The Adventures of Piggly!

Piggly is my alter-ego. Whenever I'm feeling troubled I always switch over to let off a little steam. For some reason, this always works! I guess I feel a lot more open on Piggly than I usually do on my main character. There's a lot less of the "guy staring at your butt" feeling I suppose. Today I fought and "defeated" Ifrit. The reason defeated is in quotes is because I didn't really do much. My current survival ratio of Hellfire is somewhere near 50% having survived twice in four fights. This might not be all terrible but I also finished 3/4 fights with 0 HP with my faces planted in the heated soil. It really doesn't feel too good and I don't think I contributed very much to my dismay. I'm pretty sure I let down a lot of party members and I try to console myself that it's because it's my first four fights. I wish I had more experience going in but clearly this was an embarrassment and I probably won't be called on again for it... That said, I skipped over to Piggly and have since recovered my bearings.

Lailiyah Mihli made a new shell today called Pirate Ninjas. It's fun to have a social shell even if it only has 4 members. We have lots of strange rules like Cap Locks Saturday and No Pants Wednesdays. I'm excited about how this will turn out. I'm optimistic since it's just for chatting and no other activities; with close friends no less. We spent about an hour just chatting in Ul'dah! Relanya also joined and we spent a little time stargazing near the entrance of Ul'dah. Thanks again for taking the time to kind of pose for these! The night sky is very well done in this game. I feel as if this picture captures how expansive Eorzea is. I still hold out hope that this will be the site of some of my greatest adventures.

The first February Update

Many new and improved features were implemented in the past few days. It's become so much easier to play as a miner. They have sped up the animation. While it looks a bit unnatural, it's pretty hard to complain when you're mining 2-3x faster than before. I also love the blue chat text, it's more vibrant than the usual white color. The market wards also received a new addition to its already improved search function, the listing of vendors in different wards. Let the undercutting commence! We'll see just who is right about the AH debate soon enough methinks.

Lv. 50 + Eorzea 2010 in a nutshell

Physical level 50... while it might not be too much of an achievement, I still believe it's somewhat of a milestone. So much has transpired since I first started the game and I figured I had enough substance to finally write a blog post. However, because school starts again tomorrow, I'm going to have to keep this short too...

Final Fantasy XIV isn't a complete game, that's a fact which has been acknowledged by the developers for some time now. Various game raters have butchered the game over the media; an action that may be justified to some extent. However, sometimes I believe that a certain air of high expectations from the Final Fantasy series may have contributed to the lack of approval of XIV. It's not exactly as terrible a game most people have made it out and assumed it to be. However, it must be said that the game is incredibly adverse. Reasons for this are the steep learning curves for each job class as well as the ever present fatigue system that hampers dedicated level grinders. Compacted with the problem of lack of content, especially the lower ranks, many players new to the Final Fantasy MMO genre will no doubt find the game lackluster and become stuck.

I certainly felt that way during my first few weeks of traversing through Eorzea. However, not all is lost! Being able to find a community linkshell to progress through the game makes the experience several times more enjoyable. The one I frequent most is "Viva Eorzea". It's friendly, no pressure type of shell with both experienced and the casual types making having conversations a blast most of the time. This relieves the stress from long durations of fighting monsters or crafting. That said, however, drama really does break my heart sometimes. It's hard to see other members removed because a misunderstanding. We all have our good and bad days after all. Anyways... helping each other in levequests, working together to complete tough synthesis recipes, and exploring the beautiful scenery together definitely fuels my desire to continue playing the game. I don't regret putting my Winter vacation into it one bit and I certainly have high hopes for what will be awaiting all of us in 2011.