/dance

Level 42 is mine. :)

I'm lucky enough to have 2 LS mates (a rdm and a smn) leveling with me now, and it's been awesome. XD And now that I'm 42 I can get my AF sword. O.O I'm going to see if I can talk a couple of friends into helping me get it tonight. :D

I also got my first staging point! The Halvung staging point, and can you believe it? I forgot to take ss's. That was my first time In Wajoam Woodlands, and I was absolutely floored by how pretty it was. But the most important thing is that now I can get exp from Besieged! I cannot wait for my next Besieged now. Wheee!

I know it sounds silly for a level 42 paladin to be going to Besieged, but I've actually gotten really good at helping and even staying alive. As soon as I get hit, I (run away!) and rest up and jump back in. I've only died once or so since I figured out that there's no shame in running! :D

We fought the Mamool Ja during the last one. I found the NM and just for fun, cast Blizzard on him. I did one whole point of damage and I was so proud. :D I've gotten to fight all three armies now, and I prefer the Undead Swarm because they're much more interesting. However, their charm ability is not fun. There's nothing quite like seeing

/sh Kill me now, I'm charmed!

spammed over and over in the middle of battle. o.O

Silliness

Check out the fireworks. Very cool. :D



However, after three days of listening to them every night... I think it would be fair to say that the novelty has quite worn off. :P

Of course, I had to try out the spirit mask thing (the fireworks moogles sell them).



Then, on the airship I ran across what is very possibly the cutest thing I have seen, ever. He was a good sport. :D



My linkshell held its first (soon to be weekly) chocobo race on Friday night. I came in last place and lost 1k, but it was still a lot of fun. ^_^

pfft

I guess I won't be doing Azimuth Circle tonight. Apparently, it doesn't start til next Monday.

/sigh

Sunbreeze festival

The summer festival has started! I'm so excited. This is going to be my first real event. :D (didn't really get into the feast of swords or the egg thing.)

Me and a ls mate are going to do Azimuth's Circle tonight. XD I can't wait! And I heard it's repeatable, so I'm gonna try to drag every last one of my friends out there with me before the festival ends. ^_^

I can't imagine actually being 40.

I really love the Crawler's Nest. There's just something about fighting these big cute fluffy things. ^_^ But this picture wasn't as easy to get as it looks. Those things are damn squirmy and don't really like to sit still for photo ops. o.O



Let's see... leveled from 37-39, which is memorable because of Flash, new armor, and my beloved Grudge Sword. Gotta love that thing. I now have +8 enmity. And the silly ninjas still try to voke off me. tsk, tsk. So there's me, posing in the new stuff. :D Looks gooood. I know. Uh huh.



After a while, I got bored and did the Qufim outpost warp run. Will I ever use that warp? Probably not, unless we do Garrison out there. But I wanted it anyway. Then I ran around soloing a few giants, just because I could. Got some decent experience. I did make sure no parties were trying to xp off them, though. Also cleared out the wights. Got quite a few thank yous for that, as well as a scroll of Tractor. I wonder what else I can get from those things.



Then it was back to farming. Those gear upgrades are awfully expensive. ;; Farming can be pretty relaxing though. While I was in the middle of it, I took this ss because it reminds me of what I love so much about this game. It really is another world, but it's also not all that different. I know it's corny, but I love the Vana'diel sunrises as much as I love real sunrises. I'm a morning person in the game, and out. :D



Around 2am this morning, I'd actually gotten to the point where I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do (I know... the horror!). Besieged was about to start, and suddenly one of my LS mates said 'Come do Besieged with us!' My first thought was o.O. But I warped out and joined their party as a PLD39/BLM19. All I was supposed to do was help cure people, and I did, but I still died 3 times. That was kinda funny. :D I'm so glad you don't lose exp in Besieged. o.O



So that was fun. I hope I get to do it again with them soon, even though I can't really be much help yet. :D

And the goal for tonight is... 41! At 41ish, a LS mate promised to start lvling his rdm with me. :D It really is so much more fun to level with friends. XD

Bi-Worldal (yes it's a word. My word.)

