Incoherent Thoughts

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:49:25 GMT

Time just flies. It flies even more when you're not writing. I reached a bit tougher part in my outline, and haven't touched my Nano for this year since. That was some 10 days ago. *sweadrop*

I've been quite thoroughly distracted, first with playing a bit more Echoes of Time, and then trying to finish NG+ on Ring of Fates. I think I still like Ring of Fates the most out of the Crystal Chronicles games, mostly because of the story. It lacks wi-fi multiplayer, but I can deal with that.
I'm getting to the very end of my NG+ now. Next up is character re-union thing right before the final boss. Started some four days ago from the aftermath of Abyssus Forest, so I consider this a really fast playthrough. I've even managed to squeeze in some farming, so it hasn't been all story mode dungeons exclusively.
My people just reached level 80, which makes me wonder how difficult NG++ would be. After all, the level cap is 99, and I started NG+ with my people level 42-43. Some of my stats already occasionally reach the cap of 999 too, so I don't know...would probably just need some amazing dodging skills to survive all the battles. o.o; What makes it a bit difficult is that I like playing Gnash, and his defense really sucks. I guess it won't matter if I get some super-armor that raises all his stats to 999, as at that point the 5-way shot ability should be really godly...

I've also come to the result that no matter the title, you need ungodly amounts of Mu Fur in a Crystal Chronicles game. To my horror I discovered that there's two pieces of armor that both require 15 Mu Fur, and I'd just emptied the shop of them and made silk/leather/fine silk/fine leather with them. Would need more farming, definitely...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:58:18 GMT

Hello there November. Nanowrimo is..doing surprisingly well, compared to some past years. I have some 7,9k words, which is barely a 100 words less than I wanted to have by today (doing 2k/day as usual, although I've never really kept up with that pace for long). I suppose that's a good improvement from yesterday, when I started writing way late - as in, had about an hour left of the day - and ended up scrunching in a bit over 1k words. Ah well. I've made up for it today.

While looking at my notes I discovered that my remaining scenes will net me some 22k words more, presuming my scene average stays the same. I suppose this was to be expected, and it's not like I even meant to carry through the whole Nano with just those scenes. Still, I'm suddenly wondering if I shouldn't be looking through my random notes/questions file for Mythopoeia, coming up with exact scenes needed based on them. Writing by the plan seems to be going surprisingly well this year, so I might want more scenes planned out.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:02:16 GMT

Let's try this posting thing again. As usual, you'll probably skip over the entry if you're not interested in FF11. xD;

I've had a lot of small stuff to do recently, stuff that I should have done long ago. All those long lists of stuff to do was kind of oppressive, and made me not want to level much anything. After all, that time could be better spent catching up on the small stuff... There's been various little quests, some NMs to camp, and most of all a couple annoying BLU spells to get. Since last week I've been slowly trying to get everything done, and am actually nearing the list of stuff I can do by myself. Now that's something! =D

For example, there was the Pilgrim's Wand, a club that raises MP regen while healing by 2. Which is pretty awesome for level 10 (in fact, up to 50-ish I think?) and a weapon slot especially. I've been in need of it ever since my Red Mage hit level 10 (that would be back in..2007?) and I currently have no less than four jobs that could very much use it. So. I finally got myself to camp the NM that drops it (it's Rare/Ex so it can't be sold or traded, so gotta do it yourself) and did, in fact manage to not only pop the NM after a mere one hour twenty minutes, but got myself a full stack of silk thread (sells for 12k gil) and make my Blue Mage learn Feather Storm while at it! =D ..every BLU has spells that they just can't seem to learn. One of mine seems to have been Feather Storm. I've farmed and farmed for it no less than 7 hours combined. I was kind of starting to lose hope with that one...
Well, on to the other backlogged BLU spells. I accidentally hit level 17 while killing a couple crawlers for the silk thread (..I know. Fail. Hitting lv 17 in West Saruta. FAIL.) so now I could already use Healing Breeze since last level, and next level I'd be able to use Cursed Sphere and Blastbomb. Healing Breeze is one of the most painful spells to get for any BLU at all. There are probably hundreds of horror stories about getting that spell. Then there's Blastbomb, which I've already attempted to farm once. The mob that uses it is a rather rare one, and has tons of different attacks to use so it uses Blastbomb very, very rarely. ..yeah. That's one thing I definitely want to get out of the way before starting to level another job properly again. That damn Blastbomb. I'm willing to let go on HB for quite some time more and just farm for it whenever I have the time, but I will get Blastbomb dammit!

I also completed Past Reflections, the NPC fellow quest that raises fellow bond max from 30 to..I think 45? I've been calling on Sharlene every time I go out to farm, so by tomorrow, I'll have sufficient bond to flag the Tactics Pearl quest. It lets you call on your fellow more often. =D Although I'm not exactly sure if I can complete the quest by myself. I've never even been in any of the Promyvions before. I'll just..wait until Kitty's gotten her fellow bond to 35 so she can do the quest with me.

On Crimthan (my Woodworking mule) I've just hit the levels where I can skill up on Shihei. That's a ninja tool required to cast Utsusemi, which is basically the ninja version of Blink. It's also much more potent than the actual spell Blink. And Utsusemi would be the very reason most people level NIN at all... including me. >.>' Anyway, I checked the prices and if I make the ink myself I can already hit the same price as AH-bought shihei or lower, depending on how many breaks I get. So that's awesome! Finally, I can make something extremely useful by crafting. xD

I really, really like playing Blue Mage I've found. Even with all the spell-farming. Maybe because of all the spell-farming. It gives leveling another goal than just getting more and more exp. So far, I'm buried in spells to get on BLU. And while I'm certain that it won't be quite so busy on that front later (levels need more exp to get, and spells aren't getting any more frequent, the opposite in fact) but it still gives nice intermediary goals on the way to 75.

Maybe, when I'm done with one more quest and getting that Blastbomb, I'll finally try out Dark Knight too...I've been meaning to do that for ages.

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:43:47 GMT

My reaction this morning when doorbell rang: "..buh? @__@" A big package greeted me. Confusion. Checking the sender. ...oh yeah, the kitty sent me a package. Realization. ....it's THAT big? No wonder she complained about the cost of sending it.
Open package. Stare.

Damn you kitty, now I can't in any conceivable way claim I'm not a total geek. xD (yes yes, I should really get that camera sometimes. Cellphone picture still suffices for this purpose)
Anyway, thank you. I'm branded a geek for life but thank you. Yes, I do like it. And damn, how much did you spend on this, arrgh. xD;
Well, seems that I got my first PlayArts figure quite a bit earlier than I expected. I've looked at them before and contemplated buying (and ways of buying, considering how much it sucks to try to get anything of this kind delivered to Finland) but..yeah.

What else...I'm sure I had something else to write about too. Hmm. Well, I'll write about it later when I can remember what it was.

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:39:23 GMT

Happy birthday me and so on. You know it's your birthday when your email inbox is full of "happy birthday" messages.

Something really weird happened last night while playing Final Fantasy XI. I was idling on Black Mage in northern San d'Oria, and when I came back from AFK, I noticed I'd...gotten a party invite. xD;; Not only was I idling with no flag up, I was also in a party already (we were having a dinner break). Made me go a bit wtf... I checked later, the person who invited me wasn't even a BLM trying to come up with a manaburn, no. Not even a low-level party in Valkurm desperate for some healing and willing to invite a BLM to do it. They were a DNC/MNK, so a straight-out DD, and the party was in Qufim. I mean..seriously, wtf? xD;;

As usual, there's not really anything else to write about. My life. Have you seen it? I think it must be hiding from me.

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:53:59 GMT

Ugh..my dreams from last night bother me. I don't remember much, just that I saw two with post-apocalypse themes. Or maybe the first one was right during it, or at least during a long fall to chaos. It's been a while since I last saw dreams that linger with me as long as these do.

Played FF11 too long yesterday. Kitty wanted to make a party with my PLD and her BRD, and we ended up making one which mostly broke up after a couple levels, and then a second one that took us to 18/19. The second one would've even continued if we'd wanted to, but the DNC had to go and Kai (our WAR) wanted to try his hand at the summer event since there was a lot of downtime (Kitty had to go eat dinner). Ended up helping him get his yukata (summer event reward), and escorted him first back to Valkurm to get the OP, then through Konschtat to get his Dem crystal to Jeuno. xD; Well, it never hurts helping others, especially in this game. We even tried to make a Qufim party afterwards but it broke up soon with our THF DCing, DNC having to go, and COR deciding to go as well since he was there only to help out the THF. =D; Even so, this whole process took..what, 12 hours? Played way too long.

...I guess I did reasonably well, even though it was my first experience playing in a full party. And in such an important position too! But I did manage to keep the vokes pretty regular (it has a 30-second recast) and judging by how long the second party was willing to stick with us, I can't have done too badly. There were a couple instances when the mob almost got to the mages, but that was generally in the instances I needed a lot of curing and voke came up a second or two too late to keep its attention on me. Although there was this one fight where I was seriously distracted for some reason, didn't manage to keep up my voke cycle, and let the WAR (Kai) drop down to half health. Oops. .___.;;
Not to mention the Qufim party, a real nightmare. I felt bad about it, but I couldn't keep voking the mob regularly in that party. I was a level under the lowest level recommendation, and very squishy. I had to spread hate a bit to keep alive (if I died with the worm at quarter health, that wouldn't be good), but I still felt really bad about it. Especially since the THF kept grabbing hate. :/ Lesson learned, no more Qufim parties on PLD until after a couple more levels. I feel like apologizing to the THF in person, but I guess that'd be just silly. =D;

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:18:02 GMT

Eh-heh, I guess I should finally post something. =D;; Certainly been much longer than I thought it has been.

Final Fantasy XIV! :O So, early this week we got some leaked magazine photos with tons of new stuff. Just in case you're not aware. I wasn't expecting that much information this early on, it's Square Enix we're talking about here after all. Just quite possibly the stingiest game company there is when it comes to telling fans beforehands what they're going to get. But that long article with pics of all the races from FF11, introducing the job system, introducing the quest system, introducing that much of the world..? It definitely put some life into the slowly disappearing FF14 hype. And when they updated the NA official site, it was down for hours because too many people were trying to access it at once.. xD
Well, they should certainly prepare a bit better, it's only natural that a new SE MMORPG would generate a whole lot of attention right away.

