Productive weekend

I've spent a large chunk of the weekend playing FFXIV and I've raised my physical level from 14 -> 17, but also learnt loads about crafting. I've bought all the gear I need to become ALL of the disciplines and I've tried most of them out now. Thankfully I've also spent some time creating lots of macros so I can now easily swap disciplines with only one button, something that was previously quite a chore. Now I can happily be killing something and then see a mining spot, swap to miner and then swap back to kill more things, swap to do some fishing... I love how versatile it is :) Okay here's the pictures of all the new disciplines of war and magic that I've started on:

Archer (1 -> 4)

Gladiator (1 -> 5)

Lancer (1 -> 6)

Pugilist (1 -> 9)

I don't really like lancer all that much and find it kind of slow to fight (although I might be imaginging that). Likewise though I really like pugilist and that seems really fast to kill things! I can see archer being really expensive as you need a constant supply of ammo (something that ended up getting me killed once when I ran out!), but in that respect it's no different to the ranger in FFXI. Gladiator is okay and feels somewhere in between pugilist and lancer, I haven't really found a favourite job that I like yet though.

Now onto the crafting... I was forced to start doing this because my inventory keeps filling up AND so does my retainers so I had to start crafting to get rid of the things that are taking up space (and level up some disciplines at the same time!). Apparently we'll be allowed to purchase additional retainers (people to hold/sell our stuff) for $1/month, but they haven't released it yet... I wish they would... I'll take 10! :) Although I'll need some new names. My existing retainer I called Charlotte which I thought was quite a nice name, although the problem is each name has to be unique so picking a name for 2nd (and 3rd and 4th...) will be quite tricky!

Alchemist (1 -> 6)

Armorer (1 -> 7)

Culinarian (1 -> 5)

Goldsmith (1 -> 5)

Weaver (1 -> 4)

I even managed to "high quality" something - Hurrah!

Botany - Harvesting (1 -> 7)>

Botany - Logging (1 -> 7 as above)

This guy came to watch me do some mining (8 -> 10)

Cool eh? :) I still need to try being a carpenter, blacksmith and leather worker, but I need more crystal shards/component parts. Talking of crystal shards, it seems a bit disproportionate because I have like 900 earth and fire crystals... but only 30 wind crystals?! Huh? I guess it's relative to the stuff you're killing/harvesting though.

Doubt I'll get to play again for a week or so, but I figure I need to start working on getting myself some new gear the next time I play, the weathered stuff is just getting a bit old now (literally - it's all been repaired twice!)

Thaumaturge

With exception of today I haven't played since my last entry and upon loading the game I was shocked to find many people were already level 40+ - Wow! I'm still getting used to the game and still trying to work out what I actually like doing, but in the meantime I'm just trying everything. Oh and I have some good news, I found a NPC who was able to fix my clothes including my underwear (as mentioned in the last entry!) - Yay!

This is the NPC that fixed my pants! LOL

I did some more levequests, 4 battlefield, 2 fishing and 2 mining and then went and bought some extra "weapons" so I can now become a gladiator, goldsmith, alchemist and thaumaturge and went out to level the thaumaturge. Only minor changes to the other "jobs", but my physical level is now 14, Mining 8, Fishing 6 and Thaumaturge all the way from 1 to 8.

Me as a Thaumaturge, wish the weapon looked better though!

I pretty much found it the same as Conjurer, you have a bunch of offensive spells, a "healing" type spells and you can use the same attack strategy, although I'm guessing at later levels the job differences will start to become apparent. I initially started as Conjurer as I was primarily a White Mage in Final Fantasy XI and Conjurer seemed the closest thing to that, although I'm going to level a bunch of things to see what I like most.

I need new underwear!

I've over played a few hours since my last blog post, but it was enough to raise my physical level to 13, Conjury to 10, Mining to 8 and more exciting I've raised fishing from 1 (what your start on) to level 5 - Yippee!!

Fishing seemed incredibly weird at first as aside from the tons of waiting you have to do (I guess that's realism?) you have to "jig" the line (???) and then try and work out which way the fish is going to reel it in based on the text it gives you. The control system is actually a lot like mining and once I got the hang of what words means what action I should do it wasn't that hard and started catching things pretty much everytime. I've completed two of the levequests for fishing which earned me some extra exp so I'm very happy with that!

It's a nice day for a spot of fishing!

Now onto the title of my entry... underwear. I was minding my own business and then all of a sudden an icon flashed up the top of the screen which after selecting said that some of my gear (clothing/weapons) was "diminished" and as such performing at a reduced rate (or words to that effect). EEK! It would have been nice if it told you WHICH item(s) were at fault, but after some investigating with our friend Google I found out that the icon shows up when an item gets below 50% of life and continues to diminish. After checking all my items... yep... the underwear. Brilliant.

Oh no!

