Current Job Levels:
WAR 37, THF 20, MNK 20, WHM 12, BLM 7
RDM 1, RNG 8, BST 4, SMN 6, BRD 6

12/5/04 - 8:00 P.M. - Conquest Update, finally...
For the first time since I started keeping track of the Conquest, in March, I missed a week--worse, I miseed two weeks...

Well, yesterday, the night before the next tally, I decided that I was not going to miss a third.

So, I logged in for the first time in more than two weeks, and found that Bastok is the strongest that it's been in months, so much so, in fact, that Windurst and San d'Oria were allied against it.

I'm not really sure of an explanation for this, but it's worth noting that Bastok was at it's weakest during the summer, sometimes controlling only one or two regions.

My theory, which is probably far from the truth, is that most American players are San d'Orian or Windurstian, while most Japanese are Bastokan or Windurstian. Americans tend to dislike Bastok, and Japanese tend to favor Windurst.

Anyway, my theory is that during the summer, player counts were at high, obviously because no one was in school. Since most American players were not Bastokan, there was more Conquest activity going on among the other nations, and so, Bastok was left in 3rd place.

Now, many people (like me...) are very busy with school, and don't have time to play very much. Somehow, Bastok probably has players with fewer obligations, and who have more time to spend on the Conquest.

That's just my theory, though, and doesn't take into accounts many things, I'm sure.

So anyway, I decided last night that since the tally was this morning, and Bastok was in a very good position (and extremely strong nations have a tendency to drop to a very weak 3rd the following week, for some reason...), I was going to actually play for the first time in months, and go on some supply quests to regions that were finally under Bastokan control.

As it turned out, my only real supply quest options were Fauregandi and Valdeaunia, neither of which am I remotely ready to venture into. So, all I really accomplished was returning to Bastok from Windurst, and seeing Bibiki Bay (a new Chains of Promathia area) for the first time.

I intend to immerse myself back into the game as soon as exams are over (I'll be done on the 18th), and play more or less nonstop at least until Christmas, when I'll probably get plenty of other distractions. But I'm determined to reach level 40 before the end of this year!--I remember when I was saying I wanted to reach level 40 before the fall semester started...

So, I logged in a few minutes ago...and as I anticipated, Bastok is in 3rd again, with Gustaberg actually being the only region that they control (i.e. they're pretty bad off).

11/8/04 - 12:00 A.M.
Well, this marks the first week in which I never got around to posting the latest map. Not only did I not post the map, I didn't even make it until less than 30 minutes ago. Oh well. That one and the newest one, from today, are now up.

I still haven't actually played, except for the Halloween even, in nearly two months... :(

10/25/04 - 9:45 P.M.
Halloween Event in progress. Too busy to enjoy it. Life sucks. Just the map this week.

10/17/04 - 6:15 P.M.
Still busy. Just the map this week.

10/14/04 - 9:45 P.M.
Yes, this week's Conquest update is very late. If you hadn't noticed, I've had a lot of stuff to deal with this week, and FFXI was definitely the last thing on my mind. Deal with it.

10/3/04 - 9:30 P.M. - Conquest Update
I haven't played in a long time, strange since I got Chains of Promathia recently. I just happen to be at that point in my FFXI life in which I'm not really suited to any of the new CoP stuff. Promyvion has a level cap of 30--I had no level 30 equipment anymore. The Tavnazian Archipelago and Movalpolos are both intended mainly for level 60+, which I am nowhere close to.

But, I went back to Jeuno today, and found that several of my auctions had completed--auctions that I had completely forgotten about. In the end, I had 57,000 gil, which was surprising. At that point, I realized that I had enough to get some levle 30 equipment, so I becamee determined to get a look at Promyvion. So I bought some pieces of a new set of level 29 WAR/PLD armor (the names sound German, but the only one I can remember is the body piece, which was something like "Eisenbrust"). I couldn't get all the pieces, because the head piece was sold out, and the feet pieces were 20,000 gil. I managed to get some alternatives though.

Anyway, I went to Promyvion-Holla. As I wasn't in a party, I wasn't expecting much--I was just exploring.

The music in Promyvion is very nice, some kind of piano thing if I remember correctly. I defeated one of the Empty rather easily, but got too cocky and tried to take two at the same time, which didn't work out very well...

Fortunately, since I only lost level 30 exp., I didn't level down, but I didn't have the patience to try again, so I quit at that point.

One thing worth mentioning about this site itself is that I joined Photobucket today, so I'm going to use that for my Conquest maps, in order to save storage space and bandwidth for Laguna in Winhill. At the same time, since I have the space, I've decided to make avaiable all of the maps that I made since the beginning in March (as opposed to only keeping two weeks online at a time).

I also revised my naming system for the maps, since I realized that with the old way I was naming them ("mapMMDDYY", they would no longer sort properly by name beginning in March next year). So I changed the scheme to "mapYYYYMDD", which solved that problem. I know it doesn't really affect any of you unless you save the pictures and want to look at them in order easily, but it was necessary for me, so I did it.

9/26/04 - 7:00 P.M. - Conquest Update
I finally got Chains of Promathia last Friday. Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to see much of the new stuff, aside from the cinema scenes related to the first mission, and a brief visit to Carpenter's Landing.

I did have the opportunity to get my WHM to level 12 this past week, though. Starting at level 10, it was the first time that I had ever partied as a mage before, so I was really worried that I'd screw up and get the whole party killed (the WHM is one of the most difficult jobs in this respect, as it depends one's complete attention). As it turned out, though, the first party went quite smoothly, with no mishaps at all on my part.

I did okay in my second party as well, except for one incident in which I was directly responsible for one of the members' death, as a result of setting up my Cure II macro in such a way that it cured me instead of him (which depleted my MP, leaving me unable to cure him afterwards). Fortunately (kind of), death was not uncommon in that particular party, so I was not directly blamed for the incident, though I still felt bad. It didn't happen again though.

As for the Conquest Update, the common yo-yo effect is present yet again. Last week, San d'Oria hada a stranglehold on the world, so much so that Bastok and Windurst were allied against it.

One thing that I have learned over the past year is that on this server, Windurst is a very formidable adversary, and I think that Windurstians exploited the alliance to great effect. This is shown most clearly by two regions--Zulkheim and Movalpolos...Zulkheim especially.

Zulkheim is traditionally controlled either by Bastok or San d'Oria. Windurst rarely has a nearby region from which to launch an offensive (i.e. there is no place nearby for them to get Signet). Windurst almost always controls Vollbow, but lower level players don't have any chance at all of making it to the outpost in Cape Terrigan. Windurst often controls Defland or Norvallen, but the same problem applies there--low level players can't receive Signet. Certainly, Windurstians can get Signet from the embassy in either Bastok or San d'Oria. However, most don't bother, and by the time they reach Valkurm, Signet is ready to wear off anyway.

The point is, Windurst got its foot in the door last week with the alliance. Bastok controlled Zulkheim, so Windurstians were able to get Signet from the Valkurm outpost. This allowed them to increase their regional influence enough to take control today.

This is by no means the first time that Windurst has controlled Zulkheim. However, it is rare, and has only occurred once since March--in June.

The scary thing (to non-Windurstians) is that Windurst is typically very difficult to dislodge from a region once it gets a foothold. For example, once Windurst took control of Zulkheim in June, they held it for three consecutive weeks before it finally changed hands again.

Moving on, I also find Windurst's control of Movalpolos to be surprising, considering its close proximity to Bastok (for the record, Bastok was leading in regional influence as recently as two days ago). I'm not sure if the alliance has anything to do with it, though, since Movalpolos was under beastman control last week.

Oh well. The only real annoying thing is that teleportation will be very expensive for me this week, unless I'm going to Aragoneu (unlikely). Fortunately, I'm drowning in work at VCU, so it's unlikely that I'll have time to play anyway.

9/19/04 - 8:15 P.M. - Conquest Update
I've made some changes to the Conquest map, one of which is long overdue.

Due to the addition of two new regions (the Tavnazian Archipelago and Movalpolos) without actually updating the map visually, I've had to change the borders of two regions. The Tavnazian Archipelago is on the western edge of Vollbow (it's purple this week, which is the color that I chose to mark the fact that it is currently "neutral", as opposed to being under beastman control). Movalpolos is to the east of Gustaberg--ignore the fact that the region contains Palborough Mines (which is, in actuality, in Gustaberg). I also labelled both regions with arrows.

Speaking of labelling things, I took the time to label Tu'Lia, which unfortunately is not actually shown on the map (it is almost exactly where Behemoth's Domain is on the map--which is, in fact, in Qufim). So if any of you have ever wondered why I keep coloring a spot that seems to be in the middle of the ocean, now you know--that's Tu'Lia. I simply didn't have the skill to draw it myself, since it looks like an island in the shape of a turtle.

The new Chains of Promathia areas seem to be filling up with high-level players, despite the expansion's release date not being for another two days (it would seem that the game has been snuck out in Japan). Unfortunately, I won't have the expansion until at least Friday, so I'll miss out on the new areas for several days even after Americans finally get it. It's really a shame.

Oh well. San d'Oria has managed to take over virtually the entire world, so much so that Bastok and Windurst are allied against it (Windurst, meanwhile, controls only Sarutabaruta). At least I took the opportunity last week to do supply quests to both Qufim and Derfland, since both regions are now under San d'Orian control.

