Theme Week - Turnabout Part 1
This was a lot closer than I thought it was going to be. You guys also picked the option I thought would lose.Apparently, your love of FFXI outweighs your love for my wacky highjinks.
I don't know how to feel about that.
Now, some of you seem concerned that this won't be a fair comparison. You think that my obvious bias and extensive experience is going to skew my perspective.
Well... Yeah. That's not even a question.
I will, however, give an actual play-by-play of my experiences and TRY to give an honest review. Despite all of my complaints about WoW, I will admit that FFXI isn't exactly perfect.
So, I will not spend a week explaining how awesome (so awesome) FFXI is.
Besides, I can always find something to complain about. My inherent bitching should be able to overcome any bias I may or may not (read: definitely) have.
See? Me being a rage-filled asshole is actually beneficial.
Did you read that, Susan? Huh? And you doubted me.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Day 1: I think I've been here before.
See? This is what I'm talking about here. I didn't have to waste hours upon hours waiting for the game to update itself. My client was fully updated and ready to go, yet again proving that FFXI is vastly superior to WoW.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Obviously, FFXI was already installed and fully updated on my computer.
Hell, I'd install it on the microwave if I could.
My first problem was creating a character. I wanted to try something different than usual.
Hey... Did you know you can start in a nation other than San d'Oria?
Who knew?
Choosing a race wasn't that hard. Funny story: I've never created a Hume character before. Pretty much all of my characters have always been Elvaan.
I never really got the whole Hume thing. You go out and buy a role-playing game with a rich, detailed history steeped in fantasy and magic, and who do you decide to play?
A human.
Wow. Creative. Way to think outside the box there.
Maybe for Halloween next year, you can go as yourself. That'll be wacky.
Thus, I figured playing as a Hume would give me an adequately different experience.
Actually, I figured playing Mithra would be way more different, but screw that. If I wanted to spend time and money having perverts rubbing up against me...
Well, I guess then this would be a vastly different blog.
You probably don't want to think about that very much. Either it'll make you uncomfortable and that will be awkward or it won't make you uncomfortable and that'll be REALLY awkward.
So, I chose a Hume character with a hair style that seemed to be a nice combination between my own and Zell from Final Fantasy VIII.
The character creation is really interesting. You can choose from a variety of faces (of which people only choose two) and a wide range of skin colors from caucasian to slightly tan caucasian.
You know, your character's face has no actual bearing on gameplay. Unlike the real world, your physical appearance in no way affects your success in a given job.
Still, you'll spend WAY more time than is necessary picking a face.
And a name... Oh dear lord.
Do I have enough unnecessary vowels in there?
If there's anything J.R.R. Tolkien taught us, it's that you can never have enough vowels in a name.
Yaerawyn, third son of Vaerawyn, descended from the white king, Grynaevyramin.
That's just good writing.
I'd have a name with nothing but vowels, but every time I try and pronounce it, I sound like I'm having a stroke.
You could just pick a stupid name like Hotdog or Refridgerator, but I find it really takes away from the fantasy. Can you really feel proud seeing "The Dynamis Lord was defeated by Hamburgerhelper" scroll by on your screen?
Kind of takes away from the moment.
Okay... A job. What job is going to be the most frustrating for a new player?
So, White Mage it is then.
After I spend WAY too much time creating a character I think I can live with for a week, I finally log into Bastok.
Yes, I chose Bastok.
This really wasn't a country preference thing. I just wanted the race-specific ring.
Bastok schmastok. A free ring is a free ring.
Considering you only start with "armor" made from 100% cotton and a large stick, maybe that ring is worth starting out in Bedrock.
I get my little adventurer's coupon and went to do the same thing I do with every new character.
I throw that shit away.
The idea behind it is nice. Give the players a quick 50 gil to get them started.
Unfortunately, 50 gil is just ever so slightly better than absolutely nothing. It's not even worth the trouble of turning it in.
Hell, I could just send myself...
Oh, crap.
You'd think I would have thought of this ahead of time.
Not really.
Every character since my very first has started out with practically unlimited resources. Any time I needed anything, I could just switch accounts and send a few hundred thousand gil.
This... This is new.
I have nothing. No gil, no equipment stored up on a mule...
Nothing.
When I was playing WoW, I thought everything was a little too easy. Everything dropped items and you made money really fast.
Starting to miss that.
It's been a hell of a long time since I had to save up beehive chips for gil.
Now, I'm stuck trying to find whoever the hell I'm supposed to give this coupon to. I should probably have paid more attention to that opening cinematic.
A big yellow question mark would be super helpful right now.
I'm not sure if I'm kidding.
More realistic and challenging, sure, but it's damned hard finding NPCs without some help.
So not worth 50 gil.
I drew the line at begging for money, though. Yeah, I know a lot of new players ask people for gil, but even I have my limits.
Instead, I spend hours smacking hornets in the head with the stick I was provided.
This is multi-purpose as it both provides me with money AND I'm leveling up at the same time.
Unfortunately, neither one of those things is happening very quickly.
I forgot how slow this was.
Smack a bee, smack a bee, rest to full.
Smack a bee, smack a bee, rest to full.
Do you know what's fun about low level White Mage leveling?
Neither do I.
