The Magnificent Mullet of Eorzea and Other Final Fantasy 14 Things

Look at it. It’s fantastic. Serious business in the front, raging party in the back. It’s a mullet’s mullet.  It’s glorious, a true character creation masterpiece. It goes with everything, it’s durable, and easy to clean. It doesn’t even clip…that much.It begs the question why did I not have this the whole time.  Unfortunately there’s only room for one sumptuous thing on this Roegadyn’s smug mug so the elegant mustache just had to go.

I played a lot of Final Fantasy 14 this past week and over the weekend. It’s probably the most I’ve played in the last few months I’ve been subbed. Me and Jay have been playing pretty regularly at least getting the dungeon roulette done every night. This weekend I had a lot of time on my hands.

In this past week I’ve gotten my dragoon to 50 and got him spiffy new armor. I have 10 more levels to go until max and I feel like I have too many buttons to press already. Learning the combos has been fun and the animations for the skills look awesome. Let’s be honest here, when your last level 50 threw rocks at things for hours outside of dungeons, having some more buttons is a godsend.  I got my level 50 armor and much to my surprise it really doesn’t look terrible on my large character.All the other dragoons I’ve seen have been stick thin characters. Sure I may not look as sleek but I don’t look like dragoon sausage. Now if only my weapon didn’t look so much like a gardening tool.

Kluwes A'llond 11/03/2016 11:17:44

I’ve been trying to help Jay catch up to me in the main scenario which is taking a lot longer than I originally thought. I have to keep finding something else to work on between dungeons while he runs story quests. So I settled on getting my bard up 2 more levels to hit 50 as well. With that came completing the quests for the armor. The other classes had some interesting reasons for getting said armor. Dragoons have to go through 5 trials to prove they are worthy of it, White Mage’s need to get it to wistand the force of the Great one, the Bard’s  boils down to dig up this old man’s clothes and wear them because he deemed you worthy. What an honor. Sadly the hat is not as obnoxious as I thought it’d be but the rest of the set well makes up for it.

Kluwes A'llond 11/03/2016 11:16:10

In an effort to clean out some of my uncompleted quests from my journal I finished the level 30 rouge quest. I’ll admit, this was probably a mistake, because the rest of the weekend was spent leveling up my new ninja and thoroughly enjoying it. After playing dragoon, the class feels a bit simpler and with less buttons to manage though I’m sure this will change as I get higher in level.

Finally, I actually installed the expansion and put the key on my account. I’ve had it lying in a drawer for a while now. When I went to open it I actually had to dust it off. I m itching to complete the 2.XX main scenario stuff and get into the expansion which I might go ahead and do if Jay doesn’t catch up soon. Other wise I’m going to end up with yet another level 50 class.

But seriously, this mullet is amazing.

 

 

 

November Gaming Goals Galore!

Kluwes A'llond 10/23/2016 21:20:38

Wow it’s November already. I don’t have anything clever to say about November, it’s a pretty boring month. Ok so I do love a good parade and the majestic event that is the Westminster Dog Show.  Now that it’s November 1st I’m sure everywhere will be switching gears to Christmas everything. Actually I think they’ve already started playing Christmas music, at least the neighbors have.

October Goals Reveiw

I played a lot of Final Fantasy 14 in October. I got my Dragoon to 50, I got my Bard to 50, I got and apartment, and I finally installed Heavensward. Everything else I planned to do in October kind of fell by the wayside. It was a busier time than I thought it’d be. I think I’m about halfway done with Final Fantasy

November Goals

FFXIV

Beat 2.XX content get into 3.XX content

Backlog 

Beat Final Fantasy 1

Play more God Eater Resurrection

Play More Guild Wars

Complete a full run of One Way Heroics

 

Halloween Hijinks

 

Kluwes A'llond 10/24/2016 00:42:48

I love Halloween. It’s one of those holidays that makes me feel like a kid again. Kind of like Christmas but with more candy and monsters. It’s kind of a weird holiday, we pretend to be things we’re not and we send children out to get candy from the neighbors. It’s the only time of the year that people will tell you they bought a pumpkin and that statement isn’t  followed by the words ‘spiced latte’. It’s also during the best part of fall, everything cools down,the leaves look amazing and there’s no snow.

This weekend I did the All Saints Wake event. It’s really easy and takes all of about an hour and a half to get all the seasonal goodies. Goodies that include a snazzy vest, some orchestral rolls, and a minion. The Continental Circus is putting on a Haunted House in Hauke Manor, glad they’re doing something with that place. To make sure the Circus isn’t up to any mischief the Adventure’s Guild sends out an investigator. Of course shenanigans ensue and we’re sent into the haunted house.