9/13/04 - 12:00 P.M. - Conquest Update; Rank 4 ^o^
The Conquest tally turned out much as I expected, though not completely. Bastok took back Zulkheim finally, as well as Qufim (Bastok has not had control of Qufim in at least six months). They also have control of Derfland again, so I was able to do a supply quest there finally (I somehow had not done one until now).

The good thing is that I can now teleport to Qufim, which puts me very close to Jeuno (about a 3-5 minute walk), and relatively cheaply for the travel time--unless Qufim is not controlled by Bastok while Derland, Norvallen, or Aragoneu are...then it might be cheaper to go that way.

Also, I finally got rank 4 last night. I had been sad earlier in the day when Pinkitty and Amond, two people in my LS, had said that they were doing the rank 4 mission. I wasn't able to go (had to go to Brodnax). When I got home, I found that they had just finished the mission--if they had waited maybe another hour to start it, I would have been able to go. So I felt even worse then.

To my surprise, as I entered Jeuno, a Galka named Cannibal asked if I wanted to do rank 4. I said, "Absolutely. =D", and so the party was formed. We had a level 50 WHM named Edmund, who was also doing the mission, and we were assisted by a level 50 DRG. We had another ~35 Galka named Ironhawk.

Things didn't go quite as smoothly as they could have...but in the end, it all worked out.

Cannibal and Ironhawk were both killed at one point when Invisible wore off. When we got to the room with the NM for the mission, a group was already fighting it. They were really nice though, and the guy who was fighting it (must have been 50+) turned his back on the NM immediately so that no one was attacking it. We formed an alliance with the group, and then the guy (Toyer, I think) made the final hit--strong guy...he took off 15% of the NM's life in one hit, and we all got Delkfutt Keys.

After that, there was some confusion, because we couldn't figure out how to get the story sequence for the mission. In the meantime, I was disconnected--as far as I can tell, Norton had some kind of failure, which caused FFXI to disconnect, and I had to reboot to fix it. Luckily, I was still okay in-game.

Finally, we figured it out, and we all got the scene, and then we left the tower, and went to our respective embassies in Jeuno (in Ru'Lude Gardens).

So I'm rank 4 now.^o^

Which means that I can get rank 4 equipment with CP now, which will be a potential moneysaver when I reach level 40--though I'm going to be using mostly San d'Orian armor--I can at least get the head piece with CP.

In the end, it was a pretty good day.

Now if only I can find a way to get Chains of Promathia the day it comes out...

9/10/04 - 11:15 P.M.
A lot of stuff today. For one thing, I got a second linkshell--PreciousGroup. It has a lot of members (Preciousangel said that there are over 100; I would probably believe her, since I've seen two different sets of members online today, both about 30 people). I went with five other members to Ordelle's Caves (in Zulkheim, literally underneath La Theine) to camp the Stroper Chyme, which (very rarely) drops an Archer's Ring, which is worth ~400,000 gil (so each of us would have gotten about 66,000 gil if we'd actually gotten a ring). No luck though, and eventually, I had to leave.

So, when I logged back in, I obviously found myself alone in the caves, surrounded by enemies which in large enough numbers could still be moderately dangerous. As it turned out, I made it back to La Theine with my HP at about 75%, having been chased by 20+ enemies the entire way out.

I'm hoping that between my two LS's, I'll finally get to rank 4, and maybe even rank 5 sometime soon.

Current prediction for the Conquest tally: Bastok will take Qufim (yay!^o^), Zulkheim, Derfland, and Norvallen, which will put them in a much better strategic position than they've been in (as right now, they only control Gustaberg, Kolshushu, and the Elshimo Uplands), and will finally enable me to do a Qufim supply quest (and be able to teleport there, hopefully). It's just a prediction though. There could be an upset in the regional influence between now and Sunday, I can't really say for sure.

9/5/04 - 10:45 P.M.
My apologies on being a week late with last week's Conquest map--VCU has kept me quite busy during the day.

Anyway, nothing of major significance to report. I am currently level 36 (WAR), and was finally able to leave Garlaige Citadel today, and go to Crawlers' Nest. Crawlers' Nest is generally considered a safer place than Garlaige, though that is only because parties can be more spread out. The primary targets from level ~36-39 are Worker Crawlers, which are kind of like big caterpillars. The problem is that, like the bats in Garlaige, the crawlers generally spawn in at least pairs...and they link. So you have to be very careful when pulling. Actually, it's more dangerous than Garlaige in some ways, because most parties go deep into the area, and it is really a maze (especially for a mapless person like me), so if you get into trouble, and can be difficult to get away.

I actually got worried the first time I went into Crawlers' Nest, and found myself face-to-face with about 15 Worker Crawlers that had been trained to the exit. So I was not very optimistic about my upcoming experience in the area (epsecially considering that I'll probably be there until level 45, the longest stretch in one area so far in the game).

Fortunately, though, I got into a really good party, which, though exp. was rather slow, was not nearly as hard to fight in as lower-level Garlaige parties. Yes, in the end, we linked a crawler, and five of the six of us died, but even without a raise, I made ~1,400 exp. from the party--not too much considering that it took more than an hour, but not too bad either, and no deaths until that unfortunate incident at the end.

Bastok surprisingly took back Kolshushu in the Conquest this week, though they remain in 3rd place overall. I just wish they could capture Qufim, so that I could get cheap, virtually instant teleportation to within three minutes of Jeuno from Bastok. That would be great. As of this afternoon, influence in Qufim was in San d'Oria's favor, though it wouldn't take much for Bastok to overtake them.

8/23/04 - 1:30 A.M. - Conquest update, lots of other stuff...
Well, it's been a busy couple of days. I finally reached level 34 (WAR) last night.

I updated the drivers for my video card (Radeon 9600 Pro) about a week ago (to Catalyst 4.8), for the purpose of getting Far Cry to stop crashing (I was using Catalyst 3.10 or something like that, so I was definitely due for an update). One thing that occurred to me after I did the update, though, was that it may have also fixed the crashing problem that I had with FFXI when I first got it (and finally fixed by cutting the graphical settings down to where the game looked like crap--which I wasn't happy about, considering I was on a brand new, $2700 computer). Anyway, I doubted that the new drivers would have fixed it, since while Far Cry's problem was documented and specifically fixed in a Catalyst revision, FFXI has never had a "known issue", at least not that ATI has acknowledged, so I didn't get my hopes up.

Admittedly, I still shouldn't get too happy, but so far, so good. I'm taking this one step at a time, and so far, I've played for about six hours with no crash after increasing the resolution back to 1280x1024/1024x1024 where it belongs (I had lowered it to 1024x768/512x512 in order to stop the crashing). The game looks a lot better, and if it continues to work like this, I'll be happy. I'd also like to eventually turn environmental animation and uncompressed textures back on, but I have a feeling that it was one of those two things that caused the crashes, so that might not be possible. Either way, I'm happy at the moment, and I hope the crashing doesn't start again.

As for the conquest update, Windurst lost control of three of its territories in Quon--Derfland, Norvallen, and Fauregandi. San d'Oria has taken back control of Zulkheim for the first time in about a month, while Bastok has taken control of Aragoneu and Kolshushu in Mindartia (Bastok has not had Kolshushu in at least five months--this is the first time that I am able to record it on my maps, and I made my first one on 3/28/04). If they can maintain control of Kolshushu, this could be an opportunity for Bastok to seize the rest of Mindartia, even as far as Sarutabaruta.

Yes...that is like saying that Bastokan control of Zulkheim was a sign that Ronfaure was about to fall (i.e. it would take an act of God for region bordering a city to fall under foreign control). Oh well. I can wish.

As in the early hours of my high-res experiment, I was reluctant to join any parties (lest I disconnect and get everyone killed), I was looking for something to do on my own.

I know that the Bard quest required a trip to the Buburimu Peninsula in Kolshushu, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to go and do the quest. As it turned out, I never made use of the outpost, so that really didn't matter, but at least it had gotten me to do the quest.

Bard is a very fast-levelling job. I actually got to level 5 in about an hour, only having to to rest three times.

After that, I was going to take my warrior back to Valkurm and do more nighttime protecting of those poor souls who get aggroed by goblins while trying to get to Selbina.

As I was leaving though, I got a /tell from a guy (Xavramos, I'll call him; I know his name started with an X) who wanted me to join a party in Garlaige. I knew the guy must be desperate to ask someone on the other side of the world.

But, as it turned out, since Bastok controlled Aragoneu, I was able to teleport there for only 250 gil and set my homepoint for free, so I agreed to go.

I didn't realize until I was already in Sauromugue, however, that I was still WAR/THF (my farming combo), instead of WAR/MNK, which has become my combo for parties (since that's the one most people prefer). But I decided that the party leader obviously knew this when he invited me, so it must not have been that big a deal.

I'll start by saying that I made it to level 35, which made the party worth it. However, this was the first party that I recall being in which seemed, at least to me, to be rather unfriendly. I know I'm probably taking it too personally, but in the beginning, the leader (a THF) asked me if I knew how to set up for SATA (Sneak Attack/Trick Attack--the whole reason that a thief is useful in a party; it's an extremely high damage technique, but it requires a precise setup).

