Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Welcome to the New Pyra’s Party Place

The move is mostly complete, just a handful of links to update.

I chose to not go with wordpress.com for a simple reason: There was no simple way to move all my pictures. So, I moved it to here instead, since I had to move all the images anyways (in reality, its on the same physical machine as the previous site). Also, its easier to move at a later date now 🙂

-pyra

Wow, I need to make more real updates. Hopefully, I’ll have time this weekend. Boo life, its been way too busy lately.

Merrit Planning

Since I’ve had some downtime recently, I decided to get my merrit plan into order.

And I made a google spreadsheet, see here.

Its still a work in progress, but I wanted to share.

I cannot take credit for the idea, I found it via someone who linked to me. See Cyberstorm of Titan. I basically copied his general format, but I don’t have nearly the merrits he has. Actually, if I did, I wouldn’t need to merrit anymore.

Oh well. I don’t actually ever expect to get this list completed. I think I’d rather level Paladin or a tank job (boooo tanking) over getting the 2.7 million exp required to finish out this plan.

Real update sometime this week. Its been a while, I was in Boston all last week for a training class, and I have this week to work on getting my project finished — and I really do need to finish it, but its kicking my butt. Java sucks. Why, oh why, would you make a function return an object when its so clearly a String. Every other statement requires typecasting, and coming from C/C++, this looks like its just asking for trouble. And if you have an int, why the hell can’t JspWriter.write() just spit it out right instead of having to do write(“”+myInt). I swear, even obfuscated perl makes more sense sometimes.

-pyra

Campaign Rank Up Exp

I’ve been doing some testing with how much effort is required to get your next rank.

What is known:

  • It takes a certain number of Experience Points gained to rank up
  • It is variable depending on the Medal you currently have
  • At lower Medals, it is believed to be about 5,000 experience points
  • For me, Golden Star -> Copper Emblem of Service was 9,000 experience points
  • At higher ranks, you have the potential to gain more exp in a Campaign Battle
  • If you fail to meet the requirements, you will lose your medal withing 30 days

What is unknown:

  • What effect, if any, Allied Notes have on your rank up
  • If your efforts deteriorate over time (getting 10K exp right before your evaluation vs 3 days before)
  • If assisting in a Campaign Ops (when not using your own Ops Credit) helps you in any way
  • If experience points earned in Campaing Ops vs Campaign Battles are weighted differently (I believe no)

What is believed:

  • It requires more exp to rank up at higher ranks (probably true given what little information is available)
  • There is a threshold that starts around 66-75% of the exp required to rank up in which you are given the option to keep your current medal.
  • The requirements are somewhat higher when jumping to a new grouping — eg, moving from Ribbon #4 to Star #1, etc

As can be seen, not much is known about the specific math required to achieve the various ranks.

My basis for known #4 – I used two accounts, both hit Golden Star on the same day, and I recorded the amount of exp and AN received from start to promotion.

The first account was promoted at 9600 exp and 8900 Allied Notes. The second was not promoted at 8880 exp and 10,500 Allied Noted, but was promoted at 9040 exp and 11,120 Allied Notes (all numbers rounded since I’m working from memory right now). Based on this information, I believe that the threshold is for Golden Star to Copper Emblem is 9000 exp (possibly 8900), and if there is an Allied Notes requirement, it is either lower than, or the same as the Experience Points requirement. It also appears as though extra Allied Notes will not offset Experience Points shortcomings, meaning you will have to join Campaign Battles if you ever hope to get promoted.

After revisiting my numbers I noticed that my original thought about 9000 exp to rank up may not be correct. It is possible that it is 8900, and since I had 8900 AN and over 9000 exp, I have not disproved it yet. This will require furthur testing at all levels to begin to make a table of what is required to rank up. What I believe is proven is that there is an experience points requirement to get your promotion, and it is NOT only based on Allied Notes, and may not be based on Allied Notes at all.

If there is no Allied Notes requirement, the Notes may be completly useless at this time.

Anyone else have thoughts?

Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle-K

drama_found_it

Drama (Found It!)

Some other names I found amusing.

Shedontusejelly.  I don’t get it either.

jelly

Kardis.  This is more of an inside joke.  I have a friend with a mule on Diabolos named Kardis.  I was instructed to smite this one.

kardis

Just a quick update for now.  Another one shortly.

-pyra

Its Official, I’m Insane

I’ve been giving some thought as of late to forming my own Sky and Sea linkshell.

Technically, I’ve got everything I need to get started, or at least to start forming the shell.

I’ve done just about everything there is to do in Sky. While I’m a total noob in Sea, how hard can it be? Aside from Jailer of Love, Sea NMs seam fairly straight forward.

The LS will be yet-another in a string of task-oriented shells on Caitsith. Maybe I’ll call it PyrasPartyPlace 🙂 . Or not. Either way, right now, I know of no sky and/or sea shell which would work with my schedule. Or even of one at all. I’m not looking to leave my Dynamis or Limbus shells, as I’m quite happy in both. I also have a very low desire to camp anything HNM.

I have no idea why, but lately I’ve had this burning desire to A) Lead something again and B) Get off my butt and kill Sea NMs, and C) Blow stuff up again.

This must be what going insane feels like.

-pyra

Ding 37 and the Lazy Square-Enix

I’ve finally finished.  Way too much work for what I get out of it.

The it is, of course, a level 37 White Mage for my Chi Blast sub.

almost37

Yay 37 … er, grrrr.  Lazy goblin, give me 3 more experience points!

yay37

Ahhh there we go, much better.

And yes, I did kill an easy prey for 15 experience points.

ding37

I’m no saint, I just wanted the sub to be finished.

🙂

Moving along.

