Monthly Archives: October 2008

The FFXI-ification of WoW

Many people in the FFXI world talk about how the game has become too WoW-ified.

While it is true, FFXI is a lot easier than it used to be, and I don’t feel that it is completely a bad thing, no one thinks about the other way around.

When the news of the 18 hour Pandemonium Warden hit, the FFXI world was mad at SE for making another impossible to kill monster.

The reaction in WoW was a bit different — they viewed it as an epic battle, something that does not exist in WoW, at least not to the same scale.  Most bosses in WoW (that I have seen), you kill in 5-10 minutes or less, or you wipe.  It simply comes down to the way WoW is designed.  While you will always be regening your health and mana (mp) in WoW while you are not fighting, when you are in ‘battle mode’ you do not regen health.  And while you are casting a spell, you do not regen your full magic.  There is also no way to exit battle mode without running far away (unlike FF where you just disengage and run and hide while you kneel for a bit).

So anyways, in an effort to add more storyline to WoW, they have added Cut Scenes.  There is one I heard about for one of the 5-man instances.  Then there is this one (which is not really a Cut Scene, because everyone sees it, and it changes the music for the entire zone too).  Movie!  It is really creepy too, I love it, and it reflects a large amount of lore (story) in one quick event (the models for the characters have been updated since this movie was made).  It also made Sylvanas my favorite NPC in the game (or as I said to some people, she is my ‘Shantotto’ of WoW).

Now they have created this Cut Scene when you hit a certain stage in the next expansion.

[This is a huge spoiler if you play WoW.  If you don’t, its just a cool Cut Scene]

Movie!

So it looks like they are trying to add more story and make the feel of WoW more epic.  In FF, you have to save the world in every expansion.  In WoW, you don’t have this.  With the expansion, you actually invade one of the Horde cities for a quest — on both sides.  They handle it through what is being called phasing, where two people can be in the same place (and are on the same server), but they can’t see each other (and may see different NPCs and/or monsters).  It sounds really neat.  It is like instancing in place, and I’m excited for it.

In the end, the mixing of ideas from FFXI and WoW get us an easier FFXI and a more epic WoW.  Doesn’t sound too bad to me, more for me to enjoy.

-pyra

My First WoW Raid

And wow did I suck.  It was Karazhan, which is (sadly) one of the most basic of Burning Crusades (first WoW expansion, about 2 years old now) raids.

I knew going in I was undergeared a bit.  And I’ve never done any raids in WoW ever.  And it was the final boss.

kara_final_boss

It didn’t end too well.  Having never done the fight before, it wasn’t explained all that well, and ended badly.  I told them going in that I had never done the fight before, they just said stand near the one guy and cast spells.  I was too close at first, but after that, I kept close to him.  I doubt I’d be asked back, sadly though.

With the expansion coming shortly, there will be a ‘gear reset’, in that all of the best things at 70, will be mediocre by comparison to the worst stuff by 75-77.  So at 80, even the most basic of items will be better than anything currently available.

But it was still upsetting.  I was hoping I would have done better.

My damage was lower than I’d hoped too.  Sadly, the add-on reset of last week caused some of my spells to be un-findable too.

I don’t regret accepting the invite, but I don’t feel like I learned anything.  It probably didn’t help that the others in the group have probably been doing this for years.

For those of you in FF-land:  imagine a brand new black mage in Dynamis – Bastok.  The zone is easy, but someone who has never done a dynamis before will not handle themselves as well as someone who has been doing black mage in that zone for 3-5 years (or even as well as someone who only has a paladin).  It comes down to, I need experience with these things, but because I don’t have any experience, it is harder to get an invite.  I know that I should have around 1000 (or more) bonus damage to spells and around 25% spell crit chance.  I currently have 695 bonus damage and 12.57% Crit Chance.  Since most of my spells were doing about 750 (in the screenshot, is one of my spell crits.  Spell crits do double damage, and it hit for almost 1400 [the square brackets is the part of the spell that was resisted]), I need more damage (I also couldn’t pull hate, while I should be having trouble not pulling hate).  I was also one of the last to die, so I don’t think that it would have succeeded, even with an amazing mage in my place.  We wiped at around 50%, and I doubt that even doubling my damage output would have saved the run.

I fully admit that I have much to learn.  Looks like I’ll be learning it as I go with WOTLK.  Really, I’m just disappointed in myself that I couldn’t do a bit better.  I could really use the gear from that zone, the one head piece would put everything else I have to shame.

Next time, assuming there is a next time.

~syd

Bye Bye to TTTO Indexing

After some deliberation, I’ve decided to stop the TTTO (The Tarutaru Times Online) from indexing this site.

It was becoming too much negative attention, and pulling the feed allows me a bit more freedom without the scrutiny.  I can ramble, and stray from the topic as much as I want.  I can also post every 4-6 hours (if I wanted to) and not get crap for filling up the main page.

This doesn’t, of course, shut off the feed, and any other readers will still work the same as they used to.

The Dynamis Lords Were Smiling This Week

Last Thursday, I had an unexpectedly good run in Xarcabard.