Kluwes A'llond 10/24/2016 00:28:44

The 4 person dungeon has you doing all sorts of tasks in the haunted house like collecting cookies and throwing smoke bombs at pumpkins. My personal favorites was finding all the magic circles to stand on and finding the code to open the hidden coffer. I liked these because it forced people to actually interact even if it was just calling out some numbers. All of  this while sneaking past monsters and not being turned into pumpkin.I thought that a cooperative dungeon like this would have been frustrating but all 3 runs went smoothly and everyone was really friendly and helpful.

Other than the actual event activities I loved the decorations Gridania and Huake Manor. Pumpkins everywhere!

Kluwes A'llond 10/22/2016 01:59:21

Other than completing the event I’ve still been leveling up my Dragoon. He’s up to 47 now, almost there. I’m also still working on ranking up with my Grand Company. I like doing the Grand Company hunting log but I’m so glad The Sunken Temple of Quarn is done with. It took me and Jay a while to understand the mechanics to the first boss there but luckily we had a patient group who didn’t mind teaching us. I’m hoping I can get the Dragoon up to level 50 by the end of the week and continue my way through the main scenario.

 

FFXIV: Wait, There’s a Dungeon Here?

Kluwes A'llond 10_02_2016 02_18_25.jpg

This weekend I put some quality time into Final Fantasy 14. It helps that Jay actually resubbed, it’s always been more fun with friends to talk to. Over the course of the weekend I got my Dragoon to level 35 and did the next job quest. What a surprise, I got another jump for my level 35 skill.

As I played most of the main scenario with my White Mage it was really easy to replace questing with queuing for dungeons when my level was too low to continue the story. The ques were short and I wanted to save the quests for my other classes who couldn’t get into dungeons as quickly, unfortunately this led to missing some functionalities of the game including dungeons, logs, and the Golden Saucer.

Halfway through leveling my Dragoon I realized that the quests with the + symbol next to them unlocked something in the game. This has been really helpful in picking which quest I should do right now and which ones I can save until later. This weekend as I was trying to advance my rank in the Maelstrom for an apartment, the Grand Company hunting log stumped me. I was supposed to kill three different monsters in Halatali. After looking at the map, it turned out Halatali was a dungeon and not a region. I assumed I had unlocked all the dungeons up to this point, my White Mage is almost at the end of the 2.0 story but it turns out I missed a couple of them.

So I took to Google in search of a way to unlock this dungeon. It turns out it was a quest in the Waking Sands at it was as simple as running to the dungeon and talking to the guy outside. The dungeons only level 20,  I always thought there was a big gap in between Copperbell Mines (17) and The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak (24). Now I know why, I just missed it by a mile. I also unlocked Dzemael Darkhold, a level 44 dungeon. It’s a good thing I was doing quests in the area or I would have missed this one as well.  After taking a look at a list of dungeons in A Realm Reborn it turns out I’m missing a few more dungeons. Guess I’ll be unlocking those as well this week.

 

 

September Goals in Reveiw

20160904223438_1.jpg

Wow, I got nothing done this month game wise. Like at all. I’m not surprised thought I knew this was going to be a busy month of things in the outside world. I did do a few things I set out to do this month and decided to drop some all together.

FInal Fantasy 14 Goals

✓ Get Dragoon Soul Crystal: Hey I’m a dragoon now and it’s been a hell of a lot of fun poking mobs with sticks for the past couple levels

Get Monk Soul Crystal: Maybe I’ll come back to this some day but I just wasn’t feeling the game play of the pugilist and I’m guessing it doesn’t change a whole lot for Monk.

✓ Decide between Playing monk or Dragoon: Ladies, Gentlemen, this is the final rose tonight. I choose to give it too..Dragoon. Dragoon will be advancing in levels and hopefully getting into Heavensward one day,.

Complete the 2.XX content and get into Heavensward: Hahahahaha….I’m not even close.

Backlog Goals

Defeat the fourth boss in Furi: I think I’m done with this game, it was a lot of fun while it lasted but I’m just not into it anymore.

Get to the next system in No Man’s Sky: You know, the last time I picked up No Man’s Sky was 3 days after it’s release ad for some reason I still don’t regret the purchase.

Complete Unepic: What started out as a great game with a lot of RPG references turned into a mediocre game with too many RPG references. I’m shelving this one fr now and going back to my list of games on deck.

