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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 26, 2004 14:16:28 GMT -6
Well, it's more realistic I think. I mean, you can't expect to die and have no penalities at all in an MMORPG. I don't remember how Morrowind does it, but FFXI you lose 10% of the xp needed to get to the next level (for example, if you had to gain 100 xp you would lose 10. Not bad. But if you had to gain 1000 you'd lose 100. Also not -too- bad, but once you're having to get 4000 XP or above, then it's starting to become annoying). I don't know. It's not an ENTIRE day's progress. Just a minor inconvinence. And during the down time (ha ha, no pun intended) you can chat with your party and get to know them. That's what I do. I try to make friends with them while I'm dead, after taking one for the team. As for Morrowind..well, it's the never-ending game. There's literally no end to it, I believe. There's just too much stuff. It's overwhelming. It's basically a single player FFXI. I finally got my chocobo! It's quite a task to get it as you first have to be level 20 and then have to go to the city of Jeuno. Jeuno, in case you don't know, is a snobbish town (I say this because of the music and the prices people expect you to pay for junk) that lays beyond some extremely hard maps you have to cross to get there. Why Square-Enix decided to make you have to cross these insanely maps while you're only level 20 is beyond me, but they did so I had to. I switched to level 1 and just ran. First time I died. Second time I died. Third time I decided to try a different route (there's two you can take) and made it. Phew. But that wasn't without some scares. I've never seen the Sabertooth Tigers but I know people in their 40's and 50's hunt them....and here I was a puny level 1. So, yeah. The second part of the quest (aside from just GETTING there) is to feed a wounded chocobo a certain type of grass that costs around 600 to 800 gil each in the other cities and over 1,000 gil each in Jeuno. I ended up buying them in San d'Oria, thankfully, so I only lost 90% of my money. If I had tried to buy them in Jeuno I wouldn't have been able to afford them. Once you get the grass you have to feed the chocobo for a period of five REAL hours. You feed it the first time, wait an hour, feed it again, wait an hour, feed it again...etc etc. So I did four times last night and the fifth, and final, time I did once I woke up. I can now ride a super fast chocobo across the world.
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Post by Smz on Aug 28, 2004 12:29:00 GMT -6
Yay for chocobo! Well, I've been playing it for a few days now. I'm a level 10 warrior and currently in Bastok after deciding to leave San d'Oria for a bit (luckily we didn't get attacked at all). I think I'm doing good so far, and of course, I have died a few times (Which really doesn't bother me, unless I delevel from it lol). I probably like playing it right now due to exploring around and such (since I like to do that anyway). Pretty much all I did yesterday was explore Bastok and basically checked out the entire town. I wonder what the Chains of Promathia expansion will be like? I know Bahamut will be in now, but as a summon, or do you have to fight him? We'll see, I guess. Here is the Official site for the game (The US version), Main Index which has the link for the Japanese and European site. This game basically takes patience at times to play (like getting exp, gil and so forth ). Currently, after I get to level 18 with my Warrior and get access to a subjob, I'm going to go Thief/Warrior until I hit level 30. Then I'll see if I can get people to help me kill a dragon to get the Dragoon advance job and be Dragoon/Thief until I can solo the Samurai quest. After that, I'll level Samurai to 35, then go Dragoon/Samurai and have fun killing everything left and right. *evil grin here* What I'm doing right now is using the controller to basically do almost everything on the game (I'm only using the keyboard to type). Guess that's all.
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Post by Smz on Aug 28, 2004 12:33:01 GMT -6
Oh yeah, it even lags a little on the PS2 version. Usually the only place it lags on me is when I go by the Auction Houses since there is usually a ton of people around there all the time. The only one I've seen so far that doesn't lag would be the Auction House in Northern San d'Oria. I like the Auction Houses there though since it has an upper part which not many people use, so it doesn't lag up there.
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Post by Smz on Aug 28, 2004 19:10:53 GMT -6
Wee, triple post. Anyway, I should have known I could send screenshots from the game to my email from the Play Online Viewer. First pic. OMG! I can stand on the air!! /me Smz dies. I was walking about North Gustaberg when I noticed I happened to be standing on the air. Second pic. Sneaking up on a Young Quadav (looks like a giant turtle pretty much). No reason on this pic. Just decided to take one with my sword in hand, and this was a perfect chance to do so. I'll post a pic of my equipment and probably some others too at a later time. -Edit- Changed the urls of the two pictures.
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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 29, 2004 3:25:28 GMT -6
LOL For some reason that last pic reminds me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd is sneaking up on Bugs but they're both taking steps and walking in the same way at the same time. I can just see you doing that to that poor quadav. :P
For the first time I've truely dispised an area of this game. Even the dunes, which are labeled as a nightmare for most players (as I'm sure Scott will probably tell soon), aren't anywhere NEAR as bad as this place. After you reach level 20 you're done with the dunes, basically. In order to level up to level 25 you have to go to a place called Qufim, which is basically a yuckier version of the dunes on the otherside of the world. Let me tell ya what happened.
