Chatty me (FFXI and WoW)
Dec. 27th, 2005 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserI should be headed to bed to try to sleep, but I feel like "talking" instead so here's a quick post.
I've come to a decision. Every RDM on the game should get together and make every BLM on the game pay for our Gravity scrolls. What is so hard about understanding that if the mob comes running at you and hits you, you stop the hell casting and let the tank get hate back under control? It's not rocket science, people!
Tonight's party was one of the worst RMD parties I've had, including my time in the Dunes. The only reason I stuck around as long as I did (hours...) was that the leader was such a nice person. She (WHM) brought two (two!) powerlevels with her (at 36!), and totally unsurprisingly she didn't have the first clue how to play her job. I could have handled just sticking around for the XP, but the problem was that the PLers kept going AFK or something, so people kept nearly dying.
(Non-players: A power leveler (PL) is a high level person who stands outside of your party and keeps tossing cures onto people. In theory that means less MP is used by people in the party, you can kill things faster, and get more XP. The big big big problem with that is that you do not learn to play your job that way. And as most PLs happen in the lowest levels, when people are just learning, it's a pretty seriously bad thing.)
So you have a NIN tank with a Provoke phobia, two over-nuking BLMs, a way way way over-healing WHM, me, and a good THF. The BLMs and WHMs must have capped out their evasion.
But anyway, the WHM did do one thing right, and it worked out amusingly: We had a bat link so I jumped to try to sleep it, and amazingly the first one stuck! But the follow up sleeps all failed (unsurprisingly) and my HP was in the single digits. I was sure I was about to get my first RDM death, but the WHM used Bene (which I was out of range for), and with that the party was able to kill the first one, and I leveled up! With full HP, I lived as we zoned the linked bats. (I couldn't have just zoned it in the beginning, because others had hit it and it would have flown back to attack them.)
The XP just totally sucked. The level range was too wide (the WHM dinged 37 early on, while the rest of the party was 33-35), and we didn't have one single chain (the WHM never had MP since she way over-healed and wouldn't sit until she hit 0 MP...). She was such a nice person though and was working hard to be a good party leader (very very encouraging and nice and tried to touch base with everyone to make sure they were happy and had what they needed and all that), so I felt bad for her. She might have been one of the nicest non-LS people I've met on the game, but she's been done such a disservice by having been PLed so much; she's been left utterly and totally unable to play her job. :(
After I logged off FFXI I logged onto WoW. My account is closing on Jan 1st and I wanted to take some movies of flying around (my favorite part of the game). I discovered... I still like the game a whole lot. :/ The background sounds are so much richer than FFXI's, the music is just as nice or sometimes nicer, and I don't hate the graphics anymore (I'm sort of fond of them, in the way one might be of that first computer you got 20 years ago). But the problem is, I don't want to play the game. I like it, but I don't want to play it. That doesn't seem like it should make sense, but... it's like the game lacks a soul. Lacks spirit. FFXI is alive. YOU are the hero, YOU are important, what you do matters. In WoW, as far as I have experienced, you do silly quests for mighty silly reasons. (Oh nos! You're saying X stole Y? And you want me to go get it back? No way! Someone else just asked me to go get Z for the very same reason!) Plus, it's just way too easy. WoW holds your hand as if you were a two-year old, but FFXI blinds you and then expects you to jump through burning hoops at the age of 105. :/
So in conclusion (and I'm going to end this darned post, no matter that I still want to talk more, because I have to go to bed!) I only got one RDM level tonight (35), and I'm totally unsure what I'll do tomorrow. I need to level BLM (blech) before RDM can level to 38, but I'm sort of feeling like maybe I should go back to leveling DRK, but I'd like to continue on with RDM, but tonight was no fun at all, but but but...
Bah. Bed.
I've come to a decision. Every RDM on the game should get together and make every BLM on the game pay for our Gravity scrolls. What is so hard about understanding that if the mob comes running at you and hits you, you stop the hell casting and let the tank get hate back under control? It's not rocket science, people!
Tonight's party was one of the worst RMD parties I've had, including my time in the Dunes. The only reason I stuck around as long as I did (hours...) was that the leader was such a nice person. She (WHM) brought two (two!) powerlevels with her (at 36!), and totally unsurprisingly she didn't have the first clue how to play her job. I could have handled just sticking around for the XP, but the problem was that the PLers kept going AFK or something, so people kept nearly dying.
(Non-players: A power leveler (PL) is a high level person who stands outside of your party and keeps tossing cures onto people. In theory that means less MP is used by people in the party, you can kill things faster, and get more XP. The big big big problem with that is that you do not learn to play your job that way. And as most PLs happen in the lowest levels, when people are just learning, it's a pretty seriously bad thing.)
So you have a NIN tank with a Provoke phobia, two over-nuking BLMs, a way way way over-healing WHM, me, and a good THF. The BLMs and WHMs must have capped out their evasion.
But anyway, the WHM did do one thing right, and it worked out amusingly: We had a bat link so I jumped to try to sleep it, and amazingly the first one stuck! But the follow up sleeps all failed (unsurprisingly) and my HP was in the single digits. I was sure I was about to get my first RDM death, but the WHM used Bene (which I was out of range for), and with that the party was able to kill the first one, and I leveled up! With full HP, I lived as we zoned the linked bats. (I couldn't have just zoned it in the beginning, because others had hit it and it would have flown back to attack them.)