What do I think? ...I want my catboys. I know that it's basically the first batch of proper info we got on that game and it's a bit unreasonable to expect them to announce new races (genders) with the ones from FF11, but still. I want my pretty catboys dammit. :/ And the developers are being as evasive as always, refusing to even say if there's any new playable races/genders. I think not having those catboys playable would be a real bad letdown. They pretty much painted themselves into a corner when it comes to making catboys playable in FF11, but it's not like they have to keep the same mythos for the race in FF14 too, especially since they're being so adamant that it's a new race entirely. It's just really stupid to have single-gender races in an MMORPG. :/
Well, hope lives...there's that gaming convention starting on the 19th, hopefully we'll get new info then.

As for the job-system in FF14, I'm not sure what to think. They basically took the FF job system, remade it as usual and...renamed all the jobs. While the remaking is good and welcomed, what the fuck is up with not using FF job names? It just strikes me as incredibly stupid. They're advertising their goal as being making the best FF ever. If they want to do that, why do they remove such an integral part of FFs? Stuff is always being made over, sometimes being almost unrecognizable from its last reincarnation. The difference is that they don't rename stuff arbitrarily, the names stay the same. If they go that far, then why put the FF name on it at all? Now the jobs (excuse me, 'classes') sound just like any other generic RPG there is. >.<
That change makes me fear for the abilities too. Oh but excuse me again, they're not abilities anymore, they're 'skills'. I mean, what the fuck?! They've used those same titles for certain stuff for twenty-fucking-two years! Why change them all of a sudden? It's a completely unnecessary change, and since most of what makes an FF an FF is what they call things, it removes a pretty good part of that feeling that you're playing an FF instead of some random RPG. I just can't approve of this. :/

That said, the parts that actually innovate instead of destroy are amazing. The freedom of the job (arrrgh, 'class' >.<) system this time around looks to be something amazing. I especially approve of making the crafting/etc classes equal to the fighting classes.
If you haven't checked out the info yet, there's basically four major disciplines in the system. The disciplines of War and Magic include the physical and magical fighting classes, respectively. But there's also two other disciplines, called the disciplines of Land and Hand. Disciplines of Land are gatherer-type classes, they give examples Gardener and Fisherman. If there's even as much variety as in FF11, we'll be seeing stuff like Harvester and Logger, too. I don't know why, but this sounds incredibly fascinating to me. It's unclear as of yet whether Land and Hand disciples will have any fighting power, but for a game to give you an option like this, to concentrate on non-fighting areas, to put that much weight on it (to make them equal with fighting classes)...it's really fresh, and I'm already wondering if I shouldn't main a Land class, especially if they're not completely helpless if a monster happens by.
Right, the disciplines of Hand. Those are crafter-type classes, examples given are Blacksmith and Cook. Once again, a lot of potential variety in there. =D

As for the quest system. I'm a bit doubtful, mainly because the parts of it that bother me haven't been explained. It does have a whole lot of potential - making your own super-quests? Awesome! :O - but will there be even a pretense of a story in them like that? I can't help it, I play mostly for the story. I don't care if they just tag a shoddy (in FF scale) tiny background story for a fetch-quest, I want that attempt to be there. What happens to that story if we're really given as much freedom with making our own quests as it looks like? That said, the ability to combine quests like they describe sounds pretty damn good. It's even more awesome when viewed with the new class-system in mind. Escort quests not of NPCs, but of blacksmiths and fishermen and what have you, all of them player characters out to do their own quests? It has so much potential!

As for the world itself... an MMORPG world is so vast that even with the tons of info they gave in this batch, it's still only a drop in the ocean. Even so, it's looking very interesting. It seems that the major war in the past this time around was 15 years ago (as opposed to 20 in FF11, and I have a feeling the Crystal War was bigger, considering this invasion in FF14 doesn't appear to have touched the whole region of Eorzea) and destroyed at least one major city in the east part of Eorzea. I wonder if we can get there, or if it's completely destroyed...
The cities that appear to be starter cities look interesting too, even though we only have the story/description of one of them. If nothing major comes up, I wonder if I shouldn't start in Gridania, the forest capital. It looks pretty good, and the other city I'm interested in, Limsa Lominsa...well, everyone and their mother wants to start there, so no thanks. xD;
Too early to be thinking such things of course, but I can't help but be excited and make plans.

This week was mostly spent waiting for actual scans of the FF14 article and obsessively going over it in an attempt to glean every hint from the info given. xD;

Sunbreeze Festival has started in Final Fantasy XI. I haven't really had the time or interest to even think of participating in the event yet. Tomorrow at the very least I'll play some, since Sunday is mine and Kitty's FF11 day. Last time we played we spent hours and hours just fishing on the Mhaura-Selbina ferry. xD; Well, and killing some select monsters that appear on it. We even got attack by pirates twice, but didn't get the items we need from them. Bah, should go again to wait for more pirate attacks...we've had that particular quest active for ages, it'd be really great to finally get rid of it.

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:21:37 GMT

Arrgh, have played entirely too much the past couple days. So much, in fact, that earlier today my whole left hand started hurting a bit. It faded with an hour-long break, but when I started playing again my left thumb (on the DS, I'd usually be pressing the joint down on the center of the arrow keys and use it like that) went all funky. It's tingling - or more specifically, the joint is tingling. And starts hurting if there's any substantial pressure on it. Oops. Methinks it's time to keep a longer break from playing. At least until tomorrow or so. =D;;

So. I couldn't keep my hands off it any longer, and started a New Game+. It was a total surprise that the Mus in the first dungeon took a whole 6-hit combo from my lv 43 Yuri to kill. =D;; It wasn't long until I discovered how fun that is...killing toughened-up Mus in that cave, I mean. I can't even remember how many times I went through the dungeon, farming for Mu Fur. Partially because it's so fun killing them. xD

..I'd blissfully forgotten how hard it is to get the items required for custom ordering in this game. You get plenty of drops from most every monster, sure. But those drops are not the stuff you need, most of the time. And especially not on NG+, it seems.

Is it just me or are there added bits in the cutscenes this second time through the game? Maybe I just don't remember them happening, since they didn't make any sense the first time. But having seen the ending, there's many bits where the people seem aware of the time and dimension shifts happening.

The story is every bit as sad as I remembered it being. The 破壊の塔 chapter especially (sorry, I have the Japanese version and don't know what the English name of it would be), when Chaspel shows up at the village. And the rest of the game is not much more cheerful.
And hey, at least I don't have English kiddy!voices mistreating my poor ears. From the vids I've seen, those are horrid. I can't help but wonder how much they take away from the story for people who play the English version.

I've now saved Al from Mt Vaal and am about to head to the Abyssus Forest to pick up Gnash. Much luff for Gnash. =D

Have also been playing more multi-player with Kitty. And farming the already cleared dungeons a whole lot. There's not much point in going to new dungeons in single-player (mostly because the puzzles are damn hard to solve on single-player mode, especially the first time through when you have no clue what you're supposed to be doing) but it's manageable after you know what to do. And have gained some levels to take out the monsters more quickly. The AI in this game really does suck.

Lessee... almost got made every equip I had scrolls for, was only missing two...but then we advanced the story with Kitty a bit and now I suddenly have a big backlog again. Damn completionist tendencies. xD
Damn was Iron hard to farm for. The customization shop told me it drops from Ahrimans on Ice Mountain, but I hate Ice Mountain. So I went to farm an Ahriman in Ruins, but it only dropped Iron Shards. I needed a total of 15 Iron. Three Iron Shards can be made into one Iron. An Ahriman can drop 0-2 Iron Shards, mostly 0. ....yeah. I can't remember how many Ahrimans I killed, but it was pretty damn many. At least my Thunder attack/resistance and Dark attack/resistance went up a ton of levels, since Ahrimans also drop Thunder and Dark orbs.

I'm liking my Del Dee, the hired mercenary Red Mage. The male Selkie one. I find it amusing to keep the Zantetsu sword on him and slash away at enemies with that cumbersome 3-hit combo of his, and do way more damage per hit than any of my other characters, even though they're of equal levels. And Gul Reyn, my main chara, is even higher level than him. xD
I thought it somewhat of a bother at first that I could only level up one character in multi-player (instead of four in single-player, since you have the NPCs there), but now I think it a good thing. Having Gul Reyn over-leveled in comparison to others allows me to switch in Del Dee in his place for single-player farming, and I can level my three NPCs and Del Dee at the same time. Since they're the same level anyway.

The story so far seems pretty interesting. Of course, I'd stumbled on a pretty bad spoiler previously, so it wasn't quite as much of a shock as it could have been, but...we've now reached the Ruined Village in the story. In fact, just before I started writing this entry and my thumb started hurting too much to continue. =D;;;
I wonder where to go now, though. Sherlotta didn't say, just said that we should go and try get more crystals or some such...I guess it'll become apparent soon enough, since I tend to talk to all the people in town after every story advancement and of course, have to farm all those dungeons to get the items required for customization...

It bothers me that to be able to hire one of the mercenaries in Echoes of Time, you need to have a minimum of five people on your friend roster. Anyone have on the flist have the game and access to wifi? >.>'

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:07:55 GMT

If there wasn't so much lag in wifi multi-player mode in Echoes of Time, it'd be a lot more pleasant to play... The last couple days, I've been playing that, both single and multi-player. Kitty got the game finally so we've been playing together quite a lot.

I was a bit skeptical of the game at first, but it's really quite fun, especially in multi-player mode. While the graphics are really nothing to praise (at least they seem rather average to me?) the gameplay itself is simple and fun, just like a Crystal Chronicles game is supposed to be. There's even quite a lot of going through the same dungeons, but those for the most part use completely different areas in the dungeon, so it doesn't feel too cheap a tactic.

And damn did I get hooked to the game's equipment system. There's hardly any recolors, the designs can vary quite a lot between tribes and even genders, and there's a whole lot of them to play with. Add to that there being levels on each equip and the customization system (achieved with gems) and it gets quite addictive, trying to make the best equips you can.
..although yeah, since there's only really low-level gems available to me right now I hardly ever bother actually attaching them to the equips. Since it costs and all. Plus your main way to get gems is transforming maxed out equips into them, which of course means that every time I want to transform one I need to re-buy it, since I'm such a completionist freak. xD;
I swear, the amount of farming you'll end up doing in this game is something insane, at least if you try to get every equip. Or even keep your NPC buddies equipped as well as your main chara. Gil is not too much of a problem (providing you have your equips made instead of buying them from the normal shop), but getting the materials to make the equips is another matter entirely.

