So I’ve started this along with Drgirlfriend. So far, it’s ok. Like many other people, I’m somewhat disappointed in the constant fetch quest missions that we saw with ACP.
Took a break from grinding my PLD with Kelton’s MNK to try for his O Kotes. The results after less than 2 hours of camping?
Excitement!
JEALOUSY!
I can’t believe we were that lucky. I thought this was going to be the first of many nights camping the gloves.
Playing catchup here for nearly a week, so I’ll be fairly brief today.
On Monday, SE released the Summer update and I’m personally pretty pleased with it (alliteration is fun). They’ve finally finished Campaign, with the bodies, new ranks, and Union system. I snagged an Iron Ram Hauberk the first day because my WAR had nothing like it. Unfortunately, since they added drops to campaign, a metric shitload of people invaded the usually peaceful campaign battles and cockblocked anyone from making much that night.
So Drgirlfriend, Keithdragoon, Kelton and I headed up to the tree to mess around/skill up. I went WAR/SAM to put it’s tanking chops to the test. I had leveled SAM to 37 pretty much solely on Fields of Valor a couple of months back and basically shelved it. After playing around with it that night, and tanking the majority of the mobs, I’m really looking at Paladin again. Oh, and Sword 206.
We also explored Beaucidine (S) and Xarcabard (S) briefly, unlocking teleportation to those zones and watching people being eaten by the new flying dragon, Amphiptere. It was cool seeing some of our server’s most elite players dying to simple things like aggro. Overally, this was a blast. I know that there won’t be many/any new areas that give off this sense of exploration for the rest of XI’s life, so it’s also bittersweet. I can just remember how fun it was running around Aht Urghan’s areas that first night…
Later that night, I got invited to be the syncee for an lsmate’s Astral Burn party. It involves training a LOT of mobs into a tiny spot and having a few Summoners Astral Flow all of them to death. I’d never done it before, so I said sure. The pictures below show the end results!
As you can tell from the last picture, the second run did not go nearly as well. I still got 5 levels on my BLU, though!
I now interrupt our regular blogpost for a blast from the past!
We now return you to our regular blog post…
The next day, I gave Drgirlfriend a small loan to push her over the top and she bought her Terra’s Staff. She’s now 8/8 on HQ staves. We also farmed her Garliage Citadel coffer key so she could get her last piece of RDM AF, the Warlock’s Tights. Now that her RDM is approaching 70, she’s using it in campaign a bit on the side and seems to finally be enjoying campaign more. I know that’s pretty hard to do on BLM.
As I stated earlier, PLD’s got my fancy currently, so I geared it back up with what was available from the AH and my mules, and duo’d with Kelton last night. We got a few levels (@28 now) and burned some rings with FoV in the Dunes before calling it a night on that.
WHO WEARS SHORT SHORTS?!?
We finished off the night with me showing Kelton how the FoV Augments work. We hit up Behemoth’s Deminion and duo’d the mini-Behemoth Gudanna there with great ease. I got crappy augments on my Warrior’s Belt +1, so I NPC’d it. Kelton got Earth resistance +2 on his Legionnare’s Mitts, so not bad, but not necessarily great, either.
Last night, after a hearty nap that followed a fun day at work, I logged in just in time for Limbus. We had enough people to split again and my team went to Temenos North. We were a little light on the DD side, but we made it to the next-to-the-last floor without any major mishaps. An avatar that was summoned right after a Sleepga went off beat down our fearless leader Avoo and then turned to the Paladin who stayed behind to Raise her. We were left with a couple of support mages, Aarwyn on Samurai, and myself on Thief.
The Temenos North boss fight has you facing off with 5 Goblins. It came out pretty close, but with our mages on their toes and us whittling the gobbies down as fast as we could, we pulled out of it with a victory. Loot gained: 1x WHM and 1xTHF. I already have Hands and Feet, the only pieces worth really bothering with, so I passed on them so another member could improve their setups. Overall, this tight run was a lot of fun.
Later on, my buddy Keithdragoon poked me, asking me if I wanted to work on Wings of the Goddess missions. Our friends Acc and Tarcuanium (who helped DG and I get through CoP very quickly) were willing to lend a hand. Unfortunately, DG and I were only started in Windy’s storyline, where Keith had made some good progress. So we continued our Sandy missions and after some long cutscenes involving a lot of back and forth fetching for Rholont, we finally came to the battle for In a Haze of Glory.
With a setup of BLM75, BLU75, SMN75, and THF75; we just ran right through it. It was a piece of cake. The cutscenes following the mission were pretty cool, I thought. I liked the part with Rholont and his crew toppling the big orc. Here’s a few screenshots:
After a good nap, I hit the Campaign trail to push towards my next Feint upgrade. I finally got it this morning. 2 more upgrades (10 merits total) to go until a 2 minute Feint recast! Yeah, buddy!
