PlayOnline Registration, and Patience

   So as I mentioned in me previous post, I lost my chance at a Summoner Burn group, because I didn't know the limitations of my trial account. No worries, I am in it for the long run anyways. So this afternoon I made my way to an EB Games near my house, and to my disappointment, apparently they don't carry Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection in Canada. But, what they did have was Final Fantasy XI: Vana'diel Collection 2008, and that came with all the expansions as well, so I didn't mind. It was also $14.98, so you can't really go wrong at that price (I believe here the Ultimate Collection is 25.99). Time to go home and install this thing.

Left: This is what I originally wanted. Has all expansions and mini-expansions. 

Right: What I got. Everything minus mini-expacks.

   Alright, so installation goes well, updates the game in about 20 minutes. Oh right, I still have to upgrade my account. /wrists. This probably is the worst subscription service I have ever dealt with. After discovering what the problem was on the forum, I suppose it's essentially my fault, but they really should make some notification as to what is going on. As I am going through the transfer to regular billing, I go through this new VISA verification process I have never seen before, but I guess it is a good idea. Anyways, lalala, enter in all the information, etc, and....fuck. Expiration date invalid. I forgot I have a new card in the mail as this one expired today, and I have to activate it. I activate the card, enter in the new information, and I get this:

 

   Umm, what? How can I not register my card if they say the clearly take Visa, and from my bank as well. So I try multiple times; same shit. Becoming frustrated, I decide to look on forums to see if anyone else is getting this error. Success! After googling for about 10 minutes, and searching several forums, I find out what the issue is. Apparently, PlayOnline has this invisible timer that will deny any registration attempt after the first one for 30 minutes. Of course, I did enter invalid information, but don't you think they should at least give you some sort of prompt telling you to try again after half an hour has passed? I can see this causing many new players to get annoyed and lose their ambition to even play this game. People encounter difficulty enough when picking up a new game, and from what I've experienced, this isn't a very easy game to pick up on. And now even the registration is difficult. Okay, I've got 30 minutes to kill, my best friend and I just started playing StarCraft again for fun, so we'll play a match of that to pass the time. Let's see if this works now. Yay! Everything is registered, now I just have to reactivate my Content ID Siegrien was on. Done that, now let's get back into Vana'diel on my new official account.

   I'm beginning to see where patience plays a roll in being able to progress in the game. In order to get the level burst from a Summoner Burn group, what do you need? A party. I have had my party flag up for about...maybe two hours now, and still no tells from anyone asking for a Level Sync designee. As much as I want to wait, I can't help but say I am beginning to get a little impatient. But there are other things to do, I haven't really seen anything in Bastok besides Bastok Markets, let's take a look around town shall we? I decide to go North of Bastok Markets to Port Bastok. I look around, and think to myself, if this is a port, then why are there not any ships here? Then as I am just looking through my inventory, I see one of the sickest things ever. An airship! I remember these things from Final Fantasy VII! Too bad I can't ride on it apparently, I need a pass or something from what one of the NPCs told me.

   So it's been two and a half hours now since I threw up my Party Flag, and still nothing. Nightshade isn't on either today (he's normally on, guess he is busy; we all have our lives outside of video games), so no help getting a party from the people he knows. So, no luck tonight, my friend wants to play a few matches of SC anyways, so I guess I'm gonna call it a night. However, for any new players like myself trying to find out information on anything about the game, I have found some links that may be of use to you.

FFXIcylopedia (Wiki) - This site is pretty sweet. It has general information on pretty much everything you need to know, from a rundown on the role and functionality of each Job, charts for the skill levels you learn a new weapon skill at, charts of what level you can learn new scrolls at, as well as Job Traits and such. Awesome site to learn a bunch of new stuff from.

FFXI Allakhazam - Use this site to find any guides for quests or missions in your nation, from what I have heard, the missions are essential to the storyline progression of the game. I will be covering Bastok's early missions in my next post as well. I believe this site also has a listing of every weapon and armor in the game too, as well as mob/zone listing.

   Thanks for reading Vana'diel!

Hello Vana'diel!

  Ok so, I have been playing for a few days now. I believe I started on the 12th of this month? Anyways, let's see what I have done. As I mentioned in the previous post, I created my Hume, Siegrien, and I chose the job...Black Mage. I figured this would be a decent job for me, as I realize this game is very slow-paced compared to other MMO's out there, and I thought having a bunch of spells to cast from would be something to keep me interested during a fight. Then I see that I have to choose a nation to be a citizen of, and I remember from a friend playing some time ago that San D'Oria had some annoying bagpipe music I believe? Bagpipes are not my friend. Windurst seemed to look pretty cool, very lively and green, but I wasn't convinced. You probably already know I picked Bastok as my nation. Opening cutscene plays and such, I give in my Adventurer's coupon, get the guard to cast Signet on me (a friend mentioned this years ago, somehow I remembered) and I go straight out to S Gustaberg to fight some monsters. Little did I know this is the worst class for soloing (Yes, I know this is heavily group-oriented game, I am referring to the low levels). So, I become familiarized with the controls and mechanics of the game (I am using a Logitech Dual Action Gamepad, and playing on an HP Laptop) and gain my my first few levels.

  Siegrien, Hume BLM of Bastok

   After killing a slew of Ding Bats, Tunnel Worms, and Huge Hornets, while I am healing, another inhabitant of Vana'diel seems to cross paths with me, however unlike me, this guy is very experienced. I ran into "Nightshade" 75 DNC/35 NIN, also a Hume of Bastok. Aware that I was clearly a new player, he offered to teach me the 101s of this game, how to actually make some money at the start (I completely forgot about having to worry about money, duh), and pretty much told me what my goals should be for now. He also confirmed that I picked the hardest class to level by yourself; something I was beginning to realize >_<". He basically shows me how to use the Auction House (yay an AH, that's something I'm familiar with!), and where Sororo the Scribe's shop is, so I don't waste my money on the overpriced scrolls listed on the AH.

