Thursday, January 31, 2008

Mommy’s Helper
Ketski: Looky-wooky over yonder-wonder Brygid. The sunset, is it notaru so beautiful?

Brygid: I hate sunsets.

Ketski: Brygid… I… I lovey-wovey you~

Brygid: /kicks Ketski in the shin

It seems Valentiones day isn’t for everyone. And no I did not misspell Valentine’s day. In FFXI, Valentiones day is approaching, where adventurers such as Ketski give chocolates to their loved ones. Ketski has yet to find a loved one to share his chocolates with though >: (Awwee).

I haven’t actually participated in any of the FFXI events before when I played. I was planning to participate in the Halloween event before, but I decided not to for reasons unexplained. If I do decide to participate in Valentione’s Day I probably will end up giving chocolates to some random tarutaru xP

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Aside from that, when I logged on I was in Bastok. A few conversation pieces with my LS and friend Raybrant on XFire made me find out that I can’t go to Kazham, or Elshimo as a whole even if I do have the keys. Why? Because I don’t have the Rise of Zilart expansion pack.

/shoots self in the head with… black magic?

 

If I only found my FFXI book from 4 years ago… (it had rise of zilart’s cd-key on it) nyargh! I don’t know what I’m going to do now, but since I have 2 of the 3 keys for the airship pass, I might as well get the 3rd and get the pass for future uses. Ernst hasn’t come on yet though, so not sure if that’s going to happen today.

Since I was in Bastok anyway, I decided to raise my Bastok fame, mainly to get the Warp spell for my BLM. In Bastok you can receive a quest to get the Warp Scroll, but only if you have level 2 fame. In Windurst the same requirements apply for the Blaze Spikes scroll, and in San’doria for the Drain scroll. I looked up some quests in Bastok, and found a repeatable quest that I could do easily for fame. All I had to do was provide Salimah with ingredients to cook for her family (self and child, really). It so happened that I had about 2 stacks of some of the ingredients she wanted in my mog safe already. Who knew storing up wild onions and treant bulbs would pay off? So I took them out and gave it to Salimah. There’s a little time issue though.

If I trade the appropriate item to Salimah at the right hours in-game, I get a higher amount of gil, whereas trading her the item at any other time will give me 100 gil. Here’s a chart I found on some site.

• Sleepshroom: Trade during 18:00-5:59 for 200 gil
• Treant Bulb: Trade during 6:00-11:59 for 200 gil
• Wild Onion: Trade during 12:00-17:59 for 350 gil

I didn’t have sleepshrooms, and I wanted to get as much gil as possible, being the poor taru I am, so I had to wait out the time until it was time for treant bulbs, and then afterwards, wild onions. The annoyance comes with the fact that… you must ZONE before being able to repeat the quest. So I ended up giving 1 treant bulb, running all the way to bastok mines, then back to bastok market to go to Salimah again, and repeat. D: What a great time waster that was. I hope I have enough fame now. We shall see soon enough.

Oh… and I got the title Mommy’s Helper from the quest. Hurray. >.>

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Kazham Keys 2/3 parts done!

Just my luck that my LS members are ever so kind :) This is the first time I’m writing a post at the same day the events I’m writing about occurred! Well today I had school( bleh ) and got my report card… !!!!! Be right back, gonna show my mom my report card. Completely forgot about it.

>> Back: She was somewhat neutral with her feelings. A sensed a bit of annoyance but also happiness. Hmmm. Very strange reaction.

Anyway…. I came home around 4:30pm, wrote my blogs, ate, etc. I think I played FFXI starting around 7. Well I was in Qufim so I just popped up randomly and asked my LS about kazham, since I didn’t know much.

I found out that Kazham is in Lower Elshimo SW of Windurst on an island thing where you have to take an airship to get to. (I’ve never ridden one before, this should be exciting :D) Twist is, to get an airship pass, you have to get 3 keys, 1 from each “monster’s lair” of each nation, and I have absolutely no idea why! I guess I’ll find out later. Anyway, you have to get 1 from Giddeus ( Home of the Yagudos- Monsters of Windurst), 1 from Ghelsba Outpost ( Home of the Orcs – Monsters of Sandoria ) and something-or-other Mines ( Home of the Quadavs – Monsters of Bastok ) I keep forgetting the names of the locations :| Anyway, the guy in the LS said I needed a higher level to help me do it, so I spontaneously asked the LS if anyone wanted to help me, and surprisingly someone did. Ersntjan said sure with delight and met up with me in Jeuno right away. I was pretty shocked and happy at the same time.

We took a port-mea to Tahrongi Canyon and took the chocobo to Giddeus in West Sarutabaruta. We fought one Yagudo Priest… and… found the key already O_O . We then went to the outpost in West Sarutabaruta to get teleported to Windurst. He switched to his WHM job and teleported me to the craig of dem, while he helped escort another linkshell member to the craig of mea. (My this must sound so confusing to those who don’t play FFXI @_@ ) I was supposed to meet with GrandThief, another linkshell member who was going to help me out with the mines in Bastok and so I took the chocobo there. I knew GrandThief from 3 months back before I quit. He taught me a bit of german. wie geht es ihnen?