You either have to replace or repair the item. I am curious though, will I eventually end up running around butt naked if I refuse to fix an item? Probably not (I suspect I'll still able to wear the item, it just won't "do" anything), although it's a scary thought! :P

Sadly I don't think I can repair it myself at the moment (I haven't even started weaving) and I can't pay someone to repair it because with underwear you can't take it off... only switch it to another pair of underwear and so far I only have one pair... Yes eugh I know, but let's assume virtual me is very clean okay? :)

I guess I'm going to have to find some new undies... LOL.

Starting to get the hang of this

Believe it or not I haven't actually played the game all that much, but I think I've made quite a bit of progress. My "achievement list" so far is that I've raised my physical level to 12, conjury to 9, axe to 7 and mining to 6. I've also visited all three cities to get the Aetheryte at each location. I've also finished the first few quests at Gridania and all the battle levequests that it'll give me and all of the mining ones too. I still haven't tried any actual crafting yet though so that's something to do in the near future.

Action shot whilst attacking a mole!

It seems to rain all the time... boo!

I love seeing some of the names that other people have come up with!

Mmm, roasted squirrel!

I did some mining and I think I've got the hang of it

I've opened a shop to sell the things I find AND I have staff!

Okay so I'll admit I still don't really know quite what I'm doing, but I'm working it out as I go along and I have to say I'm really enjoying it! I'm glad of this because I was so worried I wouldn't, but despite some annoyances (there's no sorting method for the inventory!), it's turning out to be a lot more fun than I had expected, although I might not say that once I get a few levels higher and the level grinding begins... :)

Oh and if you're interested, you can find me on the official Lodestone site here!

And so it begins...

When Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XIV (14) was going to be an online game I was initially unsure about it. I've played XI (11) on/off for over 5 years now and although I've hardly touched it in the last 2 years I still think positively of the game and I just wish I had more time to actually play it. Final Fantasy XI was my first MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) and the whole game is very much about working with other people and when this works it's a lot of fun. However it's also really bad because when you can't find a group of people you end up doing... nothing. For hours at a time. However then I heard that XIV wouldn't be quite so demanding on having a party and where as having a group is always going to be better, it won't be such a requirement. Where do I sign up? :)

Collectors Edition: Game, Tumbler, security key, blank journal and cloth map

Back in July I pre-ordered the collectors edition above (and the regular version, but we'll come to that in a minute) and it arrived on the 22nd September... but I couldn't play it yet, because I had to also wait for the regular version to arrive (30th September). Both editions come with a code for an ingame item, but the code could only be used BEFORE you create your character hence my waiting until the 30th to get the 2nd code to add both to my account and finally I could start playing... I wasn't actually that worried though because I was lucky enough to be in the beta 2 and beta 3 tests so I'd already played it quite a bit before so knew exactly what to expect.

My friend Laura was also kind enough to give me a limited edition code from her PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII (13) which could be redeemed for an item in XIV (are you keeping up with the numerals? lol) and because she didn't really need it/has no intention of playing 14 I was really grateful, this means I ended up starting the game with an Onion Helm (Collectors edition), Garlond Goggles (Regular edition), Asuran Armguards (PS3 code) AND Hermes' Shoes (Because my FFXI character is still active) - Phew! Creating the character though is always the hardest thing and although it was different from my beta characters I eventually decided on:

Yes I have green and red hair... what's your point? :)

On Final Fantasy XI the race of your character made a big difference to your skills and I was a Hume (good all-rounder) and although that isn't important in FF XIV, I decided to stick to what I'd previously had (except they're now called Hyur instead of Hume for some reason!). It doesn't really show up so well on the picture, but my hair is actually dark green, I figured that would be pretty radical and I don't think it looks (too) stupid? :) I've started out as a Conjurer as my previous main job was a White Mage, although you can change any time you want.

Sadly here's where it got complicated... the majority of my linkshell (people I play with) were on a server that was closed due to congestion, I literally couldn't get onto the server to actually create my character and start playing no matter how often I tried - Argh! Thankfully Enedin (our linkshell leader) decided that the existing server (Gysahl) was too crowed and laggy and him and his brother were moving to Saronia... fantastic! I was able to create a character on there with no problem what-so-ever.

I haven't actually been on it very much yet (literally long enough to log in and meet up with the others to join the linkshell and get a screenshot), but here we all are:

The start of the AlwaysFune linkshell on Saronia

The headpiece that Enedin is wearing is the Onion Helm and sadly you can only wear the Garlond Goggles OR the Onion Helm since they both use the head slot, you can't wear both at once - Boo! However I'm also demoing the Asuran Armguards and the Hermes' Shoes :) However with those glasses I think I look a bit like a cross between Neo from the Matrix and Stringfellow Hawke from Airwolf... what do you think? :)

Sadly (?) I've got real-life plans all weekend so I won't be able to play until Sunday evening, but it's going to be great! Good bye life, hello Eorzea! (the world that Final Fantasy XIV is set in!). LOL.