I had been in a party that had used it before, but I had not been an integral part of it, and hadn't really understood how it worked.

It would take me a long time to explain exactly what happened. The point is that the leader threw a fit the first few fights because I couldn't get the setup right (because it went against my reflexive response, which was to provoke from the beginning; I was the tank after all). Eventually, I got it, and things were going smoothly. However, there was the problem that from the first fight in the party, I had been put on edge by the seeming impatience of Xavramos, and thus was doing the best I could to not screw up again. The problem was that eventually, for some reason, the enemies we were fighting were running bak and forth between all of our members indescriminately, and I was hesitant to provoke because it would mess up Xavramos' SATA (if anyone actually got really low on HP, I would provoke regardless, but I wanted to give Xavramos a chance to get his attack off). He never complained about this, but a few minutes before the party broke, Tigergirl asked me if I planned to continue as a warrior, and when I said yes, she said simply, "you gotta learn to tank better".

I have never, in all my time playing FFXI, been told "you gotta learn to tank better". Once, I was told to provoke every thirty seconds in order to keep hate. This was advice, not a criticism. Tigergirl's comment was a criticism, because there was no indication of what needed to be done better, only that I wasn't doing it right. And I didn't appreciate that. It's difficult to follow standard tank procedure (provoke every 30 seconds) when you need to be sure that you let your THF get his SATA off first, and this was my problem. There was nothing that I could do about that.

Our puller (a RNG/NIN) said something along the lines of, "WAR don't generally tank at higher levels, they sub tank". After thinking about this statement for a while, I'm still not sure which way to take it. I cant decide whether he was simply saying that being an master tank isn't necessary anymore for WAR at higher levels, or whether it didn't matter that I was bad, because I wouldn't need to be the tank for much longer. I like to think that he meant it in the nicest way possible, but I'm really not sure.

My problem with the whole thing was that I thought I was doing a relatively good job, considering the demand that was placed on me (factoring in a technique that I had never personally dealt with into my provoke pattern), and that the exp. as coming really fast, and yet at the end of all this (5000+ exp. in barely two hours; incredibly high for Garlaige), Tigergirl decided that she needed to criticize me before it was all over.

Oh well.

The other "development" tonight, and one about which I have still not decided how I feel, was the LS discussion between Badkitty (Untouchable) and Butterwax (the two highest level members of the LS). Butterwax said that he had "great plans for the LS", and spent about 30 minutes explaining them (to Badkitty specifically, though a couple other people were also online at the time).

Butterwax has great plans indeed, but I think that it might be too ambitious for its own good, and would be difficult enough if every one of us members lived on the same street--it's going to be even more difficult considering that Badkitty lives on the west coast, and Butterwax lives in Singapore (that's a 15 hour time difference).

Anyway, Butterwax wants to establish a set time each week when all LS members will get together and do stuff (missions, quests, HNM, BCNM, etc.). This is a relatively common thing for an LS.

The thing that he wants to do that I've never encountered in MMORPG talk (or in LunarCrystals), is dividing members up into teams, led by members who report to either Butterwax or Badkitty (basically, he's establishing a heirarchy of members), with the intention of developing members in a progressive generational setup (Badkitty and Butterwax are "generation zero", I am part of generation one, those who join after the rest of generation one and I get to around rank 5 and level 50 will be generation two, and so on).

In theory, this is really good, as it finally provides structure to the LS (which had slowly been becoming "that bunch of people that Untouchable and 'generation one' invited since Valkurm"--i.e. there was no organization, it was just a bunch of players that shared an LS). And if this helps me become a more recognized person within the LS, or even the game, then I'll be satisfied.

My concerns are strange, as they conflict with my desire to go along with Butterwax's idea. I just worry that this will be a rigid setup based around PST (which is strange already, as the two "head members" are on opposite sides of the planet from each other, and our other members are literally scattered all over the earth, making agreement upon a single meeting time troublesome at best), and I naturally worry that at best, I'll miss a crucial event, and at worst, be shunned for being unreliable, perhaps for not being able to play from 3 to 9 A.M. on a Sunday (pure speculation; a time hasn't been fully decided yet).

So I guess I can say that while I'm hopeful, I have my reservations. I hope things will work out though. If nothing else, my main job is at least a higher level than the other members in generation one (though everything will probably even out once the "teams" are decided). At least it looks like, barring some global catasrophy, this LS won't spontaneously disappear one day the way LunarCrystals did when Teejay quit. I think that Butterwax's plan of having a Dynamis-capable LS within eight months, though, is wishful thinking at best (Dynamis is a level 68+ area, intended for ~64 people--Butterwax is the highest member in TheHolyCircle, and he is only 67; Badkitty is 60, and everyone else is under 40...for all I know, I'm the third highest, though I doubt it).

Well, that's about it.

I hope my days of crashing at 1280x1024 are over.^_^;

8/20/04 - 12:45 A.M. - could have been better...
For the past few days, I've spent several hours stubbornly refusing to go back to Garlaige, and trying to get a party in Eastern Altepa instead.

No luck. Today, the only person who said anything to me while I was there was a BLM...who wanted me to join a party in Garlaige...

I refused at the time, and waited a bit longer. After tiring of...well, doing nothing, I headed back to Bastok, in the hope that I something interesting was going on (people who are doing quests and missions and such often shout in Bastok Markets). I wasn't really expecting anything, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a group of Bastokan looking for people to join them in an Expeditionary Force to Aragoneu (Aragoneu is the region to the east of Jeuno, on the continent of Mindartia; Bastok is currently gaining power, though the region is controlled by beastmen). I had never taken part in an EF, but knew that it had a very strong effect on regional influence in the event of success, and would also give me a lot of Conquest Points (3,000, apparently), so I was very happy to join.

I was even more surprised to see that one of the other members of the alliance was Jezmund, who had been one of the more "advanced" members of LunarCrystals, my former linkshell (he didn't know me, of course, since I hadn't participated much within the LS, but it was cool to see him). I almost never saw anyone while I was actually in the LS; the members always seemed disconnected from the game to me because I never saw their characters. To me, they were just a bunch of guys whose chatting I had the privilege of watching for several months (I learned a lot about the game during that time). TheHolyCircle is smaller, and I'm still not really part of the "inner circle", so to speak (not that there is much of one, at least not like in LunarCrystals), but I don't feel like I'm the least significant person there either (I'm a pearl sack holder for one thing, of which there are only three or four--the people who were with Untouchable in his Valkurm party right after he bought the LS, of whom I was lucky enough to be one). A lot of new members were invited from Valkurm, which is considered Noob Paradise, so I'm a little more experienced than a lot of them.

Somehow, I got way off track. I wasn't even intending to talk about the LS tonight, as it's been unusually quiet all day (when I logged off, Untouchable was the only other person online aside from me).

Anyway, I was really excited about the EF. The way it works is that your alliance gets teleported to the chosen region, and then you have to find beastman banners. When you activate them, a party of beastmen spawns, and you have to defeat them. Pretty basic stuff. The significant thing is that you're fighting an actual party of enemies.

So anyway, after spending probably 30 minutes getting set up (after I had joined--according to what Jezmund said at one point, they had already been trying to get going for 90 minutes before I joined), we finally teleported. We made the unfortunate mistake of not all teleporting at once (our leader decided to have us teleport one party at a time, since he was still waiting for one member), though in retrospect, that probably wouldn't have saved us anyway.

The leader of my party was a guy named Elkna, who if I remember correctly was either rank 2 or 3 (he probably hadn't been playing for too long; I'm rank 3 also, but Jezmund is rank 9, as was our leader).

I honestly considered it to be a realistic possibility, though the possibility had crossed my mind--when we found the banner, while there were only four or five of us there (out of a 13-14 person alliance), Elkna touched the banner...

At least four goblins spawned--five, I think--and proceeded to attack us. They essentially quintuple-teamed us (if that's actually a word), killing people in four or five hits, before they could use their gate glyphs to teleport back to Bastok (both of the people that I saw get killed tried to do so, but didn't have time). I didn't bother to attack the goblins, or to try to save anyone, because I knew that it would be futile, and would only result in my death while possibly not saving theirs.

So I used my glyph, and went back to Bastok.

Unfortunately, because of Elkna's stupid mistake, the entire alliance fell apart, and that was the end of that.

After that, I started on my way back to Altepa, but while I was in Korroloka, a WHM named Silverblade asked if I wanted to party in Garlaige. The only reason I agreed was because he was a level 40 WHM and said he was going to powerlevel the party--so I assumed that it would be relatively safe (and that we'd actually be able to kill things, unlike my last party in Garlaige).

So I went all the way to Garlaige (took about 20 minutes I think, and cost nearly 1,500 gil). I got in the party, and...well, it worked pretty well. The only things of tiny interest are that the party leader was the guy who had asked me to come to Garlaige when I was still in Altepa two or three hours earlier. The other is that the paladin we got later on (who became the leader when the first one left) was named Gafgarion (who was a mercenary in Final Fantasy Tactics).

