Train Adventures: FFXI Blog

Chu's rambling/recordings on her FFXI life & running comic. Incoherency and random jumping around subjects is the norm, prepare for epic disappointment should you come in bearing high expectations!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Chapter 1: lolMythic & Chapter 2: Gilfarming

While I'm still not 100% sold yet, out of boredom I've been entertaining the idea of going after a mythic weapon a little more seriously than normal.

I've had a (very tiny) stash of Alexandrite stored away since before the level cap, thinking that I wanted to go after the Dancer mythic, but since the level cap raise and the introduction of Empyrean weapons I've been largely apathetic to continuing. Obviously, in terms of pure DD potential the mythic weapon, even at level 90, doesn't hold a handle to the Empyrean dagger. But Twat-tar, as I so fondly like to call it, is just so damn *ugly* :/ like, an oversized peice of moldy cheese on a stick ugly. And I know myself well enough to know that I haate any kind of NM camping. Between the choice of repeatedly killing mobs and camping an NM, I will always, always choose repeatedly killing mobs. And I'm also gung-ho enough (or stubborn enough) to want to go after a Dancer onry weapon regardless of actual usefulness just for the hell of it.

But, as I said, out of boredom and a wish for something different to do, I've been more actively pursuing this idea as of late. Sadly alexandrite prices had skyrocketed from 3k to 15k a piece, and after blowing all my (insignificant) savings on an overpriced alexandrite bazaar in port jeuno, and two runs of late-night salvage thanks to some awesome people who still wanted to play around with old content, I've brought my total alexandrite count to: 382. I think that puts me at like 1.2% or something, hahahaha.

Anyhow, I don't see it as a waste of money, since in case I change my mind later I can liquify the alexandrites again to get back at least a partial amount of the money I spent on it, but having my gil cleaned out by alexandrite hoarding has left me quite broke. As in, I had to scrummage around in my inventory for things to NPC in order to afford the 15k entry fee for limbus, which a friend had wanted to duo.

So, today, I decided to undergo a rare foray into abyssea to farm me up some gil. Since Kannagis are all the rage among ninjas I decided the easiest way was to farm up some gigas pop items to sell on the AH, so I made a quick trip to Abyssea La Theine. The Trophy Shield, Massive ARmband and Oversized Sock were quite cooperative, dropping withing the first 2 or 3 gigas I killed, so with my leftover time I ran by the Angler Tigers to see if I could spawn the tumbler trunks NM.

Ever get the feeling that sometimes things go most smoothly when you don't plan it? I was debating between using a resist paralysis atma or an evasion atma as my 3rd atma, and it turns out Atma of the Siren Shadow has both.

Pop item dropped on the 5th or 6th tiger, and upon popping the NM and using my first weaponskill I found out quite accidentally that it was piercing time, and the blue weakness was dagger, and I triggered it with dancing edge!

I also somehow missed reading the fact that the NM can en-doom, but luckily, since I always like to be prepared with meds, I managed to dig out my stack of holy waters from my satchel and remove enough dooms to kill the NM. My new WS pantsu dropped on first try :> and I also got a piece of dragon meat and various other NPCables from an amber box the NM left behind. That combined with the three gigas pop items should net me an easy 120k or so from the auction house in roughly 30 minutes of time. Not too shabby.



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Thursday, May 26, 2011

In which there are a lot of 3-headed doggies, and I use MAB on a melee job for the first time

Lets see, there has been so much that's occurred since my last update here!

For those wondering, Train Adventures hasn't ended, just been on hiatus for a bit as there are a few other personal art projects that I've been working on, one of which includes a mini-series named My Girlfriend is a Gamer which was featured in the virgin issue of Reasonably Priced Comics #1, which can be found here. Asides from that work and final exams have been pretty hectic which extended my original hiatus for longer than I originally intended.

I have a few sketches planned for the next few pages of Train Adventures, but likely won't be able to finish them until after E3 Expo, which I am lucky enough to attend this year ({excitement}!)

FFXI has also changed *A LOT* since my last update. There is too much to cover and it almost plays like a different game now so I won't bore you with meticulous details about all that has been added with the new expansions. It is enough to say that FFXI has gone through some radical changes but it has been for the better and is now much friendlier for casual players.

