Ok I get it

So, incase that anyone didn't noticed I have been leveling Black Mage for awhile. To be more specific to level 66. During these 66 levels, I have had maybe 3 parties, the rest I have been soloing.

Pets, as I have said before.

Many times during my killings of bunnies I have asked myself, why dont Black Mages get invites to parties?

Now, I may not have the answer for that. What I did find out the hard way is why there is so few Black Mage parties.

The other day I got an invite to a Black Mage party, and now it seems like a good idea to solo. Now I dont ask alot of people, I dont ask that they have the very best, or the very most expensive gear. I dont have that myself.

What I do expect of people is that they have the very basix gear for their job, and now the basics about how to play their job.

I dont expect to get an invite to a Black Mage party, and be the only one who knows what I'm doing.

3 of 4 did not have elemental staffs, not even the non high qualtiy ones. Can you guess who the 4th was?

Yeah, me.

Another thing I dont expect is to get invited to a Black Mage party with a bunch of Black Mage's that have no clue about how timed nuking works.

If you are a Black Mage over level 50, you do have elemental staffs, and you do know what time nuking is. If not, change job.

For those of you that havent lv Black Mage, time nuking is when 1 party member decide a certain time when all the Black Mage's are supposed to start casting their spell. This is so that all the spells hit the monster at the same time and die before it gets the chance of killing someone.

You dont have a time carre that acts like this.

Guy>> 53
Guy>> i mean 13
Guy>>I meant 03 haha!
Guy>> Oh no cancel..
Guy>> Nevermind, dont cancel.
Guy>> Why the hell did you guys cancel!?

You dont have to be a Black Mage to see whats wrong with that. After awhile with this guy calling times like that, some people decided it was better to just cast whenever. Oh, and the time calling guy refused to let anyone else call the time as well.

Ok so I got it! Solo....

I'd rather get killed by a bunny because I did something stupid than get killed by an overgrown worm beause 5 other people are stupid. Atleast when the bunny kill me I have no one to blame but myself....

...And maybe the goblin who owns the bunny.

Leave me alone

Some people have made the misstake to think I'm a good guy, a nice guy. They got it all wrong.

Yesterday when I logged on to the game I was already in a bad mood because issues that has nothing to do with the game.

I do have a life out of the game, really I do.

Just because I don't share my private life with everyone in a game doesnt mean I dont have one.

So, yesterday.

I had been logged in for a whole 10 seconds when I get a tell from this guy, granted I kind of know this guy. Not like we're best friends or anything, but I know who he is, in game.

Guy>> I need your help in 40 min.
Zan>>...what do you need?
Guy>> I need your help to kill King Vinegarroon.
Zan>> Oh, so you want us to duo him then?
Guy>> Umm, no...It takes 18 people to kill him....
Zan>> My point exactly, what do you need me for?
Guy>> Well, come as Bard.
Zan>> ...
Zan>> You are in a HNMLS, those guys do that kinda stuff every day...
Guy>> Last time we killed him I was the only Bard.
Guy>> Come Bard, see you in 40 minutes. AFK til then.

Now maybe I missed something somewhere, but I'm pretty sure the conversation above did not include me saying "Sure I'll be there, there is nothing I'd rather do than spend hours and hours camping an NM from which I gain nothing from killing!"

The people who are in a HNMLS either enjoy one or both of these things.

1. Staring at their screen for several hours waiting on an NM to spawn out of nowhere.

2. Getting whatever gear the forementioned NM drops.

This usually means that even if they dont really enjoy the first option, they still think its worth it because of the second option.

I however would not mind getting whatever gear that might drop from HNM's, however I dont think the gear is worth the time and effort put into it. If I did, I'd join a HNMLS.

Makes sense?

So, if I'm not prepared to spend countless of hours to get that gear for myself, why would I spend countless hours in getting it for someone else?

Besides, this guy is a part of a HNMLS, if I somehow forgot to mention that before. If they can't come up with enough people on the right type of jobs to kill HNM's, then maybe they should reconsider killing those type of monsters, and NOT trying to have people outside their linkshell to come and help them (i.e me).

The very first day I feel the urge to waste my time staring at the screen for hours, waiting on an NM to spawn along with 5-7 other linkshells that are all trying to claim it before you do, I'll let you know. seriously, you'd be the first one to know. I promise.

Until that day, please leave me out of your HNM stuff.

Player warning!

One of the FFXI forums I follow daily has gone mad lately. Every second post people makes starts with: Player warning !

Ok, some of the warnings is about this or that guy stealing this or that item, but to be fair, most of the people that got their stuff stolen have no one else but themselves to blame.

Oh, you traded this guy 5 million gil and he promised you to get you this or that weapon but never showed up? Player warning!

If you're stupid enough to give someone gil for something they have yet to give you, guess who's fault that is?

Yours.

Although it seems like alot of the player warnings are about people that dont play the game the way others expect them to, or dont have the gear others expect of them.

Some quotes:

"This guy is the biggest crybaby on Quetz! By far one of the biggest cry babies I've ever seen on a game. This guy can't have a personal conversation with somebody, he has to go as far as saying everything in /say. He's an attention and thrives on drama! He'll pay outrageous amounts for cheap crafting items, yet cry's when you try to bazaar something he wants that's 10k over the AH price.

