Welp, busy weekend. Didn't have as much time to play (as usuall) but got a lot accomplished anyway.

Started out the weekend doing the 3-1 mission. Began by visitting Heaven's Tower. I got a chance to go behind the guarded door, and saw some cool things. The mission took me to Castle Oztroja which was full of nasty stuff. I used prism poweder and silent oil and avoided most of the nasties until the very end when they wore off and I got aggroed by a crawler. Soon everything linked to me and I trained a nasty set of beasties back to the exit where a couple of groups were resting. Felt bad about that, but no one died (AFAIK ;-)

I also did the Ranger quest (because it was so easy). I went to Sauromugue Champaign and watched an Old Sabertooth die of natural causes. I then collected the fang of the beast and obtained my Ranger's Necklace and the ability to become a Ranger. On my way back to town, I encountered some nasty beasts.

To try out Ranger I headed to San d'Oria where I could take on things like worms (which I can run away from if it gets heavy). Here I am as a Ranger. Here I am firing an arrow. I must saw I really love the Ranger's Wide Scan ability, but otherwise I'm not as impressed as I hoped with it. Perhaps it will turn around at higher levels, but for now it's just way expensive. Before leaving San d'Oria, I zen meditated and practised some levitation... Or found a glitch... whatever... I then warped my ass back to Windy.

There, I needed more money to fund my Ranger job. So I went hunting a certain nasty I had encountered earlier in the weekend. There, I found the Daggerclaw Dracco NM, which aggroed me. I had to use my two-hour to beat it, but I was ultimately victorious. The thing dropped Sonic Knuckles, which go for around 10k on my server. Nice ;-)

Okay, okay... so RNG's wide scan kind of kicks ass. Couple that with scavange you get at level 10, and THF's steal and I can see how the combo is pretty kick ass.

So, I'm more seriously levelling the two jobs up. At the very least I'll be able to use them when I'm farming thinks like Raptors and Daggerclaw Dracos. I spent som money getting new armor and equipment. My armor kind of makes me look fat... oh well.

I then met up with Shariel and we levelled in the canyon for a bit. It was all well and good, and we each made it to at least 9. I then soloed my way to 10 in RNG and 8 in THF.

Here I am putting an arrow in a Yog's face. And this is a pretty shot of the entrance to the canyon. Sometimes it's more useful to take care of spell-casting friends rather than the schmuck who's attacking you ;-)

If you are in Windy on the Pheonix server, check the AH price history for Shortbows. This level 1 ranged weapon normally goes for 500 gil, at most. I had one from when I was levelling my THF and RNG. Well, I show up today to find that someone bought my bow for 15,000 gil! What the hell?

Not that I'm arguing, but, why would you do that?

The way I see it there's only a couple of possiblities. 1) They could have made a mistake, but the fact that it was 15,000 gil even instead of something like 15,283 (which would mean they just pressed left accidentally and used ALL their money) leads me to believe that's not the case. They certainly couldn't have misunderstood the item and the price of it (unless they were a moron, total newbies wouldn't have that kind of cash). This means that it must have been 2) on purpose.

Why do it on purpose? I don't know. Money to burn? Trying to reward those levelling RNG (which is very expensive)? Of course, not just RNGs use the bow. Anyway... it's baffling.

Raven's got a really good point. I am levelling up my RNG as well and damnit am I getting frustrated with these lowbies and newbies.

Anyway, I started off the day nicely solo'ing VT worms and getting some great exp. But as soon as I hit the dunes I had nothing but trouble. WHMs that don't heal, WARs that don't voke, and BLMs that attack and nuke. Freaking heal.

Wow, strange weekend.

Started the weekend off in some more slightly dysfunctional parties. Even ones with Dragoons and mentors. But things did pick up a bit.... Until I died.

So I went and choco'd to Jeuno to do... something. Sell stuff, or whatever (I honestly forget ;-) Anyway, I saw a Ballista enroute. It was pretty cool. Here is the Rook. Here it is again. It was Bastok v. Windhurst. Windhurst lost. Darn.

After selling what I needed at the Jeuno AH, I decided to take a death warp back to the dunes so I could continue levelling. I switched back to my RNG, and headed out from Jeuno. Here I am heading to Sauromugue Champaign. I was met by some accommodating goblins that were more than willing to help. Before I knew it, I was back in the dunes.

There, I finally found some groups that knew what they were doing!. Look! Fishies! It was refreshing to be back in groups that had a clue. And we were doing really well fighting Snippers. Until we met that one ubder Snipper.

Here's a cute bug on a boat. Even though my group did have the occassional WHM who was daft enough to fish in the dunes, I did get some good groups. I even had a nice cooling sit in the ocean. But I did have some decent parties and I levelled RNG to 15.

RNG is really hard work, I think I'll write something about it...

Then I went and tried to level my THF... Ugh... Newbies and idiots. Well, you can't always get good pts, right?

Now this weekend was the way this game is supposed to be played. Pretty much nothing but good groups (and one or two great ones) and good times.

Started out, sitting and waiting in the dunes for no group. Eventually I gave up and went cave crawling. Found a kick butt Mine Scorpion that I dispatched post haste. I also went farming mobs and met up with a lovely lightning elemental or two. Even fought Mr. Tremor Ram. I then went back to the dunes and sat on the beach some more.

Was in some not great but okay parties at first. Here I am with a good Japanese buddy named 'Tora'. We were waiting for our comrades to arrive from La Theine. When they did we had a decent enough time.

Ahh, but then me boyos, I did get into the first really kick-ass party of the weekend. This was my first great party since Kazham, so I was quite stoked. It consisted of Vanyard, Ryanito, Lowbaud, Jascao, Linkz and Heinsae. We went up a few levels together, and even got someone in our group all three subjob quest items. The group was rockin, and we even witnessed someone take down a Valkurm Emperor (no drop).

I then met up with another kick-ass group that went to Sauromugue Champaign and fought some Diving Beetles. These were mean little nasties and thank goodness I was a Galka because as a Ranger, I couldn't keep the hate off me. We ultimately got everyone in our group to level 21 before I ran out of arrows and had to bow out.

Now I'm a bit stuck though. I have 173 gil, so I can't afford another few stacks of arrows or armor upgrades. I can't afford anything other than one choco ride out of Jueno. I'm pretty much broke. So, I'm going to have to spend the next week or two just levelling up my tradeskills and hunting NMs for cash.

While I appreciate that the requirement that people can't play during maintenance will solve many of the update problems they've had in the past.... it still means that I wont be able to play today... Curses...

So, I'll use the opportunity to update my diary here....

First things first, I decided to level up WHM to 7. The logic behind this is that, if I ever need it, I'll have the basics of a WHM- namely Cure I, Dia, Protect, and Poisona. Sure, it'd be nice to have Cure II et al, but for the basics this is fine. I also did this because I had a friend joining soon and I wanted to be able to give him a tiny bit of PL support while he first started out ;-)

So, I bough a cheap-ass coat and staff, and headed out as WHM1/BLM1 (recall, my BLM is 9). Looky! I ain't wearin' no pants! I then Dia'd some poor bunnies into oblivion.... Poor bunnies...

Soon, my friend did show up. It's Justin "Raptor" Lebreck, and his character in FFXI is a Mithra THF named Meretrix. Stupid sexy Flanders!

Anyway, I did head out and, with MNK30/WHM7, I powerlevelled Meretrix and Valsery (working on his sub) to 8.

Of course... now I have to deal with the disturbing fact that I find the avatars of one of my good friends sexy.