I just became bi-worldal! We'll get the pics out of the way first. I know, I'm really not very good at taking pics, but at least you guys look spiffy. ^_^

(Arwenne's long-lost baby sister)Ani arrives on Odin:

Then, Prettz and Eshana joined me on Carby:

You guys are awesome. Here's to lots of good times on both worlds. ^_^

O.O

mood: ecstatic

Finally got back to leveling pld, and I must admit - I'm somewhat speechless with happiness at finally being back where I belong. I've now had a chance to try many other jobs, and nothing compares to being a paladin. I love my job. XD

It's kinda funny. A week or so ago I adjusted my macros to be more efficient, and I've been struggling with forgetting the order ever since. But the second I was back where I belonged - in front of the mob - it's like it just clicked.

I'm lucky, because my static partner has a knack for making some great parties. We must've gone through about 4 rotations of different people (seems there's hardly anyone seeking on weeknights anymore), but it went so smoothly. And about halfway through, we lost the whm, so the rdm/blu and I divided up the healing. Except for the fact that I had to deathwarp back to get a couple of stacks of antidotes (crawler poison><) . Tell ya what - a crawler and 2 Doom Scorpions makes for some quick deathwarping. O.O lol It's been too long since I've been in a real party. I know this because immediately after we got to camp I realized my head slot was empty. >.> I'd forgotten my mask. And my empress band. And, I forgot to get signet and a warp scroll. Even more >.>. lol Seriously, there should be a party checklist tacked up on the mh wall. I know I need one, anyway.

Oh, and btw - I absolutely love the Crawler's Nest! It's very pretty, and crawlers are fun to kill. ^^ However, I bet I wouldn't like being a puller in there. Which reminds me. At level 36, I'm no longer afraid of links. That probably sounds really funny (or sad), but last night was the first time I've been in a party that could competently handle them.

So yeah, it was fun. I'm just thrilled to be back to doing what I love most.

And now, for the touristy screens from my first visit to Whitegate. I'll have to get some better ones later. o.O


I dunno what that egg thingie in the mh is, but it looks cool. :D

homepoint: Whitegate

So I log in last night and find myself standing on the dock right where I left me (yay!). I wait and wait, and finally get to Mhaura. Then I wait some more, and decide to go buy Regen since I had a minute. Then I get back to the dock, and there's the boat!! omgomgomg, I'm finally going to Al Zahbi! As the boat pulls away, I /tell all my friends and the ls the happy news. But before the congrats can start pouring in...

You do not not possess a boarding permit. You were not permitted to board the ferry.

Area: Mhaura

Whaaa? WTF? :( I think I actually got a little teary. So after getting laughed at by no less than 3 people.... >.> I looked it up and discovered that I never did actually get the boarding permit from that jerk Faursel, 'cause you have to zone and wait a game day and come back. Luckily I was still subbing blm ^_^ and warped my butt back to Jeuno posthaste.

I'm slightly lazy, so I got the permit from Faursel, warped myself back to the mh (what? 5 minutes to run from the tenshodo back to Port is a really long time o.O), took the airship to Bastok, warped to Boobooreeemooo, and trotted back out to Mhaura. I actually made it with about 1 minute to spare, and this time, I didn't get kicked off the ferry.

I have screenshots.... >.> but I stayed up til 3 am talking to someone and forgot to send them again. ; ;

I tell ya, I felt like such a tourist. For like 10 minutes after I landed in Whitegate, I just stood there looking stupid. lol It was worse than my first day in Jeuno. :D Then I remembered what Akanea said (thanks^^) and I bothered all the NPCs I could find until I got the map guy. I did the mh exit quest next, and picked the 'no, I didn't see anything' option. What, it seemed more polite. o.O But for one heartstopping moment, I thought I wasn't gonna get the mh exit. But I did! yay!

I promptly ran home, set my new hp, then exited to Al Zahbi and found the warp taru. He's so cute! He sent me to Battalia Downs, which scared the eeek outta me, but it was ok because it was right near the zone and there were no mobs in sight.

Now I just need to see if I can get a good deal on some oils and powders, and go exploring. Those'll be some interesting screens. :D

Fun night, for sure.

Garrison and Aht Urhgan

I'm going to Aht Urhgan! I finally got the last item I needed, talked to Faursel (who is one hawt elvaan, btw o.O) and as of right now my character is standing on the Selbina dock. Two more boat trips away, and I'll be in Al Zahbi. ^^

I also did garrison with my friend's linkshell. Now, that was interesting. The lag... o.O That must be a small taste of what Beseiged is like. I got two drops... and because I wasn't familiar with prices, I gave up the one that was worth 700k. >< The one I kept was only worth 2ok. *sigh*

Now it's back to leveling blm & whm until my best friend catches up to my pld. Only 2 more levels. >.>

(just for the record)

I wasn't mad that I died from Benediction. I full expected to, and knew that if I didn't pull it and sacrifice myself, we all woulda died.

