Game Systems

Game systems sure have changed over the years. And not just the graphics, obviously, but the size and shape of the systems themselves. But one thing I overlooked was the changes to the actual controllers, so I would like to share with you all what someone shared with me.

I think this is self explanatory.

Alternate Title: Why I don't plan on getting an Xbox

School

It's that time of the year. Finals week is just around the corner so don't fret if I'm not posting as much as I started! Gotta crack down and get some serious studying done. (As well as two 4-5 page papers.) Sounds so much more fun than playing video games, right? But I'll leave you all with another picture I drew a long time that I still chuckle at to this day.

Tarutaru, meet old meme.

Perhaps I should just post up some old pictures and doodles I've done as filler?

Portal 2: Come back and just hop on down there.

So I was browsing on Youtube like I typically do looking for interesting videos and stuff I missed in video games. Well I found out I missed out on at least one entertaining dialogue at the very beginning of Chapter 9. (The part where he kills you.)
 
Also, sorry for all the Portal 2 stuff, it's just vastly more interesting than FFXI at the moment!

Page break for spoilers~

Now the best crossover parody ever!

Just a quick post, since I'm not dead. Following the most amazing cosplay ever, I found the most amazing crossover parody also. It's a crossover between Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead. Even if you haven't played one of the other, I think you'll still find the following video at the very least remotely entertaining.

I think the video is very very VERY well done. The lines are perfect. I had to replay the video several times because I missed parts because I was laughing too much. I wish I could have had Bill instead of Wheatley, though Bill probably would have just blown up the facility on purpose and ruined the whole game.

Best Cosplay ever.

Now I've seen some amazing cosplayers and I've seen some awful ones. A friend of mine showed me one of the absolute most amazing and creative cosplays ever today. Are you ready for the awesomeness?

Well here it is! It's Cloud from Final Fantasy 7!

Mmm... polygons.

Sure it's not as sexy or hot as some of those Tifa cosplayers. But hey, this has to be the most accurate costume I've ever seen, I mean you play this damn polygon for (nearly) the whole game! You can't say this isn't awesome if you've played Final Fantasy VII at all.

And since I've claimed this is the best, here's the worse.

Self Explainatory. It is awesome in it's own way though. Guys got balls.

Portal 2 is amazing!

Hey, it's that time again for a break from FFXI! I'll try not to include any spoilers. My friend gifted me Portal 2 as a super early birthday gift and oh my god I'm so happy that they did.

This game is just purely awesome. Though I did find Wheatley a bit annoying.

You'd never guess why.

But hey, there's still plenty of GLaDOS and she's still the wonderful bitch we all know and love! I love her snarky remarks too. Many of which are spoilers which I don't want to post though.

Well you DID kill her after all. I feel guilty.

Love some of the new elements they added to the game. Mainly the mirror cubes and repulsion gel. Bouncing on that shit is so much fun that I forgot to take screenshots.

GLaDOS being more mean. I'm in love.

Co-op mode is insane amounts of fun. I haven't finished the first play through, but I can totally see the replay potential if only to see how many ways you can kill your friends in each chamber. The gestures you get as you proceed through the chambers are hilarious, even more so if you do them in front of security cameras!

"If you're going to hit each other, at least aim for the head." Ok!

Overall, this game is just plain awesome and if you don't have it yet you should. And you should because it's awesome. The only downside is, just like the first, it's kind of short which makes it pretty pricey for the content, especially if you don't have any friends to play with. Loser.

Adventurer Appreciation 2011!

It's that time of year again in FFXI! The Adventurer Appreciation Campaign is on, where you can get a new Anniversary Ring, called Novennial Rings this year, and a spiffy new outfit.

The female clothing would be so much prettier if the boots weren't so... ugly. I'd grab a screenshot of the guy armor, but the only male characters I ever see wearing it are Galkas... and who wants a screenshot of that. *Shudders*

And I thought DNC was bad. Now I look like a cocktail waitress.

