Bloodtear Baldurf

Qoon fights Bloodtear Baldurf.

A thread on Quetzalcoatl Daily News asked about our ambitions in the game, and I said one of mine was to take a picture of every notorious monster in the game. I found another one today as I was crossing LaTheine Plateau.

A Lv. 75 ninja named Qoon was fighting an enormous ram named Bloodtear Baldurf while a crowd of a dozen or so players stood and watched in awe. The ninja was doing upwards of 600-650 damage to Bloodtear with every strike, but whittling away its health was very slow going. The ninja barely lost any health during the entire encounter. I took the opportunity to snap the picture while Bloodtear was distracted. It was probably ten minutes before Bloodtear fell dead to the ground.

Unfortunately, Qoon didn't get the shield Bloodtear sometimes drops. Still, it was impressive to see. That, coupled with my detour to give someone a Raise, made the trip across the plateau worthwhile.

I let Kristofer play until just before the one-hour server maintenance began. I watched part of Survivor and surfed some sites until I could log in again. Quieren was getting ready to level his Thief skills, so I switched over to Thief and two two of us ran around West Ronfaure killing rabbits, carrion worms, sheep and orcs. Each of us leveled, but then we decided we'd take turns power-leveling each other later.

I'm Hunting Wabbits!

All the bunnies have to die.

I only played about thirty minutes this evening (I pretty much give Wednesday to Kristofer to play Demone), but I decided to try the train farming technique Falseprophet demonstrated. I wandered out into West Ronfaure and starting using Dia on all the little bunnies running around outside. When I had six or seven, I stopped and cast Waterga and killed all of them in one shot. Then I did it again. I had half a stack of rabbit hides (a stack sells for $1,500 at the auction house) before I decided to quit.

This is going to change the way I raise gil. I'm going to level my Thief skills to 15 so I can get the Treasure Hunter ability (it increases the rate and quality of item drops) and then sub it so my Black Mage can be a farming powerhouse once it hits Lv. 30.

My entire style of play is going to change soon at any rate. Kristofer is planning to order a new computer in the next few weeks, which means we'll be able to play at the same time. I fell into this gaming schedule where I let him play a few nights and I play the others, and I'd usually end up fishing for an hour or so after he went home because that's all I really had time for. When K has his own rig, I know I'll be on more often and I'll be leveling like mad and doing all that stuff I'll suddenly have more time to do.

And it'll be nice to have him as an in-game partner on some of this stuff. I'll also be able to escort him and help him with stuff instead of just sitting on the bed and offering advice as a spectator. I'm a big fan of cooperative gameplay, and Final Fantasy XI is a game which requires it.

Mob Train

Falseprophet is about to kill a bunch of monsters.

The mission I've been avoiding is called "A Testing Time." It involves taking an enchanted doll out to Tahrongi Canyon and letting it record information about my kills. It's a timed mission in which I have to kill 30 monsters within one hour. I had hoped to recruit a couple melee players to help me out. Even though everything in the canyon is pretty weak, I wasn't sure how I could kill 30 without a lot of downtime to rest MP.

I needn't have worried. One of the linkshell members, Falseprophet, is a black mage near Lv. 40. He met me out there and then started training mobs. It's something I've heard of but had never seen in action. He ran up to a monster, cast a low-level Dia spell to get its attention so it would chase him, and then ran to the next monster and did the same. Eventually, he had ten crawlers, crows, goblins and mandies chasing him around the canyon and taking swipes at him. Then he cast Blizzaga and killed all of them at once. It looked like monster Jonestown.

I'm going to start practicing that move. It would certainly make crawler farming more efficient.

Since I only threw out one or two spells the entire time, I only got credit for 15 kills and failed the mission. Since it was a mission I wanted to skip in the first place, I considered myself a winner anyway. The next mission will involve killing a dragon. That is going to be fun.

I Need a Raise!

I now have the power to raise the dead.

I just spent about eight hours playing Final Fantasy XI. My eyes feel like poached eggs and my ass is asleep, and I seriously want to take a nap. But it was a very good day for all of that.

I started playing around 8 a.m., fishing for Bastore Sardines and trying to earn enough gil for a Raise scroll. My goal was to buy the scroll and then head to Quifum to try and get my White Mage skills to Lv. 25, which is the required level to learn Raise and Invisible. When I mentioned this plan to the linkshell, Leeeleee said she'd buy the scrolll for me. "I remember what it was like playing White Mage at that level," she told me when I insisted I could pay. "It's my gift."

I warped back to Jeuno, met Leeeleee, and then headed out to Quifum Island to find a party. It didn't take long, and four of the six members were Japanese. I certainly got a workout in learning the Auto Translate function. When that party disbanded, I found the one I'd stay in the rest of the day.

I died four or five times, saw other party members die, and otherwise had a miserable grind of an afternoon. It wasn't until much later, when we wandered out into Batallia Downs to kill gobins and sabretoothed tigers at one of the entrances to Eldeime Necropolis, that I started seeing real progress. I finally reached Lv. 25 and used my scrolls.

"Raise" is a wonderful spell. I can bring people back to life, and I plan to enjoy the ability. There are white mages who like to hang out in areas like Valkurm Dunes and who go around giving raises for fun. I'll be one of those mages. "Invisible" is nice, too; in concert with "Sneak" and "Deodorize," I can walk in front of monsters without their being able to detect my presence. Hooray.

I hated to leave that party just as it was getting really good, but I needed to stop. Drewtaru, Gummy and Prophecy are awesome players. Drewtaru recognized me from Quetzalcoatl Daily News, and told me I was a good white mage. I hope I get to party with them again.