What upset me was that the mob was thisclose to dead, but the three members with voke just stood there and watched me die. It was only after I hit the dirt that they finally killed it.

Then, the sj-less rdm proceeded to tell me I deserved to get killed because I should have been curing all of them faster, and should have been using C2 more often. Even after I explained that spamming C2 draws a ridiculous amount of hate.

If he had simply been uninformed, and not such an ass, I would have stayed.

Mushroomy

All I did last night was update my whm spell list, discover that roast mushrooms are way better whm food than ginger cookies, and then get insulted by an ignorant noob rdm after I saved his ass with Benediction and then died to an IT++ gob because the other noobs in the party weren't bright enough to even try to voke it off me. That was the very first pull, btw.

/don't stoop to his level
/hp
/pcmd leave
/gaze sadly at my wasted empress band
/shutdown

/sigh

I then proceeded to actually get 7 hours of sleep! I'm now somewhat giddy with non-exhaustion. o.O

And warping always makes me happy, so here's another random screen.

Wheee!

As I'm sure you've noticed, it doesn't take much to thrill me. >.> Hence, the fact that I've recently aquired both Warp and Curaga is enough to put me firmly on Cloud 9. ^_^ Oh, and Blizzard is pretty cool, too. XD

It all started Tuesday night, when I was determined to solo my blm to 17. However, after about 10 minutes, I realized I was horribly bored. (Soloing 14-16 is apparently quite different from 16-17 ><.) That's when I got an invite. And against my better judgement, I accepted.

By the time I got to camp, 3 people had already died, and one of them had died twice. Then I got there, and we all died. All this before we'd even started. I furiously hp'ed to Jeuno and was ready to disband, but something told me to stay. So I paid for a teleport >.> and ran back out.

It was a rocky start, to say the least. But I am SO glad I stayed. Even without my empress band (which had run out while I was waiting for the pt to get started), I went from 16-19. I'm not gonna go so far as to say it was a good party, but we held it together long enough to get some great exp.

Then last night I dusted off my whm, upgraded my gear, and set out. After waiting forever, and then being invited first by a sj-less thf who disbanded because we didn't want to xp in Jugner, and then being invited into a party with 4 (yes, FOUR) whm's, I started to wish I'd leveled whm back in the good ol' days. Back when there were actually more DD's seeking than whm's. Nowadays, tanks are the hot commodity in Valkurm. :P

I finally got a decent party, and we were doing great. Then my LS mate came out on his 52rdm/blm and and pl'ed the heck out of our party. I made it from 15-16 in no time flat, since he never had to stop for mp. I was more than grateful for his help, but normally I don't really like being pl'ed. Especially as a whm. lol 'cause ya know - WHM+PL=whm leech. :P Good thing my healing magic is already capped for these levels. ^^

I'm having fun leveling whm. I think I'll keep at it until my friend catches up and I can go back to my one true love (pld, of course).

BLM soloing, FTW!

Almost done! Soloed blm from 14-16 last night. BLM soloing is incredible! I absolutely love it. Fire and Blaze Spikes, FTW! Fire is my favorite spell... "Die in a fire!" lol

As probably any blm knows, in the beginning it's easy to go a little mad with power. o.O So there I was, happily nuking a swathe of fiery destruction through the highlands, when I came across an Onyx Quad. Completely in badass mode at this point, I didn't even check it or get back to full HP and MP before I cast Fire on it. Well, turns out I bit off a little more than I could chew. That thing hit hard and fast, and I couldn't get a spell off because it kept getting interrupted. So yeah, I got my ass handed to me. And I had to hp. :/

I was furious that I got stupid and ended up wasting so much time, so I logged and watched TV for a while. Then I decided to email myself the screens I'd taken, and as I looked at them, I couldn't help but grin and think about how fun I'd been having. So after analyzing my screw-up so it wouldn't happen again, I came back and got 16. I was able to take on DCs and EMs with no problems at all after that. ^^

This is a screen I took from my day of hell in the Dunes. The mage's life is not for me, and after I get warp tonight, you won't be seeing me like this again for a loooong time. At least, until I start leveling whm again. o.O

19 levels

Lots of progress was made this weekend. 19 levels total - whm and blm are now 14, and cooking is 50. Woot!