First monster.

winning_lot

Wooot!  It was off of a Kindred Thief too.

i_get_gloves

Which completes my set, making me 5/5.

pyra-6-6

Wootness.

Then at the next Xarcabard run, this happened.

shadow_mantle_mine

So now I have a Shadow Mantle too.  Sweet!  (Maybe I should level a Paladin)

I don’t think this is extremely impressive, but on darksday, with the extra 20 VIT, I had 118 VIT.  As a Monk.

gogo-vit

Fortunately (or unfortunately) we had some good luck with Blue Mage hats.

lolblu

Yeah, I know.  It was crazy, and blue mage is now on free lot status.  I believe we got 5 of them in one run.

At least we are getting lots of drops in Xarcabard now.

On a different note, I found this funny (its from limbus).

failure_roll

Haven’t seen a 999 rolled in a long time.

-pyra

In Light of Recent Events, No More Politics Here — After This Post

Due to what is sure to offend far too many people, I’ve decided not to continue the Pyra vs Syd ‘election’.

For anyone curious, here is how it would have played out.  Most people will be offended.  Don’t read on if you are easily offended.  If you do read on, don’t complain to me :).  The whole thing was basically designed to poke fun of the political process, and also (here’s the important part) to offend everyone.

In an effort to keep this from an all out debate in my comments, I will turn them off if they get out of hand.

Continue reading

Hahaha, Way to go FF-Wiki

I know he’s famous for such things, but this one is funny.

Charitwo, the infamous editor of the Wiki, experienced some odd cut scene after completing WotG Mission 8. He then added this to the Wiki. But, it was wrong information, and at the very least, not complete. He started an edit war with Urthdigger, a newer player who has a great attitude towards the game. It culminated with Charitwo locking the article until January 2009 with the comment for the edit “stoppat”.

Urth then brought this up on the wiki forums, where the consensus is, Urth is right, Charitwo is wrong. Even the talk page shows that people disagree, but the usual “I’m always right, you’re always wrong” attitude continues.

Hell, even on his talk page, you can see his attitude go furthur.

In the future, can you please take a more polite tone with other staff members?

The reply, not an “I’m sorry” or “Didn’t mean that”….

All testing takes place at the xen1 server, not here at the live wiki where the local activity takes place.

While this is possibly true, his reply to being accused of being too curt with an employee of the company which owns ff-wiki is to accuse the employee of being wrong and make curt remark.

I laugh because I love watching train wrecks in progress. Also, I like stirring up trouble. And since it doesn’t look like anyone is going to say anything, and the wiki admins are happy enough to let that post fall off the discussion board, I’m going to say something.

🙂

<3 -Pyra

A Look at the Candidates: Sydonia

Sydonia is a fairly new resident of Silvermoon City, and is running for president.

Sydonia is a relative newcomer to the life of politics, a spell caster, who has lived on Crushridge for her entire life.

Sydonia went, in a matter of weeks, from a newbie to an officer of her guild.

For a candidate who has not been corrupted by years of visits from lobbyists and others who want special favors, Sydonia is the candidate for you.

This message brought to you by Sydonia for President. My name is Sydonia and I approve this message.

A Look at the Candidates: Pyra

Pyra is a long time resident of Windurst, and is running for president.

Pyra is a very experienced melee, originally from the Diabolos server, who now resides on the Caitsith server.

Pyra has run many successful linkshells, and when not a leader, has excelled as a member who can be counted on when needed for any task.

For a candidate with strong leadership skills and a long history of success, Pyra is your candidate for president.

This message brought to you by Pyra for President. My name is Pyra and I approve this message.

Is the Grass Really Greener? PvE vs PvP Server [WoW Related]

I’ve been playing WoW on a PvP server.

Doing some of the quests, especially the dailies on the Isle, have been almost more frustration than they are worth. The only reason I am doing these dailies is for #1 – SSO Fame, and #2 – Money for my Epic Flyer. For the SSO Fame, there is an item at Exalted fame that I want.

If anyone has ever been to a zone like the Isle on a PvP server, it is a lot of ganking, mostly by rogues or groups. It sucks. I’ve found the only solution is to just go afk in a safe area for about 15 minutes and they move on. Otherwise, you end up fighting the gank squads over and over as they find ways to kill you, or just harass you, just outside of the aggro radius of the guards. And I’m paying for this too.

So, I’m frustrated by this aspect of my daily WoWing. I’m considering moving to a PvE server. But I’m not sure I’ll like it any better. Sure this one zone is a cluster f—, but the rest of the time, I *rarely* end up PvPing (outside of Battlegrounds which are just task oriented PvP). So I’m not sure if there will be a difference, other than my daily questing will be much, much easier (I will often just not do the daily quests if I get home too late, as the frustration level isn’t worth it).

I also know that a bunch of people who read TTTO, etc, play WoW, and probably have some insight I’m missing.

I should also mention that as a 2-month old player, I don’t have a lot of PvP gear, and I’m going against people who have all the battleground-available PvP stuff there is. And as a mage, I get flattened fast, and have trouble getting past their resilience.

Thoughts?