Pulling the Pin

The big news of the day is that Neyla left lolDynamis. He'd gone after Ajs on Tuesday and chewed his ass pretty hard over being docked attendance points for two runs after being told Monday wouldn't count, but Ajs wouldn't set it right. Neyla decided to let it go and leave after he got his stuff. He changed his mind today and just quit altogether. The points thing wasn't the main reason he quit, but it certainly helped.

Instead, he decided to level Bard tonight. When you'd rather be in Valkurm Dunes, you know something's gone sour.

My

Dynamis Lord wades in for some carnage.

time with them is winding down as well, but I'm not quite ready to stop. Unless the bullshit starts stacking too high, I'll run with them through the end of December and then decide if it's worth it to me to keep going. I generally get along with the people and enjoy being in the tank party for the runs, but going until midnight is a serious burden I'm increasingly unwilling to bear. If the urge to return to Dynamis overtakes me in the future, I'll definitely hunt a shell that goes earlier in the day.

We went after Dynamis Lord tonight. Attendance numbers seemed kind of low -- I have to wonder how many people skipped because they got shiny new PS3s today -- and we weren't sure we'd be able to pull it off. My big nightmare was anticipating the dark irony of the Red Mage hat and Beastmaster gloves dropping, since Neyla would've been first in line for them. Instead we got the nifty Thief gloves off the first kill and the Summoner piece midway through.

We seemed to take a long time getting through the zone, but we eventually reached his ramp to his stronghold with an hour remaining on the clock. We killed Ying and Yang, although Taurothar died because he moved out of Curing range while he was tanking.

We didn't kill Dynamis Lord this time. The Red Mages were stun gunning him, but he managed to get off an attack that killed everyone in my alliance except me. There's something funny and sad about seeing everyone go from healthy to red zero while my HP bar is still full. I'd been curing Ikari (MNK/DRK powerhouse) but somehow didn't pull hate. The big guy never came after me.

That ended the run. The White Mages gave everyone Raise III and we left. I teleported out to Bastok to pick up some Bard scrolls for Neyla, who'd managed to get to 20 while I was slogging through the snowy wastes.

In

Brave Blood and Papa Paprika tour Jeuno.

other news, I decided to breed my chocobo with Evildr's so I can have an egg ready as soon as Paprika retires. I set them on the "Jeuno Tour" package, which creates a better chance of inheriting the mother's traits. She's blue, and I'm hoping their chick will be. As much as I love having my own bird to call at a moment's notice, it's not as much fun unless people can look an instantly know it's not a rental.

It only took 53 days for Brave Blood to reach the highest level of Strength and Endurance, which has to be from all the Vomp Carrots she'd been fed. Paprika took a lot longer to get to "Outstanding," and I'd only fed him Gysahl Greens. I'm glad I started growing Vomps for the next generation.

More Sigs

No real adventures today, but I made new sigs for the message boards. They're very much on a "three jobs" theme. Neyla gave me a write-up of what he wanted, so I whipped it together with Model Viewer and Photoshop. His "working the shaft" line for Bard cracks me up a little.





I woke up very early this morning and saw Evildr in the linkshell. One of his mules has a blue female chocobo named "Brave Blood" who hit First Rate strength and endurance. He gave me a card so I can breed her to Paprika.

Split Runs

Today BigKahunas did their first split run. An alliance went off to win the final Apollyon chip they need for an Omega set, while I was part of a six-man team farming coins in Temenos West.

I've

Yovra aggro would be unfortunate.

hated the idea of splitting up the team ever since it was mentioned. I much prefer having a stable group of about 18-20 people who can gather and have fun killing the zone. Now it just seems like actual work, which is the one thing guaranteed to kill my enjoyment of any in-game activity. It doesn't help my mood that it's seemingly geared toward outfitting melees with Homam gear while the Ultima rewards are quietly downplayed.

We made it to the pugil floor, but we were unlucky with chests and didn't get enough time extensions to get the win.

My biggest gripe was the "change" in coin policy. When the split team thing was first outlined weeks ago, it was decided both teams would pool the coins for even distribution at the end of the run. Veresko nixed that today, saying it was a silly idea. I objected, but finally let it slide so we could just get going. I won't be so complacent if it comes up again.

Failure

Elthor,

I bet it would be a decent camp in a few levels.

a former member of the linkshell who came back after years away from the game, put together a party and invited me along on Monk. He was WAR/MNK and planned to tank for us.

With the Crawler's Nest full of gilsellers, we decided to try another camp. The Quicksand Caves were out because Elthor didn't have the Altepa gate crystal. Our Thief suggested Toraimorai Canal, so that's where we went.

It sucked. Hard. We'll just leave it at that.

I got a lot of Guard skillups and managed to burn off an Empress Band charge, but that's really the only good part.

Monster Good Time

Vana'diel has been on the back burner the past few days since I spent Thursday watching Neyla play Gears of War and spent the weekend at my parents' house. I tried to do Dynamis-San d'Oria on their computer, but it kept booting me off and I finally gave up.

Sunday,

Easiest NM camping ever...

safely back in my apartment with a computer that doesn't spasm every five minutes, I farmed my Florid Stone for the "Test Your Mite" ENM with Neyla and helped get a third for Apu. With the escort quest through the Necropolis and the ENM, I'm now 1.3k from having my xp capped on Beastmaster.

I'm going to try the ENM as Monk next weekend, and Cmdrfly suggested I get a pair of Boreas Cesti. I'd camped Kirata for them before without success. There was already someone there when I arrived at the tower and I didn't feel like competing for them. I logged out just inside the tower. I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and saw Kirata strutting around outside, completely unattended. I killed him and got my nifty level-capped weapon.

There was an eight-hour maintenance today, so I didn't do much this morning beyond check Paprika and camp the Auction House for Mary's Horn since Neyla wanted it for his Bard.

Tonight's

The Monster Jackcoat looks spiffy, I don't mind saying.

Dynamis-Bastok run was a mix. The maintenance ran long and we didn't enter the zone until close to 9 p.m., which is sheer hell for those of us who work the next day. Ajs announced at the start he wasn't going to penalize anyone who didn't make it, so Neyla logged off. Then Ajs goes and changes his mind later to say he's giving double attendance points to the people who were there. Neyla went from not being docked any points for the late start to being docked for two runs. Complete bullshit.

I was pissed and objected before and after the run, but I'm not sure how it's going to play out. Someone pointed out there was a reason Cythe called off Dynamis runs that butted into maintenance times, and Ajs responded "I'm not Cythe." He proves that more and more every day.

It wasn't a complete loss, since I got my Monster Jackcoat. I was starting to think it was a myth. I was the only one lotting, which is good since I only bid 84.