This is a job that shines in a party. As a healer, White Mages are critical in most party set ups.
That, however, isn't particularly helpful when you're trying to solo your way up to party levels.
I've got the defense stats of an egg wrapped in tissue paper and the attack rating of a slightly annoyed kitten.
And I'm stuck beating down overgrown bees trying to get enough gil to buy a slightly less pathetic shirt.
At least when I was playing WoW, every three or four hits, something would drop new gear for me.
Now, I'm scraping crystals together to buy pants.
Seriously? You guys prefer to see me suffer like?
You voted for this?
... This is going to be a very long week.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 6:44 PM
27 Comments:
Hell yes I voted for this.
Also, white mage never exactly gets fun.
And Bastok is _the best_ nation.
"the attack rating of a slightly annoyed kitten." omg I laughed SO hard @ this! I think I made a good choice voting for this 1, omg that was so funny.
Haha, we are getting both with this.
[GM] Dave doing a n00b FFXI review and worst things ever done. Playing a white mage from scratch must be in the top 3 of that list.
Go go angry kitten!!
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I can truly feel the pain, but for a "new" player, you seem to have missed the whole thingie about adjusting the config file. I've spent some hours trying to get it right, as I downloaded the game, and did not find the manual.....
Two words that I am looking forward to...
"Valkurm party"
And you will be WHM for it. No power levels damn it! Refuse if your party brings one!
Nah, what's really going to annoy him is that sometime tonight, he'll realize all his low level WHM spells are in Windy. Course those would require gil anyhow. Welcome to the world of WHM sir. Please check to make sure that you have your liquour handy and some sort of doll next to you to stab repeatedly.
Whm is not the worst possible job to play. It has it's fun points, and yes I can say that as a 75 WHM, but Bastok Dave? Come on man.
If you really wanted a challenge, you would have pick Galka, THEN started as WHM.
Did you also start on a different server?
Have fun with those subjob items, and the 1-10 BLM subjob levels.
Being a Galka WHM solo is good for leveling your shield skill ;)
I can't wait for him to actually try and Get a party.. low lvl exp parties are so scarce now it's funny... I solo up to 20 now on most jobs.
Well thanks, you've convinced me to never play FFXI now. ;)
You're playing as WHM?
<3 i think i love you.
I think you forgot to mention the new low-level stuff. Now there's a line of tutorial quests that give you money, experience points, and other stuff.
Not to mention Treasure Caskets and Fields of Valor that can help taking even WHM or BLM to Lv.10 take less than 3 hours.
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You know, WHM is my main and I dunno, I've always found it to be the most fun job that I've done, even from scratch. But I can see how it'd be annoying to most players. I have to admit it's a challenge, and a lot of the time a thankless job.
Also, that bit about choosing Humes... I had to laugh, me and a friend of mine say that to another friend... He insists that Human is the only race to be in any game, including FFXI.
2 kills and rest? Ouch. Yes, it really does stink when you don't have the selbina milk, orange aulaits or jack-o-lanterns to boost yourself.
Little advice: for Bastok, use the mines in town to level up once you get to about level 4. The ash you get for drops can be soem quick cash. At level 8-ish, head for Ferroles in SG, avoiding the gobbies.
Heh...you see what I did there....I've given you something to make you feel even more useless!! I'll give you advice like you really are a noob!
Mwah hah hah hah!
Oh yes.. this.. is gonna be a good week. Yay angry kittens! :P
May I suggest colored eggs (if you can find them) - really helpful hp/mp boost for the starting whm, and the little plus to str to smack things isn't bad either. They're just harder that powdered hen's teeth to find any time but Easter usually. Being a whitemage most of my FFXI career, it's good to know things like that to tell the disheartened newblets.
Also, the coupon NPC should be marked (and should be in port if I recall) with a green dot npc marker on your map of town. I did not know this till my 5th mule, so don't feel bad.
^_^ So sad, no big yellow question marks. *patpatpat*
Well I didn't vote for that. You don't need to slay my pathetic soul for that specific reason.
Dave -- OH DAVE -- this has nothing to do with your theme week, but DAMN, this bit of news is just begging for your savagery:
PETA is staging a protest against the slaughter of seals...
...by holding an in-game event on WoW to stop the slaugher of VIRTUAL seals by the Horde.
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/04/help_battle_sea.php?c=pwowgb09
"I never really got the whole Hume thing. You go out and buy a role-playing game with a rich, detailed history steeped in fantasy and magic, and who do you decide to play?
A human."
My thought exaclty
I dig the name of the theme, at least. Mostly because I'm a fan of the Phoenix Wright series, also known as "Gyakuten Saiban" (AKA Turnabout Courtroom) in Japan.
...I apologize for my nerdiness.
I never really got the whole Hume thing. You go out and buy a role-playing game with a rich, detailed history steeped in fantasy and magic, and who do you decide to play?
A human.
Wow. Creative. Way to think outside the box there.
You know, this just proves how incredibly smart you are Dave.
Humes: the ultimate way to blend in, be average and stand out in no way what-so-ever.
If only we knew what server he chose.....
It would be cool to know what server Dave started on. If it was mine I could help, as I've done with so many newbs, or at least, ya know, go point and laugh, as I've done with so many other n00bs
I commend you on your choice of Nations. =^.^=
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