( Pictures are ALWAYS worth a thousand words, but Im shaking too much to even figure out what thousand words that would be )

I would like to thank you guys here for helping me out when I first started. Her stats are still "odd" but I like them since... well... that was my first try. I only had to retry the first race (before I had gallop and canter) and the 3rd race. All the others I've won on my first try. Im really baffled by this since people were saying I needed different stats. I dont even know what to say right now...

Thank you guys! <3 <3 <3

I'm playing FFXI again. On Quetzalcoatl. Didn't reactivate the BLM, made a new character. Leveling warrior to 75. Wish me luck.

Question, though. What expensive pieces of gear would people say are absolutely necessary to a WAR while leveling? Also, as an elvaan WAR, what food should I be using?

Ok, so before we go off on the bandwagon of "It's your own fault!" we're clear that air up. Yeah, I totally take responsibility for level syncing the crap out of my THF and not knowing how to play my job now that I'm 70.But it's THF, and no one likes thieves, or something. Plus, I only leveled it to pull in Dynamis, but now I'm worried that people might actually want me to take it to events.... over my bard, of course. Haha. So, baring in mind that I'm almost completely melee illiterate (this is my first melee job 40+, and I have 3 75 "mage" jobs), and also have gear for 3 75s (one of which is bard, which rapes my inventory), what would you consider some "must haves" for THF? My gear seems pretty shitty at the moment, but I can't seem to find anything to upgrade until I hit 73~75. I don't own any Homan/Enkidu/Denali/Skaadi, but I am working on at least the first and last. Denali I might be able to rope some people into helping me get, but my Nyzul progress is stuck at floor 41. I'd kill for some Skaadi feet, but we all know how Salvage is.

Hmm. Notable things I do have would be...? I suppose my O.hat, PCC, Rap Harness, Amemet mantle +1, and...that's about it. I'm currently toting around a Harpe, with plans to eventually upgrade to Azoth/Blau (ideally both). But my gil pool isn't limitless, so I have to slowly ease my way into some of the bigger ticket items. Also, how much of the Cobra Unit Purple Armor of Goodness should I get? I'm not allianced with Windy (Sandy!), so it'll cost me an arm and leg... and I think I only have an arm's worth right now (94k?).

:( Help? Thoughts about gear or friendly advice about wtf to do in a party past level 65?

Ok, a decisive New Years' resolution-style move: yesterday I put on fake nails to try and combat my hideous finger picking problem!!

I compulsively rip at the skin on my fingers ragged, sometimes until they bleed, without even realizing what i'm doing. rather gross, I know. my fingernails are surrounded by a pinkish ring of scar tissue from having been ravaged so many times, and i've also picked up a few infections from having open wounds on my hands almost constantly. Not only is this little habit unsightly, but uhh... considering my track record with horrible infections (like when i was a senior in highschool and almost needed to get my finger chopped off-- that was awesome) I decided I needed to make an effort to put a stop to this TAT

TADAAAHrrrrr scratchcat, nailtype pokeyman


but
but
but despite my best efforts gluing them on, all but three of them fell off within 48 hours and my special powers disappeared orz
and you know something? they actually helped-- if only for the fact i coualdn't do much of anything with my hands (including fingerpicking, playing gameboy, getting dressed, putting on makeup, typing, peeling oranges, picking things up) while the damn things were on TAT

my keren is finally back, and he made unagi-don for dinner. unagi-don and absolut ruby red vodka + ruby red grapefruit juice highballs. all is right with the world♥♥♥♥

Since I don't make a lot of time free anymore to post the occasional ffxi screens, here's a collection of pictures on what I've done in ffxi past year. Enjoy.~

( To the pictures on my LJ. (Beware! Bandwidth intensive!!!) )

without the use of 3rd party programs such as Windower or the application of what is called "reverse engineering"?

First off, I just wanted to be clear that I am not attempting to begin an argument about the ethics behind windower, botting, parsing, or any other third party program available for use when concerning FFXI. I would appreciate if this topic was discussed in it's appropriate threads, as there are already multiples of them on this forum.

But with recent discussion as it is, this topic came to mind and I wanted to see what other people thought about it.

I ask again: How much would we really know about the workings of FFXI without the development and applicable use of third party programs to reverse engineer?

I ask this because I realize that without these things, many of the in-game testing that has been done and more importantly, the information those tests have provided to the community, would not be available without the original practice of reverse engineering.