I'm not sure how much of the game we've gone through at this point. On one hand, things seem to be escalating..on the other, there seems to be quite a lot of free space on the world map that looks like it could have a dungeon icon on it, plus there are the afore-mentioned re-runs of dungeons. And I read somewhere you should be around level 50 at the end of Normal difficulty mode, and my characters are 28-30. Must be a while yet before the end.

This is making me want to pick up Ring of Fates again. I still have quite a lot of the multi-player mode to go through, and I haven't even tried New Game+...

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:25:33 GMT

Google Chrome OS? Wowza. Should've been expecting that I guess, with all the rumors floating about. But I didn't, not after Android. And here we are, with a Google OS on the horizon. Awesome: :O
It looks like the best option by far for laptops and netbooks. I mean, when would you normally use those things..on the go. And there's really no need for a heavy-duty OS with all the relics of a by-gone era bundled in with it (desktop calendars, document and picture editing, music and video playing software, etc) when all you really need is the web. Chrome OS deals away with the middle-man (the OS interface with all its extra software) and goes straight to the point (the web). Go, go, Google. That's a bold new path they're forging there. =D Combine Chrome OS with Google Wave, and there's some really exciting things coming from Google.

..if you're not familiar with Google Wave (it's not yet released), it's basically this web platform that combines email, different chat softwares, social networking sites, wikis, collaborative documents, video, music, etc. Everything that you can imagine getting some use out of working on it together or enjoying the experience together and then some, it's all in Wave. You can't really describe it well, you have to see it for yourself to see how innovative it actually is. It's truly the next generation of web interaction, and a shining example of what can be done when you break out of the old ways of doing things.

I've been looking around for a good world map of Final Fantasy I, but haven't had any luck with it. So I finally got fed up with it and decided to draw my own. Got the continent boundaries and places of different terrains and the places of dungeons and cities from a conveniently big scanned map that I found, and am well on my way to prettifying it. Got the basic map down, just need to add some details. And wait for Kitty to come up with all map icons since she promised to try. Sorry for putting the hardest part off on you, Kitty. xD;
It looks promising so far. Depending on the result, I might have to repeat the process for most other early FF games at least. It's something I've been planning on doing for a while. Mashups of the in-game graphics (NES, SNES times) in huge size are nice and all, but they're not really much to look at. Especially if you scanned it from a decades-old paper-map you got with the game and the map was all worn out by the time you scanned it, leaving white lines all over it in the places you'd folded it in...
The things I do for waff, really. *shakes head*

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:00:20 GMT

My sleep cycle is waaaay out of 'normal' again. Woke up closer to 8...that is, PM. If I continue like this, thankfully I'll get it to within 'normal' range by next week, when I kind of need to be up during the day. But figures this would happen right after I get rid of not being able to sleep. Of course it would.
Well, not that it matters any, other than on those rare days when I have stuff to do.

Went shopping today, before going to sleep. Why's it have to be so damn hot here? D: And I read somewhere that it's going to continue until next week, too. Not pleasant. I have no clue what made me think moving this much south was a good idea, it's been hot for ages and it's certainly not helping with the sleep issues.
Anyway. Was quite surprised to notice that a regular book store here sells manga in Japanese. O.o; A few anyway. They only had Loveless volumes 6 and 7. But still! That's..so surprising. There's enough of a market here to have even that much? Well damn. Bought vol 6, since that was towards the end of my trip and I'd already spent most my money. It's really better to have everything in the original language, isn't it. So much more depth in the non-translated version, and you can be sure no translator bound by company rules has gone mucking around with the meanings. That happens more in anime (interesting point, by the way. Are manga fans just more vocal about their likes, or are anime seen in western countries as too much associated with children to avoid overt censorship?) but doesn't mean manga is entirely clear of it.
Also bought The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It was only a couple euro anyway, and I kind of forgot all about it until now. =D;

Played Final Fantasy XI aaaaall of last night. Didn't mean to. But I did some crafting and then got the idea that I want to level Ellanore to 20 and get her subjob unlocked. So I grabbed Kitty and off we went to Valkurm. Used up one Emperor and one Anniversary charge (in fact, I still have the latter in effect, since Kitty's internet went poof and it was late enough that it wasn't worth it to wait for it to maybe come back) and gained two and a half levels (to within a couple hundred exp of level 19) and one of the three subjob items. It actually dropped from the first mob of appropriate type that we killed. xD Gotta love the Treasure Hunter effect.
Not quite high enough level yet to take on Damselflies for the second drop (or maybe we are and are just being overly cautious?), but will be soon. And Kitty will PL me for the last item. So I think next time we can play I'll get that objective done. =D

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:24:30 GMT

Final Fantasy XI screenshot post time. Discovered that I'm closing in on 2000 screenshots taken in total. Figured it was about time I tried catching up to that. xD
These are from May and thereabouts.

So I was checking the selection of goods at the Auction House in Lower Jeuno and had to take a screenshot finally, of that swimsuit. It doesn't really serve any other purpose than showing it off on an Elvaan woman. Who are beautiful if I haven't mentioned it before. xD

Leveled Thief for a bit around that time. Since Kitty's Summoner was around the same level, I got to see some summoning being done! =D Never mind the stupid plant that got in the way...
Tahrongi Canyon by the way, if you still can't recognize the zones by what they look like.

Here's Carbuncle. Kitty kept wanting for Carby to tank, but it was a futile attempt, really. I didn't feel like turning away from the mob every couple seconds, so I ended up tanking. On a low-level THF. xD;;

Meriphataud Mountains, heading to that cave there. We were on a quest to unlock Ranger. I love how Final Fantasies always have extinct species running around. Like these sabertooths. xD

The cave. The quest was to wait around for an old sabertooth to die naturally. It was rather frustrating, standing around there with the sabertooth around and not being able to kill it. xD This is apparently where they come to die, old sabertooths. There were bones on the ground.

On to Qufim Island! Leveled, did some sightseeing, unlocked Beastmaster, picked up the first cutscene of the Chains of Promathia story... Qufim's a nice enough place, I suppose. Gigas all around. And crabs, and leeches and skeletons.

Fighting a gigas. Kitty's just cast Regen on me.

In Delkfutt's Tower on Qufim Island. It's this big white construct made of the same material as the Crags, built in ancient times. The sparkly light wasn't there originally, it's an addition from A Crystalline Prophecy. Used on the way to the last boss in that story, incidentally.

So we went to unlock Beastmaster, since we were unlocking jobs left and right at that time. It involves picking a flower that only blooms during the night. And of course, there's a strong monster guarding it. Kraken. No way could we have defeated it, and we were in fact hoping it wouldn't be there...no such luck.
I'm Invisible in the screenshot, if you were wondering. No monster aggro from mobs who aggro by sight. Of course, you have to drop Invisible to interact with anything in the world.

This is the natural result of that. xD Did get my flower and cutscene though, and it was expected. So 's all good. Kitty's almost out of sight there, dying to a too-hard goblin.

Since I got the first cutscene of Chains of Promathia, I figured I might as well get the ones following it, in preparation for eventually taking on the missions properly and doing..whatever the story requires doing. This is a clinic in Upper Jeuno.

Next up? This is Port Jeuno, the Kazham port to be exact. Since I'd finally gotten the last of the keys required to obtain a Kazham Airship Pass, we went to explore! =D Kazham is a Mithra village situated on Elshimo Island, a tropical island to the south-east of the main continents.
Yes, that is almost an exact double of Kitty's character. xD

The two kitties, lined up waiting for an airship...

Here we go! A view from the deck of an airship. The ride doesn't take too long, a couple minutes only. It was my first time on board an airship, so there was lots to see. =D

Another view from the airship.

This is the port in Kazham, the ocean's behind my back. Kazham is filled with...monkeys. Opo-opos, to be more exact. They run around everywhere.

Some Mithra, and a view to the ocean, port of Kazham.

A hostelry. I was surprised they actually had one, but I guess it make sense, since they have an airship port too. xD What was more surprising is that there was a flirty Elvaan NPC in the hostelry... xD;;

Jakoh Wahcondalo, the current Chieftainness of Kazham. She was actually a pirate before settling down in Kazham and becoming the Chieftainness.

A random view of the town. I liked it there, kind of. Not much to the place, and IRL it'd certainly be too hot and boring and remote, but.. =D;

It's Romaa Mihgo! =D Mother of Nanaa Mihgo, the famous Cat Burglar of Windurst, and if my memory doesn't entirely fail me, she was the previous Chieftainness of Kazham. She doesn't say much. In fact, if I remember it right she didn't speak to me at all. I guess I'm just a lowly adventurer who should have nothing to do with the likes of her or something. xD

Some random flowers. There's flowers everywhere, even more than monkeys. xD

The exit to Yuhtunga Jungle. Other than Kazham, there are the Yuhtunga Jungle, Yhoator Jungle and Norg (a pirate town) on Elshimo Island. And some other places, like that volcano, whatever it was called.
We didn't exit to Yuhtunga yet on that trip. I've only been there once, come to think of it. Maybe we should go level there or something. =D;

Back at the airship port, just finished signing up for a quest that happens on board the airship. On our way back to Jeuno, since there really wasn't anything for us to do in Kazham other than go see what it was like. xD

Did some more exploration of the airship since it was required for the quest. Had to find a certain passenger.

One of the passengers. They sure pick weird places to spend their journey on.. xD;;

So what next? We went to unlock Bard. It involves finding songs inscribed in slabs of stone on two hidden shores... This is Buburimu Peninsula, heading to the secret shore there. The ocean was pretty.

The first slab of stone. Unlocking Bard was a real pain for me. When we got to the slab, I discovered that I'd somehow managed to forget talking to the starting NPC of the quest. Of course, nothing happened when I attempted doing this part of the quest. Had to return to Jeuno and come back here again. xD;

Standing around in Buburimu, wondering how to proceed on the quest. This was probably before I went to Jeuno to grab the quest and returned for the first part.

A random screenshot in Port Jeuno. The moon was beautiful. Darksday, so it's all faint and grey.

A random screenie of a mandragora staring at me in Buburimu. xD;;

Look, it's Kitty's Mog House! =D I don't really know what we were doing back in Windurst though.