The best thing to happen during the past day or so? My long-time friend Kelton has returned to the game and traveled to Ifrit to be with Drgirlfriend and I. Welcome back, Kelton!
It’s “freequest” week in Endeavor and last night was our usual force pop night. I got home to find out we were doing the Shen fight for Reverend Mail. We decided to zerg it, and zerg it we did! The first pop took about a minute to kill, so it actually had the chance to spawn the elementals. Mages on the outside of the alliance slept them and we continued beating it down. This is, by far, the easiest way of dealing with the fight.
The second pop took no time at all. I precharged Feint before the pop, Trick Attacked Dancing Edge right away, spinned around for Sneak Attack, remembered to Mug it for 2k, and then it was down within a few more attack rounds. It’s great to be in a shell that can do this stuff efficiently.
Afterwards, we headed to Ifrit’s Cauldron to pop Bomb Queen for Typhton’s Bomb Queen Ring. This fight is a walk in the park with a few decent DDs. Simply melee on Bomb Queen and then WS/nuke her spawns as soon as they appear. The only reason Melchaia is dead in the above screenshot is because he intentionally died, hoping to be tractored over the chasm… We found out that that didn’t work.
Note: I have added some older posts I had made on MyFFXI from back when I was still Chakan on Gilgamesh. I figured there was no reason not to host them here.
My work schedule for yesterday prevented me from getting too much done in-game, but I did accomplish a few things.
I solo’d my RDM to 25 in Valkurm Dunes. Now I get another few minor gear upgrades, as well as access to Invisible and Sleep. I’ll probably start intentionally partying on my Red Mage soon. Enjoying the job so far, but I already knew I would from leveling my alt Rosalyn’s RDM to 34.
Ended up in Ro’ Maeve to help Surujballi out with Shikigami Weapon, the odd NM that drops the Yin Yang Robe. It spawns invisible and roams around a big section of the zone until it finally aggros someone. We got claim and Suru got his YYR.
While finishing out our Fields of Valor page there, I spotted Nightmare Vase, the NM that drops the lvl 52 Shinogi katana. I pulled it and we brought it down really fast, but unfortunately didn’t get a katana.
With work fast approaching, I got a Retrace from DG and logged in Windurst Waters (S). When I got home, I put some more time into my next Feint upgrade in Campaign. Now I’m about 1 more merit from #3. I’ll probably do my initial Aura Steal next and then finish out Feint’s remaining two upgrades.
You’ve just installed Final Fantasy XI on your PC and you want to get the most out of the experience. I’ll be pointing you to all of the right places in order to optomize your experience!
1) Get Windower
Alright, this issue divides the community somewhat, but overall the line is divided amongst people who play FFXI on a game console and those who play on PC. I’d be willing to be the MAJORITY of FFXI PC players use Windower. It offers too many conveniences to be ignored.
Now, that said: Windower is a 3rd party tool and Square Enix does not allow users to utilize such outside utilities. Treat Windower like fight club when you’re in the game: don’t talk about it. It’s that simple. If you don’t talk about it and don’t do anything blatantly obvious with any 3rd party tool, your chances of being banned for using Windower are extremely slim. You might find forum posts stating that a person “just used Windower” and were banned yesterday, but the overwhelming majority of these folks ended up admitting to fish botting, hacking through walls, pos-hacking, etc. They did something really stupid.
So travel to the official Windower site, download the latest version, and set it up on your PC. While at the Windower site, also grab the following plugins and put them in Windower’s /plugin folder:
-Spellcast: The name is misleading. Spellcast is an automated utility that you can easily configure to swap in and out gear for when you perform any action (spells, job abilities, weapon skills, etc.). Going from the natural game limits of macros to Spellcast is a HUGE leap in convenience for the player. Since you’re just starting out with Windower and Spellcast, be sure to grab a User Submitted XML file to use with it for the jobs you play on. Put the files in your /plugins/spellcast directory named for the jobs you play (ie. “RDM.xml” for Red Mage, “DRG” for Dragoon, etc.). This will allow Spellcast to change to the correct settings files when you change your main job!
From personal experience, if you are a high level BLM, grab Aikar’s script. If you play THF, try out IneptVagrant’s THF file. These two files will show you what Spellcast can do at it’s best!
-BlinkMeNot: Prevents party members, spell targets, and yourself from blinking when their gear chances. Absolutely invalauble if you main heal in a party often. Also good for helping reduce lag for the rest of us!
-Yarnball: Really simple utility that keeps track of the buffs you cast on party members. It displays a countdown timer for each buff and the target’s name. Great for RDM, SCH, and WHMs who have to buff the whole party.