Ernst joined us shortly afterwards and we got 2 keys at once after a few minutes of joking around. Oh, a little note about what I like about the mines. There was a little wooden elevator platform that I thought was pretty neat. Also, when leaving the mines, you actually take a little canoe down the river out of the mines. I thought that was pretty cool that they did that. Makes the mines feel more “real” and “alive”. Anyway, they were a huge help. We went to Bastok afterwards since we got the key(s) and Ernst had to go to bed ( 5 am at his place in the netherlands o.o ) .We said our farewells, and hopefully we’ll be able to complete this tomorrow ;)

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Gotta Love Them Japanese Players

Note: ! I switched the layout of the blog and cleaned up the panel side. Since the blogs are currently and mostly about FFXI, I thought It would be better to get rid of the others. Later I’m going to put them on different pages for view. Artworks page coming up soon too~ I think the new layout looks better.

Today I woke up at 12pm. Sleeping at 5 am, I had 7 hours of sleep. I quickly logged on to FFXI and put my flag up. I cooked lunch, and ate it while watching Minami-ke ( anime ) again. After 2-3 WHOLE hours, I STILL didn’t get an invite. There was no one my level on either. I shrugged it off though and played the PSP meanwhile. About a few minutes later I got an invite. /cheer (( The other players must’ve been at school, huh? Today would be the last day for regents week~ Meaning, I have school tomorrow /cry ))

Well the initial party was pretty good. We partied for a few hours and I gained a few levels. We moved our camp to the middle of the pass that had pugils (fish sea creature thingers) on both sides, so it would be easier for our thief to pull the monsters. Afterwards 2 people had to leave and we got 2 replacements. Amongst one of them was a female tarutaru paladin, who happened to be japanese :D. So we partied there some more, and all that jazz. After everyone gained a few levels we went back to our original camp, the entrance of the delkfut tower. I don’t know why we keep switching camps ._. 2 members had to leave afterwards and 4 of us were left. Badhedgehog(Galka THieF, I think he was a thief at least o_o), Akirane (Tarutaru PaLaDin!) and Marel (Mithra PUPeteer).

We three decided to go in the delkfut tower and start smashing goblins. The 4-man party worked amazingly too, although we were unsure if it was going to work out in the beginning. We got about 78-160 experience points per goblin and everyone leveled to 25, whereas I leveled to 24. Marel had to go at 12:15 am or so though, and it became a 3-man party, which still worked out pretty good. Note: Japanese Players seem to be so reliable. Yesterday the DNC healed everyone, even though it wasn’t his/her job while still being able to DD (deal damage), and Akirane, our tank, healed herself most of the time before I could even heal her! So I basically had nothing to do besides spam aero and water on the gobs, with the occasional silence for goblin gambler (who cast spells). Badhedgehog and Akirane was nice enough to stay in the party until I leveled, and at about 1:45 am I did. To level 25 ^_^ It was time to say goodbye to Qufim, and Hello to Khazam.

I don’t even know much about Khazham though :/ All I know is that you need keys to get in there (which I don’t have) and its the leveling spot for level 25+ after Qufim. Well, let’s hope someone helps me out tomorrow then. Oh, I found out Akirane lives in Oasaki, Japan. They (the party) were all in their 20s (age), like most FFXI players. Am I the only one in their teens?

Note: The 3 made it on to my buddy list. Akirane’s request is still pending. Maybe I should’ve asked her first.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Damn You Chocobo!

Note: !! I forgot to take screenshots that day. Sorry! You’ll have to just read bland black on white text. I also didn’t blog the day after due to laziness, so today (January 30th) I’ll be writing 28ths blog and 29ths P:

When I woke up… Well, I don’t remember what happened >.< But! When I started playing FFXI I spent my time fishing moat carps. Both my rods broke actually, not one, yesterday and so I bought 3 more rods with about 5 more stacks of bait. Well, you know the process so… let’s skip the fishing details. >>> After about… oh… my whole youth? I fished out about 5-6 stacks of moat carp using some bait that I still had left over from yesterday and put them all in the auction house for 1,500, 1,600, and 1,700 hoping to inflate the price. Afterwards I headed back to my mog house, switched on to my WHM gear, and headed out for… QUFIM! Yes, the time has come to go to Qufim. I have shed my teenage levels and moved on to the 20s. Qufim is located below Jeuno, the middle nation/trading city of Vana’diel with bridges connecting the 2 continents.

I took my nifty little chocobo and started riding to Jeuno, going through east sarutabaruta, tahrongi canyon… and… HALT.