Everything was going really well (I even made it to level 34), until some idiot trained a bunch of level ~47 Citadel Bats and at least one Chamber Beetle (level ~57) to the entrance, which forced us to find some way to avoid getting aggroed when they came back. Our WHM casted Sneak and Invisible on us, but for some reason, my Sneak ran out right as I was trying to get past the bats, and I was aggroed. They hit me for ~100 damage each (my max HP at the time was ~685). Then the Chamber Beetle came after me. 195 damage. I was dead, and leveled down, thus having 350 exp. to go before getting back to level 34.

Our WHM raised me, but unfortunately, everyone decided they had other things to do, so the party broke.

I started back to Jeuno, thinking that I might go back to Valkurm and try to solo the 350 exp.

Then the Sauromugue Skink aggroed me. 50 damage per hit...dead before I could get back to Garlaige.

Now 800 exp. to level 34, I calculated that I would have to kill at least 44 goblins in Valkurm to level, a task that I was not remotely up for, so I gave up for the night.

I guess I'll just try again tomorrow. If I'm lucky (yeah right...), maybe I can even make it to 35 tomorrow.

8/16/04 - 12:50 A.M. - Conquest Update
Garlaige Citadel sucks...

Last night, three hours in one party, four deaths, and after all that time, I barely broken even on exp.-- +/-200, I'm not quite sure...

Garlaige Citadel is without a doubt the most dangerous area up to its point in the game (levels ~32-36), for numerous reasons.

1) There are two enemies that can be handled by parties at these levels--Siege Bats and Borer Beetles. The problem is that Siege Bats are usually found in groups, and together with Wingrats. The problem? Both of them link, and the crowded conditions don't help. As for beetles, they aggro on sight, are much stronger than the bats, and have spawn points in one of the "better" camping spots in Garlaige. So you're pretty much screwed no matter what you decide to fight. If you're lucky enough to get a lone bat, you'll probably get aggroed by a beetle when it spawns in the middle of your party.

2) The area is filled with holes that players can fall into, to a lower level of the Citadel. The problem? The lower level contains enemies that wipe out level 50+ parties.

3) The area consists of winding corridors. This means that when someone has to zone an enemy, they have to drag it through the crowded corridor into Garlaige, which usually contains four or five parties at any given time. After they zone, the enemies will eventually return to their original areas. The problem? If it's a beetle, it will aggro the first thing it sees during its return.

Tonight, I made 1700 exp, but as it happened over a three hour period, that's terrible (in three hours, 10,000 is more reasonable). Even worse is that half of it didn't actually happen in Garlaige, but in Sauromugue Champaign, where we fought Evil Weapons--which didn't give a lot of exp., but which we could have least kill. I think we killed one bat in Garlaige in the entire time we were there, and that required the use of three 2-hours, and still resulted in the deaths of two people.

The rest of our time was spent waiting for trained bats to return to the depths of Garlaige so that we could pull one without worrying about the others linking, or running from level 46-48 Citadel Bats or level 42-54 Puroboros (bombs) that idiots train to the entrance.

One time, honestly, some guy trained at least ten bats straight past us. If they had been Citadel Bats, everyone in the corridor would have died (honestly, those things do 100+ damage per hit to a lvl ~32). But still, it prevented anyone from fighting any other bats in order to get the crowd of them to go away.

One time our DRK fell to the lower level, and while our second WHM tried to rescue him, he was aggroed by Funnel Bats that killed him in three hits.

Not a good night by any stretch of the imagination. The only good thing is that I didn't die again.

8/8/04 - 4:15 P.M. - Conquest Update
Well, after getting the Night Cape, I spent the next few days trying to get another one, with no success. Finally, I decided that I needed to get back to business and level some more instead of worrying about getting a pile of money. So I went back to Bastok, changed back to MNK, bought the best equipment that was available to me through level 18 (the most expensive piece of which was the Strike Baghnakhs, which cost 20,000 in Bastok, but are an extremely good weapon for being only level 14).

Speaking of expensive equipment, the Kraken Club is supposedly the rarest drop in the game, and it comes off an enemy that takes a level ~70-75 party to defeat anyway, so needless to say, it's expensive--it seems to average 20,000,000 gil, in fact. By comparison, the most I've ever had at one time is 100,000, and for my level, most would consider that to have been high. 20,000,000 is simply inconceivable to all but the richest and longest-playing people in FFXI.

Anyway, I gained another two levels last night, getting to 16 (MNK), but it took me six hours, one of which was spent in a terrible party.

My first party looked like it wouldn't be that bad, though I was initially worried by the fact that our leader was a rank 1, level 15 warrior with no subjob, and who was using a polearm (which are only really meant for dragoons). Overall though, things went okay (for exactly three fights and 327 exp...), until our red mage left, which left us without a healer, and when one was not readily available (except for a JP in Selbina who refused to party with Americans), the entire idiot party decided that it was better to disband completely rather than wait for a WHM or RDM to show up.

I then waited in Selbina for nearly a half an hour in search of another party. Finally I got one (probably around 9 P.M.), and that's the one that I was in until 1:38 this morning.

It was an interesting party, because it started as a party composed of at least one Spanish-only member. The leader seemed to speak English and Spanish well, while one of the others, a member of the leader's LS (and the new leader upon her departure) spoke some amount of Spanish, but somehow didn't seem as readily able to communicate beyond relatively simple phrases ("hasta luego", that sort of thing).

On a side note, I noticed that asinine abbreviations have infected the Spanish online vocabulary as well, in such things as "k" being used in place of "que" (while in English "k" is used for "ok").

Interestingly, after the Spanish guy (Tayco) left, by the time I finally left, the party was half Japanese. This created a problem early on, because the first Japanese member, Coolgo, did not say anything for nearly 30 minutes, which at times made us wonder if he was even there, but eventually, he used the auto-translator to say that he didn't speak English (actually, he had said "hehe" before that, which seemed strange for a Japanese guy). The other two Japanese members, who joined shortly before I left, had the same silent nature as Coolgo.

That seems to be typical of J-E parties. The language of the majority (or in cases of an even split, likely the language of the leader) is used, while the other members don't say anything at all.

That's the way it was in my party in Korroloka as a thief. The other English-speaking member recruited me, but after I joined, everything was Japanese-only. Unlike in today's party, though, that never caused a problem. I'm not sure whether it's an actual difference between NA and JP parties or whether it's more specific than that, but it seems that Japanese parties discuss tactics and such very little...they just do it, and as long as you do what your job is meant to do in battle, everything will go fine, whereas in NA parties, people spend more time discussing what to fight than actually fighting it. Or maybe I'm just imagining that.

Anyway, as for the Conquest tally this morning, Bastok has fallen to third, though at least this time, there is not a terrible imbalance as in previous times. The current ranking in terms of regions controlled is:

1) Windurst--six regions controlled
2) San d'Oria--four regions controlled
3) Bastok--two regions controlled
4) (beastmen--five regions controlled)

I'd really like to level WHM to 25 so that I could go to places like Valkurm, Qufim, and Yhoator, and be able to raise all the people that get killed there. However, I still don't have enough confidence in my ability to be a good WHM to actually go and be in a full party of people that I don't know (my only party as a WHM so far was one with Eric and some noob Galka, so I didn't have much at stake in terms of reputation--but in the end, we all got killed). I will one day though.^_^

8/5/04 - more money, finally
After levelling SMN to lvl 6 in a few hours, I got a little bored, and decide to try for a change of pace yet again. I changed back to WAR/THF (lvl 33/16), and teleported to Valkurm Dunes, with the intention of farming at least one stack of Lizard Skins.

The last time I was in Valkurm farming skins was back when I was in the high 20's as a warrior. I could kill two or three lizards before having to rest, and I had to watch out for goblins in the western dunes (Muggers, Gamblers, and Leechers), since they could still pose a serious threat.

Now, lizards in Valkurm can rarely even hit me, much less cause any considerable damage. The only drawback is that the drop rate for skins is much lower now that I am so much stronger than them.

After feeling a little guilty for killing a bunch of non-aggro creatures that many parties lvl 10-12 rely on for exp., and realizing my own strength, I took a somewhat different approach. While I would still kill lizards when passing through the tunnel connecting eastern and western Valkurm, my primary objective in the Dunes, while less beneficial financially, was keeping low-level players alive and safe from the goblins that often chased them on their way to Selbina. The only things in Valkurm that I am not yet capable of defeating solo are Bogies, which are ghosts that spawn on the beaches during the night, between 2000 and 0400 (the last ten minutes and first ten minutes of every Earth hour). But I saved many people from many goblins over the course of several hours.

In the end, having spent two days in Valkurm, I managed to get one stack of lizard skins, which sell for 7,000 gil in the Bastok AH. I also got four Sand Bat Fangs, which were slightly less stable in price, and I took a little risk by putting them each up for 900, but in the end, all of them sold.

My biggest triumph of the night, however, was hunting and killing the Golden Bat, which dropped a Night Cape, which sold today for 30,000 gil, my biggest sale of a single item ever (though very cheap, relatively--the real moneymakers are NM drops that go for 100,000+, or better yet, HNM drops or crafted armor that sell for a couple million).

I also had the presence of mind to sit down in the Bastok Markets this morning with a bunch of stuff in my bazaar, while I went riding around down south in Nottoway County (didn't actually do anything as it was raining, but it was a nice ride). I sold a bunch of stuff, and got ~6,000 gil just for leaving FFXI on all day. Not bad.