Yes, it is easier, but if you sucked at the game previously, you still suck at the game. It has become "easier in the sense that it only takes a few competent players to get things done, as opposed to a full alliance of people of dubious, varied intelligence levels.



So today, thanks to the integration of multiple ??? to forced pop nms, we decided to kill us some Orthrus, a nasty, giant, fire-breathing, three-headed puppy.

Except we decided just one nasty giant fire-breathing three-headed puppy wasn't enough.

We decided we would fight THREE.

...AT THE SAME TIME.

YES.

It was a lot of fun, being my first time brewing multiple nms at once. Although I didn't have all the ideal atma for the job, with Atma of Gales, Atma of the Full Moon and Razed Ruins (tossed it on as I didnt' really have anything else appropriate), Aeolian Edge was averaging a decent 9-10k damage each time, with 8-9k additional damage from Scission SCs. I wish I had thought to record it or at least take some screenshots, but really from my vantage point it all I could see were a lot of black puppy paws.

Got another 2 shiny Jewels of Ardor out of this puppy genocide and several Claws and Stones of Ardor for the others as well.

While we were there also killed Amarok a few times and Bogul Noz several times, managed to get 4 body seals for my newly leveled Black Mage, finished Kari's Dancer body, finished Gara's Paladin Body and Beastmaster hands, finished Elfi's Blue Mage hands, and also got a few Corsair body seals for Art and some Summoner hand seals for Pumpkin. Bohgo was also kind enough to come help and smash things with his Empyrean gun.

Best of all the zone was virtually empty today so we had a great time plowing through mobs without having to deal with the crowded disaster that tormented us last time. While we were waiting to brew Othrus a second time a group that arrived shortly after our first pop were kind enough for wait for us to finish as we were utilizing all three spawn points which became the icing on the cake for the run.

All in all a very productive day!

************

TL;DR I'm alive! And playing the heck out of the new FFXI!
Look for the next updates for Train Adventures to happen in mid-late July!

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Friday, April 30, 2010

Misc. Accomplishments!

Recent Accomplishments:
- THF now at 15k buffer!
- DNC group 1 merits finished! (5/5 Haste Samba 5/5 Reverse Flourish)
- DNC is now at 4/5 relic + cape!
- WHM 2k from 71!
- Now at Windy rank 8!
- ranked up to Dawnlight Medal in Campaign!
- earned 200 out of 250 WS points towards unlocking Mandalic Stab for Teefs!
- while doing rank 7 quests for windy, also farmed up 6 different songs for future BRD including Foe Requim V & VI, Chocobo Mazurka, Warding Round, Advancing March and Goddess Hymnus! Note to self: Currently stored on crumpets
- Also picked up 11k from coffer while farming for Judgement key in Oztroja nomnomnom gilsies. 2nd coffer picked up a safeguard ring...but thankfully didn't waste a thief tool on that, happened to get a coffer key drop before judgement key drop!

Recent Activities
- helped Rihan do final COP fight against Promathia! thanks to Meph's uber DD skills, we won with most of the rest of us dead. Meteor is a bit tricksy to run from XD;;
- started on Dancer Artifact Armor cosplay project! progress pics to come with next post!
- Finally decided to give in and attempt Magian trials. Managed to finish trial 2 for dagger fairly easily enough, and have now advanced to trial 3 (Black Triple Stars). I am not kidding when I say this bat is SO. DAMN. ANNOYING. ARGHH. Teamed up with a group of 3 JPs to score a kill, but it was still so incredibly boring ; ; the JPs were really nice though and spoke to me in baby english. I responded in baby japanese xD


Next on to-do list:
- THF merits
- DNC group 2 merits
- Combat merits
- WHM 71
- Alchemy to 20


Funny Galka names found this week:
- Galkimusprime
- Galkzilla

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Monday, April 12, 2010

2 years later....

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Lots got done recently!

Last night as we got my THF to 5k tnl we also caught the NM Nightmare Vase up, so I switched to DNC quickly and came back to solo it. It was an easy fight but nothing to show for except 4 magic pot shards and 2 vials of mercury, which thankfully got picked up quick during overnight bazaar and freed up a few spaces of my overfilled packrat inventory.