This is Valkurm Dunes, heading to the secret beach for the second part of the Bard quest. Pretty flowers.

More pretty flowers in Valkurm secret beach. And my chocobo was just blinking when I took the screenie, so he looks all cute. Aww.. =D

The second stone slab, and apparently trading some stuff or something. I think we did some trading, although I can't remember why.

We had more business in Jeuno, so off we went. This is Rolanberry Fields, the remnants of the Rolanmart on our server.
Rolanmart? Some time ago, if you bazaared your items in Jeuno, there would be a tax on your sales. So people on every server would gather in a zone right outside of Jeuno to bazaar their stuff to avoid the tax. On most servers (including ours), the zone was/is Rolanberry. Thus was Rolanmart born.

Here we go. Next epic (and very, very nerve-wrecking) experience. Traveling to the past through a Cavernous Maw, to the time of the Crystal War when all the nations warred against the Beastmen, the forces of the Shadow Lord...
This is the Maw in Rolanberry, present time. When you first enter a Maw, it spits you out in one of three random locations...

This is where it spat me out. Batallia Downs, the past. It appears to be late summer or thereabouts. And the Maw is...floating. Instead of buried in the ground by its tail like it is in the present.
Kitty ended up in Rolanberry (past). We were stranded in the past, all alone..and Kitty freaked out, since Campaign was going on in Rolanberry when she got spit out there. xD Campaign, to those not in the know, is battles in the Crystal War. Whole companies of beastmen descending on the zone to attack or defend against the forces of Altana...

Since Kitty was crying for me to come rescue her.. xD On my way to Rolanberry. Invisible'd of course. Most the mobs in Batallia [S] could've killed me in one hit. Not a very calming experience, walking through it. xD;
Since it's a war, there are random walls and fortifications scattered around.

Still in Batallia [S]. Looks pretty much like the present version, just a whole lot greener and healthier.

More Batallia. As I made the (nerve-wrecking, as stated previously) journey through the zone, I came to love the place. The past. It's awesome.
As I was walking towards Rolanberry, Campaign moved from there to Batallia. Scared me half witless when the music changed. xD;;;

The comet. I have no clue what its significance is, but I think it's somehow related to the happenings during the war..?

Warning! Now entering a sunshine-y zone! Well it is most of the time anyway. At the time of this screenie, it was raining.
This is Rolanberry [S], still on my way to find Kitty.

And there she is! Somehow, she fits in with all the green and sunshine and the occasional rain in the zone.

Found a gate to Jeuno, but the whole city is inaccessible in the past. So I just took a screenie of the gate and the flag.

For a reason I can't quite remember, we went on to Sauromugue Champaign [S]. More fortifications. The area is really arid, just like in the present. At least in the present, the sun doesn't glare quite so much, though...

On top of the wall-thing, looking down. At that point, it was getting really, really late for me (say, around 4 AM or so)...

So we decided to cut our visit to the past short. Warping back to Home Point here.
Did I already mention that the trip was a really nerve-wrecking experience? xD;;

This kind of doesn't belong, but started the quest to unlock Dancer. Had to go dance on stage to 'prove my worth'. Yeah, just made a fool of myself, of course. xD;

That makes 49 screenshots in this post. A bit more than usually, but I wanted to get our first visit to the past posted, and this made for some considerable progress in catching up. =D;
Next up...another visit to the past, yet another attempt at the dragon battle in nation mission 2-3, and seeing more of Ranperre's Tomb than I ever wanted to see.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:11:57 GMT

Argh, headache. Shouldn't play so much. *stretches* All wound up now, not very pleasant. And I'm tired, didn't get enough sleep last night.

Turns out I wasn't right at the end of Ceodore's tale just yet, had to go through Mist Cave first. Forgot that part...anyway, went through the remaining parts of Ceodore's tale and all of Kain's tale today. The story's still as screwed up as ever. =D; Will go through Rydia's tale tomorrow. Don't want to play anymore today.
I'm severely disagreeing with slapping Kain's tale right after Ceodore's. Parts of it make absolutely no sense unless you know what happens in the other tales, the ones that are supposed to come before it...

Got things settled down on the Linux side now. Even transferred all the new files I could remember creating on the storage external to my computer, although I'm not too certain I caught all of them. So inconvenient, this.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:47:10 GMT

Where does all the time disappear?

Thought that I haven't been playing enough Final Fantasy XI lately. So we settled with Kitty as Sunday 1 PM as our regular play-time, for at least about four hours. Didn't get to start this week yet, as Kitty's credit card didn't go through this month either. She's trying to reactivate her account, but... in the meantime, we worked on our story. We're both dreadfully behind writing journal entries for the RP. xD; But all the actual content is now settled on, we just need to..actually write them. Arrgh, I wonder when I thought I'll have the time for that.
All in all, planning those entries took three hours. I guess that's one answer...

I think I'll finish adding FF12 item basic data today. Only key items left (and loot, but those are entirely separate in waff's system), after which I can concentrate more on some other game again. Haven't decided yet what that'll be, maybe Revenant Wings. Took it up again a couple days ago, discovered that I'd gotten stuck in the end of chapter 8 when I abandoned it. Failed 9-3 once last night before going to sleep, but I'm quite steadily working for completion on it now. Shouldn't take too long. I even went through that one Summon Melee in the mission 9-1 place three times with Kytes in my party to get all the remaining Pyro-weapons for my characters. Should work on the remaining missing weapons, too...just need quite a few of those elemental crystals.
Anyway, got Kitty to work on FFTA2 data for waff. <3 She's been doing a pretty good job with it, and more content is always welcome! I am intending on getting that site presentable yet. The only problem is my own standards, since I decided to get a good chunk of the content actually up before actually starting advertising the site anywhere or anything. Less chance for big mishaps in the wiki that I'd laboriously need to correct. Well, mishaps by others, I seem to be doing a good job of messing it up by myself too. xD

The existence of Final Fantasy XIV keeps distracting me. It's not good to get this caught in one aspect that you wish the game had. But I really want my geomancer catboy now that I've thought of it. xD

Been some time since I properly listened to Nightwish, hasn't it... I don't much like the new singer, but the Once album is pretty damn good. =D

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:59:08 GMT

Final Fantasy XIV Online. Oh. Em. Gee. Guess who'll be starting with the launch this time, monthly fees be damned.

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:59:36 GMT

Too hot to do anything else. So you get a screenshot post again, this time suspiciously close to the last one...maybe I'll catch up one day yet.

This is Ghelsba Outpost. We both needed items that drop from monsters there (cathedral tapestry, shaman garlic, and I needed a Ghelsba key in addition to those), so it was the next logical step. Kitty said she'd know where to go, but she led us in the wrong direction right off the bat. xD This is an orcish fort pretty much in the entrance area.

More orcish constructions in Ghelsba. This is much further (and higher) in to the zone, on our way to the Yughott Grotto upper entrance. We were stupid and didn't go in through the lower entrance...

Yughott Grotto, fighting an EP orc. We were in search of the ones that drop keys, since key is the rarest drop out of those we were searching for, and the key mobs dropped the other items too. Well, this first time we didn't stay in there for too long. Kitty had to go to dinner, and I was too tired to wait for her to come back.

This is from back in San d'Oria. Ghelsba/Yughott are really close to Sandy by the way. =D;
Anyway, the Egg-Hunt Eggstravaganza (the Easter event) just started, these are some of the decorations.

Egg-hunt of course means there are tons of people gathered around every moogle they can find...moogles give out eggs, one per in-game day.
Look, there's a Puppetmaster galka in relic gear! :O The big hairy thing with cream/red clothes, if you're not familiar with the terminology.

Surrounded by Elvaan females. It was really surprising, considering how rare Elvaan females are in the game. I've seen the Viena person (she's a Red Mage) around a lot, and I think Rumer is usually a bazaar mule in Jeuno...the egg-hunt really disrupts normal routines throughout all the servers and zones.
I'm also wearing the ridiculous-looking egg helm, one of the rewards for the event.

A random screenshot from the docks in Selbina. Waiting for a ferry.

Buburimu Peninsula! Now I remember, I was waiting for that ferry because I was stupid and didn't remember I had Oupost-warp to Buburimu available. We were going to hunt for RSE (Race-Specific Equipment) for me. For that, you must first find a key in a certain cave that changes every time your race's week comes around. Then you must find a chest in that same cave that you can open with the key. Then you take the pattern you receive from that chest to a goblin weaver in Jeuno. Rinse and repeat, for all the pieces of the equipment you want...

I don't have screenies of the first hunting trip it appears. This is from when I went to Jeuno to return the first pattern, and decided to stop by the Egg-hunt moogle booth to buy this jewel-egg...screenshots of it further down.

Buburimu Peninsula Outpost. I'd just returned from my second trip to the goblin, in this screenie I'm already wearing the RSE gloves and boots. They're the dark blue/white ones.

Fighting a random bat while searching for crawlers (crawlers drop the key in Maze of Shakhrami, which is the name of the zone we were farming for the keys in). We're still low enough level to aggro the bats in there (or at least were back then?), so we had to be careful and stop to fight pretty much every bat that was in the way.

Once again, heading to Jeuno. This whole RSE-searching process became a bit expensive. It's several hundred gil to rent a chocobo from the closest Crag and ride to Jeuno. And I had to chocobo to Jeuno three times that in-game week, and would have gone a fourth if we'd have had the time to get the a fourth key.

Back in Shakhrami again, searching for that fourth key. But it was a futile attempt. All the three previous keys dropped nice and fast, but we fought crawlers down there for two hours after I returned, and didn't get the fourth key. When the week changed, we decided to give up on searching and just get the fourth key when the next Elvaan male week would come around. So I was stuck with my old armor for a bit longer.

In my Mog House, taking screenshots of the jewel-egg furniture I bought. See? It's purple here, and...

Here it's blue! =D It looks really great, basically it switches colors in a certain pattern, fading from one into another continuously. I even invited Kitty to come take a look at the thing, she ended up buying it too even though she didn't intend to buy any furniture this event. xD

My RSE-week took priority for a while, but after it was over we went back to farming for those items in Yughott Grotto. This is us in Ghelsba Outpost, heading to that closer entrance to Yughott this time... xD

There's lots of zones connected to each other in that area. First there's Ghelsba Outpost at the base of the mountain. Then there's Fort Ghelsba closer to the top, running down the mountainside. Yughott Grotto is a cave and tunnel complex within the mountain, and Horlais Peak is at the very top. This here is a view from Horlais, we had to go up there to pick up water for General Curilla. =D;
This time, we actually got all (or most?) the items we were looking for...