When you see this guy just give him a good /slap."

You all got warned by this guy now? He must be a terrible person. OMG He's talking in /say! How dare he! Warning!

"Player is 75 thf.
Camping V.Bow he comes talking crap to me.
I have 2 friends with me, we comment back, he then thinks he sees fit to /shout noob repeatedly for 5min.

No one was in the zone but us, but still, thats un called for."

What a scum! I hope someone called a GM on him and that he got perma banned. Shouting noob in an empty zone? Atleast shout somewhere where lots of people can hear it, like Whitegate. Warning!

"Vanna, he/she will take a SS of your SS if you use Windower or anything else "third party". She is mailing them to SE Special task force. So beware even though I don't think you will get banned for Windower since it does nothing bad like "Speed hacks" or stuff that."

Wow, here is someone trying to report you for doing something that is agains ToS, bad person! Very very bad person! Warning!

"Majjick, Fatalis, and Kennn overcamp parties and convince others to join them saying 'we were here first'. I was first invited to one of Fatalis's overcamp parties and Fatalis said 'the other party is about to leave', I asked the party and they said no, they had no intention to leave. Then Fatalis said his group was there first and the other party was overcamping him. I didn't want to be a part of the drama, so I left Fatalis' party. A week later I am at the pudding camp with a full party for 4 hours, then Fatalis, Majjick, and Kennn (all same LS) arrived and began overcamping us on purpose. These are sad sad souls that make the world a more stressful and conflict-filled place, please avoid them and don't support their disrespect."

He took my toy! I had it first! mommy tell him!

I could go on posting these quotes all day, but I think you get the point by now. What do these people expect other people to do about these warnings? So, you had a bad experience with this person? Well maybe you are the only one who had bad experience with him/her. All these warnings seems like nothing more than childish whining to me. Guess what? Use /blacklist add name. Stay away from whoever annoys you, the world dont care if someone called you noob in an empty zone.

Player warning: Zan

"He is making fun of my player warnings on his blog" Warning!!!!

More missions

Some weeks ago I made a post about missions. This is a quote from that post, about the Chains Of Promathia missions.

"I know I need it, and that I should do them. But seriously. I've been trying to get them going for a long time now. For some reason the groups I get together is always totally useless."

Now this quote is very true, but the past few days I've learned something new.

I know hard to believe huh? Me learning, I bet you thought I already knew everything.

I learned that missions that are impossible to do with most people, actually is really simple if you just join up with people that actually know what they are doing, and know the very basics in playing the game.

A couple of days ago I joined this group of people that had "lost" their main characters.

Dont ask about that, it's really non of my business what people do with their chars.

So these people had already done these missions on another sets of characters way back when. this means.

1. I didn't have to hold their hands and walk them through everything.

2. The knew what they were supposed to do and how to do it.

3. There were no 3 hour drama before each mission and waiting another 3 hours for some guy that didn't pay enough attention to get this or that cutscene or this or that item.

It was more like this.

1. Let's do this mission.

2. Do the mission.

3. Mission done.

See? See how simple it can be if people just put a little efford in to things? Granted that I did missions for 15 hours yesterday, but during those 15 hours I got done what I havent been able to get done in over 4 years with 20+ different groups. So 15 hours straight with 1 great group, or 4+ years with lots a bad groups. Guess which wins from my point of view?

If the people in my previous 20+ groups had just listened to me when I told them that they should come prepared, read up on the missions, and all that this would have been done long ago.

But it seems that 95% of the people in this game just cant listen, and/or expect you to do just about everything for them. Wouldn't surprise me if someone would actually give me their account info if I told them I'd get the missions done for them.

Oh, people do that? Thats why they get their accounts stolen?

I never knew that. To actually pay x $ per month to play a game, then give out the account info to someone because they are too lazy to do things themselves, then get their accounts stolen and finally post on every FFXI forum on the internet that their account got "hacked".

Yeah that makes sense to me.

Guess what.

Using the valid log in info that were given to you by the owner of the account is not hacking. If it was, I'd be hacking my own account every day.

Quake

Have you ever heard about Quake?

No, not the ancient game Quake, the Ancient Magic Quake.

Incase you haven't, its a powerfull spell you get once your Black Mage have reached level 54. It makes the pet killing I've been talking about before alot easier. This spell is so powerfull that just this one is enough to kill the pet. Nothing else is needed.

One of the other nice things about it is the time it takes to cast it. You can start casting the spell, walk away from your computer, make a couple of sandwiches, make some coffee then come back to the computer and eat your sandwiches while watching the spell kill the pet.

Then you rest for mp, because this spell takes alot of mp to cast. When you have sufficiant mp, start casting the spell, go vacuum your house, then come back to watch the pet get killed.

Rest mp.

Start cast the spell, jump in the car, go grocery shopping, come back home just in time to see the spell kill the pet.

Great isn't it?

Since I got that spell I get alot of work done that I usually dont get done. My Black Mage pretty much level itself now, I just have to show up every now and then to cast the spell.