Today, the TEEF finally hit 75 thanks to roughly 4 rounds of FoV training in Ro'Maeve!
Thanks to Penty for keeping me company and consoling me when the regime bonus cheated me out of my level up animation. XD Also grats to him capping his ninjutsu skills while I tanked weapons for him! For my favorite job class to play and being the first job that I leveled 2 years ago with the intention of taking to 75 since I started playing, I sure took my sweet ass time.

Also changed past nation alliance from Windy to Bastok for the various DNC equips (Sonia's Plectrum, the new sword thingy with the special campaign WS, the Regain backpeice, and Sturm's report for Violent Flourish), as I've gotten all the cobra gear I needed and there's not much else from Windurst (S) items that my current jobs can put to good use. Strangely the special campaign WS for DNC is....a sword. But since it's only for campaign use anyway, I'm not going to complain too much. During the nation change quest, also managed to farm 2 Agaricus Mushrooms off the Coppercaps in Zegham Hill. TH works in the strangest ways....but at any rate, that's 20k in the pocket!

Also anticipating a change from current nation allegiance from Sandy to Windy! I love having all the OP warps and love my dhalmel infested city of San D'Oria and really don't want to leavee ; ; I dread moving into that circular and massive failure of layout planning of a city that is called Windurst too, but Sandy is in 1st and Windy is last in conquest rankings this week, so it's the best time to do so, and I do want to have a chance to complete the other nation storylines. So alas Sandy, I bid you and your well laid-out city farewell for a bit! I shall return once I earn 100k from both Windy and Bastok 8D

Went into campaign to gain a buffer and got a Petrified Log, Wyvern Skin, and a Maiden's Virelai from Campaign Union Spoils along with a 5k buffer! Not very much, but will have to do for now. While campaigning also got the quest for Fort Karugo-Narugo map done! The CS for the mandragoras were disgustingly cute, I want to watch it again!

Funds for Bravo's Subligar has been set aside on le Toasty bank. Once the funds from mushroom sales are done, I should be about halfway there! :D Lastly, need to remind myself to farm an Iolite soon as it's the last missing peice for my next gobbiebag upgrade. Sadly, it only drops of Corses in Attowah Chasm....so....I guess we'll see how that goes D:

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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Miscellaneous character illustrations

Currently the comic revolves mainly around dynamis-related experiences, but I haven't yet included any anecdotes from my vibrant social LSes yet. Here are a few characterizations that probably aren't going to be included on the Train Adventures Comic site, though I may gather them into a collage for a future upload.

first off is an old...( as you can tell by the year date on the signature >_>;;;) test drawing of Jiharn, in one of his more *ahem* "normal" outfits.



I meant to color and finished this fully, but I haven't had the heart to since he ceased playing FFXI for WOW.


Here's Fruitloops, who, like me, also leveled DNC solely for the frilly AF XD He spends most of his time clamming, and also has a cameo role on the cover page of Train Adventures.


And here is BV, fellow DNC enthusiast and lovely leader of TheLost!
I wanted to stick her joyeuse in there, since it matches her outfit so well, but just could figure out where to put it without making it look silly.

That's it for today!

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Train Adventures: The Comic!

Welp, after about 2 years of procrastination, the FFXI comic/illustration site is finally up!

Reason being I finally found a publishing program that essentially auto-codes new comic or image uploads into a new webpage and automatically links it to the previous one, saving me a lot of time/effort and allowing me to just focus on drawing and not have to worry so much about the sharing part XD




Be prepared for lots of half-baked artings, misaligned humor, and disturbing imagery at incredible rates of procrastination! Click the image above or the post title to visit the comic website :)

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Sunday, August 2, 2009

Wrapping up a Year - Goodbyes and New Beginnings

It's been a long while since I last posted, I still only have about 1.5 pages of my comic done, and uncolored XD

In this time of just a little past my one-year anniversary of playing this game (It's August now, but I took a few months break for school sometime earlier this year), a lot has occurred.

My beloved and most-adored Linkshell has mostly become a ghost shell. I refuse to give up on it still, and keep the pearl on me always. It's still the first, the best, the most fun, entertaining, and most beloved linkshell I've had and I will never give up my loyalty to it!