-Infobar: Displays a handy information bar at the top of your screen. Can display a mob’s job and level, elemental weaknesses, estimated EXP you might get from it, what it drops, what can be stolen from it, etc. Pretty darn handy!
-EXPWatch: Displays a bar right below your chat log showing your current EXP and Limit Point totals, your TNL, and your calculated EXP/hr. Now you don’t have to do the math yourself.
These plugins will get you started. Load them in game by typing “//load [plugin name here]” Later, once you get some experience with which ones you like using, edit the /scripts/init.txt file so Windower will automatically load them when the game starts!
2) Optimize Your Graphics!
Note: Changing these settings for the better will require your PC to do more work. You will have to find the right settings for your own PC and personal tastes to be satisfied.
For this step, there’s an easy way and then there’s the right way.
The easy way is a simple (and safe!) file that you can load on your computer that changes your ingame resolution to a value higher than the official Final Fantasy XI configuration program. By doing this simple adjustment, the graphics in FFXI will improve greatly.
The right way is a detailed guide on the wiki about what every graphic setting ingame does and how you can adjust it for the better. You will be able to optomize your own settings for what you want out of the game.
3) Firefox and Plugins, Security Token
Not too long ago, RMTs (real money trade/gilsellers) started inserting malicious code into banner ads that they paid to place on FFXI-related sites. This code allowed them to hijack player accounts, move them to another server where they needed gil and items to meet demand (incuring a $25 transfer fee for the REAL OWNER!), strip them of their valuables, and usually use the account in a fashion that would end with the player banned. This was a BIG DEAL and it took Square Enix quite some time to sort out the mess.
To protect yourself (and to improve your standard web browsing as well), I recommend downloading and using Firefox as your web browser. To further your security, get the plugins No Script and AdBlock Plus. With this setup, it is very unlikely this will ever happen to you! Also, you’ll be better protect from computer viruses in general. Thank me later.
To help players fight this security threat, SE releases the security token in the Spring of 2009. This handy little device has a big red button on it. You press it once, it displays a unique code you type in to login, and then press it again. Then you sit it aside until you decide to login again. It’s very easy to use and definitely worth $10. As an added bonus, you’ll get the Mog Satchel — which adds so much on-hand inventory space you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it!
Check here for more details on the Security Token and how to buy it.
In Closing
So that sums up what I believe every FFXI PC player should know about playing the game on the PC. I will do a blog update when this post will be updated in the future as errors are spotted or information becomes outdated.
I logged in Wednesday and headed up to sky fairly early. I have just recently rejoined my friends in Endeavor and a) actually missed messing around in Sky as well as b) needed the points! We did the usual run through during the early afternoon and started burning pages while waiting on Despot to pop. Eventually, we got enough people in Sky to start doing gods. We did 2 Byakkos, Genbus, Seiryus, and Suzakus. I ended up getting N. Hands for a bargain amount of points and uncursed them right away. I’m now 2/5 on Hecatomb armor.
Our hopes of a quick Kirin zerg before people logged off were dashed as another shell popped it and slowly started widling him down. I felt like I had my fill of the game and turned in somewhat early for the night.
I woke up the next morning with a clear mission on my mind: get back to work on skilling up my Alchemy. After buying out the AH of mats and farming even more, I ended my crafting session at Alchemy 87.0+2 and made money doing it!
I hopped on my RDM and started grinding it out with FoV in Valkurm Dunes. After a page or two, I got a 5/6 invite from a BLM for Qufim Island. Eager to actually party on a lower level job for once, I took it. We got a good 5-6k/hour without any problems whatsoever. People left and got replaced, eventually leading to the point where multiple people had to leave. I called the party at that time, happy to be just shy of RDM24. I finished out my level with a quick page, getting it ready for the Jungles.
Took a break from the game at that point and watched the second half of Reaper Season One with the woman. We had seen the first couple episodes and lost track of the show around the time of the Writer’s Strike, then caught it for the entire Season Two (which we absolutely adored). Good stuff all around. It’s so sad to see a decent show be put down in it’s prime, especially leaving off on the note that the series did. I can’t stress it enough, nor seem to get people to take interest in the show, but Reaper is definitely worth your time.
After some ice cream with the family and a major dose of caffeine, it was time for Limbus. We finally had a decent enough turnout to be able to split farm. My group did pretty well, with plenty of time to spare. BLM, BRD, DRKx2, and PUP dropped; with the majority of the pieces actually being wanted by members.
Did a little more crafting for gil before heading off to bed. Have to build back up my bank after picking up Cursed Gloves (600k, just in time for summer!) and Tatami Shield (350k)!