New blog location!

http://littletaruthatcouldnt.ff11blog.com/

If'n you're still coming here and hoping for updates, the blog has been moved.

Thanks for reading!
-Pas

Double /sigh

So in the week I have been back, I have gotten to play a whopping 3 hours. It's my fault, really, I just happened to chose the worst week ever for my return.

My parents left for a two week Florida vacation today, I have to stay and house-sit their house. My dad didn't want the home to be empty for 2 weeks, and they needed someone to take care of the dog.

I didn't want to bring my computer over, because I don't like moving it. I also didn't want to go two weeks without playing ffxi, so I spent the part of last night I wasn't drunk installing it on my brother's computer:

That was taken this morning. At this rate, it should be done installing Tuesday.

As I said before, I did manage to get a few hours of play time in once this week. This is how it went:

00:01 (hours:minutes)
-Log in, find myself in Upper Jeuno. Head for Airship to Windy.

00:03
-Miss Airship. Violent swearing.

00:05
-Swearing stops. Check remaining gear/gil. Find very little of both. Swearing resumes.

00:12
-Hop on Airship, fly to Windy.

00:15
-Arrive at Windy. Head to MogHouse to switch jobs.

00:20
-Staring at job list.

00:27
-Still staring at job list.

00:32
-Decide on Monk (lvl 9) for some reason. Grab gear and head over to Spiny's spawn point to solo for a while.

00:58
-No sign of Spiny. Ding level 10. There was much rejoicing.

01:15
-Spiny spawns while I am in the bathroom. I return to find him claimed. Resume violent swearing.

01:23
-Linkshell mates need lvl 32 WHM. I switch jobs and head out to Garliage.

01:34
-Join party.

01:35
-(Death)

01:36
-Swearing resumes.

01:37
-Forgot to switch HP to Jeuno, forced to wait for raise. I suck.

01:50
-Friendly Taru PLD provides raise.

02:05
-Party resumes fighting. Experience points everywhere.

03:29
-Search for replacement for myself, so I can go to bed. Find one WHM. Invite him.

03:33
-Informed by party that the WHM i invited sucked, and that I was her replacement when they kicked her from party. Oops.

So yeah, that's pretty much a play-by-play of my first night back. Hopefully I'll be able to play today, assuming this fucking thing finishes.

Vana'diel 5-0

Time for that big exciting 50th post I promised you.

First things first, I quit FFXI earlier this week. I don't have the free time I used to and I don't feel I'm accomplishing anything when i do log in. It's been great making new friends, but as far as the game is concerned, I'm pretty much done.

I didn't want to skip my 50th update, so I made a To-Do List of things everyone else has done in-game except me. Here goes:

1. Catch a fish
Yeah, seriously. I've been playing for three years, and I've never fished once. I felt like an ass, but I had to ask for help, because I didn't know how to do it.

The first thing I caught was a monster. I hate fishing.

2. Redecorate
Ok, this one isn't something that everyone does, but I thought it would be cool to pile all the furniture I've acquired in the corner. It took forever, but it was worth it.

I'm lying, it wasn't worth it. Halfway through, I realized it was a stupid idea, but for some reason I finished. /sigh

3. Overpay at the AH
You always hear horror stories about someone accidentally buying something for way too much gil. I've never done that, so i went to the Auction House and this happened. Totally accidentally, of course.

Whoops! Boy, is my face red.

4. Besieged
I've done these before, but I wanted to get one last one in before I left. I was only in it for half an hour, but I died seven times. I think that's a personal best.

I'm gonna miss besieged. I always felt like a WW nurse helping wounded soldiers. (Nurse? Damnit, I mean Doctor. Doctor.)

5. Sweet, sweet LinkShell drama
I've always tried my best to avoid fights with my linkshell. I wanted to go out with a bang. Thanks to Myrrh for hooking me up.

6. Cuddle
It sounds lame, I know, but it is something that everyone does, so I figured I'd try it once. I couldn't find any hot Mithra, so my friend Neville volunteered.

