A Moogle's Kupo d'etat Add-on scenario, mainly because of the pretty badass reward. I haven't completed Shantotto expansion either, and at the moment I'm not sure I will: Reading up on the missions, it is the biggest pain in the ass of them all for a reward that is just good. Not great. Good. We'll see.
Anyhow, working our way through the missions, pwning the Quicksand BC with little problem, we eventually made it up to the final battle against Riko Kupenreich!
Now the old me would have pushed through this thing within a day or two, but the new me gave it a couple of weeks. I wrote a strategy for the final battle a good week in advance because I realized that it was a tricky battle. Thankfully it paid off to be prepared, we won on first try, though it certainly wasn't pretty.
Thanks to Markos, Skriel and Dangerousdj for coming out to help us. Either way we almost messed up early into the battle, at 75% health he uses a fairly heavy AoE move with long stun duration, and we really weren't ready for it. Thing is the mob takes nearly 3x dmg from anything, meaning we didn't expect his HP to go down quite that fast. But still, we recovered, took it slow, had a few deaths but recovered, and eventually managed to zerg it down. (I was ready to smoke it with a barrage as soon as stun wore off).
But seriously, a 9 month break is a long time when you have many jobs to remember anew, it's still a challange to remember all the macros, the useful gears for all jobs, what JA does what and when to use it, taking in the new things that has happened since I left and so on. Slowly but surely, slowly but surely...
As for other activities, you always need money. I considered selling Lu Shang to get some quick cash to spend but instead I decided to return to fishing, and it's pretty relaxing + doable while on the phone. I've made roughly a million gil since returning on fishing alone, but there's alot of stuff to get. First off I need a Kirin's osode for RNG, maybe a couple of Triumph Earrings, and then I may want to buy some ZNM items, like Aurum sabatons and Naglering. So there'll be much fishing for me ahead as well.
So in sum, I'm still happy to be back, things work decently into my schedule and I'm seriously being more relaxed about the whole thing this time around. I don't have any new job to manically level, nor is there any one item I am just dying to have at any cost. I just try to have fun, enjoying the final days of Final Fantasy XI. And thankfully, I met some old friends and nade some cool new friends in the process.
This being said there are a number of people that I miss, particularly Delicieux, Kirei and Liirian. Summer 2007 may have been the best of my FFXI days. But let's see what's ahead!