I know I said I'd never go to the Dunes again... but I did. And oh, the horror. The horror! After the longest day ever, my poor blm went from 7 to 14. I soloed with help from 7-10. Then spent the better part of 6+ hrs leading one pt after another getting 10-11. Then soloed from 11-13. That was when I got into what I thought would be a great party. Everyone was rank 5 or higher! But alas, it was not to be. The moral of this story: SOLO TO 20. lol I'll let you know how it works out for me.

BLM is a fun job, for sure... Fire and Blaze Spikes are crazy fun XD. But honestly I have much more fun soloing with it than being in a party. I'm only going to take it to 17-18ish (for warp and whm sub) and then I'm going to put it away with war and thf for a long while.

I do want to start leveling pld again, but I kinda wanted to at least get warp out of the way so I could put blm away and focus solely on pld. Hopefully I can make short work of blm because when my pld hits 42 I'll have my own personal rdm static partner and maybe a whm too, from then on. :D I'm excited. :D


And now, I have a confession to make. As I leveled whm from 9 to 14 this weekend, I realized something. I ... like ninjas. ; ; I do. It absolutely kills me to say this (yes, I died a little, thank you), but a good ninja can really make for a very effcient party. However, that experience certainly didn't turn me into a nin-onry whm. Pretty much any tank who can keep hate makes me very happy. Unfortunately, that is EXTREMELY hard to come by in the dunes. /sigh

A NM and 35 again

First of all, my ls mate helped me get 35 back. ^_^ That was also my first trip to Bibiki Bay. At least I know how to get there now. o.O


Then another ls mate and I decided to help my friend level his puppetmaster in Qufim (he was soloing to experiment with different methods, I think.) When all the sudden I started getting the ???? beat outta me, and when I turned around, I saw this guy:


According to Alla, Epialtes is a NM soloable by a 40ish+. >< Luckily, my ls mate was a taru 45 whm/blm, so we were able to finally beat him down. And of COURSE, as soon as we engaged the NM, my friend got aggro'd by another gigas. :P That was interesting - getting smacked around by a NM and curing my friend at the same time. o.O Good times...

I make this look gooood

My friend Pancake has model viewer and made this for me. (I rearranged it a bit.)


I cannot WAIT to get my AF. Damn, I'm gonna look good. :D Next she's going to make one with the Adaman armor. o.O

Bunny in the Big City

I saw this in Jeuno the other day:



((Huh?!)) I wish I knew how he did that! :D

You know, I've been playing this game just over 4 months now, and all the little things like that are still new and exciting to me. For example, I think it's great fun to run around on my pld and help my friends lvl their lowbie jobs. But everyone else I know thinks it's horribly boring. o.O Also, I just discovered there's an entrance to Carpenter's Landing in N. Sandy. COOL! :D lol

I hope the novelty of FFXI never wears off for me. XD Sure, I feel like a newbie 99% of the time, but it's so much fun.

Ow :(

Guys, Arwenne's little pixelated heart is broken. :(

Stroper prevailed not once, but twice! I lost nearly 800 exp ... and Auto Refresh, and my Drone Earrings, and my Medieval Collar. :( For the first time I get to report not a level gained, but a level lost. And I never even got to try out Auto Refresh in a party. :(

In other news, I got cooking to 43, made about 300k, and killed the Tremor Ram again. :)

But I lost Auto Refresh. :(

Auto Refresh!

The coolest thing to happen to me all weekend was discovering that as a lvl 35 paladin, I now have Auto Refresh. WOW. This is quite possibly the coolest thing since sliced bread. Seriously.

I haven't gotten to try it out in a pt yet, but I can tell you it makes pl'ing a breeze.

I need to lvl, but I have a tiny smidgeon of a mental block. o.O I'll be going to the Crawler's Nest, and new places intimidate me just a bit. I wish someone would go with me, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm scared to go by myself. >.> You'd think at this level I wouldn't need someone to hold my hand anymore. :P lol

I'm gonna get over it and try going tonight. The prospect of my Jennet shield and Grudge sword, (already purchased XD) and then the level 40 armor is more than enough motivation. :D