FFXIV-I Want to Be an Interior Designer

With the drop of patch 3.4 in Final Fantasy 14 came the addition of apartments and aquariums. Since I still haven’t gotten past the 2.XX content there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot else to be excited by in this patch for the time being. Unfortunately I can’t even do that. While I do have 1 character at 50 I’m nowhere near the Grand Company Rank to be able to purchase an apartment.

Now I understand why this is the way it is. Once again there are a limited amount of these things to go around so might as well make people work to get them so they’re not all gobbled up quickly. To be honest I haven’t ever been that interested in player housing in MMO’s in the past, I guess I just had other things to do. However, I love player housing in single player games, I played a lot of animal crossing as a kid. But it intrigues me now in FFXIV, especially when a lot of craft-able items are pieces of furniture that I previously had no use for. As for aquariums, it gives me even more of an excuse to spend my time fishing, for some reason I love fishing in game. The list of fish that can be placed is kind of small but there’s always room for improvement.

I guess this will give me another thing to work towards while I continue to level my Dragoon to 50. I’m sure it won’t be that bad, I just hope they’re not all gone by the time I can get one. Though from what it sounds like, if I’m reading the patch notes right, there should be plenty to go around.

 

 

 

Revisiting Guild Wars (The First One)

gw001.jpg

9 and a half years ago I created my Guild Wars account. 9 and a half years, that seems like an awfully long time ago. In those years I managed to put in over 1,500 hours into the game with many of my main character having 230 hours of play time. I don’t think I’ve ever played a single game that long since and probably never will again.

In the past I’ve tried to make it a point to go back every once and a while to open my birthday presents and see which mini pet I would get this year. Apparently it’s ben a long time since I’ve done that because each of my characters had 4 presents waiting to be opened today. It’s crazy to think these characters are old enough to be in the  2nd grade!

Guild Wars was my game in high school. I first came to it after being fed up with being a free player on Runescape and not having the means to become a member. Guild Wars was a physical box I could buy with cash and didn’t have to pay a subscription afterwards so no credit card needed. I loved the world, the classes, the battle system. I loved that max level was 20 and there were hundreds of skills to choose from to make builds. Most of all I loved the fashion, all the armor and weapons was the same stat wise at 20 so everything was viable to wear.

gw003.jpg

Over the years I’ve ran the content to the ground on at least 6 characters. My stable of 10 still has some stragglers that I never quite got around to playing. My assassin was my main with the most hours clocked on him but my favorite class has to be the ritualist. I haven’t played a game since with a class quite like it from the mobile spirit turrets to random jars you can carry around and drop for different effects.

As you can tell I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately about the game. One thing I’ve never done is finish the Prophecies campaign. As soon as I got the Factions expansion and realized how easy it was to fully level a character I never looked back. I even tried to take some Factions and Nightfall characters back to Lion’s Arch to try and finish the campaign but I never got too far.So last night I decided I would try to beat it and if all went well and if I was still enjoying the game I’d revisit the other expansions as well.

So I rolled up a Mesmer, a class I never really got around to playing, and was hit by a wave of nostalgia as I entered the Pre-Searing. With Guild Wars being in Maintenance mode for years now I’m really surprised that there are so many people still running around in Pre-Searing towns, and by so many people I mean like 5. I would of thought it would have been a complete ghost town, surprise surprise. I’ve only done a few quests and run aorund to a few towns. I don’t know if I’ll end up sticking with it but it’s like seeing an old friend again for now and it’s kind of a cool feeling.

FFXIV-Another Dragoon is Born

Kluwes A'llond 09/21/2016 10:27:40
Kluwes A’llond 09/21/2016 10:27:40

I buckled down and actually got the Dragoon Job Crystal this week. Last week I was so excited that my lancer finally hit 30 and I’d be able to move on to the Dragoon life but apparently I hadn’t leveled my Marauder up to 15 yet. Which is weird because I could have sworn  I had every class to at least 15 most of them to 20. So I took up the axe and finished getting all the medals for the Yo-Kai event minions and slowly but surely getting to level 15.

It’s always fun to change job titles. Dragoon just sounds so much better than lancer,and now I can jump around like a mad man. The best part of not being a lancer anymore is that the lancer class story is over. I mean, it wasn’t terrible but compared to some of the other class quests it was a little boring. Just a lot of go show me some courage, courage is super important for a lancer, and this guild is pathetic I’ll give you a real challenge and so on and so forth.