I might try for the Golden Bat again tonight, I don't know yet. Though the Night Cape isn't incredibly valuable, the Golden Bat just happens to be a Notorious Monster that is rarely camped, so it's easy to claim if you come across it. It's strange. There was a guy standing in its spawn area last night, who I assumed was someone camping the Bat, but by the time I found it, it had been there already for at least five seconds, and the other guy hadn't made any move at all to claim it. Oh well, his loss. Maybe he was in the bathroom or something.^_^

8/2/04 - 3:00 P.M. - SMN
Early this morning, around 1 A.M., I decided that I was going to do the Summoner Quest. As it was already very late, I only managed to get the Carbuncle's Ruby before I went to bed.

I finished the rest of the quest today, and in-game it took a little over four hours (and nearly an hour of research and planning beforehand).

The quest was for the most part uneventful, except when I learned the hard way that I needed Prism Powders in Ranguemont Pass in addition to Silent Oils. I found out firsthand that goblins detect by sight, and the attack of one cancelled my Sneak effect, which then caused all of the Stirges (bats) in the Pass to aggro me as well. They killed me a few small feet outside the zone to the Beaucedine Glacier.

After spending ~30 minutes preparing to return to the Pass from Jeuno (buying some Prism Powders this time), I made it to Beaucedine, and used a Warp scroll to return to San d'Oria, and then got on a chocobo, with the intention of riding the Valkurm, then teleporting to Bastok on a journey to Altepa in search of fire weather, the last element that I needed.

I wasn't too excited about the prospect of going all the way to Altepa again, and besides, I was racing the clock. I was determined to finish the quest and try out the SMN job before the servers went down for maintenance, which was scheduled for 1 P.M. Going to Altepa would probably have made me late.

Anyway, to my amazement, Valkurm had fire weather when I entered it, so I didn't have to go to Altepa after all. Fire weather is extremely uncommon--apparently an area has to have three days of clear skies beforehand, which never happens in most areas, and is very rare in a few, Valkurm being one of them.

So anyway, I was able to go back to La Thiene, finish the quest, and then teleport back to Bastok from Valkurm, with ~10 minutes to spare in which to try out my new job.

It seems a bit easier so far than beastmaster (for me, at least), though like with WHM and BLM, I don't see myself being eager to party as a summoner anytime soon, as it brings much more responsibility than melee jobs like warrior, thief, or monk. I'll probably try to level it to at last 20 eventually, though, so that I can get the other summons. As for Fenrir, unless I can acquire a new linkshell and/or some high level friends, I probably won't ever get Fenrir, because the battle with Fenrir Prime requires a level 70+ party (75 preferably).

Oh well. At least I can run around with Carbuncle following me now. He's cute anyway.

And I stayed in the game as long as possible, staying literally until the last minute (my logout completed at 12:59 P.M.). It seems that many other people had the same idea, as ~15 before maintenance, the server population was still about average (~3,000), didn't drop to ~2,000 until 10 minutes before maintenance, and even in the last minute before the servers went down, the poopulation was still 1,000+. It's just that people are kind of gambling with their characters, because character data can be theoretically damaged in an improper logout. However, a proper logout takes a full 30 seconds, so people were obviously pushing the envelope quite a bit.

8/1/04 - 6:00 P.M. - Conquest Update
The following entry is compiled from two AIM logs from the past three days, with only minor tense corrections since then, so forgive any inconsistencies between the beginning and end, if any exist.

I feel that I'm getting in another rut in the game, finding myself unable to get involved in any one developmental activity for any length of time. I went to Zeruhn for a while trying to get at least one stack of Zeruhn Soots, while at the same time trying to get at least some zinc ores with which to synthesize some brass ingots. But it's only entertaining for so long to run around the same small area 20 times hitting enemies with boomerangs for five times their max HP in damage, especially with how rare drops become once you're that much stronger than an enemy.

I'm considering going to Ifrit's Cauldron to attempt to mine some Adaman or Darksteel Ore (Adaman Ore sells for ~100,000 in Jeuno). I'd probably go as a thief, since it has the best exp.loss : travel time ratio (it's my lowest job at 15 or above, which would allow me to take a chocobo from Kazham).

The only problem is that I'll need a significant amount of capital to begin such an operation. I'd need at least 2,500 for one stack of pickaxes, and probably 10,000+ for at least one stack each of Prism Powders and Silent Oils (for Invisible and Sneak, respectively). The reason is that Ifrit's Cauldron is one of the highest level areas in the game at present, so much so that even a level 75 player can die with relative ease. The only good thing about this is it means that your actual level is essentially irrelevant when it comes to mining, since if something attacks you when you're by yourself, you're probably screwed regardless.

In fact, if I can afford the extra Silent Oils and Prism Powders, I might even take my red mage (level 1) since there would be no exp. loss in the (almost certain) event of death, just the money for items consumed up to that point.

I estimate, however, that it would take at least two stacks of Silent Oils, and likely at least four stacks of Prism Powders to mine for very long in Ifrit's Cauldron (a lot more Prism Powders because I'd have to use a new one each time I finish at a given mining point, since mining isn't possible while invisible).

It's risky, but it's probably one of the biggest solo money-making activities in the game. You just need to have the guts to try it (well, and have a Kazham airship pass, but that could conceivably be obtained at level 1, provided you have some very generous high level friends).

In the end, I got two full stacks of Zeruhn soot, and several stacks of bat wings, so I made quite a bit of money.

Then I decided to head to Valkurm and attempt to finally get my monk to level 20.

Thursday night was easily my best party ever. I was in the party for six full hours (how long it had existed before I joined, and whether it continued after I left, I'm not sure). I gained three levels, going from level 10 to level 13.

I was hoping for a similar experience last night.

If I had had any idea how my first party was going to turn out, I wouldn't have stayed in it for nearly three hours...

I got invited relatively quickly into a party led by Knoll, who was a mithra thief (and an English-speaking player). The other members at the time were Laphx and Yumieria (or something like that), both of whom spoke exclusively Japanese (a bit more on that later), Kylin, who was completely silent (more on that later), and Desean, who was another English speaker, but who didn't fill me with confidence, as he was a subjobless rank 1.

After a few fights, and a few deaths (one of which sent Yumieria back to Ronfaure, resulting in a ~20 minute run back), Knoll had to leave. She made me leader, which put me in a rather awkward position. I am not a confident leader under normal circumstances, but these weren't normal.

I don't have a problem with mixed NA/JP parties--my THF 15-17 party in Korroloka was probably my best party ever until Thursday night--but I was reluctant to turn over the position of leader to a person with whom I could not communicate. At the same time, I was not about to make Desean leader, as I was not confident in his leadership capability (and with due reason, as he had terrible grammar, and insisted on being our puller, despite the presence of a higher level thief in the party).

So, I invited Tubbyisgood, who was a thief (a good replacement for Knoll, I thought), and rank 5, so I thought he probably had had some leadership experience.

He also spoke no Japanese.

I remained leader for some time, and for a few minutes, I thought I was doing okay. My only problem was that I was not used to camping in the area that we were in at level 11-13, so I was unsure what to fight. Desean wanted to fight a sand hare, and since I didn't respond one way or the other, he pulled one. And then I realized why it had been a mistake--sand hares link, and linking enemies are the last thing you want when you're in an experience party (since it's reasonable to assume that you're fighting difficult enemies to begin with; the last thing you need is >1 at the same time).

I died, and at least one other person did. Yumieria died again, and Desean died at least once, and finally left, which left me again in search of another member.

Oh wait, I forgot. I determined that Laphx was able to speak at least some amount of English (for all I know, s/he was an importer posing as a Japanese player, whch isn't uncommon). As for Kylin, after Knoll left, he began speaking, but it seemed to be some kind of romanized Chinese, which seemed strange, as know one else would have had any idea what he was saying.

Anyway, Kylin left, then Desean left, so the party was divided in half between English-speaking and Japanese-speaking. After I was killed again, Tubbyisgood and Laphx were apparently attacked by something while I was on my way back, and were forced to flee to La Thiene, where I also went. They waited there for Yumieria to get back.

Meanwhile, I spoke privately to Tubbyisgood, asking if he'd be willing to be leader. He said that all the good players who were seeking were Japanese, and so he couldn't talk to them anyway. So I remained trapped, and for about five minutes, waited nervously, though I'm not sure what for exactly.

Finally, Laphx took the initiative and said (in very clear English), "Firionel, please give LD". I gladly complied.

I thought to myself (not at all seriously) that this would be her chance to kick me out and fill the party with Japanese players.

Not at all seriously...

We spent probably more than an hour in La Thiene as Laphx and Yumieria chatted in Japanese, and Laphx kept claiming to have found more members (both of which did not join for 20+ minutes after she "found" them). In the meantime, Tubbyisgood kept his mouth shut.

When the party was finally filled, we spent an additional 20 or so minutes standing in La Thiene, as the four Japanese-speaking members (Laphx had invited two Japanese players) chatted amongst themselves, about the chocobo license quest and such (Yumieria is apparently a relatively new player).

Finally, after spending well over an hour in La Thiene, Laphx said, "move {Valkurm Dunes}". So finally, we were on our way.