And with this you get to take on a stupid mini quest that has you running all over Vana'diel to harvest, mine, and log for Key Items. SE sure loves this crap, don't they. But hey, you get free money (100 gil to 10,000) every 3 days, 9 times. At least we have free city warps with Kupowers for this.

The rings are so lackluster now. Since last year, EXP has gotten OVER NINETHOUSAND (had to be done) times easier. Don't get me wrong though, still happy to use it to get jobs to 30 quicker to leech Abyssea parties!

Last year this was gone in 2 days max. Think I got this last week.

And since with each Adventurer Appreciation campaign comes with Moogles to tell you some of your statistics... here's mine!

I talk and die a lot. I wonder if the two are connected...

Ah-ah-FUATH! Bless you!

It's been a while since I've been annoyed at a monster so badly. Ok, not really I'm annoyed very easily. I was just annoyed at Lusca last post....

DANCE, FUATH, DANCE! And more importantly, kill us all.

Ok, we never actually successfully killed her. She's a super accurate bitch with a high rate of ensilence. And to top it all off she likes casting lots of AoE spells and also the move shown above that resets hate... Overall she's not a fun mob without a WHM. A MNK countertanking would probably be best bet here... oh well, at least we tried.

Yeah... we never did actually win. If you couldn't guess.

And to wrap up, the stupidity of some chests in Abyssea

Really? That big box for a fucking spool of thread? Also obviously not from Fuath.

I always rage at these chests. Just like at no boots. T_T

VNMs are stupid.

So yesterday we were planning to do a bunch of Lusca, but after two of them, VNMs decided to be a bitch and refused to upgrade to tier2. Oh wait, when are they not? I don't know, I rather enjoy seeing the VNMs jump through walls and climb up mountains in seconds while I take 10 minutes to walk around, by which time they'll have jumped back over.

However, here is Lusca.

Should I absorb melee or magic?! IDK MYBFFJILL?

I freaking hate this mob. It's stupid easy to kill but it randomly uses two different TP moves to switch from absorbing melee or magic. And usually it'll stay stuck on melee absorb when I'm the main source of magic damage and of course BLM/BRD for triggers. Annoying piece of...

Loving the drops they added to his loot pool though. And in general.

Oh hey, look at those drops, I think I can deal with the annoyance. =D

Note to self: unload timestamp.

Oh yeah, let me check out that chest!

Yesterday SE posted some Details on Next Week's Version Update and I have to say it seems pretty awesome. Click on that link to see the whole list!

Event Related:

• Something about Voidwatch. Is anyone even doing these? I know I haven't.
  

• Oh man, now when you enter the Chocobo Circuit from Port Jeuno... you'll be able to move to the OTHER AREAS OF JEUNO. Holy shit. Now I don't have to give that mithra a flower. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see the point of this. They are moving the synergy furnaces there, might be related, but still don't understand it.

Battle Related:
This section is just full of awesome in my opinion.

• The game will remember the last atmas you used. Hurray less time going through 8 pages of atmas to get two at the end! I would have much preferred different sets, but hey we can't always get what we want and this is still amazing if you're frequently on the same job.

• They're adding more ??? for most of the higher tier force pop notorious monsters (NM) in Abyssea. Not having to fight to pop your one Carabosse for an hour is nice. Wonder if it's going to be three in the same area or spread out a bit. There would be so much lag if they were all together and three things were being fought at once.

• Also they're adding key items from the time pop NMs in Misareaux, Vunkerl, and Attohwa to gold chests. I think this is totally awesome. I'd rather push my luck and do some amber light farming then try and claim against 20 other people. (Sadly, on some days this is only slightly exaggerated.)

Now if only they'd do something about VNMs....even just two tier 3 spawns once would be awesome :(


And completely unrelated but there is a significant lack of photos/videos. So here's an adorably awesome Russian Kitten.