More Egg-hunt furniture! These are two of the four/five new pieces of furniture they came up with this year. The egg stool and the egg lantern... there's also the egg table and egg...buffet? But if the top was the buffet, then what was the whole thing called combined? @__@ Anyway, four items to get, and a fifth possible one if you combine them all.

More crowd at the Southern San d'Oria moogle... Seriously, the lag around him at times was something fierce.

Back in Shakhrami. It was Kitty's RSE week, and although she only wanted one piece of her RSE, there was still work to be done. Fought some scorpions while at it.

Shakhrami actually has two entrances. If you use the Buburimu entrance, you can't access all parts of the caves, so since we farmed for the keys near the Bubu entrance, we had to run to the Tahrongi Canyon entrance if we couldn't find a chest at the Bubu side. From the Tahrongi side you can drop down to the Bubu side, though...

This is the goblin who can upgrade your gobbiebag (inventory). I don't think I have a screenshot of the weaver goblin, even though he (she?) is in the same building. Anyway, managed to get all the required items for my next gobbiebag expansion, so I was handing them in while Kitty went to get her RSE pants. They're the short red ones she's wearing in this screenie. xD

Moon setting in Jeuno, with the sun coloring the horizon yellow...

We were getting a bit gimped with our subjob (Black Mage) only level 18 or something, so we went to level BLM for a bit. This is La Theine, we were in low MP and hiding from a battering ram that was nearby...the orcs we could handle if they aggroed us with low MP, but certainly not a ram! We probably couldn't even take it on with full MP, on BLM.

Soon went on to Valkurm Dunes to level on lizards, since the exp in La Theine was really dreadful. We mostly just ran through it and headed straight to Valkurm Bastok side.

But soon we decided it was boring, and I need dark crystals anyway. So we warped back to San d'Oria with the intention to level in Carpenter's Landing (which is directly accessible from the city). This is me behind the Southern Sandy Home Point crystal.

Didn't take long at all for us to level! BLM seriously just goes BOOM and everything dies. xD Got to BLM level 20 in that session, that'll see us through to level 40 main job.

*ponders* I think the combined furniture was called the egg buffet... This is it, by the way. Managed to get all four of the new furniture, so I combined them to save space.

The Elvaan female is wearing a Royal Redingote! :O The add-on A Crystalline Prophecy had just come out, and people started sporting the three new armors that are rewards from the final fight in it. I'm pretty sure the Redingote wouldn't look good on me, but the Elvaan girl there sure does make it look good. =D

What next, what next... we apparently grabbed some stone monument, I think this is the Jugner Forest one.

And then we were off to Davoi! It's connected to Jugner, and that's where the Paladin unlocking quest is located. We finally went to do it! =D Had to sneak around in rivers to get to the back of the zone...

More sneaking around. One of those fishies managed to aggro Kitty at some point, we were more careful from that on. Not that the fishies were dangerous (they were just EP), but we didn't want to waste time with them. EP don't give very good exp.

Back in San d'Oria and Balasiel. Unlocked Paladin, finally! *________*

A random landscape shot of the entrance from Valkurm Dunes to Selbina. I have no clue why we went to the ferry.

But to the ferry we went. We even went abovedeck to see if..something would show up. I think skeletons? But no, just a lot of rain and darkness.

Last screenie of the batch, a bit later from the several days long gaming session that included all the other screenshots in this post... I finally got my last piece of RSE, the body piece. =D That's a random screenshot from the shop with all the goblins, including the weaver and the gobbiebag expander.

Hey, only about 400 screenshots to go through and decide which ones to post! =D I usually post about one screenshot in four, so that'd make around 100 screenies to post before I'm fully caught up...

Wed, 27 May 2009 21:53:17 GMT

I got bored of updating waff (guh, FF11 basic playing guide, why did I ever decide to write such a thing?!), so you get a FF11 screenshot post.

Oh, what a start we get... sorry about the almost-pantyshot. :P But I'd completely forgotten I did stuff on Ellanore too! So let's see how the start of the year went for her.
As you can see, to bring in the new year I went leveling with Kitty for a bit. I wanted to kill a couple mobs in La Theine Plateau and didn't have good enough armor to survive there for long on my level, so I asked Kitty to come escort me. Ended up leveling there for a while.

After getting Red Mage a couple levels on her, I randomly decided to level Warrior for a bit too. See Ella the mighty WAR. See her go raaawwwwrrr.

A bit after, Kitty had some time to escort me to Bastok, I'd wanted to go there for a while. So off we went. This is from the Crag of...Holla? Dem? @__@ In La Theine Plateau. Grabbing a gate crystal.

Valkurm Dunes, still on the way to Bastok. Gods, I hated this leg of the journey. Any one of those gobs could have killed me in a couple hits. Kitty was following behind, ready to try and rescue me if Sneak and Invisible wore at the wrong time, ready to recast those two spells if they wore considering Ella has neither...

Konschtat Highlands, near the Crag there. No, I still can't remember which Crag is which. Anyway. This EP quadav aggroed me, so I decided to take it down. If I'm not greatly mistaken, there are traces of both Water and Bio in this screenie. Water cast on me, Bio on the quad. And I think Kitty cast a Cure on me at the same time, too? You can just see the blue sparkles.

North Gustaberg, still on the way to Bastok. I saw a hound, I had to kill it. It's a reflex. :P

Port Bastok, the..Steamy Sheep? Something like that. Isn't Ella pretty? *___*

In the end, I left Bastok almost as soon as I'd reached it. I'd forgotten I had no money, and most the stuff I wanted to do there required money. Lots of it. So back we went to San d'Oria. This is from Konschtat Highlands.

When I got back home to San d'Oria, we were first place in Conquest! =D I had to take a screenshot of it.

This was taken out of curiosity. And urge to ridicule bad fashion sense. Wearing wedding gear and a pumpkin on you head?! xD;;

So I went back to level Warrior for a bit. This is Ella using Mighty Strikes, the WAR 2-hour ability. It makes all your hits critical, and if I don't remember it entirely wrong I really needed that with this beetle. It was surprisingly tough.

This is some creek in Jugner Forest. In all honesty, I have no fricking clue what I was doing there. Perhaps hunting for the stone monument. *ponders*
And yes, it's back to Jenare. This is sometime after the Doll Festival, so March? April?

A random screenshot from my Mog House. I think I'd rearranged stuff a bit and wanted to screenie it. No matter, the lantern-thing is pretty.

Then, I started trying to catch up in levels with Kitty, who'd played a bit while I was taking a break from the game. She also wanted us to unlock Summoner, so I went to hunt for a Carbuncle's Ruby. Those things drop from leeches, and the leeches in Buburimu Peninsula were of a suitable level to gain some exp while waiting for the drop. So there I headed, to a beach full of leeches.

...and ended up leaving a mere several hours later. I had some extreme luck with the Ruby, some people hunt for it for days before getting one. Me? I even had time to go level elsewhere that day, after having my fill of the leeches.
This is me, in Buburimu Peninsula at the cliffs overlooking the sea at the north parts of the map. Trying to sneak up on a crawler.

For some reason, I decided to take a ferry from Mhaura (near Buburimu) to Selbina (near Valkurm). The ferry is usually empty aside from a couple fishermen, but this time these two were on board. They danced around waiting for the ferry to leave, and then went abovedeck to kill stuff.

Back in San d'Oria, and I have no clue what job I'm on. There are two options - black mage and white mage. I don't even know why I suddenly decided to level one of those....
Anyway, I took this screenshot because of the taru with a light blue cap, Sucineri. That is a Maat's Cap he's wearing. You can only get one after you get all original+Chains of Promathia jobs to at least level 70. Holy cow, that taru must be a real no-lifer. O.o;
...not that I wouldn't be wanting Maat's Cap myself.

But no matter, soon I was back in Buburimu, stalking crawlers. Here's one, not too far from the last Bubu-crawler screenshot. There's a random dhalmel walking around in the bg too, but I wasn't too interested in dhalmels. They don't drop silk threads.

Quite randomly, on a low-level job again. I think it was thief this time. It's from the...Aropago? Pass in Tahrongi Canyon. The mandragora has just cast Dream Flower.

Windurst Walls, just heading south from the Walls Auction House. I have no clue why anyone would decide to fish in their wedding dress, but that mithra apparently decided to do so. =D;

Back in Tahrongi, leveling whatever-job-it-was. A pretty sunrise.

Still leveling in Tahrongi. That sapling decided to go glitchy and get stuck on top of that fragile-looking plant thing. Yeah, I have no clue.

Some time later, I decided to go finish catching up with Kitty on my red mage. For whatever reason, decided that Pashhow Marshlands would be the best place to do that. This is me, casting Enwater (water damage added to hits) in preparation for taking on that goobbue in the distance.

Fighting a fly in Pashhow. Yeah, can you tell I did a whole ton of fighting during that time. xD;

Being done with the catching up, I went to advance my Summoner-unlocking quest. Had to go click on this locked door. There was some other person, no clue what she was doing. The house is involved in pretty many quests, and even in the Windurst missions.

A random stone monument. I'm not perfectly sure where this one is located, I did pretty many of them at this time, running around after weathers. You see, to unlock SMN you need to gather seven different weathers for the Ruby. So I thought that since I'll be running around a lot anyway, might as well make it as useful as possible.

Then I finally started playing with Kitty again. <3 We went to do Squire's Test II, a pre-requisite for unlocking Paladin. This is Ordelle's Caves, below La Theine Plateau. It's a beautiful place...

A very beautiful place. This little pond here is way deep in, and involved in the quest we went to do. It sparkles! =D

Yet more funny mob names. xD This is where you get the item required to complete the quest. The ??? you need to target is right there in the middle of nowhere, quite randomly.

Afterwards, we wandered around La Theine a bit apparently. And took down a ram, those drop pretty many good money-drops.

I think we had some business in Jeuno at this point? This is from the way there, from Meriphataud Mountains. It was the first time we killed one of those axe beaks, they were pretty damn scary not too long ago.
...damn. This makes me remember that I should go kill some of them. I need a feather that they drop.

More fighting in Meriphataud. A raptor this time, those are nice. Attack way too quickly. But Kitty had disconnected and I wanted something to do. Raptor-killing it was.