A few seconds after we entered Valkurm, Laphx removed me from the party without a word (and as near as I can tell, nothing was said in Japanese that even hinted that such a thing would be done). Tubbyisgood remained. It was clearly intentional, as I was not reinvited, despite standing nearby for ~2 minutes as they prepared to do whatever it was they were doing.

Considering what a horrible leader I had been, I would have been willing to leave for the good of the party, but I obviously resent being kept around for nearly two hours of inactivity, and then being dropped without warning right as we began to do something.

I managed to get into another (all NA) party a minute or two later, and reached level 14 therein, but if Knoll hadn't left when she did three hours earlier, I could have been at least 16 by now. Knoll's departure was what set the whole thing in motion.

So, as I had (not seriously) anticipated, Laphx used the leadership power (which I had freely and happily given to her) to fill the party with Japanese players, and remove me from the picture (though Tubbyisgood remained, despite not being able to speak a word of Japanese).

7/25/04 - 10:25 P.M. - Wow...
The Summerfest has been going for a few days, and it seems to be one of the better special events thus far. Aside from the (very pretty) hourly fireworks, there is a quest through which one can obtain a yukata, the higher quality version of which enhances a mysterious goldfish scooping skill. It is believed that a golfish scooping minigame will be added to the Summerfest sometime this week, though it's impossible to be sure.

Meanwhile, this week's Conquest results are the worst that I've seen in my time with the final version of FFXI (I don't even think it was this bad during the beta...). Of the 17 regions in Vana'diel, more than half are controlled by beastmen this week.

I have a hypothesis as to what caused this, though it requires a series of relatively unlikely events. Obviously, I would say that it began with the Summerfest.

One key characteristic between nearly all of the beastman-controlled regions is that they contain areas that are used as Summerfest quest zones, meaning areas that quest participants are teleported to. One way that nations lose influence within a region is when players die in the region while under the effect of Signet. I believe it is reasonable to assume that most participants had Signet when they went on the quest (simply because it can't be manually cancelled, and lasts a rather long time).

In addition, I would make the assertion that very few people did much "normal" activity within these regions (killing monsters while Signet-ed) through which to increase national influence once the Summerfest had begun.

As for why influence would decrease, I would guess that it was the result of many quest participants either intentionally allowing themselves to be killed after acquiring the quest item, accidentally being attacked after dropping Invisible, or accidentally leaving the quest area, which would have made them lose Invisible and Sneak, and then being killed. In any case, my point is that I believe the Summerfest caused an unusually high amount of player death this week, with few people doing anything to counteract it.

7/18/04 - 8:00 P.M. - Conquest Update
A lot happened yesterday...so much so that I was too exhausted afterwards to write about it. But here it is.

I don't know what caused me to look initially (I was probably clicking a bunch of links on related stuff at Allakhazam.com that eventually led me there), but I came across the Altana's Sorrow quest. The thing that caught my attention was that the reward is a Teleport-Dem scroll, which sells for 10,000-30,000 in Bastok (again, Jeuno is the real guide for a stable price, but I didn't go there today). I assumed (realizing now that I'm probably wrong) that the quest was repeatable, and soon determined to go back and forth between Bastok and Garlaige to get the quest item--made easier by Bastok's current control of Aragoneu, which makes the trip much cheaper (75% cheaper, actually).

I found, however, that I did not have the fame necessary to get the quest. After again searching Allakhazam, I found the same solution that ex-LSmate Bluetonberry came to several months ago--Only the Best, in Selbina...though Bluetonberry used millioncorn, while I chose to go with the La Theine cabbage. I did this because the cabbage can be purchased at the top-ranked nation's Zulkheim vendor. While it would have been much easier to wait until Bastok was #1 again, there's no telling when that will actually happen. So I went to San d'Oria, bought 21 stacks of cabbage (that's 252 of them if you didn't do the math), and rode back to Selbina. I then teleported back to Bastok (800 gil...I hate San d'Oria...), but unfortunately, still didn't have the fame necessary for the quest.

I didn't want to go back to San d'Oria, so I bought several stacks of millioncorn from the AH. I then warped back to Selbina with a Scroll of Instant Warp (750 conquest points), and did the quest again. I teleported back again (another 800 gil...)...and that was the end of yesterday morning...

When I got back to Bastok, I intended to check on the quest again, and if I got it, do the run from Garlaige to Bastok several times, then sell the scrolls in Jeuno.

While I was running around, though, I noticed a guy (Achillies, I think) trying to recruit people to go on the Eco-Warrior (Bastok) quest (the San d'Orian one wasted several hours of my time a few months back due to my own negligence). I gladly said that I would go--I was eager to finally do the Bastok one, since I had had the quest in my "current" (incomplete) list for months now.

Well, it took us an incredibly long time to get the alliance together--so long in fact that me and another guy, Yoshimitsu, went ahead of the group and tried to find Stray Mary in Konschtat, with no luck; though admittedly, I was doing it out of the desire to raise my great axe skill, which is woefully under-developed for my level (was lvl 5 a few hours ago, now ~23, compared to a sword level of ~96).

Finally, we got to Gusgen. There was then confusion about when to get the level cap (Eco-Warrior has a level 20 cap, which of course forced me to spend ~5,000 gil on a bunch of old equipment) versus going ahead to clear the path (of ghouls and bandersnatches and whatnot).

Finally, we reached the room where the Puddings would spawn. As is to be expected, numerous members of the alliance made it clear for no one to touch the "???" (which would spawn the Puddings) until told to do so. I started to get a bad feeling--alliances make me uneasy, because there's far too much that can go wrong when you've got that many people in such a loosely led partnership.

As I had feared, some idiot touched the ??? while all of us were still at half HP, and of course, the Puddings spawned, and proceeded to attack us. Someone (Senara--sp?, I'm not sure) called for help, understandably, as we were terribly disadvantaged, though it forfeited the quest for the time being.

Amazingly, no one died, and people were only arguing for about five minutes after the Puddings were killed about who actually spawned them (and why/who called for help).

We determined that it would still be possible to fight the Puddings again as long as we were all still capped (the cap lasts for one hour), and didn't call for help again.

So, we healed to full, and then got started.

Things were looking okay, until one of the Puddings used Fluid, which killed four people in one hit. People continued to die at a rate of about one per Pudding attack, until only three remained (myself not being one of them). Surprisingly, one of the puddings was killed, though it was clearly a losing battle against the other. One by one, the others died, until, for the first time in my playing of FFXI (though it's really not all that uncommon), I was part of an alliance that had been entirely wiped out in a single battle.

A few seconds later, Silverwulf, a level 30+ WHM, was raised, but he was the only one who was raised within Gusgen (while I was still there anyway).

Some people wanted to try again (Senara being one of them--for the record, Senara is also a female, and actually the wife of one of the other members of the alliance), but about half of the alliance decided that it wasn't worth it (quite a few of them had actually de-levelled when they were killed), and left. After the alliance itself broke (leaving only my party, who all returned to their homepoint), I too left.

At that point, I was exhausted, so I quit.

The only good thing to come out of today is that my fame in Bastok and San d'Oria is much higher than it was two days ago, and my great axe level is four times what it was then (though still less than one fourth what it should be).

This is a picture of most of my alliance post-Pudding fight (the rest, also dead, aren't in the shot).

As for today's Conquest Update, it destroyed any plans that I may have still had to do the Altana's Sorrow quest, since it would have cost four times more to teleport to Aragoneu than it did yesterday, when Bastok still controlled the region. I really hope that Bastokans get with it soon so that we can get out of 3rd place...

7/15/04 - 11:50 P.M. - new subjob
Well, after reaching level 33 with my warrior, I was able to finally leave Elshimo. I finally settled on Garlaige, but it took me two days to actually find a party (about an hour of waiting each day before with no success). I died once, and in the end, my net exp. gain since leaving Elshimo was probably close to zero (after having died once already trying to reach Rabao).

After the party broke, I decided that, since I had finally received a (justified) criticism of my main/subjob combo choice (WAR/THF), I would level monk for a while, and make that my new subjob for warrior.

So tonight I took monk from level 6 to 8, which allowed me to get my first set of "monk-like" armor. Actually, it's the MNK/SAM/NIN set, but the main thing is that it's more Asian, as opposed to the European style of the warrior armor.

I'm going to level monk to at least 20 before switching back to warrior. It will hopefully be the last time I change jobs before I reach rank 5 (when I get an airship pass, thus making travel between cities much quicker).

7/12/04 - 12:20 A.M. - Conquest Update
Last night I was in another really good party in Yhoator, and went from level 31 to 33 in about five hours.

Well, I guess it wasn't all that great then, but at least I gained two levels in one night.

Things were made a bit more interesting by an argument between two of my party members, Aircloud and Zephyros. At one point, our leader, Artica, was killed by a goblin. For some reason, this degenerated into a bunch of "noob" and "dumbass"-calling by both Aircloud and Zephyros, though Aircloud definitely started it. After Artica threatened to kick both of them, they calmed down for a while.

Aircloud got a bit more annoying a while later, though, by refusing to participate in one battle as a sort of protest against having enemies pulled before his MP was full (he's a RDM, though his MP is far from critical to survival when in a party). That was the last straw, and he was kicked. After that, things got a lot better, with everyone getting along, and thus being far more productive.

