Goodness...

Hey, what's this?!
It's been ages; I had forgotten this existed.


Updates?
Too many to list all, but: Maat is now a comedian to the Nomad Moogle instead of an insurmountable obstacle.  Never gotten anywhere with crafting, but don't really care at the moment.  Itazura has more than two million gil, and yet still feel poor.  I became one of those multiple Lv.75 people--Red Mage, Paladin, Bard, Samurai, and Scholar.  Then I became a multiple Lv.80, and now on my way to become a multiple Lv.85.

Yeah, Lv.85 is the highest reachable level in FFXI now, and soon to be 99.  Trippy doesn't begin to describe it.  And, 'endgame' isn't a scary eight-letter word anymore.

Multiple Linkshells seem normal now:

• Blue - Abyssea, Salvage, and possibly ZNM and missions (again!)
• TheVampyKnights - Limbus
• Fireflys - Dynamis
• Quitgame - Sky

Still feel most comfortable in Blue; I tell people it's my 'social' shell, but it feels more like my home than anything else.  It's kind funny that this little LS with an anti-endgame bent is now the #7 LS on FFXIAH's Ifrit ranking, though.  Also odd is how many Linkshells I've left; FinalDestination, iMoogle, HappyHumans (HH), KnghtsoftheRound (KOR), VoltronAlliance are all history, and most quite ancient.

I hand out gil monthly to Dynamis LS members, and love it.  Selling currency on Miraimo for Dynamis LS... Not love it so much--it's quite a chore.  Bazaar'ing on Itazura right now, though, trying to get rid of this Hoard Ring we got from Abyssea.  Probably have to toss it onto Miraimo and display it along with the Dynamis currency soon.




Yet another alternate dimension--but it's mostly good
Speaking of Abyssea, it's been a blast.  While the landscape isn't terribly interesting (the new zones are nearly a carbon copy of the old zones' geography), the NMs are fun to fight and have cool drops, some new system mechanics are introduced, and the contents range from suitable for solo'ers to full alliance. Heck, I always wanted to see alliance exp'ing, and Abyssea loves exp'ing alliances.

Even when it's meh, it can still be giggle inducing.  Out damaging most "damage dealers" in a pick-up group on my Paladin was worth the time for the "laugh out loud" factor.

One thing I have to remember, though: the next time an exp PUG leader asks for my SAM, I'm going /NIN no matter what; completely turtle'd up under Seigan for two out of five hours (and still came close to getting KO'ed every few minutes) because the decent WHM left was not a happy thing.  SAM/DRG can be fun, but not without a strong healer with MP recovery support and bunch of other strong DDs who can pry critters off of me.  I'd give up /DRG in a heartbeat in exchange for Hasso and Haste anyway; I'll toss away my /WAR, too, as a freebie.

Yet, although people in PUGs performed worse than ever (last one had a SAM who needed 15 hits to get off a WS on average.  lol...), the exp/hr actually went up if one has four or five hours for partying.  Hurray for auto-scaling mob repops--the faster you kill, the harder the average monsters spawn around you, and the more exp per monster--all without the worry of experience point chains.  Hurray~


Having fun, yet...
While I'm actually having a great time in-game (especially tanking as PLD in Abyssea), I've been rather blasé about setting goals and such.  So, help me out, vote in the survey--probably will end up ignoring the results anyway, but at least I can pretend I have a direction for a while.

/em points to the right, and then above.