 

The quest to get the Dragoon job crystal doesn’t give me much hope for the Dragoon job quests having a better story. Actually when I completed the quest I was kind of wondering whether i really wanted to be a Dragoon after all. The quest has you gather information about a thief and this thief turns out to a mysterious Black Dragoon who is apparently the best of the best when it comes to Dragooning. I’ not so sure that I want to join an organization who’s best member is a their it seems a little shady….good thing poking monsters with spears is so much fun.

On a side note, Heavensward finally arrived from good ol’ Amazon. It took a little longer than usual but it’s here now. The problem is I want to take the dragoon through it because I feel like a DPS is going to be more fun than a healer to do Main Scenario Quests with. I guess I could always get the last 2 levels on my Bard but I’ve heard not so great things about the job after Wander’s Minuet. Decisions, decisions.

Playing the Waiting Game

Kluwes A'llond 09_02_2016 09_43_49.jpg

I resubed to Final Fantasy 14 last week and ordered a copy of Heavensward from amazon. It’s a little silly that the physical copy of the game is half the price of the digital version. Lately I’ve been Alas, that’s not the case and here I am a week later still waiting for it to arrive.

It’s not that bad though I’ve decided that as much as I like my white mage, I don’t want to take him through the Main Scenario Quests anymore. Throwing rocks at things over and over with the occasional Aereo thrown in is getting old. So I decided I’d like to play a dps class. Now of course I could just take the time to level my Bard to 50 I wanted to try something new and shiny. So this week I’ve been running around learning how to poke things with a stick as a lancer. I actually got him all the way to 30 bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to go on a quest to be a dragoon when suddenly I’m informed that I have not leveled my marauder up to 15. I have every other class to 15 or higher but I guess I forgot about the marauder.

Instead of taking the time to levels into it I decided to try out the pugilist. I’ve been working my way to level 20 with it and I’m not enjoying it as much as the lancer. Though there is something satisfying to punch things to death and if nothing else I really like the class quest story line a lot more than the lancer’s. But the lancer has such flashy animations and for whatever reason I’ve always been partial to classes who have spears as weapons. Either way I want to take both to 30 and get their respective jobs before I make a decision.

Hopefully in the next few says Heavenward will be arriving  and I can at least put it on my account. The jury is still out on when I’m actually going to play it and who I’m going to take through it.

Creature Creator

Screenshot (139)

A few weeks ago my friend Jay decided that he wanted to play Perfect World International. He had heard from someone that it was actually not that bad and that he should get into it. I was surprised the thing was till running but I said I’d download it and check it out with him. All I really knew about Perfect World was how prevalent it’s micro transactions were throughout the game and that it was the epitaph of Pay to Win.What I didn’t know was how great it’s character creator was.

In general, character creators in games leave you with a bunch of options to make strikingly beautiful people with no flaws. Even if your character has a nasty scar running through his face it just looks badass instead of the remnants of a gaping wound. If it lets you choose a body type it’s usually a choice between Large  Musclebound Meathead, Medium I’m in Shirtless Movie Star Shape, or  I run 5 miles a day before breakfast skinny.In a lot of MMO’s I’ve played, even if there are sliders, it’s pretty hard to make something look ugly whether it’s because there are preset faces you choose from or the sliders don’t change anything drastically enough to make you look anything less than perfect.

Screenshot (138)

Of course there are exceptions. I’ve seen some horrifying things people have made in Bethesda games. I also really enjoy the character creator in Dark Souls 2 where I can be a green skinned mustachio’d bandit. And then there’s Perfect World International whose character Creator enables you to make very “unique” characters. After 10 hours of running through the game before we go bored, I never quite saw another character that looked like me. It was actually so much fun making characters that I put another couple of hours into my steam play time just fiddling around with it.

Elder Scrolls Online is another game with an interesting character creator. Unfortunately the face sliders don’t do as much damage as other Elder Scrolls titles but the body sliders are different. If you put them to the maximum or minimum, the character looks pretty unhealthy. I have an Argonian sorcerer with a beer belly who looks like he can hardly jog for more than a minute. I also have an elderly Nord Nightblade who looks like he hasn’t eaten in weeks.

Screenshot (140)

I’ve always played the weirder looking races in games if I can. I If I’m playing in a fantastic realm I don’t want to be a boring old human. I’d much rather play an Asura or a Charr in Guild wars 2, I’d rather be a pink thing with horns or half an orc in Neverwinter, and I’d rather be a sentient talking cow or a space alien in WoW.  But no matter how weird they look , I can’t bring myself to be a lalafell in Final Fantasy 14 so I’ll stick to my giant mountain of muscle.