That has Christmas card photo written all over it. Adorable.

That's it. I killed Spiny again, just to say goodbye. The cape didn't drop. That bastard is defiant to the end. Thanks for reading/commenting/sending me tells. You guys were great. If you ever want to talk, you can reach me at jasonisawesomexi on AIM. If you ever need something to read, check out my website, www.superawesomecarnivalbears.net.

See ya around!
-Jason

Bwah?

So this week's update, Pasquale vs WoW, has been postponed, possibly indefinitely. When I went to re-set up my old WoW account info, I was informed that I had been banned.

***Notice of Account Closure***

Hello,

Account Name: (my account name)

This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation. While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of the results of exploitation investigations, exploitative endeavors on your account have ultimately lead to its closure. The recurring subscription on the account has been disabled to prevent further charges.

I honestly don't know what "exploiting the economy" means. The only part I understood in that whole email was "permanently disabled."

I haven't used the account in forever. I did, however, let my brother use it since I didn't want to play anymore. He swears he did nothing wrong, but who knows.

I e-mailed the douches at Blizzard Support to get a clearer explanation of what happened, but that was a week ago, and no one has responded. I'm sure it's my brother's fault, but I guess I'll never know.

One of these days, if I feel the WoW itch (not bloody likely) I'll get a new account and start from scratch. Until then, this update goes on the back burner.

Next update is number 50, and I have to do something huge for it. That being said, Pasquale vs City of Heroes is on hold for a week, because my 50th update has to be FFXI-licious.

Pasquale vs The Matrix Online

I just want to start by saying that the screen shots used in today's post are not mine. One of the reasons this update is so late is because I couldn't figure out how to get my damn screenshots to work. I knew how to take them, but they were always just black screens. (At first I thought this was because The Matrix Online (TMO) was just too awesome for screen shots, but you'd better believe that is a lie.)

I only put in maybe 10 or so hours but I feel I got a pretty good grip on how things work.

First off, let's talk about character creation and training.

This is the character creation screen. You're probably admiring her ass. I want to repeat, these are not my shots, someone else took a picture of this chick's ass.

There are a handful of choices to make when creating your character. First you pick what type of person is taking the red pill.

Secluded Introvert
New Age Hippie
Suspicious Cynic
Fanatic Self-Improver
True Believer
(Assorted others, all with equally stupid names.)

As far as I can tell, the only thing that changes when choosing one of these is your stats, and it doesn't change by much. After this, you go to the character creation screen pictured above. You can make a male or female, and then pick one of two different shirts, pants, shoes, and sunglasses. Needless to say, when you first start, everyone looks the same.

After you make your guy, its time to learn how to play. TMO is actually really easy to pick up: Move to bad guy, press "1," kung fu his ass off. Repeat as desired. Training lasts a few minutes and then it's time to 'jack in' (a phrase that made me laugh every time I started the game up) and begin your adventure.

After walking around for a little while, you'll come across some street thugs who need to be taught a lesson. After teaching said lesson, you'll find new clothes on them, and you can change your look. Within 10-15 minutes, you'll already be finished looking exactly like Neo.

Here's a shot of me standing next to Morpheus.

There are three types of characters in the game. Hackers are the mage-type, Coders are crafters, (seriously, you're sole purpose is to craft items for other people), and whatever the warrior type is called. Soldier, I think. I forgot, it was boring.

As you level up, you can buy abilities to learn depending on which of the three you choose. As you get higher, you can branch off into other aspects: Hand-to-hand or guns, black or white mage, make clothes or make potions. (Seriously, how lame is that?)

The hand to hand combat is fun to watch for a few minutes, then it gets repetitive. Seeing the same jump kicks and karate chops gets old pretty fast.

This is a shot of me getting kicked in the face. Yowza! (/sigh)

Combat in TMO requires almost no skill whatsoever. You can basically press any buttons you want, and whatever you are fighting will die.