Well, before I tell the tale I should mention that I was reading through some other boards and noticed that people said that leveling up in Qufim is 'fast' and 'easy' because 'most people understand their jobs and know how to do renkei (skill chains).' "That's great," I thought, thinking I'd be able to shoot to level 22 at least tonight. What happened was much different.
First off, it took almost half an hour to get to Jeuno. Even by Chocobo, that run is almost unbearable if you start at Batsok. Ugh. So I get there, I buy a map to the place (3000 gil that I really need for equipment, double ugh) and head out into that place. First reaction: it's dreadful. I switch on seek party and wait......and wait.......and wait.......and wait. Thirty minutes later I'm accepted into my first part of this place. Second reaction: the people there aren't friendly at all. In the dunes when I got accepted into parties I was welcomed, generally people would sometimes introduce themselves, and otherwise made me feel welcomed into the party. Here it wasn't like that. It was like being told "fight but don't say anything" without anyone saying it. No one spoke, even to say "goodbye" when someone left. (Except in one rare case when our WM said "screw this" and just left, but that was later on.)
Several "incredibly tough" monsters later I realized that no one is any better here than they were in the dunes--sometimes they were even worse. We did one renkei the entire time. It's a wonder we didn't die from our first monster. The party was really unorganized too. To give you an example: one warrior ran up and fought a worm while our puller was a good 50 steps away from base camp. And worse yet, later we were fighting a monster and our puller brought in ANOTHER monster at the same time! It's horrible!) A few monsters later we realized that our WM had just up and went afk (and had been for a good time). He never said he was leaving. We were wondering why we were only being healed by our paladin (which isn't a healer, let me tell you). Ugh. Talk about rude. Again, we got lucky we didn't die. We decided to wait for his return. So we were just waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Finally we decided to disband and try to create our own party. Woe unto us as we couldn't find a WM replacement. That place SERIOUSLY lacks white mages. I don't understand it. Anyway, three parties later I still hadn't even gained 1000 xp, much less a level, and was seriously fed up with the place.
People say the dunes are a nightmare. Compared to Qufim, they're paradise. So those who are in the dunes right now, be THANKFUL you are there and not here in Qufim. I'm thinking about going back to the dunes, actually. Even if I only get 10 xp per fight, I'll still make more in half an hour than I made in the entire three hours I was in Qufim.
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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 29, 2004 3:37:32 GMT -6
Okay, so I "cooled down" so to speak after pratically giving myself a headache from all of that and getting really POed at the game (and some of the people). Took a break to watch some Inuyasha and Wolf's Rain then came back with this. I'm hoping that it's just because it was late (well, here at least) and a fluke. I'm really hoping that the next time I go to try and level there, possibly tomorrow (I'm not sure yet), I'll be accepted into a competetent party within five minutes of waiting and won't repeat tonight again. Also, I really, really, hope that tonight was just a bad night for people. I'm going to be very disappointed if that's how people act from here on out. I at least expect a "Hi" and a "Goodbye." I'd really like to get to know the people who are in my party, even if it's just little tidbits of information such as if you live in the states or not. It's the community that make up FFXI, especially since SE designed it that way. If it's going to be rudeness from here on out I might as well just quit right now. It Seems to me that 90% of the people playing this game tend to forget that the characters they see on the screen are actually real human beings playing the game and have feelings too. Not saying that we should act all lovey-dovey and hug each other..but a little respect and patience wouldn't hurt. Just to give everyone an idea what Qufim looks like (and an image of a giant, which spawn/roam around there) here's this picture. [/img][/center] As you can see, I've still got my "seeking party" flag up (and it had been on for over 20 minutes by that point). That was taken just a few minutes before I said "forget it" and just quit the game for the night. And as you can also see, Qufim looks like the dunes except uglier (rockier). Not something to look forward to, beleive me. On the plus side of things, I have more HP than most warriors in that place thanks to my nifty shield earrings. In all the parties I was in today I had the most HP, beating out even the tanks. :D That's something I can take pride in...and will come in hand when I go to defeat the Windurst Dragon (I'll try to record a video of that, instead of just taking pictures lol). Weee! More later I guess.#nosmileys#nosmileys#nosmileys
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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 29, 2004 3:48:12 GMT -6
One last post for tonight then it'll be a little bit (probably not until I fight the dragon) before I post another story or thought (unless I'm just commenting on something someone else said lol).
In two days I will have had this game for a month.
I keep thinking that in a month I've done very little for my char: I'm not samurai; I'm extremely poor; my crafting skills aren't that great; I've wasted over 8k in fishing with little return; My Moogle house looks bare except for one tiny pot; and a few other small things. But then I sat down and thought about it.