I finally got access to the Tenshodo headquarters! :O That's Aldo, their leader. Also the orphan boy featured in the opening video of the game. Also one of the main characters in the latest add-on, A Crystalline Prophecy.

Randomly back in San d'Oria. Home sweet home? This dude is the Paladin-unlocking quest dude. We completed the pre-requisite quest and signed up for the real one. Finally! This has been one of my objectives in the game ever since I started!

But we still weren't done with gathering weathers for the Ruby, to unlock Summoner. So off we went, in search of a snow weather. Problem is, snow weather only appears in a high-level area... this is us, heading to a high-level area in Ranguemont Pass, on our way to the target zone.

Which would be this. Beaucedine Glacier. It sure had snow for us. Lots of snow. As you come up from the tunnel leading to Ranguemont, you become almost blind at moments, as the wind pushes all the snowfall in your direction...

At the entrance to the cave/tunnel. Yes, it really has those teeth-looking things up there. xD Anyway, we didn't go much further than this. Didn't really fancy dying, and there was an Incredibly Tough tiger guarding the pass. So we went back to complete the SMN quest.

This is the place, in northern parts of La Theine Plateau. A circle of old stones. Offer the Ruby to the air in the center, and Carbuncle will come to you... and enables you to become a SMN and summon him to your side at any time you wish. Objective met!

Every time someone unlocks Summoner, the next day there is a rainbow above the Crag. So we went to wait for our rainbow.

Was bored waiting for the right time (ie next day..), so took some screenies. It was a long wait.

It was a really long wait. Us, still sitting at the same place, looking at the dawn and wishing the fucking rainbow would just appear.... xD

Sometime around noon it started raining. That almost ruined our chances of seeing the rainbow, as the only condition it doesn't appear in is rain. Opps.

All's well that ends well. After an almost full hour of waiting, we got to see our rainbow at last. On to new adventures?

43 screenshots this time, from March to..actually, I don't know when. Not too long in RL-time though, as we played rather much around that time. But still, that much closer to catching up with these! Next up, we have a very annoying goblin, some black magey destruction, and finally unlocking Paladin.

Wed, 27 May 2009 15:06:32 GMT

Another day, another missed opportunity to call a place. The problem is that you can call only between 10-11 AM, and no way am I calling anywhere without breakfast. And knowing my sleeping habits, waking up early enough is proving to be a bit of a problem...

I seem to have become addicted to updating waff. Even though I should be reading to entrance exams or something..instead, I just write various more-or-less interesting pages. Hey, at least I'm finally getting things done for it! Like the moogle page, I'm pretty proud of the Vana'diel and Crystal Chronicles sections at least. Of course, I haven't even attempted writing sections for the early games yet..I just can't remember enough of most of them to write anything. Like FF5, I just sped through at the same time as I was playing other games. Or FF6, which I've played in short spurts when I remember I have it. The result is that I can remember hardly anything of either game.

Didn't mention it, but I reached MNK lv 20 a couple days ago in FF11. Retired it shortly after for now. I wasn't really intending on leveling it that much, but it turned out to be so much fun...
Maybe I should do a screenshot post again. It'd really be preferable to write this stuff the same time with the screenies, as it is I end up writing most stuff twice, pretty much. Hmmh.

Notifed my ISP of moving. As I suspected, they'll take ages to switch it. Told me they won't reconnect until the 16th, which pretty much sucks. Probably getting mom's mokkula for those couple weeks, but that won't work in Linux as far as I know... *sigh* Just when I was excited to be able to access all my stuff again.

Tue, 26 May 2009 15:24:28 GMT

Wow, can Susan Boyle sing. I know I know, I always get around to this stuff late. But..damn, can she sing. I regret passing over mentions of her name before. It's kind of an automatic reaction. Something new comes along, gets mentioned at most every blog I mention, and I just let it be. xD

I received my Final Fantasy IV novels last week, been reading the first book when I remember. It's really interesting. It doesn't actually make the main point be the story of the game. It follows various people in the sidelines. When Cecil went to Mysidia, there was Kain!angst over Rosa. When Cecil and Kain left to Mist, there was Rosa!angst, and following the events in Baron. After reaching Kaipo, there was Gilbart and Anna's story, and a bit before that there was a bit about Tellah's feelings and thoughts as he struggled alone towards Damcyan. Basically, it expands on the people and bits of stories that the game didn't concentrate on.
Naturally, they've only been published in Japanese. But if you can read it.. author is Tezuka Ichirou, there's two of the novels, and they were published by Square Enix. There's an introduction by Tokita Takashi at the end of the second book, too, talking about FF4 and the sequel.

Thu, 14 May 2009 19:11:50 GMT

Screenie post tiemz.

First screenie of the year. That thing there is a New Year's decoration, a kadomatsu. You could also buy one for 10,000 gil to put in your house, but I was too poor to buy one...

Year of the Cow, so we get buffaloes running around wild in the starter areas. xD They also sold cases of milk in Jeuno, also 10k for one. Still couldn't afford any...

But these were free! One more New Year's event furniture, snowmen. You can of course recognize the nation they're from by the colors. The red knight is San d'Oria, blue miner is Bastok, and green mage is Windurst.

Some more chocoboing. Heading to Jeuno from Bastok, this is Rolanberry Fields, and the mob is a Goobbue Farmer. It's funny, I've never actually properly fought anything in the area. Just a couple goblins that aggroed when we were heading into the Cavernous Maw in Rolanberry, but never gone there with the purpose of killing stuff.

Tahrongi Canyon in Kolshushu, and thhe construct is one of the Crags. I still can't remember which Crag is which. I know they're Dem, Holla and Mea, and I know where they're located, but I always mix up the names...

With the new year, Kitty made a mule. This is Lokh, Rii and Kii's irresponsible mother.

I know, the location's jumping around rather rapidly. There just wasn't anything noteworthy happening so we just skipped around a lot.
Anyway, this is Bastok Metalworks, the governmental area of it to be exact. The dude is the head of the Department of...something. I finally signed up for my mission 2-3 second part! He was very rude though. Just what you'd expect from rich humes.

That guy's name never ceases to amuse me. I had to come to this eatery to get some info about the mission, and had to screenie him again. Almost a traditional FF name, he has...

Aaaand we're up to February now. We didn't actually go do mission 2-3 before February yet, I just signed up for it so the NPC conversations wouldn't get in the way. This is obviously from during the Valentine's day event, more properly called Valentione's day in Vana'diel. The moogles had us match up chocolates of suitable singles so they could go on a date... Rewards of course varied according to how well you matched them up.

Kitty played more than I did at that time, and she got new equips. <3 Place is San d'Orian blacksmithing guild's shop. There's no goldsmithing guild in San d'Oria, but they sell some ores required in goldsmithing here, too.

Randomly chocoboing through La Theine, that is a Battering Ram. They're kind of huge. I think this was around the time when we finally dared to take them on. xD

North Gustaberg, the Fumaroles. Basically this hot spring area, apparently. At least there's a lot of steam. Somewhere around here is the spawning area for Leaping Lizzy, an NM that's notorious for never dropping its shoes...which are, of course, godly for any DD and tank in the game. I was waiting for Kitty, we were heading for Dangruf Wadi, and through there to this otherwise inaccessible area of North Gustaberg.

Which would be this. The foot of the Drachenfall, one of the natural wonders of Vana'diel. Had to go there to see a stone monument behind the waterfall, it's for this long, long quest where you search out stone monuments all through the original areas...

Heading back to Bastok from that trip. It was Lightsday, and I'd never seen the moon that clear and big. Not to mention the ring around it. The scenery, while familiar, was quite gorgeous.

So, what's next. Palborough Mines, just off of North Gustaberg. Hunting for one of the Kazham keys, this time going for the Palborough key. Kitty had gotten hers earlier, so thankfully we had only one key to hunt for.

The rabbits in Palborough amused me. Who names a rabbit 'Rabid Rat'? xD Still on the way to the place with the key-dropping mobs.

Sadly, Kitty had lots of connection problems that day. She kept disconnecting every hour or so... not that the mobs there were dangerous, but it was still rather bothersome.

In her absence, I screenied a couple more 'Rabid Rats'. xD

One of the key-dropping mobs. There's this Quadav breeding ground behind the tunnel bend, although I have no clue why it's so misty. And just in that one dead end!

More fighting key-mobs. We were stuck down there for hours and hours before a key dropped. And when it did drop, we aggroed a Quadav on the way back...and that Quadav dropped a second key. Such is luck. xD

While searching for a coffer for Kitty to open with her extra key, we came upon this scorpion. Scorpions are so nice. Every time I see one, I feel the need to kill it. So we did.

Skip to March! And the Doll Festival, Hinamatsuri. Also known as the festival of girls. Naturally, it's set after this RL Japanese festival, but in Vana'diel it comes with a twist. More of that later. Here are some decorations from around the Bomingo Round in Windurst Woods. Troop Valeriano's fire eater in the background.

Somehow, they'd put cherry trees in bloom in every single waterway in the cities. It was weird, they were growing in these boxes...no matter, they were pretty. This is Windurst Waters.

More decorations in Waters.

We decided to head to San d'Oria to take some screenies. For some reason, we chocobo'd to Mhaura and took the ferry to Selbina...and apparently ran from Selbina to San d'Oria. Yeah, I have no clue why we did that. Would've been a whole lot easier to just chocobo to San d'Oria.
Anyway, this is Buburimu Peninsula. You can just see the gate to Mhaura ahead.

Fighting a random goblin in Valkurm Dunes, pretty near the Selbina entrance.

My mog house in San d'Oria, and the Doll Festival decorations! I had no money, but Kitty bought stuff. <3 She had been playing more, so she had some money even...

Cherry trees in Northern San d'Oria.

Excenmille M Aurchiat, a war hero. I've screenied him before too. Many times I think. He's pretty. :P

Aaaand here's the Vana'dielian twist to the festival. Since not everyone is a little girl that the festival celebrates, the moogles invented girl mochi of different races. Eat one, and you change into a little girl of that race. xD I ate an Elvaan mochi first.

And then Kitty ate a Tarutaru mochi... She became even shorter than before. xD

In fact, so short that you can't even see her under the table... xDD

Turned off the mochi effect in preparation for the next one, and was quite shocked. She didn't look that short when I was a little girl. xD

Here is me. See me run. Run, mithra girl, run. That ends screenies of the Doll Festival. Next up: lots of questing.

