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. Patience isn't the name of the game. It's bugging the crap out of any and everyone till they listen. You HAVE to meet people to play this game. Therefore waiting around for parties won't cut it. You HAVE to get into multiple linkshells. Add anyone that seems remotely sane (and speaks english... or is a good auto translater) onto your friends list. The game is stuck right now. There's a ton of vets and not nearly enough new people to keep low level areas populated. My name is Miiyo on the same server. Hit me up and I can get you some ls's and i can help ya anytime i'm free
ReplyDeleteHi. I'm Aldric from the Midgardsormr FFXI server. Due to a decision from Square Enix that I'm not all that happy about, I'm about to be on your server (Quetz). Anyway...
ReplyDeleteAmongst other jobs I'm a level 75 Black Mage. I was interested in reading what you said about it being one of the hardest jobs to play solo. In fact, Black Mage is a job that it's very hard to get a party on but it is quite possible and I found it pretty fun soloing. Admittedly you need to get to about level 30 before you can solo but you should be able to get into parties before then really.
I'd avoid doing a summoner burn for now, certainly on your first job, because although it might not technically be classed as cheating, SE have been banning people with new accounts for summoner burning because they assume that the accounts belong to Real Money Traders.
Also, you really should be learning the mechanics of the game properly. Summoner burning is a quick way to get through the Valkurm Dunes levels for experienced players who want to avoid helping newbies learn the basics of the game in the "dunes", but that's exactly what you want to be doing - learning the basics of partying there. There's other patient experienced players who will help you in the dunes, admittedly nowhere near as many people these days as there were years ago but once I'm over on the server (next week sometime I think) I'll be happy to help you out. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my name, but either way I'll look you up.
FFXI can be frustrating and does require patience (especially in the more mature stages of the game) but I think in the long term you'll like it. It's more challenging and therefore more rewarding than WoW and many other MMORPGs and it has a great story line and some really nice people. So stick with it!
Hope to see you on Quetz soon.
Aldric