You dig and you dig, but find nothing. (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

Quiet night on FFXI last night. Since the Castle Oz/Yag High Priest CTY LS event thingie was for fun and not a necessary quest for someone, I didn't attend. I have no death buffer at all, and even a death with a raise wouldn't be enough to get my level back, so I didn't want to risk it. Turned out that was the right decision, as everyone who attended (other than Nif, I heard) died.

I didn't have much of anything else to do, so I got off my butt and went back to work on chocobo digging. (Non-players: You buy some special greens and feed them to the bird, then it will dig for you. You may or may not dig something up.) Finally, finally, finally all the time and money I've put into this paid off! I leveled! Woo! (Unlike jobs or crafting, there are only 6? 7? chocobo levels. It costs hundreds of thousands of gil per level, and much much much time.) A six second delay on digging is just amazing! It feels like I'm flying!

I spent about 80K on greens for digging last night, but for the first time ever I actually made a profit! (Higher level in digging = you get better and more stuff.) Best things were: a darksteel ore (20K+), 8 oak logs (eh, or elm? the 10K ones), and a whole stack of mythril beastcoins! It's so amazing to be digging and actually making a profit! And the faster digging might mean faster leveling! (But maybe not. I suspect that each level needs double the digging to level than the one before it.)

Players: Do not let people tell you that there's a "hidden test system", that you have to dig X item to level. That is NOT TRUE at all. I've not dug up test items, and I've leveled fine. Also: You can level on a dig that you don't even get anything on! It's just a matter of digging lots and lots and lots.

While digging, I saw the oddest thing: Flowers growing out of thin air! And it wasn't a one time glitch, they stayed there! I saw them first at night, then dug a while and returned to the area in daytime, and there they were floating again! Oddness.

Lastly, can anyone tell me what this guy was trying to say?



I have no idea why he apparently didn't understand my use of the auto-translator...

Comments

[philia.livejournal.com]

:o

If you've got any of those elm left, I'll buy em. :3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was going to make them into bast parchment then make them into shi... eh, shihi... that ninja tool stuff. Do you need it for leveling or for doing that, too? If it's for leveling, I'll be happy to sell them to you! But if it's for profit then I'm keeping them. ;)

And you do realize that any price set for the wood would have to include a smooch or two~? (Heehee.)

[philia.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to get rid of all this black ink, so yeah, it's for profit. X3

As for smooches? .... {No thanks.} -_-;

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

How about a different sort of a deal then? ;) Want to sell me your black ink? (Smooches optional!)

[philia.livejournal.com]

Nope. I can do that m'self, if it comes down to that. :3 I'll just snag some logs from the AH; even then, I'll make a profit. :3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Okay, sounds like a plan! :)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

While digging, I saw the oddest thing: Flowers growing out of thin air! And it wasn't a one time glitch, they stayed there! I saw them first at night, then dug a while and returned to the area in daytime, and there they were floating again!

Happy happy code bug! :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep! And a fun one at that! :)

[loneguardian.livejournal.com]

He said 'Yo' in the first line, dunno what the small 'tsu' is for.. It's usually for making almost a hesitation in saying a word, I think. At least, that's what my Japanese teacher taught me. In this case, I think it would make the O in 'yo' be a bit shorter/abrupt? Maybe it's their way of just saying 'Yo' like a western greeting X3 Ask Kawaru on that one, I'm probably way off.

Second line is 'Hisashiburi'... Uhm. It's kinna like a 'long time, no see' or 'I haven't seen you in a while' statement. You watch anime, you should probably recognize that word. X3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oddness! So he thought he knew me... or maybe we did know each other and I forgot who he is. Strange!

Thanks!

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Could be a new person who new a Thistle on his other server. :)

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I've seen a Henko around before the server switch, so that's probably not it. I'm just as mystified as the rest of you, then, unless Thistle's become so well-known that random people want him to remember them. ^_~

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Well, he was pretty hot, so maybe he was hitting on me! *strut strut* He had that long (shaggy) blond hair. Mmmm.

[kelen.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Guess not new then! :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hi Mr. Fisher! When you have time, would you catch me some fish? No rush, and of course I'll pay you. :) I need some Gigant Squid. Like, ummmmm, 6 or 8 of them? (Seriously, no rush. This weekend, next week, whatever works for you!)

I guess I might have the skill to catch these, but fishing on Qufim could still be dangerous for me. I could fish up a monk and it would eat my sexy little behind!

Thank you! And no worries if you need to catch other stuff instead! <3

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Sure, I can get those for you. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Just let me know how much to send for them. :) And since they don't stack, I can pick them up on a mule even if Thistle is out in the field somewhere.

Thanks!

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Whatever you wanna send. Don't even know what they sell for on AH anymore.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Your CTY postie thing says half of the AH price, which works for me if it does for you! I have no idea what that price is, but I'll check when I'm on-game.

Or I could pay you in... other ways.

*smooch*

Heh heh heh.

[phoenix-leandra.livejournal.com]

Lone - you're right on that one. "Yo" as an americanized greeting is catching on more. So you're right on the money. The guy did just say "Yo! Long time no see." What I find interesting is he didn't use ANY honorifics (not even o) which means he feels pretty comfortable with Thistle.

