New Directions (I hate singing teens)

After getting through AC I decided to take a couple of days off to just relax from video games and recenter myself.  I think I got caught up in the drive to clear off as many games as I could in a small amount of time that I didn't take the time to enjoy things.  So I have been watching Eureka, Deadliest Catch, and Hulu.  A lot of Hulu.  I love me some Hulu.  Its good to just relax and rest.  Well that and I have over 400 episodes of shows on Hulu sitting there and waiting for me to watch for the past year, and that number grows every week.  Sigh.


During this restful time I thought it would be good to get back into FFXI.  Its nice to do this.  I have a freeworld to do things in without have to follow too much of a linear path to a conclusion.  Yes.  I love the missions and quests and fights, but I could spend my whole day crafting if I wanted to (I would get a lot of Hulu watching done, thats for sure).  With that in mind I wanted to get on a theme of some sort.  So what should I do???

What should I do???

I know.

Get all my jobs up to at least level 20-25.  That is what I will do.  I only have warrior, dark knight, dancer, and ninja over that (they are 95, 60, 52, and 50 respectively).  So I need to get the other 16 up.  Some are close (paladin is at 19), while others are far (bard is the farthest at level 3).  So its time I start to play some catch up with my jobs.  Most everyone else has almost all if not all in the 90's.  Its great to have a lot of variability when it comes to what you can help people with.  Especially since all I have had was my warrior (WAR) and it has been quite limiting.  Also, I have a lot of low level


So I started off with a job I never really wanted much to do with.  Well, not that much with (I HATE bard (BRD)).  That is white mage (WHM).

Not me, but a WHM in AF gear

I had mine at lvl 11 and decided to take it with a basic equipment load to Gusgen Mines and joined a burn party.  A burn party is one that is made up of many people all synced to a low level, attacking the same enemy.  With the Ground of Valor system, all we have to do is kill certain enemies a set amount of times and we get a reward of experience points and other things.  The more pages (like contracts) you do, the more experience you get.  So its easy to rack up a lot in a short amount of time.  So I worked with WHM and went from lvl 11 to 25 in 2.5 hours.  I accumulated about 52k experience.  It was purely insane.

This experience not only allowed me to rack up my WHM with lots of spells and help me to grow and like my WHM.  It also resparked things for me in the game.  I was pumped.  I wanted to lvl EVERYTHING.


So what to do next??

The races in Dragoon Relic Armor

Thats right.  Dragoon.  I have long thought about taking Dragoon to the top with my wyvern buddy.  So I repeated the process again and took my DRG to Gusgen Mines and went to town.  I got my DRG up to lvl 30 and realized that I like this different type of Damage Dealing (DD) job.  WAR is a DD and a backup tank.  You can do a lot of damage with a WAR, however DRG's bring something new to the table with their agility and piercing damage.  And those damn wyverns helps as well.

So now that I got DRG up, I decided it was time to work on a good sub for my WAR, my DRG, as well as a good DD itself.

Samurai

Kind of badass

SAM is a great DD.  Their inherit ability to build up tactical points (TP) to use weapon skills, as well as abilities to increase stats that relate to attack and accuracy.  AMAZING.  Since they use a Great Katana which is a two handed weapon, when you sub them onto a WAR or DRG (a WAR using a Great Axe, also two handed) you will have a powerhouse.  I can just say this.  I really got into SAM.  I felt like I was working with my WAR again.  It just felt natural.  I like going into battle and charging up and knowing that when I hit the monster I am doing some serious damage.  Plain and simple.  I am starting to love this job.  Hell, there are great possibilities with this subbed onto my DRK as well.

Back to the matter at hand.  I get my SAM up to lvl 31.  I got out of Gusgen Mines and made my way over to the Crawler's Nest where I picked up with another burn party (there seems to always be one there anyways).  I think now that I have grown to like SAM, I might shelve my earlier goal of all jobs to at least lvl 20-25, and take SAM all the way up.  Its fun.  I am having fun.

Holy hell do I love FFXI.

Don't Pick a Favorite

Seriously.  Don't.  Cause they might die.

This is going to be a spoiler post.  I am just going to start that off right now.  If you don't want any spoilers for Final Fantasy IV, then stop now.  Do not continue.




Now.  A shitload of characters die in this.  You start to like some and then BAM.  Death.

I am now about to enter Babel Tower, and just picked up Edge to join my party.  But thats not what I am talking about.  No.  Lets discuss the members of my party that I have lost so far, and I am maybe at the halfway point.