Last week, I obtained the Thief AFv2 body piece.  And I noticed something, it looked strangely familiar, but I just could not place my finger on it.

afv2body

The pockets on the arms though, and the way the vest is, with the side pouches at the bottom.  Could it be?

pbody

Could the Pahluwan Khazagand be a reskinned version of the Thief AFv2 body?  The answer

overlay

Yes.  This is an overlay of the 2 above screenshots with the AFv2 on top and set to 50% transparency.  The vest, arm pockets, and side pockets all line up.  They did, however, add in a shirt underneath.

That being said, I like how the body turned out, anyone know how I can reskin my Pahluwan Khazagand to look like this?

-pyra

I’ve done it!

I’ve done it, actually done it.

What have you done Pyra?

I’ve turned the mithra into the biggest skank out there.

Even RSE would cover more, which is saying a lot I think.

Continue reading

I Love the Interweb

My web host (Dreamhost) has, by default, a stats page.  You cannot access it, but I can.

Every so often I take a look, and normally I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.  However, I am usually amused by how people get here via the normal web search engines.

search_terms

I’ve circled the ones I find out of place.  "woofie ffxi", "where is the courthouse in bastok ffxi", and the strangest to me, "pyra elf".  I would love to get a copy of Visual Sciences (now Omniture) running to really see where people come from and go to.  If anyone has seen this product, its really nice — if you want to track your users as they traverse your site.  I guess I’m just bored at work sometimes and this is the crazy stuff I come up with.

Aside from that, my chi blast gear (see link on the right) appears to be a fairly popular hit.  I’m glad all that work isn’t going to waste since it did take me almost an hour to compile all the info.

Anyways, back to the regular programming next time, I just wanted to share this.

-pyra

The State of the Pyra, 2008

(Disclaimer:  This is a joke, considering that today was the State of the Union Address)

Another year has passed.  At this time, I would like to reflect on the occurrences of the past 365 Days.

For starters, this has been a good year for Dynamis productivity.  In it, we’ve seen Atalantia reach 4 of 5 on her White Mage AFv2.

ata_whm

At the same time, she has also received some Summoner AFv2, making her 2 of 5.

ata_smn

Her Yinyang was definitely a victory for all of Vana’diel as well.  We all rejoiced in her happiness.

This has also been a good year for Pyra.  She was able to hit 4 of 5 on Thief AFv2.

pyra_thf

And her Monk also hit 4 of 5, with the relic accessory, making the Monk 5 of 6 overall.

pyra_mnk

In addition, Sky was kind in 2007, allowing her to obtain 3 of 5 of the Sky "God Set".

pyra_sky_gear

We had significant victories in 2007 and early 2008.  Victories in Limbus came just last week ago with the first piece of AF+1 for Pyra.  Atalantia is still working very hard to get her first piece, with a breakthrough expected anytime now.

mnk_crown_plus1

This is an important first step, with many more steps to come.  This piece also marked the near completion of Pyra’s Chi Blast set, missing only 1 key item, Kirin’s Osode.  It will come with time, but until then, we need to persevere and strengthen our resolve to work towards our goals.  The Osode is within reach, and I urge everyone to not give up now.

In other news, Dynamis continues the be our main source of Experience Point loss.  Every loss saddens us, but makes us all stronger.

jeuno_death

We know that some loss is a necessary sacrifice to ensure the groups grow stronger and closer.  With time, we can minimize this loss, but until then, we will do everything we can to make sure that is it not in vain.

The economy has been a roller coaster ride this past year as well.  The Really Moronic Tribe, a cult originating in the far east, has been nearly eliminated.  However, this extermination effort has not been without its draw backs.  The effort has caused a recession as new industry was built to make up for the loss of productivity.  We will recover.  We will succeed.

The war continues 20 years ago.  It is a hard fight, and the beastmen never run out of reinforcements.  We must fight in the past to ensure a safe today.  A year ago, we thought that we would lose to the beastmen, and many encouraged us to stop fighting, saying that a pitiful amount of Allied Notes was not worth the loss of life on both sides.  Detractors said that the forces of the 4 nations lacked the courage to step up and do what was needed to make their lands safe.

campaign

Today, we see the National Protection Councils, or NPCs, in all 4 nations sending troops to support the war effort.  Eventually, our combined effort will drive the beastmen forces back and we will take the fight to the Shadowlord himself.  We cannot allow his regime to survive.  His days are numbered, and no matter where in the mountains of the Northlands he hides, we will find him.  We will be victorious.  We do this because we have to, for the present, for our children, and for Cid.

This next year will not be easy.  Proto-Omega, Proto-Ultima, Dynamis Lord, and others seem to just reappear every few weeks.  They must be defeated for peace to reign.

We will not be pulling our forces out of any zones where they are still needed.  Al’Taieu still crawls with creatures, some would say monsters, so notorious that they take 18 or more brave fighters to hunt down and capture or kill.  But it is worth the effort, the items we find on them prove infinitely valuable in the continuing battles.  We will undertake missions, as they come up, and finish those missions we are already working on.

Together, we can make Vana’diel a strong nation for all, with a good past, present, and future.

Thank you, and God bless.

goodbye_for_now

-pyra

This was so amusing, it needed to be posted

While browsing through Technorati for the FFXI tag, I stumbled upon this entry in the Star Onion blog.

Appearantly there is a joke on the BG forums about a Dragoon who paid for his relic upgrade by farming fire crystals.

So, FFXIAH placed a relic calculator on their site, and they compute how many fire clusters it will take to pay for your relic.

Woot! Only 90,000 needed for my Mandau. Time to start crackin on that. Only 2.5 years if I get 100 clusters per day to sell.

-pyra