+ I've got a level 20 WAR + I've got a level 10 MNK + I've got a level 9 THF + My fishing skill IS at level 3 (with no fishing gear used!) + My cooking IS at level 6 + I've actually got some of the best equipment I can get for my level 20 WAR, hence why I've got the most HP in all my parties. + I've got the best equipment I can get for my level 10 MNK, and all of this equipment CAN be used by samurais! + I've done the chocobo quest already! Some people are level 22s and still haven't finished that. + I've got a pot in my Moogle House so that I can garden--which means I've gotten some practice at it and know how it works. When I get more money and more pots I should be able to make pretty good profit off of it. + I've gotten into a linkshell already (and was in a linkshell when I was level 12--which is pretty rare unless you know high level players. I should feel honored for that) + I've made lots of friends, including people I can't even really talk to (because they don't speak English lol) + I've had some really good times (anything from exploring to really good parties). These good times have good stories behind them and are, usually, pretty fun. + I get to hang out with Scott, Glenn, Tolan, and Cal in-game and that's usually pretty fun.
When I list it out like that..it doesn't seem like I've wasted my time in the game for this month. Even more-so when you consider I started class earlier this month and haven't been playing as much as I did when I first got it. :)
I think I'm doing okay.
#nosmileys
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Post by Dead on Aug 29, 2004 10:12:48 GMT -6
Some game guy told me of a single player version of FFXI that was supposedly coming out. I wonder if this is true or if he is just mistaken about the lastest expansion pack. Thought I'd ask the experts.
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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 29, 2004 20:29:15 GMT -6
Some game guy told me of a single player version of FFXI that was supposedly coming out. I wonder if this is true or if he is just mistaken about the lastest expansion pack. Thought I'd ask the experts. Mistaken. The next expansion is coming out soon (in September) but it's just an expansion to the game. Single player FFXI isn't going to happen and would be extremely impossible (you wouldn't be able to make it past level 10 lol).
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Post by Iyouboushi on Aug 30, 2004 13:28:27 GMT -6
The party I got into early yesterday afternoon wasn't that great really and was making me nervous. "Is the rest of the game going to be like this?" Cold, confused, not organized as a group, not speaking to anyone? Slow? Alas, I was afraid that I'd be stuck here forever because the groups sucked. That would change though. I can honestly say now that I know exactly what people are talking about when they say that Qufim is fast exp and you won't be here "too long" (as compared to some other places). I logged on last night to check the prices of two pieces of equipment--a spike necklace and an amber ring--and decided to buy them (they were cheap enough at Jeuno). Before I could even equip them I got a tell in full Japanese. Not sure what he was saying I wrote back telling him my Japanese was subpar and I couldn't read hiragana or katakana very well. He responded in broken english and some romanji asking if I wanted to party. It was almost 5 am and I had to get up early today to be ready for class. @_@ But, how often is it where you get invited by people your same level to go hunt in places like Qufim? I accepted. I'm so glad I did! Even though the entire party was Japanese and I believe the leader was the only one who spoke any English at all (though it was broken and limited) I believe that was, by far, the best party I've EVER been in my life. They knew what they were doing. They were completely organized. They assigned roles, stuck to them and were FAST. It wasn't uncommon that we were getting exp chains up to #5 on a regular basis. In one hour we had over 2.5k exp from just killing crab after crab. By the end we had amassed over 6,000 exp. Everyone had gained one level (in fact, I made sure to tell them I would stay until everyone did even though I was dead tired). I actually felt really sad about having to leave. The highlight of the night (really early morning) was taking down a Giant Asectic without having to call for help. I've never seen anyone under level 24 even try one of these things much less beat it. Why? These monsters hit hard, fast, and are around level 30. Anyway, none of us died and it actually seemed fairly easy afterwards. Of course, during it I kept thinking "we're going to die! we're going to die! we're going to die!" (everyone has done that at one point ) But hey, it was a hard-earned omedetou (congratulations). Still kind of sad I didn't reach over and hit "record" on my VCR before fighting it. The only other thing that makes me really happy is how often they were doing renkei and magic bursts. Since I figured out how to do them with my great sword a few days ago I've been pratically obsessed with trying to get a party that knew how to do them. None of the other Qufim parties I was in knew how (probably why we had so much trouble even on a simple worm). This party knew how to do them and told me upfront "you only use WS Single" (don't try to renkei) and said he would take care of the renkei of the group. Sure enough, they did. Every other battle they did a renkei combined with a magic burst. We did it so often that I actually hit "record" and recorded one of the battles. (Sadly, this is one of the only battles I actually lost hate of the crab, lol. I just -had- to record that one, didn't I? Oh well) Anyway, I'm done talking about Qufim for awhile. I doubt I'll post anything else (good parties or bad) until I'm out of this place and into somewhere else.
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