KITTY NEEDS HIS FIX

I want one, but one that doesn't wanna smoke. :(

Booooring

Well, can't say I did much interesting today except die repeatedly to an gigantic worm that reminded me of things better left unsaid. (read: something phallic) I would have taken screenshots but they were far too graphic for me to post, so instead I dug through some old screenshots.

Nothing can beat the cuteness that shall be posted first.

OH MY GOD I WANT ONE

Second up, Fishing! Hey, this is before Ebisu even!

Who ever said fishing wasn't dangerous? Getting eels for guild points was terrifying sometimes.

Next up, someone's always has to make a damn liar out of me...

Self-explanatory. What an asshole.

And finally since it's kinda sorta not really not too long after Easter, a little something from bazaaring eggs on my mule overnight. Which message would you rather wake up to? Creepy or mean?!

Well my mule IS a naked mithra after all....

Now that's just rude, my eggs were cheap too. :(

Nyan nyanyanyanyan nyan nyan nyanyanyanyan nyan nyanyan nyan nyan

I guess I'm going to start saving my posts in word due to paranoia that they'll get deleted in maintenance roll back again. Speaking of which, I thought FFXI maintenance was bad with their time and extensions, sheesh.

And here I am trying to remake the same post because I have nothing better to do. (Ok, I do sort of, just too lazy)

So I totally did not spend a large portion of my day two days ago playing this:

Just because he's a pop tart space cat, doesn't make him different then us. EW VEGGIES! YAY SWEETS!

This has probably been out for a few days, which is like a century on the internet but I just found it the other day and it's awesome. It's so simple but so cute. Use the up and down arrows to collect the yummy sweets and stars while avoiding gross veggies. There should totally be 9 lives though, it's a cat after all, though I guess he might lose those due to being half, OK maybe more than half, pop tart.

Now if you're someone who frequents (read: is constantly) on the internet such as I, you're probably familiar with the wonder that inspired this game: Nyan-cat. And if you haven't, well you're missing out, so here:

Thank god there's a 3 hour version. I love the part where it goes "Nyan".

I also had a picture to close off but I can't be arsed to find it again. However, it is an awesome picture but putting it directly under Nyan cat would just make it look terrible, so being lazy is a good thing here, right?

Ochain is broken. Also lolsynergy.

I had been working on an Aegis (and Excalibur) before the level cap increases were announced along with Empyrean weapons but halted further progress to see how they panned out. Even though I'm still in the process of making an Almace (only 23 more Sobek skins to 85) I want a damn Ochain.

Stupid galkas having all the fun.

That Bukhi fight is pretty impressive I have to say though. PLD has been kinda useless, to put in nicely, in Abyssea but this video shows there's still hope yet. That hope just requires OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND times more effort than any other job. (Seriously though, Ochain looks awful to get to 90.)

Switching gears to synergy... so far I haven't heard of anyone getting even halfway decent augments on their abjuration gear. Though being a synergizer myself, I augmented a friend's Dalmatica. Ended up with a perfect elemental alignment and "Smooth Synergizing!" (HQ basically?) and here's the result:

I don't even know how to feel about this.

So far the augmenting seems like a huge hype about nothing, but who knows, maybe there's some good augments, just need to spend hundreds of tatters and fewell and you'll get 2 more MAB! =D

Puppy Power

Played with some things in Abyssea today, in particular an ugly lizard and an overgrown puppy. Both of which got punched in the face. Fistule also got punched in the.... slime or.... something.

After this we did not nearly wipe horribly. Not at all. Note to self: terror is awful

Casting elemental magic at 36% isn't broken at all. Not that I'm complaining..

Ok, the puppy got punched in face AND the taint too.

Also in this screenshot above, there's the new light intensity report when you get when resting...while it's nice to finally see solid numbers to how much better the lights from NMs are, I can't wait to figure out what the numbers actually mean. I've heard the "cap" is 245, but I got a report of 248 before. Would be amusing if the number never actually hit a cap. Imagine what it'd say after those 6 hour EXP parties...