34 screenshots, and I'm up to March. Getting some hopes of catching up finally...

Sun, 10 May 2009 13:02:31 GMT

Gaming meme, stolen from Kitty. *nods*

General

1. What was the first video game you have ever played?
Pac-Man, way back in '89 or so. Ah, the memories.. xD

2. What was your first console?
As in..an actual console? I jumped in way late to console gaming. GameCube, shortly after followed by PS2. I was a computer gamer before that.

3. Have you ever visited a video game arcade?
Only briefly, and never to play myself

4. What was your first handheld?
GBC. Got it to play Pokemon =D I actually got my first handheld game way before the handheld itself, as I was too poor to get it. Ended up borrowing a GB to play my Pokemon Red...

5. What was the first game you've beaten/cleared completely? (Got to the last level/got 100%/beat high score, etc.)
Those are very different things, you know. Beaten? Pokemon Red. (or maybe it was Rayman? I'm not sure if I ever beat the final boss, although I did play it tons) Cleared completely? It was Pokemon Colosseum. xD

6. Games based off of real sports: Yay or Nay?
More like 'eww'

7. Online games: Yay or nay?
Not really, unless they carry the Final Fantasy name. And I guess I could make an exception for Pokemon too. I'm just not that interested in playing with others generally.

8. Do you play any Massively Multiplayer Online RPG games? (MMORPGs?)
I do, Final Fantasy XI.

9. Do you play any virtual pet games? (Neopets, Teripets, Aftermathzone, etc.)
I think I used to have a Neopets account once. I think I logged in two or three times...

10. Puzzle games and Strategy games: Yay or Nay?
Yes!

11. Do you play any RPGs?
That's mainly what I play

12. Do you play any Platformer games?
Weren't most games platformers way back when..? I can remember several I'd love to go back to. Hmm... I wonder if I could find some and make them work on my computer when I get access to it...

13. What was the first game/console/handheld of yours that stopped working?
All mine still work perfectly fine thank you.

Characters/Plot

14. Do you actually care if a game has a plot or do you just play games for the gameplay?
I play mostly for the plot. Although there are exceptions. Like Pokemon. Those, I play for the gameplay. xD;

15. Name a few video game characters that are your favorites.
Umm.. Kuja (FF9), Vergil (Devil May Cry), Zelos (Tales of Symphonia), Edea (FF8), Zelh'teus (FF11)..probably many others that I can't remember right now

16. Name a few series that are your favorites.
Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Devil May Cry =D;

17. Has a video game ever made you cry?
Yes

18. Has a video game character annoyed you so much that you wanted him removed from the game?
Not really, no

19. Do you "pair" or "ship" characters up with one another? (make/create/write romance involving them)
It's kind of inevitable

20. Do you write video game fanfiction?
Sometimes. Although I guess more frequently now, since don't Jenare's journal entries count..?

21. Do you draw video game fanart?
When I remember to draw in the first place. But yeah, I do.

22. Do you come up with theories on how a character came to be/what he or she would do in a situation/why he or she is moody/etc.
Always when I notice something different going on

23. Are you a "fanboy" or "fangirl" of any character?
I suppose

Boss Battles/Villains

24. Hardest Boss Battle
Errm. I don't generally get around to the extra challenges in games before getting distracted with another game, so I'm going to have to go with the one game where I did that. I can't even remember the boss's name, just that it was this dude in Tales of Symphonia, and the dungeon with him was in the mountains and you had to go in waaaay deep into the dungeon to find him?

25. Most Frustrating Boss Battle
Getting Bahamut in FF8 back when I first played the game, '99 maybe? That effing light and its Ruby Dragons, and having to save outside, and then failing and failing and failing and having to try again all the time.. xD; I know, technically that's not part of the boss battle itself, but what makes it furstrating is getting there.

26. Most Rewarding Boss Battle
I can't remember any particularly rewarding boss battle

27. Funnest Boss Battle
Maybe something in Rayman. There were all sorts of bosses in that game. *ponders*

28. Most Boring Boss Battle
Maybe Bahamut in FF3. I was way overleveled.

29. Boss Battle that dragged out for a long, long time.
Exodus in Final Fantasy XII. I was underleveled and my macros (..crap, what were they called in that game?) weren't the best, but I just kept trying and trying...
If I'd ever gotten around to trying the hardest marks in that game, the choice would most likely go to one of those.

30. Boss Battle with the coolest music
Most likely something from FF11. That game has awesome boss battle music.

31. Most Surprising Boss Battle
I remember playing FF8, and getting to that part where Rinoa is strapped to Adel... ended up killing her myself the first time, I'd never before encountered a battle where one of your own is at the enemy's side of the screen

32. What's your all time favorite villain?
Kuja, hands down. :P

33. What's your all time least favorite villain?
Can't remember anyone particularly bad right now

34. Do you ever feel sorry for the villains?
Of course

35. Are there any villains that seem like they should be playing for the good guys, but aren't?
Quite often

36. Most malicious villain?
Kefka (FF6)?

37. Most surprising villain?
Zelos (Tales of Symphonia) ;___;

Favorites

38. (urrgh, no question, but Kitty said it seemed to be about SNES-gen, maybe before that too?)
I haven't played that many console games from those times, but Final Fantasy IV

39. What's your favorite 3D game? (PS1/N64 generation)
Vagrant Story

40. What's your favorite arcade game?
Err...I don't really play arcade games

41. What's your favorite next-gen game? (Gamecube/PS2/X-Box)
Wtf, how old is this meme? xD;
Anyway, I'd have to go with FF12

42. Sequels/long series: Yay or nay?
Definitely a yes

43. What's your favorite Online Game?
FF11, since I don't really play any other online games...

44. What's your favorite console?
I'm gonna have to say PS2, for the wide selection of games it has

45.What's your favorite handheld?
It'd go to DS. PSP is a strong contender, but it's gonna have to be the DS.

46. Have you ever got yourself involved in a "console war"? (arguing that a console is better than another console)
Not really, no. Although I have argued that people shouldn't support Microsoft in anyway, does that count?

47. Have you ever defended a character/game/console you liked in an argument? Which one?
Kuja, FF12, GameCube?

48. Name a game that you like but everyone else seems to hate.
Baten Kaitos. ...oh, come on, it's a good enough game! xD

49. Name a character that you like but everyone else seems to hate.
Can't think of a character so universally hated...

50. Name a game that you hate but everyone else seems to like.
Kingdom Hearts. Seriously, I just can't see the draw.

51. Name a character that you hate but everyone else seems to love.
Can't really think of anyone

Miscellaneous

52. Have you ever stopped before you finished a game because it was too frustrating to go on?
I think Resident Evil 4. I got stuck in a part where I had no clue where to go, and I didn't bother checking a guide.

53. Will you stop at NOTHING to get 100% in a video game?
Oh, I'll stop. Numerous times in fact. But if I want 100%, I want 100%. And I'll eventually get it.

54. Have you ever injured yourself at a video game?
I've only gotten blisters..oh, and once or twice a sore arm from playing on the Wii

55. Has a horror/survival genre video game scared you to the point that you refused to finish the game? Did you get nightmares from said game?
No

56. Have you ever thrown a controller/disc/cartridge in a fit of frustration?
Controller. Although I was careful and threw it on the sofa right next to me. xD

57. Do you need to blow/clean certain games to get them to play?
No

58. Have you ever played a game for so long that you missed sleep over it?
Have I ever xD

59. Were you ever involved in the Pokemon craze?
Maybe. Kind of. Totally. xD

60. Last but not least: Do you picture yourself playing video games 10, 20, or 30 years from now?
Quite likely

Huh, I wonder when I last did any meme. Been a while. O.o

I cut my fingertip earlier. Now it hurts to type...

Fri, 08 May 2009 21:23:31 GMT

Hee, they're releasing Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver! *___* Without a doubt, the best Pokemon games ever. Finally!! I've been waitng for this for years and years already. Going to get Soul Silver as soon as it's released in English. <3 Got Silver back during the days of GBC, can't break the tradition. I like Lugia more anyway.
...this reminds me that I barely even started Pearl before getting seriously distracted. And when was it that I got it? xD;; I should really play it more, but it didn't quite capture my attention like the previous generations. I've been a fan since Red and Blue... Got Red by the way, quite unlike all the other gens. After that I've always gotten the second of the duo. I wonder if I should get Platinum, too... I don't really want to miss on all the new stuff. But I haven't gotten too deep into Emerald either! Arrgh. There's never enough time. I remember I did some breeding on Emeral already, but not enough to more than scratch the surface of all my plans for it.
I wonder which starter I should pick in Soul Silver. My traditional choice is the grass pokemon, although I've played through Silver on both Cyndaquil and Totodile as well as Chikorita. Although I guess it's a bit early to worry about that already, if they're coming out this fall in Japan. xD;

In The World Ends With You...I'm still on Joshua day 5. I've almost finished my daily round of all the shops though, so getting closer to the end of it. I even managed to buy something from that Pegasos-brand shop in the big department store right off the Scramble Crossing (no, I can't remember the area name), even though it was only the cheapest of them... damn those insanely expensive shops there.

...why don't I have a single Pokemon icon?!

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:07:40 GMT

Still in the process of trying to catch up with the Final Fantasy XI screenies. So yeah, a screenshot post time.

Look, look! There's a Dragoon with their wyvern out. Wyverns are so pretty. =D
This is the Outpost in Buburimu Peninsula. And quite unexpectedly, there are two galka. They were probably leveling, but I have no clue what I was doing there.

The next screenies take me to Sauromugue Champaign on the way to Jeuno (as you can see from the screenie), but Buburimu is not on the way to Jeuno. I have no clue, really.
Isn't Sauromugue wonderfully barren? It's like that the whole way to Jeuno.

Still Sauromugue. That is a Sauromugue Skink. I think they were IT yet at this point (we can't have been more than level 25 yet), possibly T. Very difficult to beat in any case, and there are stronger opponents in Sauromugue than just the skinks. So we Sneak/Invis'd almost the whole way.

The bridge leading to Jeuno from Sauromugue. This is in fact the only entrance to Jeuno from the Mindartia continent. The Quon continent has two entrances, the Batallia Downs entrance, and the Rolanberry Fields entrance that I showed in the last screenshot post.

