Bannable Offenses

[GM]Dave's Regrets - Vol. 2

I really wish my FFXI career was without regret.

I really, really, REALLY wish that.

Unfortunately, if wishes were Utsusemi: Ni, we'd all be freaking Ninjas.

Now, I'm not talking the little regrets here. I'm not talking about that time I tried playing a female character. I'm not talking about the time I accidentally dropped a piece of armor instead of a stack of Earth crystals.

I'm not talking about the time I unlocked DRK.

Man, I really regret that one.

Do you know how hard it is to get off black nail polish?

... Neither do I.

Stop looking at me.

Anyway, fairly early in my FFXI life, long before I became the embodiment of an angry god's wrath, I was a Warrior.

What? You have to level something before you unlock Dragoon. I picked Warrior.

Then, while leveling Dragoon, I'd occasionally drift back to my Warrior just for a change of pace.

All of that jumping really takes it out of you.

Before I knew it, I had trudged my ass through the 50's and had finally hit level 59. As any Warrior at the time would know, this meant only one thing: I had to get a Haubergeon.

This wasn't a question. You hit level 59 as a Warrior and you went and got yourself a Haubergeon. It was as sure as having to take the next breath if you felt like keeping on living.

Plus, it looks Hella awesome.

Now, I could have just bought it off the AH like a regular person. I could have just ponied up the gil and had my Haubergeon. No fuss, no muss.

That's... That's not what I did.

Instead, I, for some reason, thought it would be a much better idea to have someone craft it for me and hope for a HQ.

Anyone who has ever had an item crafted has secretly held out hope for a HQ so they get a WAY more awesome item without spending any extra money.

Also, that white box is pretty sweet.

I should also point out that this thing was incredibly expensive at the time. We didn't have it easy like you kids these days. These things cost million upon millions of gil.

Now, you get them free in a box of cereal.

No, that freaking piece of armor was unbelievably expensive.

I am two things:

a) cheap

b) really cheap

Thus, getting it synthed for me seemed like a great idea.

At the time.

I pooled all of my resources, sold off some older armor, and just barely managed to scrape together enough gil for the materials. I then got the name of a really high level Smither that could synth the armor for me.

Again, this was before I became a GM and could have just made the items and/or money appear in my inventory.

Or the Haubergeon.

Or the Haubergeon +1.

It was also before I had started on the whole crafting thing. This, sadly, meant that I had to find someone else who could perform the synth for me.

This is where things started to go wrong. The guy just never logged on and I couldn't find anyone else willing to do the synth for me.

Things were looking bad.

One evening, a few friends asked me to help with a Shadowlord run. They were having trouble finding people and I was the closest thing they had to a tank.

After hours of prep work and organizing a small group, we set out for Xarcabard.

We made our way up through the castle and we were just outside the Throne Room when I had the sudden urge to check for the synther.

Can you guess what happened?

That's right. He was finally online.

I sent him a quick tell asking him to wait until we were done. I was all but begging him.

Just to prove that my bad luck isn't just a pattern, but is instead an absolute truth, he informed me that he only had about 15 minutes. And that he was going away for a week.

Do you know how like a week is for someone with ADD waiting to get new armor synthed?

I don't know either. I'd sit down and figure it out, BUT I HAVE ADD.

With no other options, I told my group that I had to warp back to town and get the synth done. I promised them I'd be back as soon as I could.

They were very understanding.

The fact that I was the tank and could just tell them to go F&%@ themselves played no part in their decision.

One quick warp later, I was trading the materials that had cost me pretty much everything I had to the crafter.

Then he started the synth.

Pretty shiny colors.

Pretty shiny colors.

And then a small explosion.

Huh. One would think an explosion would be counter-productive to the crafting process.

I must have been mistaken.

The crafter then informed me that I wasn't mistaken. Apparently, that explosion was what happens when everything you own goes kablooie.

If he had been crafting a firework for me, I would have been very happy.

As he had been synthing an INCREDIBLY expensive piece of armor that had cost pretty much EVERYTHING I had, I was much less happy.

I died a little on the inside.

You can think I'm being melodramatic, but if you've ever had this happen, you know how freaking serious I am here. It actually made me physically sick.

Now, you're probably thinking I regret getting the synth done.

You'd be correct.

That isn't the regret I'm writing about though.

After watching my entire accrued wealth go kablam, I wasn't in the mood to play anymore. I immediately logged out and tried valiantly not to puke.

And left my entire group at the zoneline of the mission they needed with no tank.

Yup. I was THAT guy.

I've done a lot of shit that only a serial killer could be proud of, but being that guy was worse than all of it.

You don't leave a group stranded like that. You just don't.

But I did.

Honestly, if someone in a group like that pulled that shit on me today, I'd feed him to Jormy so fast his computer would catch fire.

But one day, I was that guy.

Ugh. I could punch myself in the face just thinking about it.

Actually... I could punch the crafter in the face.

I should go find his name...

posted by Goblin Smithy @ 5:57 PM