So anyway, having gotten to level 33, I was finished in Yhoator, and was then essentially able to choose whether I wanted to level in Garlaige Citadel, or in Eastern Altepa Desert.

When I got back to Jeuno today, I decided to check out Garlaige first, since it was relatively nearby (it is connected to Sauromugue Champaign, outside Jeuno).

As soon as I entered, I could see that it can't possibly be an enjoyable place to party. The first stretch of the area is a descending stairway, and it was extremely crowded, with partie camped every few feet. This obvious is a big problem, and makes things very difficult.

Anyway, I decided to wait on Garlaige at least until I had gone across Altepa to Rabao, to buy maps of the surrounding areas (such as Altepa). So I went back to Bastok and got ready to go. I bought a few Silent Oils and Prism Powders (they cast Sneak and Invisible, respectively), since I knew I'd be going into areas with very strong monsters, all by myself, so I needed to be careful. To make matters worse, I didn't have a map in-game (I had looked at maps online, but obviously, that meant that I had to remember what they looked like.

I started off in Korroloka Tunnel. I knew from having looked at the maps that it is relatively a straight shot through to Eastern Altepa, so that's the direction I started going.

My Sneak and Invisible wore off sooner than I expected, and I was aggroed by a Jelly. It wasn't exactly whipping me, but I knew that I couldn't afford to hang around--I needed to find the E. Altepa zone fast.

I [realized later that I] took a wrong turn, and wound up in a waterfall-filled clearing that I thought looked rather pretty...then the Jammer Leech hit me for 389 damage, only taking one more hit to bring me down. It had come out of nowhere and killed me in two hits.

I logged out for a few minutes to check what I had done wrong. After looking at the maps again, I managed to make it through Korroloka, into E. Altepa. Then, again, I was lost, in a seemingly endless sea of sand, with no map. I wandered for a very long time, until a group of other people came running by. I decided that going anywhere was better than staying lost where I was, so I followed them. As I had hoped, they went to Western Altepa, and finally, to Rabao.

Rabao is very small, but it has some shops, and an AH. It's most popular characteristic, though, seems to be the huge body of water in the middle, which had probably 20 people around it fishing when I was there.

So anyway, I bought my maps, and tomorrow, I'll probably go back to Garlaige. Altepa doesn't seem to ever have enough people to form a party on the spot (there were always ~5-7 people in the entire area), and being without a linkshell, I don't have the network of friends necessary to organize such a party elsewhere.

Oh yeah. The Conquest Update. Bastok is in 3rd, and Windurst and San d'Oria are tied for 1st. San d'Oria controls almost all of Quon, while Bastok at least controls Aragoneu (which allows me to teleport to Meriphitaud for only 250 gil, allowing cheap, quick travel to Garlaige). Somewhat disappointing for a Bastokan like me, obviously.

7/4/04 - 11:58 P.M. - Conquest Update
Bastok remains #1. That's basically the only significant thing about the results this week.

In other news, I fought a Phantom on the Selbina-Mhaura ferry, purely for the fun of it. As it turned out, it dropped an Ice Spikes scroll, which came as a big surprise to me. It's a level 20 BLM spell, so I thought I might use it eventually. Anyway, right after the Phantom, the ferry was attacked by pirates, and I was killed rather quickly. ;_;

But, back to the Ice Spikes scroll. I thought about saving it, until I got back to Bastok, and found that it sells for between 15,000 and 30,000 gil at the AH, making it the most valuable item drop that I've ever gotten.^_^

7/3/04 - 11:15 P.M. - Powerlevelling in Valkurm
Yet another wonderful night of being powerlevelled, this time by Shingoku, who was one of the major members of LunarCrystals (my recently broken linkshell), and who happened to also be levelling in Valkurm (due to my relative lack of activity within the linkshell, none of the former members even remember me, which is rather sad). Anyway, after a while (and a lot of death, due to our lack of a white mage), Shingoku changed to his level 75 white mage so that he could powerlevel us. I stayed until I reached level 20, at which point I needed to leave, lest I drastically reduce the exp. for everyone else.

But now, I've finally got my subjob levelled to where it needs to be. It'll last me until level 40 with my warrior, so I'm gonna head back to Yhoator. The convenient thing now is that when I do level my thief again, I'll only have to go to Qufim, which is 5-15 minutes from Yuhtunga, depending on the Kazham airship, as opposed to going to Valkurm from Kazham, which can take well over 30 minutes.

6/28/04 - 12:50 P.M. - Things are looking up...
I woke up at 6 this morning, and I decided to go ahead and get out of bed. I remembered that the FFXI is going to be undergoing maintenance from 1-9 P.M. tonight though, so I decided to play this morning.

So I logged in, and headed across Valkurm, toward Konschtat. It was obvious that the server population was rather low. Valkurm had about 25% as many people as usual, and it was clear that this was the peak time for Japanese players (it was ~7 P.M. over there). Having failed to get a party in Valkurm, I decided to fight solo for a while in Konschtat, though I would obviously not get much exp.

Luckily for me, shortly after I entered Konschtat, someone (who I believe was named Jakara) asked me if I wanted to party...in Korroloka Tunnel (that's about a 20-30 minute run from Konschtat). I gladly agreed, though I wasn't too excited about going all the way back to Bastok, mainly because I wasn't sure how much exp. I'd get in Korroloka, and if I couldn't at elast reach level 15, I'd have to walk back to Valkurm instead of taking a chocobo.

I got a little more worried when the entire rest of the party spoke Japanese. From what I could tell (and what I more or less figured out at when the party broke), Jakara was the only English-speaking member. Well, Faceless may have been a non-Japanese player too, though I only say that because he said "thx" one time.

The Japanese are usually considered very racist when it comes to FFXI, often refusing to have anything to do with non-Japanese players. So I was surprised that I, who specified "English" as the desired party language, was chosen by a party of JPs. Well, I suppose that if Faceless and Jakara were NA, that might explain it, since Faceless was the leader.

Anyway, I wasn't sure how well we'd do in Korroloka, since I remembered going in there once in a full party at around level 16, and being horribly beaten by the Land Worms, which is what we intended to fight this morning.

And, as I had feared, the first few worms gave us a terribly hard time, once killing two of our members, but all of a sudden, everything got easier somehow, and we were constantly chaining the worms, getting exp. chains at high as #5, and once, I got 260 exp. from one of the worms, which is astoundingly high.

In the less than four hours that we were together, I went from level 14 to level 17, and actually made it halfway to level 18. But, all good things must come to an end, and eventually, we quit, which wasn't a bad idea, as we had levelled so many times that the worms weren't giving much exp. anymore.

So I went back to the Bastok AH and bought a suit of Lizard Jerkin, so now I'm more appropriately dressed for my level.^_^

Being a thief, at least at the lower levels, is extremely simple, and also extremely safe, relatively. The thief really has no special party responsibilities until level 15--they just stand there and attack the enemy. The reason it's safe is that the thief doesn't cause nearly as much damage as anyone else, and the warrior is provoking anyway, so it's perfectly normal to not take a single hit during a battle, much less get killed. I actually haven't died once while in a party from level 10-17.

Starting at level 15, it's important to use Sneak Attack every 60 seconds and be sure you're behind the enemy, which will make your next attack cause ~10x as much damage as a regular one. That's one of the thief's most important battle abilities.

I haven't bought a new weapon though. I'm hoping I'll make it to level 20 without anyone noticing that I'm using a level 13 dagger. There's just no point in upgrading at level 18, because the damage gain isn't high enough, and I'm not going to need a level 20 dagger, since I plan to change back to warrior when I reach 20.

Oh well. It's been an eventful week. Seven levels in as many days, I believe.

6/27/04 - 10:45 P.M. - All good things...
Well, after gaining four levels in two days, I have failed to gain another level in the past three. I really want to reach level 15, and though I'd be able to by last Thursday. Now, three days later, I''ve only gained 500 exp., and still need 2900 more to reach level 15. Oh well.

New Conquest tally: Bastok is 1st for the first time in weeks. And we got Zulkheim back, which is good for me since I'm levelling in Valkurm right now.^_^

6/26/04 - 10 P.M. - Powerlevelling
Two days in a row now, I have experienced the wonder that is powerlevelling. Strangely, I had never quite understood the concept, despite its simplicity.

Powerlevelling is, essentially, a means by which a party gains experience quickly through the help of a high level player, either a WHM or RDM (a PLD is another theoretical possibility, though it would almost certainly never actually happen). The high level player is not, of course, in the party, as this would result in no exp. for anyone, since the high level character would be far too powerful for the enemies in the area. Basically, what the high level player does is heal the members of the party, and absorb damage from the enemies, so that party members incur less damage than normal, and so that there is no downtime between battles due to healers needing MP.

The first night, my party was powerlevelled by a level 38 Mithra RDM named Mcgaha, who apparently is the real life husband of one of my party members. I made it from level 10 to 12 that night.