Now all I have to do is invent something that will cast the spell for me. I could place my Black Mage somewhere, go away on vacation and come back to a Black Mage 75.

I'm starting to see why Black Mages hardly ever get parties. They're all away on vacation while leveling.

Mentor

After reaching a certain level or spending a certain amount of time in game, you can visit an NPC and join the Mentor program. It will show an "M" next to your name so that players that see you know that you are a mentor.

Beeing a mentor in general means that you are awsome at the game and know every little advanced trick there is to it, you also know almost every single mission and quest from the back of your head. You are obligated to help anyone who asks for your help with anything they want, pretty much you drop everything you are doing to rush to their aid. And because you are so nice you are doing it all for free.

Do you recognize sarcasm when you see it?

No?

Well, to become a mentor you have to have a job at lv 30, or have spent 180 hours in game. When I was lv 30 (I know, it sounds like your grandpa is saying "when I was young...") on my first job, I cant say that I really knew anything about the game. I knew how to hit on things with a sword/axe/dagger. I knew if you see a goblin run, run at the opposite direction. And thats about it.

This is a quote that the NPC lets you know about the mentor system when you sign up for it.

"Mentors are experienced adventurers who have registered with the Adventurers' Mutual Aid Network (A.M.A.N.), a non-governmental Organization founded by adventurers and merchants"

Ok, maybe its not an exact quote, but its something I found that explains the mentor system.

Now, what I use Mentor for, is because I wanna hide my Bazaar icon. Because I dont want ppl to check my Bazaar. There's nothing to see, I have a Faerie Apple in my Bazaar. for 99.999.999 Gil. If you wanna buy it go ahead, im not gonna stop you. If not, leave my bazaar alone.

Dont force me to put mentor up and get 50 random tell from ppl every day asking me to do this or that for them, and then get mad at me because I don't have time.


I know this post made very little if any sense.

Bottom line is, just because you are mentor you are not obligated to do anything for anyone. Ask me a question and I'll answer, ask me to camp and NM for you and I'll ask you to go drown yourself in the little pond in Jugner forest.

Dinosaur wannabe

Ok, so I'm still leveling my Black Mage. Still soloing it. Past couple of days I have been at a camp that I have previously been on with my Red Mage.

I know that this is a good camp, I know there is only a goblin or 2 that aggro right at camp.

I know all these things and...still...

All of a sudden 2 Dinosaur wannabe's started to roam at my camp... MY camp.

First I thought I'd just ignore them and hope they'll eventually go away, so I was pulling my monsters around them for awhile.

But just seeing them there, knowing they arent supposed to be there just annoyed the crap out of me.

So, I figure if I sleep one and log out, it should despawn and be gone when i log back in, and when it respawn it will respawn where its supposed to be and not on my camp.

Right?

Right...

I sleep it and log out, when I log back on it's still there, as if nothing had ever happen. So I come up with this new plan.

Maybe I have to actually cause damage on it before I sleep it and log out in order for it to despawn.

So I cast some low spell on it just to make some damage, then I sleep it and log out.

Gone?

I wish, still there when I log back in.

Third plan goes like this. Aggro the bastard and run it away from its spawning area, then sleep it and log out.

Well, there's only so far you can run as a Black Mage beeing chased by some sort of mini dinosaur. I did manage to bring it what I thought should be far enough from the camp and sleep it. Logging out.

Logging back in....

Goblin Bandit hits Zan for 256 points of damage.
Goblin Bandit hits Zan for 283 points of damage.
Goblin Bandit scores a critical hit, Zan takes 347 points of damage.
Zan was defeated by the Goblin Bandit.

Where the heck did he come from!?

He sure as %&@! wasn't there when I logged out, I'm sure I would have noticed that.

Sigh...

Logging for tonight.

Zan goes Kaboom!

So, I have tried leveling Red Mage. Red Mage = Refresh, Haste, Refresh, Haste, Refresh....

Well you get it.

I also have tried the White Mage thingy. It goes like this, Cure, Cure, Cure, Cure, Cure, protect, Cure....

Now I have moved on to Black Mage. Wow, what a differens!

You get to actually kill stuff. And because Black Mages rarely get any party invites you also get to solo alot, kinda like getting to know yourself better and all that. Just you in the middle of a desert.

In game there is monsters that have the job as beastmasters, these monsters are having pets. Now here is the fun part.

You see this goblin walking around minding his own business, not botherning anyone, and guess what.

He got a pet!

A small furry little cute rabbit pet is following him around.

Thats where I come in!

You know how good it feels to kill something that small and defenseless? And yet get a huge amount of experience points from it?

It's great!

Best part is the goblin doesnt even notice that his pet is gone, he just keeps minding his own business til after awhile he summons a new pet.

That I kill.

You know your neighbours loud and annoying poodle? Imagine how it would feel to just be able to Kaboom! And it's gone. And your neighbour wouldn't even notice it's gone.

Wouldn't that be awsome?

No, I'm not going to sneak up on innocent people who are out walking their dogs.

It's illegal. I think.

Maybe not. I dont think there's actually a law stating its prohibited to cast Aero II on someones dog....

Hmmm....

I like Black Mage!