Forget /BRD for yellow triggers, hell yeah ballad!

And what do I do after the update?

With all the new things to play with: Voidwatch, revamped Dynamis, Synergy, and even a new fishing system what did I do once the servers were back up?

I camped Simurgh. I hate running slow on Thief without flee that much. Now I was going to take a screenshot of these adventures, but I forgot so I took literally 5 minutes to draw the course of action and take a picture cause I'm a broke as hell and don't have a scanner.

Craptastic art! Though I still love the bottom line regardless of how long it took. <3

Each and every time I'm on RDM, I love fast cast more and more. Nearly as much as I love stoneskin; I sat as the overgrown bird pecked my face in while my PUP friend engaged the beast and THF friend used Nexus Cape to save the day with TH. Of course the adventure ended in no boots. Stingy motherf-

However, we did adventure a bit into new Dynamis - Xarcabard and I have to say, it's pretty interesting and I like it so far. The concepts behind it are the same, it seems like the same statues give time extensions and, while they do respawn, it also seems you can only get the extension off it once...which is actually makes sense. Oh, and everything is already up.

A major difference though is the animated weapons. I was dumbfounded at all the satellite weapons. Apparently they're pretty damn weak and drop the pop item for the Animated Weapons (which no longer warp out, but you have a time limit of 15 minutes to fight them.) Unfortunately, we didn't last long enough to see what happens at that time.

Super weak. Super shocking!


Horrible idea. I had already had my daily dose of face stabbing from Simurgh after all.

So remember kids, it's all fun and games till someone gets hurt.

Then it's hilarious.

The Version Update is here!

Well, considering I've begun this blog while waiting on Final Fantasy XI's version update, I'll chat a bit about this! However there's so much being updated and so little time. Ok ok, there's a lot of time since the update time will probably be extended something awful, I'm just terribly lazy.

All the information for the version update can be found here on the official FFXI forums.

I have some very mixed feelings about this update as far as the big updates though. I'm very much looking forward to Voidwatch; it looks like it's going to be challenging and downright awesome. Sure the monsters look like they're just re-skinned, but at least one monster looks new and cool:

Though if I were him, I'd die laughing at the gear those people are wearing. Or just slice them off, depends on the mood.

And of course I'm looking forward to many of the minor updates like being able to store Kindred Crests (and use them to access new battlefields of course) and even the silly little update to the new character display name fonts. The updated delivery system is sweet too. Brb sending my level 20 mule a Dalmy and Adaberk as well as items for Empyrean Weapons.

While nothing infuriates me about the update, I'm somewhat on the fence as far as the force pop of old HNMs are concerned. KS99 > NQ > HQ seems a bit silly to me considering the KS 99 versions are harder than the HQ though that isn't saying too much considering at 90 all of them are relatively easy if you play it smart. In the end I'm just sad I guess to see these NM turn to force pop... damn nostalgia, at least there's still King Arthro, Roc, and Simurgh, right?

Also on the fence about Dynamis. It seems really cool and really lame at the same time. I'm really liking reduced wait and no reservations. One of the reasons I hated dynamis so much in the past was assholes jacking your zone right before you enter, but I digress. But at the same point, mobs are going to be claimed just like mobs in regular dungeon and field zones. But hey

While other things leave me confused... like Synergy. Basically you'll need to get two abjurations to create an augmented piece of Hecatomb, Adaman, etc gear. (One to make the actual piece of armor, and then another to make tatters out of.) If you don't like the augment, will you need to keep getting more and more or will you get the tatters back? That seems a bit excessive even for SE. I guess we'll see.

Bit long for a first post but it's a long update! I could go on and on about this, but other work needs to be done. And by work I mean nap, manga, anime, or maybe even just staring at my wall.