For those interested, Article 2, Section 4 of the FINAL FANTASY XI Software License Agreement specifically prohibits the practice of reverse engineering. See for yourself at http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/FINAL_FANTASY_XI_Software_License_Agreement

The reason this question interests me is because of how many players have benefited from these works. Windower plugins such as Distance and TParty taught the community a great deal when it came to Area of Effect, and (in the case of TParty) when certain mobs would ready specific abilities at direct HP percentages. This information directly lead to the formation of commonly accepted battle strategies. 3rd party parsing software was able to prove differences between equipment setups, showing what would be best for certain actions and situations. One of the games most famous reverse engineers was Kaeko's enmity testing, a project that taught players how the enmity system worked and could be used to create advantages during battle.

I am fully aware there are more examples than what I just listed above. I just wanted to be clear that works and testing such as those above have directly led to the quality of information found in widely used resources such as FFXIclopedia, something used even by players condemning 3rd party programs and ToS breaches.

The introduction of said information has undoubtedly made the general player community more knowledgeable overall, and thus created better players. Even those who do not directly benefit from the use of these programs have indirectly benefited from the information these programs and tests have given to the community. If these things had never become available or were never tested, how good do you think we'd really be at playing this game? I'm not saying it would be impossible to figure these things out on your own, but the amount of time and effort involved would have been drastically increased, stacked on top of incredible amounts of trial and error failures. That being said, I feel the information provided to the player community by the use of 3rd party tools and the application of reverse engineering has completely changed the way we play the game and allowed us as players to become more successful during events and battles.

Thoughts?

You can get the Final Fantasy Online Ultimate collection on Steam (steampowered.com) for $11.

That's everything, including the three add-on scenarios (which by themselves are currently like $10 each iirc)

Also it's steam so that means no more having to track down your cd/dvd to install it. On the other hand, Final Fantasy is a BIG game (~10 GB) on windows, so installation could take a while depending on the connection speed you have. On the gripping hand, some people can't stand Steam, as it has some DRM and stuff, and relies on the Valve servers to enable your logins. (I know mmo games you can generally bypass steam once the game's installed, but not sure about FFXI).

I actually know about 4 ppl interested in joining me and my buddy Gel, but I'm on Odin, where none may trespass. (they burned out on Aion already. that took all of what, 2 months?)

I was bored and had nothing to do so I made these: wallpapers Girugamesh (1) SuG(1) The Gazette-Ruki(2) Miyavi (1) graphics/small banners SuG(1) SuG-Takeru(1) Girugamesh(1)  

Take a look here!~

I was bored and had nothing to do so I made these: wallpapers Girugamesh (1) SuG(1) The Gazette-Ruki(2) Miyavi (1) graphics/small banners SuG(1) SuG-Takeru(1) Girugamesh(1)  

Take a look here!~

I haven't been playing much (read: more than one blm solo exp session per month) for the past year. Do people still level in camps past Yhoator Jungle anymore? Every invite I've had from levels 38-52 on my drg has been Qufim or the jungles except for one wonderful, glorious party on Colibri in ERon(S).

A lot has changed in the last year, apparently. Anyone remember skillchains? Skillup parties? People in Jeuno who aren't either bots or just passing through? Social linkshells? People doing nation missions? Promyvions? Being able to get anything done by /shout groups instead of linkshells? I miss these things.

Speaking of linkshells, both of mine disbanded while I was a non-player. I recall a time when having no shell would quite quickly get you invited to a social shell, but since those apparently don't exist anymore, people assume that lack of a shell means you've been kicked out of an endgame shell for a good reason and are therefore the antichrist.

What the hell has happened to the game I used to love?

Ethereal Linkshell of Diabolos zergs in 45 seconds from pop to kill.

I was tying up some loose ends on quests in The Eldieme Necropolis, when I decided I'd also use the Strange Apparatus there. So I go through all the legwork to drop down to Mark D on the map, which is apparently the only way to fall down into that specific area... and land into an area that, apparently, only leads way back to the very start! What gives? I'm really agitated about this; there's GOT to be something I'm missing here.

Also, for that scroll of Teleport-Mea quest "Acting in Good Faith" does anyone here know how often the question marks (???) move? Because I checked all four god-awful areas in what could only be described as an epic misadventure of incompetence and frustration, and... they weren't in any of the four areas they're supposed to be. Which means that it moved in the two hours it took me to explore them all. Now I know why I never finished this "easy" quest.