Farming Out: The FFXI Winter 2008 Update

The Winter 2008 update for FFXI dropped on Monday, and as fully expected, I didn't play at all that night. I had two machines and the XBox to update. But, unlike with previous updates, it didn't drop me anywhere near as many times. I think I needed to restart the PC update twice - it finished before bed. o.O The XBox update completed flawlessly overnight. That's considerably more hassle-free than past updates, where I've spend two full days in frustration as I countlessly restart the update process and pray the next restart doesn't bomb my system.

There were quite a few things added in the new update, and I've decided to dedicate one full post entry to some of the more noteworthy changes:

-Introduction of "Fields of Valor": a new system in which players can take on voluntary training regimes to slay a number of specified enemies in an assigned period of time. ... If successful, players will receive experience points, gil, and Fields of Valor points redeemable for other benefits.

So, lets say you have a low to mid-level job, or have a friend who has one, and they want to get some experience, but don't want to put together a whole party. Hell, they may only have 30mins until they have to call it a night. All you need to do is go to the area you want to train in, register a training plan, level sync to your friend (if needed) and kill the mobs on the plan. They're all outpost areas, so you can easily warp to them. As long as the mobs yield some kind of experience, they count. Once you meet the quota, you get a big bonus.

Pretty amazing stuff, really. Keri and I teamed up with Relme on our BSTs with his DNC and synced down to 39 and did a few rounds in Beacedine Glacier. While the experience per mob wasn't outstanding, the bonus at the end made it worthwhile. The total exp/hr was actually comparable to our run-of-the-mill sessions duoing, but with the safety of partying with someone and being really, really close to a way to get home. About that -one of the things you can use the points for is a warp home. The manual is at the outpost area. So if the region is owned by the beastmen, you can still use it to go home. Keri and I also duo'ed in Xarcabard for a few rounds on BST to similiar results. Each round only takes about 15mins, so its perfect for the casual gamer or to simply pass the time waiting for something else to start.

-Members of a Level Sync party will no longer lose beneficial status effects such as Protect should the synchronization designee level up. Accumulated TP, and the effect of the Charm ability on monsters, will also no longer be lost.

-The following equipment attributes have been added to the list of those which will remain in effect, and be adjusted accordingly, during Level Sync: Evasion / Enmity / Healing HP / Healing MP

They should have had an emergency maintenance over this issue when Level Sync was implemented, in my opinion. I've heard tales of people getting synced while trying to get into very dangerous places, having their beneficial effects wear off or having their pet decharm, and dying in a place where they had to homepoint because no one could get to them. That they included this in the update seems a little late. At least my Dark Staff isn't completely worthless anymore and I can get hMP+ while synced.

-While the query selection boxes associated with the white magic spell Raise and the black magic spell Tractor are being displayed, the same spells will no longer be able to be cast on that player.

This saves me more MP in events/dynamis/besieged than I can rightly put into words.

-The enchantments on the following items can now be recharged in Al Zahbi, Aht Urhgan Whitegate, Nashmau, Southern San d'Oria (S), Bastok Markets (S), and Windurst Waters (S): Chariot Band / Empress Band / Emperor Band

Finally, a good use for those 230,000 some-odd allied notes. And here I thought I'd have to use them all on chocobos and sprint shoes...

-The tax levied on bazaar purchases has been abolished in the following areas: Ru'Lude Gardens / Upper Jeuno / Lower Jeuno / Port Jeuno

Which resulted in the mass-exodus of RMT/LS bazaars from The Shoppes of Batallia Downs. They're all on the Upper Jeuno Bridge now, just inside from Batallia.

-Players can now warp to Aht Urhgan Whitegate from Jeuno by talking to the Salaheem's Sentinels representative deployed there.

-The locations of outpost warp NPCs in San d'Oria, Windurst, and Bastok have been changed as follows: Northern San d'Oria (D-9) -> Northern San d'Oria (K-9)Bastok Metalworks (F-8) -> Bastok Mines (K-8)Port Windurst (D-5) -> Port Windurst (L-4)

In other words, the amount of time spent travelling on foot has been drastically reduced. Especially in the case of those OP NPCs - they put them RIGHT NEXT to the mog house entrance. Very nice. And I always thought it was weird that Jeuno had an invitation quest, but not a warp representative like the other nations.

-The sale prices for the following items have been changed:Black Ink / Bugard Skin / H. Q. Bugard Skin / Orc Piercer / Yagudo Freezer / Shellbuster / Leech Saliva / Bird Blood / Beast Blood

{begin rant}

This just pisses me right off. Seriously. You might recall that over Thanksgiving, I NPC'ed off the Beast Blood that dropped off Lesser Gaylas to afford the Apollo Staff for my BST. Earlier this year, Talon, Keri and I would farm Castle Zvahl for those weapons to fund our BLM. Many, many other legitimate players use these farming methods to get what they need. But everytime the average player finds something that they can really cash in on, SE nerfs it so that it can't be used by RMT. Instead, why not fix the root cause: that the amount of gil needed to do endgame activities is too difficult for the average player with 1-2hrs/day play time to get without spending weeks farming. All this does is drive players who would otherwise be honest, rule-abiding players to buy their gil from the very sites SE is trying to fight, and at an even more inflated price due to the increased difficulty of getting said gil.