When 'casting' a spell, your character will type on an imaginary computer until the fancy green grid (shown above) appears. Then a virus will infect your enemy, causing whatever type of damage your spell is supposed to do. (While typing on your invisible computer, your character will look like he is flailing his arms, because he is afraid of spiders.)

I expected to find a lot of players with names like Neojunior and Tr1nitygirl, but that proved impossible, because there was never anyone on. Once in a while you see a flash of what you think is another player, but when you chase it around the corner, you see that it was nothing.

One time I saw a pretty big group of high level players, and every single one of them looked the same. They all had matching long black coats, black pants, and black sunglasses. If their names weren't hovering over their heads, I'm confident they would have had no idea who was who.

Missions are pretty standard; Run to building, click on person in building, kill someone, win mission. It probably gets a little more difficult later in the game, but I highly doubt it.

The only spot I had lag was when i was running around in the city. I would be lag free until a car would drive by on the street. For some reason, cars cause massive lag to all players around them. This made traveling very difficult and tiring.

In case I hadn't made it painfully obvious already, this game sucked. The idea of paying monthly for a game where the cars cause lag and the buildings dissapear if you look at them the wrong way blows my mind.

Next week, Pasquale vs World of Warcraft.

An MMO, by any other name...

Yowzers.

Too much crap going on, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and devote hours to FF. Hopefully that changes next week, as I would like to hit 75 before I die of old age at 28. (Long story, don't ask.)

In order to spice things up a bit, I gave three other MMOs a 'trial run' the last few weeks. I picked MMOs that can be played in small intervals, because if I had ever had hours of free time, I would have played FFXI.

Starting tomorrow, I will review the first MMO I tried, The Matrix Online. On Tuesday, I will review World of Warcraft, and on Friday of next week, I will review City of Heroes.

After my CoH review, I'll be back with FFXI stories, hopefully involving more level-ing and less crying.

I was rummaging through old LiveJournal posts (rummaging, as if they were tangible /sigh) and I found a post about what may be my favorite FFXI moment. It was a brief conversation I had while arguing with someone in my party. I can't remember if I posted it on my blog here or not, so here it is:

Player: "Dude shut up or I'm totally gonna fuck my hot mom"
Pasquale: "Um... tell her I said hello?"
Player: "Oh, I will."

There was a long pause here. No one in the party said anything.

Player: "YOURE MOM NOT MY MOM. YOURE MOM NOT MY MOM!"
Pasquale: "Whatever, Oedipus."

----
Back tomorrow with "Pasquale -vs- The Matrix Online.

Take THAT, To-Do List!

Two days ago, I started to assemble a team to give Fenrir another go. I had tried twice in the past, but both times ended in failure. We met in Windurst and headed out.

After a bit of running, we made it to the tower.


We ran down some hallways.


Ran through a cave.


Ran up some stairs.


I took this picture thinking it was going to be a good group shot. Now I realize I'm totally blocked by Roadkill. My photography fails.


I had to sneak/invis, because everything here wanted me to die. That Rotten Sod had a mean look on his face. He was thirsty for blood.


Sure enough, seconds later, we had to kill him.


When we got to the Fountain, our tank disconnected. I pretty much had a heart attack that lasted the ten minutes he was gone.


He came back and it was killin' time. Here's a shot of me not helping.


Here's another great action shot of me.


Roadkill died, but shortly after, Fenrir suffered a similar fate.


After I got Fenrir, the first thing I did was walk outside Windurst to use my 2-hour on a Tiny Mandragora. 1036 dmg. Take that, baby plant.


Thanks to Neyla, Darklion, Aserati, Roadkill, and Ishadow for making this possible. You guys mauled Fenrir like a bunch of bears mauling ...whatever bears maul. Campers perhaps, maybe forrest rangers. (Except Aserati. His mauling was really the opposite of mauling, as he kept everyone healed and breathing throughout the fight.)

I'm currently sitting and waiting for Spiny to spawn. I want to introduce him to my new friend.