First to go, Palom and Porom

Edward, not dead however he is out sick

Tellah, sacrifices himself

Yang, another sacrifice

Cid, yet another sacrifice

That is 6 people (excluding Edward makes it 5) who have sacrificed themselves for the good of the party.  I understand that its for the betterment of everyone, however Palom and Porom dies so soon after you get them that I am still trying to get my head to stop spinning.  Its completely crazy.  I have experienced party member death before.  One of my fondest memories of a FF game is in FFIX when Blank saves the party and is eternal placed in Stone (yet the party seeks out a way to cure him of this status and he is released later on).  There are other instances as well, however FFIV strikes me so hard because they happen one right after the other.  Its like the creators didn't like their creation so they wanted to come up with a way to clear the lot of them as quickly as possible.

Silly creators.

The other thing that strikes me is how they tell how Rydia, one of the main characters of the story and the lone Summoner, goes from a young girl to 17 in a flash.  Normally you would be like What the Hell????  But Squaresoft had this planned out.  After you are separated from your party you have to keep going and you eventually get the band back together.  Rydia explains that she was sent to the World of Summons (I probably have that completely wrong, sorry) where she learns more spells, aaaannndddd even though she was there for a short amount of real game time, time in this other world flows faster so several years have passed.  BAM!!  Explanation has been provided.

So now that I have talked about that, I feel like there may be more deaths to come.  Who knows.  I have half of the game to go.  Many many things can still happen.  I am enjoying the game so far and its nice to be reliving this older game.  

Freaking Conspiracy

Assassin's Creed


Completion time is unknown.  I couldn't find a clock for the game.


Finally have another game done.  I know I haven't really kept you abreast to how this one has gone lately, however I have been all over the place and really had to force myself to keep on point with completing this game.

I am happy.  This is the first time since I started using the Backloggery that I have a completion done.  I am sooo happy.

So lets talk about Assassin's Creed (AC).

It was a good game.  Graphics were nice, the story line was good.  I really have no big complaints about things.

Well.  I take that back.

The controls were a little buggy, the game became quite repetitive, and the ending was just...well...blah.

I liked the game for tying up the loose ends that I developed when I started the "trilogy" with AC2.  I am glad they improved the game with AC2 (however that in itself does have glitches galore.  I LOATHE YOU AC2 FOR ROBBING ME OF MY PLATINUM TROPHY).

So what are we dealing with in AC??

Don't want to see him in an alley

You have above a man by the name of Altair.  He happens to be an Assassin.  He loses his rank within the clan and must redeem himself by killing a number of targets.  This is all meant to protect an artifact.  Beyond that I will not venture too much into the story.

This is a video game that bases itself on this conspiracy about Templars and how they have affected the world.  Things that they are hiding and what their aim to humanity is.  It brings that added level of intrigue to things and keeps you wanting more.  Knowing what I know from the other games in the "trilogy" it gets all sorts of crazy after AC.  

What its all centered around

The above is the mysterious artifact that the story revolves around, as well as the "trilogy".  I won't go into details about it since that would ruin many many things.  You must play to learn.

Why do I keep saying "trilogy"?  Well, There is AC and AC2.  AC3 will be released later this year.  However there are 2 "sequels" to AC2 that make it more than just 3 games (use those math skills you learned in elementary school people).  AC3 will be based during the Revolutionary War period so I am excited to see how they are going to involve some more modern elements into things.  EXCITEMENT!!

Back to things.  Should someone play this game?   Yes.  Its a great series and thus you need to know how things began.  Will I play this again??  No.  I did a full completion of it now because I didn't want to deal with the clumsiness of it again.  Experience it at least once.  It might just change your world.

Checking In

Damn.

Just damn.

I am failing at keeping this updated.  I don't know exactly why either.  I haven't been keeping up with my gaming that much.  Been reading a lot.

Mostly though I have been spending a lot of quality time with my wonderful wife.  Its been amazing.  Definitely something that has helped destress myself and everything that is going on with my work.

I have thus not been working too much on things since we have been touring town and exploring the fun things around Savannah.

In downtime I have done some work on Diablo which I am proud of.  Gotten to lvl 9 for my Warrior, and to floor 3.  Got my ass almost handed to me by the King Lich.  Luckily I was able to town portal out of there and then log for the night.

Seems I will have to work on my lvling first, then go back in there.  I only have 65% hit rate, which is a suckfest.

I will update things (I promise) soon.  With my sports dying down at work now, and moving onto only one sport going to playoffs, things will be easier for me.  I won't have a damn soccer game every night (sooooo exhausted from that).

Hoping to get this going again as well.  Also, you can always track me on Backloggery.