 Just chilling in Bastok Markets. That glare effect on the sun is actually really cool.

   Other than that, Nightshade told me that I should focus on getting my way to level 13, turning on my "Seek Party" flag, and setting my comment to [Summoner] [Burn] [Can I have it?]. First thing I think of is, what in the hell is a Summoner Burn? I remember a friend telling me that at that level you were supposed to go to some place called Valkurm Dunes and get an xp party there. Guess that has been phased out over the years. So he explains to me that it basically means a group of high level players and a bunch of Summoners gather a shitload of mobs in a zone called Korroloka Tunnel, then use the Level Sync feature to sync down to my level, and then use the Summoner's 2 Hour ability called "Astral Flow", and then their summons would AoE the crap out of them, resulting in a gigantic XP burst that would most likely get me from 13-25ish. Oh my god, hell YES I would like a Summoner Burn group! So I grind my ass to 13 (I did this over the span of the weekend, playing a few hours a day, and hit level 13 on the Monday the 15th I believe? I throw up my party flag, stoked as hell that I am going to get this giant powerlevel. So I wait about an hour or so, and a dude messages me asking me to be the sync designee! Aw yeah, time for some sweet xp. Or is it? I make my way to where you get into Korroloka Tunnel, the guy who invited me moves across that gate, and...I can't get through. I ask what is wrong, and he says to just talk to the guard and he will let me through. Nothing. Then he asks me if I have Rise of the Zilart, and I ask him if that is part of the trial. The guy laughs and says sorry, and that I need RoZ to get into Korroloka. Dammit. Guess I am going to have to go buy the game sooner than I thought.

Introduction: My name is Sieg

  Alrighty, first post; a bit late of a post, but oh well XD. So let me explain slightly of what I want to achieve here. I am a big fan of MMO's, they are truly the only genre I enjoy indulging in for hours and hours on end, next to the odd RTS or FPS. Back in around 2002-2003, I used to always go to the net cafe with a few of my friends, and we'd usually play StarCraft, Warcraft III, Diablo II, or Counter-Strike (I believe it was 1.5 back then? Or was 1.6 already out?). Anywho, one day as I walked up to the front to get some food, I saw some dude playing this game that had awesome graphics (for the time), and looked super expansive and epic. This game, my friends, was none other than Lineage II. When I found out what the game was, I asked the guy how to get it, and he gave me all the links I needed to install it and play free on a private server. All of my friends and I got hooked. We played L2 for quite some time, and then we ended up hearing about another great "MMO"RPG that was coming out. This game was Guild Wars (The quotations are there because I didn't consider this game to be an MMO, it was more like an advanced version of D2, everything was instanced). This was a GREAT game during the time it served me. I played an Elementalist/Necromancer to level 20, and beat the original game, however I didn't buy or play any of the following expansions as I had lost interest by the time they rolled around. Then came along Christmas of 05, and walking into EB Games, I made a fatal error that sealed my fate for the next 5 years... Yes FFXI players, I am terribly sorry, I cast my gaze upon World of Warcraft.

   Oh my god. This was the biggest mistake of my life. I played this game so extensively, that looking back on how much I played it makes me want to puke. I made an Undead Rogue, played it to level 60, got full High Warlord gear, and sat with that for quite some time while kicking ass in Molten Core, Onyxia's Lair, Zul Gurub, and Blackwing Lair. Then the first expansion arrives; Burning Crusade. Yes, sadly, I was one of the losers who went to go pick it up at midnight. Played my rogue to level 70, got bored, made a Blood Elf Mage and leveled that to 70, raided and arena'd with my two IRL best friends, and got full Season 1 and Tier 4. Got pissed off at the annoyance of raiding, and quit for awhile, then chose to sell my account. Made 400 bucks off of it, at least there was some redemption. Then a year later, I relapse, buy a new account, and level an Orc Warrior to around level 51, then realize I am a crackhead and I stop playing again. Then Wrath of the Lich King comes out, but I basically think about it, and say fuck it. About 3 months after the release of WotLK, I go into crackmode again. I level my Orc Warrior to 55, then I'm like OMGLOLZ DEATH KNIGHT YAY. So yeah, I get truly sucked back into this game again, and level my DK to 80, my Warrior to 80, a Blood Elf Hunter to 72, an Orc Warlock to 63, a Blood Elf Priest to 40, and most recently, I made an Orc Shaman on Feb 02, and by Feb 10, he was level 80. What. The. Fuck. I went from level 1-80 in the span of a week? I played maybe...five-seven hours a day. Then I start running heroics and I get full tier 9 in two days (not to mention my Death Knight and Warrior both had tier 9 dps and tanking sets). This is ridiculous. I was so unenthused about my progress because this game has been scaled down to cater 12 year olds who don't even know how their class works. This is not an MMO anymore. There is nothing that is rewarding about this game anymore. So, to hell with you World of Warcraft, I will no longer pay for your pampered ass game. So this brings us to where I am now.

   I believe that an MMO had a degree of difficulty in them that made every level you gained, every new piece of equipment, and every little bit of progression, worth all the time you spent trying to achieve that. So I think back on a series that I have been in love with since I played the fourth installment, and became further enamored after I completed the seventh. Final Fantasy XI? I remember almost buying this game back in 2004 for my PS2, but got scared originally by the concept of monthly fees and credit cards. I've always heard it was a very challenging game though so... I'm down. Let's see if this game can relive that worthiness and dedication MMO's are actually capable of. So I download the trial, and I create my Hume, Siegrien. Time to commit; let's see where Vana'diel takes me.