The next night, we (different people) were powerlevelled by Nese, a female hume RDM, who was at least level 41 (at least lvl 50 if she was subbing BLM). She was a bit more "active" than Mcgaha, and we fought far stronger enemies than I would have expected, even for powerlevelling. One interesting thing about the way she handled the whole thing was that a couple of times, she engaged a Goblin Leecher, which could have probably killed one of us in three or four hits. What she did that was interesting, though, was that she basically used it as a source for quick MP restoration, as well as HP. Every few minutes, she would cast Aspir on it, which would drain about 50 MP from it. She would also cast Drain every now and then to get a little extra HP. The funny thing was that while it could have killed us in the blink of an eye, it was no threat at all to her. It would missed more than 50% of its attempted attacks, and 99.9% of the rest would cause 0 HP damage. And this would go on for what seemed like forever, until finally she would Drain the last little bit of HP from it, and it would die.

I made it to level 14 that night.

I plan to take my Thief to 20 before I switch back to Warrior, and head back to Elshimo. That way I'll be able to level my Warrior to 40 before I have to worry about levelling my subjob again.

Of course, I'm not sure that I plan on keeping Thief as my subjob. I might switch to Monk, or something like that, but I'll worry about that later.

6/20/04 - 11:45 P.M. - Conquest Update
Well, I finally played FFXI today. Actually, I played on Friday also, but that turned out very disappointingly. I had planned for several days to participate in the Bastok/San d'Oria Ballista match that was scheduled to take place at 11:30 P.M. on Friday. So I spent a rather long period of time returning from Elshimo (and losing 500+ exp in the process) and heading for Jugner Forest, where the match was to take place (other Ballista venues are the Pashhow Marshlands and the Meriphitaud Mtns., but no one seems to play in those places). I arrived right as registration for the match opened, which meant that I had another 30 minutes until the actual deadline.

Well, the match never happened. In Ballista, each team requires at least six players for the match to take place.

Only five people showed up in all, so the match was cancelled. I had planned for the Ballista match to be a fun end for my week (after the pho for dinner as usual), and so I was very annoyed for the match to not happen.

Anyway, by this point, I was already far from Elshimo, and was able to teleport back to Bastok, so I decided that I would spend some time levelling my thief, and possibly ranger as well.

I hate Valkurm.

I decided today that since it would take forever to get my thief to even level 11 on my own (I'm level 10 right now), I should try to find a party. So I went to Konschtat, which is where most level 10-12 players would go to level.

After seeking a party for about 15 minutes, I was finally invited to a party by a tarutaru warrior (terrible race/job choice) named Tept. We were being "escorted" by a hume RDM named Apocaliptia (I think that's how he spelled it). I got a bad feeling from the beginning, given the fact that Tept had felt the need for an "escort" across an area that he should have had no problem navigating.

Bad feeling moment #2 came when I realized that we were being taken to Valkurm. Now, apparently, since the beta, and the American PC launch, the standard levelling practice has changed, but when I was leveling my first job, no one would have even considered going to Valkurm at level 10, much less recommend intentionally creating a 3-4 level experience gap for the purpose of "better exp" (which is a ludicrous concept to anyone who knows how the exp. system in FFXI works, but it's exactly what Apocaliptia was recommending). So I was understandably worried.

Then the "real" party was formed.

The final members were me, Tept, Hizra (a Hume warrior), Jeef (an Elvaan warrior), Virago (a tarutaru white mage), and a tarutaru bard whose name started with an "S".

I should note that in this party, I was the only member who was rank 3 (Mission Rank, which can be used as a rough indicator of gameplay time based on the number of missions completed). Jeef was a rank 1 with no subjob, and it didn't help that he was a San d'Orian Elvaan (I can't help it, but in FFXI, I'm somewhat racist and nationalistic. In my experience, most Elvaan are absolute idiots, and I don't like San d'Orians that much either.). Half of what he said made no sense at all. When asked where he was from, he first said "Mars" jokingly (I hope), but when asked "honestly, where are you from?" since most of what he said was gibberish, he answered "ksa", which of course led to everyone asking "What is 'ksa'?". His response was "Dyou now wher ksa?" (that's almost an exact quote). I still don't know where on earth "ksa" is.

All I know is that I finally had enough when Tept pulled a Star Bat, which we were virtuall incapable of causing any damage to at all, and to make matters worse, a Goblin Butcher attacked us. At least two people were killed (neither of whom, unfortunately, were Jeef, as far as I know), and after the more experienced members of the party left, I decided that I wasn't going to hang around to be the next guy to die.

The sad thing is that this is rather typical of parties in Valkurm. It's just something that everyone has to deal with. Oh well.

Oh yeah. My other linkshell, IraVehementii, also broke at some point. Now I really am alone. T_T

6/15/04 - 5:20 P.M. - No, haven't played yet
I just thought I'd point out the GameOver linkshell on the Midgardsormr server, which is supposedly one of the first (possibly the first North American (i.e. non-Japanese) linkshells to defeat Kirin, one of the strongest HNMs in the game.

Now you should see why I'm sad to be without a linkshell again. The linkshell is a very important aspect of FFXI, and without being a part of one, it is very difficult to reach the higher levels, and more remote areas (like Dynamis). I really hope that one day I can be a part of battles like this, even if it means the entire LS gets wiped out every now and then.

This picture is particularly scary, because of the knowledge that any one of these goblins could kill my character in a single hit...and there are, like, a million of them in one place.

Terrifying...

Oh well. One day, I'll actually play FFXI again...

6/13/04 - 1:35 P.M. - like a rubber band...
Well, the latest Conquest tally has been conducted, and the results are still somewhat surprisingly, even though they fit the general trend since at least last October. Whereas last week Windurst had a strangehold on Quon (the western continent, referred to from here on as "Quon"--the eastern continent is Mindartia), Windurst has fallen into third place, losing almost all of its holdings on Quon (and with Bastok taking control of Kuzotz for the first time since the beginning of April), and with Fauregandi and Qufim falling back into beastman control.

The good news this week is that Norvallen is back in Bastokan hands, which means that I can teleport to Ballista matches inexpensively...though I am unsure whether there are actually any level 30 cap matches being played this week. Oh well.

I'm really hoping that I can start actually playing FFXI again soon, instead of logging in only for Conquest results. I've actually only "played" once in the past two months or so, and that was when I made it from level 30 to level 31 in a day or two. I really want to get to 35 before I leave Elshimo, but unless I start playing a lot more often, that's going to take a very long time.

6/12/04 - 11:15 P.M. - very late Conquest update, and LS crap
I know that this Conquest update is very late, considering that the next tally is in less than twelve hours. But of course, the cruise interfered, and I haven't had much time since then either.

Anyway, Windurst continues to gain land on the western continent, to a staggering degree. Bastok still sucks.

In other news, sometime during the past week, my primary Linkshell, LunarCrystals, apparently broke up. While admittedly, I knew none of the members very well, and can't even find out why it broke up, I'm still very sad that it happened. I may have never talked in the LS, but it made me feel less alone in the game, no matter where I was. When I went to Yhoator by myself that first time, and my chocobo abandoned me on my way back, leaving me in terribly dangerous terrain, I still didn't feel totally helpless, because I had LunarCrystals, and thus didn't feel totally alone.

Now, I am alone.

I have another linkpearl, for IraVehementii, in my Mog Safe, but it seems to be entirely San d'Orian, and have very few members, only one of whom I've ever had any contact with, and the other two of whom were somewhat hostile when the one I did know (Popanu) invited his entire party to the LS one day (including me, of course). I have only had the pearl equipped for about five minutes since I received it, and am not sure whether I really want to go back. I survived the beta without ever having a LS, but now that I've had one since last November, it's hard to feel so alone again. Oh well.

5/31/04 - 6:00 P.M.
I know I'm late on the Conquest Update this week, but I've been quite busy for the past two days, and haven't found the time.

Anyway, this week's taly was rather surprising. There was yet another rise in beastman control in Vana'diel, this time leaving them in control of five of the seventeen regions, which is unprecedented on Ragnarok (since Oct. of last year anyway). In addition, Windurst has taken first place, so much so that Bastok and San d'Oria are currently allies against Windurst.

I plan on staying in Yhoator (Elshimo Uplands) until I reach level 35, but after that, I'm going to come back to level my other jobs, like thief and ranger, and I hope that Bastok still controls Zulkheim at that point.

5/23/04 - 12:15 P.M. - Conquest Update
I got in a really good party last night in Yhoator, and made it to level 31. We even fought two goblins (a pathfinder, and a smithy), and survived both with little trouble. Even when we were attacked by three smithies at once, we managed to get away safely through some quick thinking and efficient provoking. I like that feeling of heroism that I get when I pull a goblin off a one of the mages and dash for the area exit.^_^

Saturday night, one member of my party, a paladin named Raem, recognized my name (Firionel), the first person to do so in-game (if you didn't know, Firionel was the name of the main character in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy II). I just thought that was kind of neat.^_^

As for the Conquest, it seems that the Vana'diel week gained an hour at some point this week, because the taly was not conducted until 11 this morning instead of 10. Strange...

Anyway, San d'Oria has reclaimed first place from Windurst, while Bastok struggles to keep up. Bastok's position is slightly better than last week though, as they now control Zulkheim again, which is a slightly more desirable area than Norvallen. Now I can teleport to Valkurm for only 200 gil, and farm some lizard skins.^_^

Though I probably won't be able to get around to it this week anyway. I've decided that I'm going to keep levelling until level 35, instead of running all over the world trying to do 100 different things, and not being able to do any of them. I need to focus on one thing at a time.