Unfortunately, the linkshell leader and also my IRL best friend left the game. As a seasoned veteran, she, like many other long-time players, had become increasingly too-easily frustrated by the game's effort-to-reward ratio, and coupled with academic and other RL priorities, chose to leave the shell and the game. While I understand and support her decision, it's still a sad thing to play this game that she introduced me to without her.

I believe and still think the LS was the perfect personification of her; silly, retarded, skillful, perverted, fun, logical, ridiculous, amazing, rewarding, and also the glue that held everybody together. Without her presence, and the absence the other pearlsack holders, it was tough to keep things together. It was the LS with the most epic conversations and topics, of which Fignewton remarked on once that "putting on the pearl was more entertaining than watching TV". The topics of linkshell conversations have often been jokingly referred to as the "Chryso Soap Opera", yet what I loved most was that although we kid and tease and make fun of each other, it felt like a really tight knit group full of folk willing to help each other out, make epic parties, chat about random nonsense, and was skilled at what they did. It was an atmosphere of warmth and familiarity and trust and easy companionship combined with highly skilled players.

There's still a couple of ardent loyalists left, mostly myself, Penty, Philonias, Takahashi, Badrach, and Kaelan and Ertix the few times they're online. But no one likes to sit in an empty linkshell, even one that holds as many fond memories as this, and by and large most of the shell members have migrated into an EU linkshell that houses a few of the old EU members of Chrysoberyl, and have managed to find a comfortable home there. TheLost has also become my 2nd home in game, and the shell holder, Bournvillain, is easily one of the nicest and sweetest girls I've ever met. She's been playing the game since its release, yet doesn't shy away from pickup parties or meeting new people, and has only had ONE single person on her blacklist, who was added only very recently -- which, I think that says a lot about her character. I've been playing barely a fifth of the time she has and I have a good 15-20 names on my blacklist, sometimes I feel like the Grinch who stole Christmas around her XD

Bournvillain, or BV for short, also pearlsacks every member of the LS to show that she trusts everyone and wants all LS members to be equal. It's fun because no one abuses it and the Linkshell message is changed daily with fun anecdotes, funny messages or just as a message board between the members.

I still struggle with inventory space, gobbie bag has been upgraded to 45 spaces now and still eternally full. But no matter how hurting for space I am, the white pearl of Chrysoberyl will never ever be tossed, and Toasty the Taru mule will continue to wear the Chrysoberyl pearl while bazaaring an overpriced chrysoberyl jewel.

Making the transition easier are Findanniin and Exaurias, spoony wicked fun folk who used to be in Chrysoberyl but who had migrated to this EU linkshell due to time differences. Their cheer and witty comments of Chryso days have not changed in the slightest and makes me feel like I'm still at "home" in this linkshell. Even Keitarou with his eternal sadface emotes, complaints and utter random nonsense comments provide a reminder of the old days. Badrach has returned from his busy work and school schedule to play more regularly now and Kaelan has now also joined TheLost. The notorious Vagabont even returned to the game after quitting and seeing these familiar names and faces have helped ease the sadness of parting with Chryso.

As with any goodbyes, there must be new hellos to be said. In this time I have also managed to finally obtain a 75 job and somehow, luckily, get into the best dynamis shell on this server, and attending dynamis runs have been taking up most of my time.

Despite my love of playing THF class, it did not end up being my first 75 job, but instead Dancer was. I originally leveled DNC simply for the free sneak/invis a la Spectral Jig, and then out of vanity for the AF, but somewhere along the way it managed to distract me from leveling THF entirely (although the much more expensive gear required and the impossibly slow invites and frustrating time spent with Tanks and first-vokers who didn't know how to SATA also played a part) and through static'ing with Penty's RDM and BRD, managed to finally hit 75 and even snag a few merits.

Dynamis has been very fun and exciting, particularly also because of the many new personalities I was introduced to. In fact, the activity and people by and large are so engaging that it actually motivated me to re-start the comics I've always wanted to draw... but that, and more on dynamis, will come in the next post!

For now, R.I.P. Chrysoberyl, forever my fondest linkshell. Today, I begin a new adventure -- with TheLost.

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