>>>Around this time I went to go eat, while I watched anime. I watched a comedy genre anime called Minami-ke. <<<

So after that was done, I went back to TahrongiCanyon, then went up to uhm… I forgot what that place was called… Something Champlagne, and… BOOM. Mr. Chocobo decided to kick me off and ditch me. Between the time I started riding til’ now I’ve been playing the PSP too, which took up some time. I guess the chocobo time limit ran out :/ I wish they would give a warning. I ended up stuck in that place, having every monster around me susceptible to aggro without engaging battle with it. I tried to sneak around the monsters and head to Jeuno, but I guess the dino lizard who ate me minutes afterwards heard my teensy-weensy footsteps. After sighing, I asked my LS if anybody was near the area… (any rezzers that is) and no one was. I waited for an hour ( the limit for laying dead on the ground for the possibility of someone raising you ) in hopes of a raise, but no one came. Meanwhile I played PSP of course. After being sent back to my homepoint in Mhaura, I decided to go to Selbina.

Selbina? Why? I researched on where to get my CURE III spell earlier on, and it was in Selbina. So since I was in Mhaura (port city, which has a boat to Selbina) I might as well, right? So… I took the ship, (15 minutes real time) while playing my PSP, again… and when I arrived, bought the CURE III spell I wanted. It was for level 21 so I couldn’t use it just yet. I then ran outside, passed Valkurm Dunes to ___ Highlands. I forgot the name >.< I went to the Craig of Dem, I think it was called that… and rented the chocobo there and rode it all the way to Jeuno (without any disruptions such as the PSP or anime this time) and made it. After spending all that money on the CURE III spell I ended up not having enough for my SHELLRA spell, that was sold in Lower Jeuno.

Luckily, I decided to visit the Auction House to check on something and I noticed all my moat carps sold! /Cheer went my tarutaru as he gathered his loot from the delivery box. I recharged my Empress Band (A ring that allows you to gain 50% more exp, containing a certain amount of charges, lasting 3 hours or until 1000 exp is gained as bonus, with a 12 hour cooldown), and then bought and used the Shellra spell.

After all of that I got an invite to join a party. Ready for some healing action I accepted and headed down to Qufim. Our camp was at the entrance of the Lower Delkfut Tower and we fought clippers. There were 3 japanese players in our party, so it was interesting. Apparently, in auto-translate language, {Throne Room} is acknowledged as Bathroom ;) I barely had to do any healing really. The DNC/NIN that was with us kept on using her heal-dance move and didn’t give me a chance to heal as much. Our tank also barely took any damage or dodged most of the blows thrown at him. I ended up acting more of a BLM, using my BLM subjob spells rather than a WHM. The party lasted until 5 am, (I started the party at 3:30-4am ish. I was up pretty late) when members had to leave. I gained 1 level and a half during that time. ;) It was a great party. I called it a night and went to bed.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Cooking, Fishing, Trading

Nothing much happened today. I woke up and had to clean up one of the rooms in the house and in between had to go to my brother’s fiancee’s mom’s birthday “gathering”. The food there was pretty good and in the middle I went to my friend Edwin’s house who happened to live close by. By the time I got home it was already 10-11 pm. And now on to Vana’diel.

Ketski was standing there in Windurst’s Leviathan gate when I logged on. I decided today would be about fishing, since I needed gil to buy my new White Mage spells. I went to my mog house where I found my mog space or storage area filled D: Mostly with crystals. I took some of the fire crystals out with a few cooking ingredients, headed over to the cooking guild to buy some new ingredients and the tavern to buy some distilled water and synthesized away. I used up all the ingredients and earned about 2 cooking skill. I really failed more than succeeded. I sold everything I cooked to the NPC to gain back some of the money I lost, and then quickly headed back to my mog house. An interesting thing I learned about synthesizing is that, the direction your character faces affects your success rate or skill-up rate. Here’s a chart that I found rather easy to understand: http://www.roundboxdesign.com/Crafting_Compas.gif

When I went back to my mog house I was able to put most of my junk in there and take out my 2 fishing rods. I found 4 stacks of insect balls ( fishing bait ) in my delivery box from Perim too. o_O It must’ve been from 3 months ago ( I oughta air out that box ). I bought some more stacks of insect balls and headed off to Windurst Woods’ river area to fish. During that time a linkshell member wanted to buy some water crystals, which I had 2 stacks and 7 crystals of, so I quickly offered them for 2.5k, a decent offer. I also asked if she needed an ice cluster, which I have no idea what it does, and she said sure, giving me another 700 gil, totaling to 3.3k gil. The ice cluster was given to me by a friend 3 months ago. He told me to sell it, and so I did. When I was fishing, Teeahrassema came by to give me the money. She gave me 5k instead though, and insisted that I take it o.o She was pretty nice :3

I continued fishing for a good amount of time, while playing the psp of course. (Breath of Fire III, and Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth). I broke a rod, and by 3 am I ended up with 3 stacks of moat carp. I could’ve gotten a lot more if I didn’t play my PSP xD Oh well. When I went to the auction house I was a bit shocked. Moat carps we’re going for 1.5k. 3 Months ago it was 3k! Baffled by the thought of deflating the price of moat carps I put 2 stacks up for 1.6k and the last stack for 1.7k. Hopefully they’ll get sold and inflate the prices. Then… I logged off FFXI, went to my room, and played some Valkyrie Profile. Pretty boring day, huh?