The XP just totally sucked. The level range was too wide (the WHM dinged 37 early on, while the rest of the party was 33-35), and we didn't have one single chain (the WHM never had MP since she way over-healed and wouldn't sit until she hit 0 MP...). She was such a nice person though and was working hard to be a good party leader (very very encouraging and nice and tried to touch base with everyone to make sure they were happy and had what they needed and all that), so I felt bad for her. She might have been one of the nicest non-LS people I've met on the game, but she's been done such a disservice by having been PLed so much; she's been left utterly and totally unable to play her job. :(
After I logged off FFXI I logged onto WoW. My account is closing on Jan 1st and I wanted to take some movies of flying around (my favorite part of the game). I discovered... I still like the game a whole lot. :/ The background sounds are so much richer than FFXI's, the music is just as nice or sometimes nicer, and I don't hate the graphics anymore (I'm sort of fond of them, in the way one might be of that first computer you got 20 years ago). But the problem is, I don't want to play the game. I like it, but I don't want to play it. That doesn't seem like it should make sense, but... it's like the game lacks a soul. Lacks spirit. FFXI is alive. YOU are the hero, YOU are important, what you do matters. In WoW, as far as I have experienced, you do silly quests for mighty silly reasons. (Oh nos! You're saying X stole Y? And you want me to go get it back? No way! Someone else just asked me to go get Z for the very same reason!) Plus, it's just way too easy. WoW holds your hand as if you were a two-year old, but FFXI blinds you and then expects you to jump through burning hoops at the age of 105. :/
So in conclusion (and I'm going to end this darned post, no matter that I still want to talk more, because I have to go to bed!) I only got one RDM level tonight (35), and I'm totally unsure what I'll do tomorrow. I need to level BLM (blech) before RDM can level to 38, but I'm sort of feeling like maybe I should go back to leveling DRK, but I'd like to continue on with RDM, but tonight was no fun at all, but but but...
Bah. Bed.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 03:19 pm (UTC)I prefer to think of Warcraft as a playpen. You can explore with very few repercussions. Although I am amused that you complain about doing quests for silly reasons in Warcraft, when the equivalent in FFXI is to be killing things for absolutely no good reason at all.
If it's the missions you're referring to, then the equivalent would be the longer arc storylines related to your king/warchief etc. I only know about Stormwind's, which is to kill a dragon who is actually *spoiler* and that's why *spoiler*. As a bonus, once you complete the mission, the entire town gets a two hour long super-buff. So you really are a hero to others. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 03:41 pm (UTC)But there is a good reason in FFXI. Know that NPC boy who runs back and forth in South Sandy? His mother is involved in one of those kill-mob-fetch-X quests, but it's for a darned good reason. There's story behind it. This poor kid has been running back and forth, working for so long, because his mother is sick, and you can help! Or when you say "equivalent in FFXI" do you mean XPing?
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 04:18 pm (UTC)But if it's story you're after in a quest then take the example of "Jitters" in Duskwood. (Sorry, alliance quest again. Maybe that's where the good stories are ;) *digs*
When you first visit Duskwood one of the ladies in town asks you to deliver some food to Jitters to the far west. When you head over there you meet a frightened shell of man scared of his own shadow. You assume he always like this and that's why he is called Jitters.
If you do a few more quests in the area you find out that he is actually part of a band of thieves and is implicated in the murder of an entire family. This is somewhat hard to swallow seeing as how he's such a pathetic shivering git. So you confront him about it and it turns out that he didn't kill the family.
Meanwhile, doing other quests in the area requires to kill off werewolves that have suddenly started terrorizing the town. You find out that the werewolves originated from a cave in the woods. It turns out that Jitters had pulled out a scythe in this cave and released the Worgen. All of his fellow thieves were killed and he was the only one to survive. He flees in terror and hides out at a farm.
One day, while the man of the house is away, some evil dudes (TM) come to the farm and ask the wife where the scythe of elune is. She doesn't know and her entire family is killed because of it. Jitters sees all this and realizes the scythe the evil dudes (TM) are after is the scythe he touched in the cave. He doesn't have the scythe on him, but he realizes that the reason the evil dudes (TM) came here was because they could sense the presence of the scythe on him and runs away to hide in the deserted town where you first find him. And this is how he was implicated in the murder of the family in the first place.
Now, if you do the quests in Ashenvale (the elf areas) you will find out how the scythe got to the cave in the first place.
And all that was just a quest series in one town. Obviously not all quests are at this level of detail, but the same criticism could be levelled at FFXi. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 05:22 pm (UTC)When the monster comes after you, you must realize 1.) unless you are lucky, nuking more isn't gonna kill it before it takes off your head, 2.) nuking more is gonna make it angrier, and 3.) you so suck as a tank. You must essentially PLAY DEAD and hope you survive. XD I know I'm preachin' to the choir here, but I couldn't resist saying it.
When my scrolls went to 400k and up, I wished someone would purchase them for me. XD 1 million {Sleepga} 2 {Can I have it?} Quested that one!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 06:11 pm (UTC)In my experience, FFXI has richly woven storylines (you can't play without stumbling over more plot!) and in WoW I saw nothing but 'kill and fetch' or 'find NPC and fetch'.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 06:33 pm (UTC)Because that's why 90% of FFXI quests are.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 06:39 pm (UTC)I say we dust off, and nuke the entire site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 02:17 am (UTC)It held my attention for a month or so, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 06:00 am (UTC)By the way, did you hear that Vixen's player bought the PokeMUSH account? (Eh, is paying for the space it's on and I gave her the DB.) I have no idea when/if it will ever open again, but it's still an interesting happening. (I doubt I could ever RP again, but I'm still curious to see what she'll do with it.)