Thistle - The fact that he didn't get what why you didn't speak Japanese, might just be that he mistook you for someone else. Maybe there's a Jpn person with a name like yours, but in slightly mispelled Engrish. Mmm... sweet sweet Engrish (http://www.engrish.com/)

Or he could've just been messin with you. From what I've been reading of this JET teacher's journal (http://outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html), Japanese kids can be quite the little bastards ^^. They love playing pranks on unsuspecting gaijin. Could've been trying to see what he could pull on you. Seemed like not much, and failed.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

What I find interesting is he didn't use ANY honorifics (not even o) which means he feels pretty comfortable with Thistle.

Very, very odd. I wish I knew who he was! Or at least who he thought I was. :P Better that than that he was trying to mess with me!

And yes, I love Outpost9 lots!

[emelie-dream.livejournal.com]

Darksteel ores are up to 20k? o.o *breaks out pickaxes*

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was trying to recall the exact price when I posted that. I *think* they were 23K last night in Bastok, and I listed mine at 22,000-something (or maybe it was 22K and I listed mine just over 21K). So a little over 20K, yep!

[kriatyrr.livejournal.com]

loneguardian's translation is correct.

Once again you make me want to play.. I could help people translate! Although I'm not translator level yet, I could do simple stuff like this.

How much does it cost to play, and how much time would I have to invest in leveling up before my character would no longer be considered hopeless?

(I guess it's a rhetorical question, as my computer is nowhere near powerful enough to run the game, I bet.)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

:D

You can go to www.playonline.com and download their benchmark, then see if your computer can handle it or not!

After you buy the initial software, I think it's... $10 per month? Maybe $15? The website should have that info, too.

how much time would I have to invest in leveling up before my character would no longer be considered hopeless?

"Hopeless" is a matter of opinion, really. I don't consider any level to be hopeless! Everyone starts out as level 1, and how fast you level depends on how you party and how often. :)

Request for info

[artyskox.livejournal.com]

Alright.. I just can't get myself into a real craft but I think this is something I'd really like to try out more. Can you tell me..

1st - how do you check your chocobo digging level? I heard something about being on a chocobo and zoning into a new zone and seeing it very quickly before it disappears >.< I have dug through just a couple stacks but not much yet.

Are there good starter areas to do it in? I'm assuming digging in a low level area might be better than going off to the high spots. I never really understood how they talked about digging in.. patches.. or something?

Re: Request for info

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I heard something about being on a chocobo and zoning into a new zone and seeing it very quickly before it disappears

That's another one of those rumors. :) There's so little info on digging out there, rumors are more common than real facts!

Ha ha ha. I went off to find the URL of the message board with the good digging info, and I got distracted by reading the new posts on it. :P Here's the link to the thread with the best info. (http://vnboards.ign.com/FFXI_Crafting/b22595/67373941/p16) Note that I gave you the URL to the last page, not the first. I'd suggest reading backwards as much as possible. The first page is really old and has all those rumors which hadn't yet been disproved.

*gets distracted with reading about digging again* I may never get this comment posted! :P

Anyway, on levels: They are not shown or displayed anywere. You can tell what level you are based on 1) the time before you can dig again, and 2) the time after you enter a zone until you can make your first dig. The first four levels are all "area 60", which means you have to wait 60 seconds after zoning in before you can dig.

1: wait16 (area60)
2: wait11 (area60)
3: wait6 (area60) <-- Me, after months and months and a few million gil! :D
4: wait0 (area60)
5: Area45
6: Area40
7: Area35
8: Area30
9: Area25
10: Area20
11: Area15
12: Area10

Starting with level 4, your "wait between digs" time is 0, and stays that way forever. At level 5 you need to look at your "time after zoning until you can make your first dig" to find your level.

Are there good starter areas to do it in? I'm assuming digging in a low level area might be better than going off to the high spots. I never really understood how they talked about digging in.. patches.. or something?

As far as I know, you can dig anywhere at any level! You should find a guide of what can be dug up in each area (I have a printed one and so no URL handy), and decide based on what you hope to dig up. I went all sorts of wild places when I first started.

The "patches" thing might be a zone's restocking. (This is theory, of course we don't know this for sure.) It seems as though a zone gets X items placed into the ground ever Y minutes. Some zones get restocked faster, some get restocked with more items, some are both fast and lots of items (and some are slow/few). So a zone can get "dug out" (no items left in the ground). At that point you either will zone elsewhere or keep digging and hope for a restock soon.

Hope this helps!

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

FFXI needs to reintroduce Chocobreeding. Since there aren't already enough obsessive minigames.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed! I've said from the beginning that it would be cool as hell to have your own bird instead of a "rental" one. Then you could do things like chocobo racing and have birds which dig better and all that.

[kawaru.livejournal.com]

Darn, I'm slow again. Anyhow, it's just like everyone above said, it's the English greeting "yo!" followed by "long time no see" in plain informal tone. So I guess he mistook you for someone he knew.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Others may reply first, but you're the expert! I don't take any answer as "set in stone" other than yours. :) <3 Thanks!