Wake up, SE.

{end rant}

Overall, this update leaves me with more game to play and less means needed to play it. And I'm not sure how I feel about that. A little confused? I mean, how did they put so much win AND so much fail into a single update that didn't take two days to download? I'm gonna just have to suck it up and spend a week doing nothing but fishing in Nashmau for the gil I need to do endgame stuff.

Weekend Intelligence: This 3-Day Weekend Brought to You by the Saturn Vue...

It was a great 3-day weekend. If it weren't for how I came about getting a 3-day weekend. Gotta love unexpected car troubles. Hey, at least I got some extra time getting acquainted with the new home theater system. :D So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

Friday morning started off like any other Friday morning. We all went about our morning routine like the clockwork it's become, until something jarring sounded from under the hood of the Vue as D tried driving it off for the morning commute. It was difficult to even start, let alone drive, and made a horrible grinding sound. I told her to take the convertible for the day, effectively leaving my workday at the mercy of the mechanic's shop.

Not that they're bad people to be at the mercy of. We got the Vue at the Saturn dealership not more than half a mile from our house, and they've always been fair to us the few times the Ion we owned had been in the shop. I was able to coax the Vue to start and limp the half mile to the shop, where they took us in immediately, despite having no appointment. Clara made a bee-line over to the duplo blocks table and started going through the large sack of blocks, picking them out one by one, inspecting them, saying "No" and promptly chucking them over her shoulder. Once she had thrown all the blocks on the floor, she brought each one to me to look at before taking them back and putting them back in the bag. Then she wanted to look at all the cars in the showroom, and I let her sit in the driver seat of each one. She called each car "mine pretty car" and played with the steering wheel and honked one of the horns on accident. >.<;

Once it was clear what I would and would not have to pay for on this repair trip (((>.<;;;))), they offered to shuttle us to wherever we needed to go. I had the option of dropping Clara off at the daycare, but I decided to spend the day with her instead of dropping her off. We watched Disney's Robin Hood and Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas together, and about halfway through Robin Hood, she curled up on the couch with me, falling into a deep snore during the Grinch. It was nice - she's not normally a cuddler. After she went down for a nap, I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning and doing laundry.

Saturday morning was our long-scheduled dentist day for the kids. The dentist we went to was kinda neat - they had a large kids play area inside the waiting room that Colin and Clara climbed around in, and several scooting options for younger kids. Clara sat in the car they had and scooted around. She also attempted to climb the water fountain. Clara's visit was just a quick brush/floss and play in the chair. Just to get her used to the office and not permanently scare her. Colin had no issue with the dentist - in fact, he's been asking when he can go for the last few months. We've been unable to go much because we had no dental insurance for a while, but now we're all caught up.

We did our WalMart run and got the oil changed in the Vue shortly after the dentist, and were more or less bums for the rest of the weekend, only doing some light laundry here and there and keeping the mess to a minimum. The only other times we went out was to get the convertible's oil changed the next day, and we didn't hang around for that.

In Game:

Surprisingly, I didn't play anything during the day on Friday. I spent the day pretty well divided between playing with Clara and cleaning the house. Soulfire was attempting another Medusa run for FNLE, as our first attempt was a valiant, but ill-fated effort. This time, though, we were much better prepared, but as it turned out, she wasn't feeling much like playing and was nowhere to be seen. -_-; Who hunts Medusa, honestly? We killed a SMN NM Lamia in there, though. Almost wiped when its avatar used its 2 hour move. Nothing to show for it. :P

We spent a bit of time after Medusa and on Saturday night leveling BST in the canal, but it didn't go so well. Toraimarai Canal is very unforgiving if you aren't paying complete attention or if you make a mistake, and Keri ended up dead several times. We both had to home point at least once. While the experience is great when you don't screw up, it is brutal in there when you do. I might start scouting some of the other areas to see if there isn't somewhere that is a little kinder to the distracted BST.

Sunday morning was our last Nyzul climb session. I say last because we beat floor 100, so all the runs we do from now on are purely for fun and farming. We can also start focusing more on assaults that we need for rank up. We did Dynamis - Valkurm later that evening, and Keri got the BLM belt and I got the BST belt, both very sexy pieces of equipment for the spot they occupy.

Version update is coming up, so my next post will either be what I think of it, or complaining about not being able to update. Or both. >.>;