Port Jeuno. I have no clue why I took this screenie. Possibly because of the mithra. I think she's wearing Bard AF? *ponders*

Lower Jeuno, a place that I previously had missed. Yes, Lower Jeuno is so cluttered with shops that I actually missed a door in there. xD; This is the Merry Minstrel. If you remember Nightingale, one of the characters in our RP-verse, and who I wrote about during Nanowrimo...he performed in this place once. And did lots of naughty things afterwards when I ran out of inspiration and resorted to pr0n. >.>'
The mithra there, Bki, gives out a quest that is a requirement for the Bard quest.

Port Jeuno again, although this is from significantly lower than the street in the previous screenshot. This is the entrance to the tunnel leading to Qufim Island. It's this crescent-shaped island north of Jeuno, and the tunnel is the only way to get there. It's the most popular leveling place in the 20s. Or at least was before the introduction of Level Sync. After that, everyone just gets stuck in the dreaded Dunes.

The tunnel leading to Qufim Island. We were too weak at this point, and had to sneak around a lot, and I think we eventually got killed because we aggroed too many bats. Bats are either the weakest or second-weakest mobs in Qufim. Go, us.

Here's Qufim proper. We did make it to the island, and after deciding everything was too strong for us, got killed by the afore-mentioned bats on the way back. xD
The green thing in the distance is a gigas - although they're called giants when in Qufim. The mob family is gigas, though. I love how FF11 keeps up FF conventions more than some other recent FF games...

A Dragoon, a Dragon, a Dragoon~! And his wyvern, of course.

Rolanberry Fields. We were on the way to Bastok for some reason, although the screenshots don't reveal what we went there to do. That's the downside of posting these this much late..
Anyway, these are the plants rolanberries grow on. There's groves and groves of these all over the zone.

Pashhow Marshlands, still on the way to Bastok. Pretty (although weird) flowers? They have something like these in Konschtat Highlands too, at least they're about as tall. The petals are a bit more lightly colored there, though.

One more screenie of Bastok's Starlight Celebration decorations, just because. Bastok Markets, the street (/bridge?) leading to the gate out of the city. Up ahead is the Firewater Circle and the AH.

A random switch to Windurst. Mission 2-3, start! Journey to Windurst part of it, that is. I was supposed to kill a couple puny NMs in Giddeus, the yagudo city. The consulate of San d'Oria in Windurst (in the screenie is the consul himself) is where I had to sign up for it.

A random yagudo NM in Giddeus. This one wasn't the one I needed to kill, although I think we killed it anyway. NMs aggro, you see. And everything in Giddeus was easy enough by that point anyway, even the NMs.

Here we go! The NM I actually was supposed to kill. It was really easy, although...

...this is how most of the mission went. You see, the NM was on a..I think five-minute timer. So we had to wait for the next one to pop so I could get my second item. xD; Even the time it took to kill it twice combined, we still did more waiting than battling.

Considering we'd reached level 25 by then, we had to take up the quest of obtaining a Kazham Airship Pass. It allows you to use the airship to Kazham, and Kazham only. You can get it a lot earlier than the regular airship pass. All you have to do is get three specific keys...
One of the keys drops in Giddeus.

Here, some more fighting. The room with the yagudo who drop the Giddeus Key is the most high-level room in Giddeus. I think everything was DC or EP, so it was easy enough to kill a yagudo. The problem arose from the drop rate of the key. It's abysmally low...I'm not sure anymore how long we spent down there, although it was ceratinly at least a couple hours.
We did this Giddeus one first, but there are three keys you need for the quest. We did the others later.

A random skip to Upper Jeuno. We were in the process of obtaining our chocobo licenses too. Travel was about to get a whole lot more convenient.
In the background, where you can see the chocobos? There's actually the Upper Jeuno Chocobo Stables, Brutus owns that. He's apparently one of the most famous chocobo trainers in Vana'diel or something. He gives you the quest for obtaining your chocobo license. All you have to do is take care of a wounded chocobo...
And I think we were trading something by the Auction House people (not in sceenie), that's why we're actually looking at each other. xD;

Here is the wounded chocobo. He actually had (has?) a cruel owner who beat him. .___.; So we had to gain his trust by feeding him stuff. Stuff that we painstakingly farmed from some flies in Meriphataud Mountains...
The owner is called Dietmund. He actually appears in another quest too, a quest that we completed just yesterday. So remember him.

First trip on chocobo! =D Through Batallia Downs, which is the third Jeuno-entrance area, the really dangerous one where we died to a really annoying tiger really fucking close to the entrance. xD;
Anyway, it's on the way to San d'Oria. And San d'Oria we had to go to to do Kitty's mission 2-3 first part.

Some more Batallia Downs, some more chocobos. Kitty in the distance. She kept getting lost in that zone for some reason. O.o;

La Theine Plateau, still on the same way to San d'Oria. Yes, I took a ton of screenies from my first ride on a chocobo. xD

West Ronfaure, Westgate. Just dismounting. Damn, it took a while to figure out how to dismount. xD;; The command is /dismount, just for reference...

Quite randomly, my trusty oak table! With a Dream Coffer (the Bastokan Starlight Celebration furniture-item) and some of my flower pots.

Just a random screenie of Excenmille in North San d'Oria. His full name is Excenmille M Aurchiat, and he is a San d'Orian war hero. You know, from the war 20 years back? He doesn't look that old does he. The explanation is simple. He was a kid back then. Leader of the Young Griffins, a meddling troop of kids that were surprisingly good at battling.

Look familiar? This is West Ronfaure, and the tunnel there is the entrance to Ghelsba Outpost. You know, the orcish outpost really fucking close to our capital, and our army can't seem to do anything about it...yeah, that one. I'd only been there once before, to do my nation mission 1-3. I was level 14 or something back then. It was a really long time ago. Back then, Ghelsba was seriously scary. Now...not so much.

One of the orcish warmachines spread about the place. Everything in this area conned TW, so there was no danger of aggro.
Anyway, we were in Ghelsba for Kitty's nation mission 2-3 first part, like I said previously. She had to kill one NM, not two like me. Boo, she got off easier. xD;

I didn't even know where she was leading us, and I think I only looked at the map once or twice. I just followed along and took screenies. They've built a real fort in there (although you can't see any hint of that in this screenie). Actually, another part of the area is called Fort Ghelsba...

Some orc constructs. Ghelsba is full of bridges like these, and you have to go back and forth on the map to actually get forward. If you're using this way, that is.

Ah, there we go! Warchief Vatgit, the orc NM that Kitty had to kill. Of course, it was real easy too. We did this part of the mission way too late.

On the way back to San d'Oria, this is the lower reaches of Ghelsba Outpost. Doesn't look very attractive. There's tons of orcs hiding in the woods, too.

Anyway, that concludes this batch of screenies. Next up...New Year's event. xD;

33 screenies, and I've finally reached this year! x___X Wrote some Jenare!posts earlier too, they're at Thoughts From the Otherworld like usually. Although I couldn't remember what we settled on as happening on Valentione's Day, so I couldn't post as many as I wrote...the Valentione's Day post got on the way, and I want to post them in order.

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:35:15 GMT

Mass media never ceases to disgust me. I'd forgotten how bad exactly it can be, but mom once again left the TV open, and the news came on, and one bit of news that made me irritated (and worried, really worried) was commented on...
You see, there's this media company, YLE, for which a fee called 'tv-maksu' (a fee for watching TV) is paid to. (never mind the fact that YLE is just one company and there are other channels too. It all goes to YLE) You can watch TV, you pay it. But YLE isn't content with that. They think that since nowadays you require a digi-box to watch TV even if you own an old one (and not everyone by far has bothered to get a dixi-box), the number of people paying the fee wasn't enough anymore. So they whined enough and came up with a solution. Make every household pay 175€. If they have a home, they must pay. Even if you're poor as fuck or blind and deaf, you'll pay. What a brilliant solution! Naturally, younger people, especially students (which aren't really known for having any money to spare for anything), get pissy. How does news react? "This media fee has made lots of young people angry, since they are used to getting everything for free." ....what's the problem here. Legitimate concerns over being able to buy food after this fucking thing, and it's broadcasted as being a fucking tantrum over having to pay for not having a TV.
No, not paying it is not an option either. They're government-backed. Not actually government-controlled, but heavily backed. Not having the government pay to prop them up is just a technicality, if YLE complains that not enough people pay since they can't even watch TV, our dear shitheads gotta make it better of course.

And on top of it all, you get branded as whining over not getting everything for free when you say that it's not a good solution, in mass media, where old people who can't use the internet go for for their information. Gee, thanks a lot for the support to the less well off people in the country.

...the only hope is the decision getting overturned. News and YLE themselves are behaving like it's a given it'll go through, though. I'm not sure how realistic that is. I mean, the TV 'tax' has traditionally been something you can't get financial support for separately, you're supposed to pay it out of your food/clothes/non-housing bills money. How much hope there's actually of getting financial support for paying this mandatory fee-that-they-refuse-to-call-unscaling-tax? And you don't even get out of it by not having a fucking TV, you have to pay it even if you're deaf and blind. I can't stress that point enough. Not to mention that it's the same amount for everyone, no matter how poor or rich. You pay it even if you can't get food afterwards, or you ruin your credit and they take all your stuff away in exchange.

I'm disgusted over how much commenting on politics there's been recently. What the fuck has happened to this world?

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:43:42 GMT

So..let's get this straight. The Pirate Bay trial. All defendants got time in prison and fines, despite flimsy prosecution. The decision was even worded so that Google is apparently a pirating company in Sweden now. Fast forward to today, a couple hours ago. News flash. People had looked at the background of the judge in the case. He's a big media crony.
.......what a surprise. After the police corruption case (big media gave a job worth one million to the police leading the investigation concerning TPB), it should be no surprise that the judge was compromised too.
It's like they're begging for Piratpartiet to become the biggest political force in Sweden. The judgement itself already raised quite enough hell, but the latest news pretty much guaranteed that EU will have some politicians from Piratpartiet in quite important places shortly. Even our local Piraattipuolue got a pretty damn good boost in supporters. And there's the Copyright Day shortly (too bad that I'm stuck here in the backwoods, there's a gathering in Tampere as well as Helsinki and I'd really love to be there) and that's bound to get Piraattipuolue even more supporters.

Tl;dr - stop corruption. Defend your right to privacy. Support your local pirate party.