We stepped aboard the magnificent C.I.D. prototype airship. Our destination was to find Prishe somewhere amidst the Jeuno armada as we made our way to meet Bahamut. Hardy adventurers stood by my side, comrades in arms through many battles, and I felt safer because of them.
Barely had we set off into the sky before we realized it was not to be a carefree ride. That treacherous Nag'molada had brought out his mammet puppets to slow us down while he dealt with Prishe on another airship. Lordstorm courageously drew their attention and kept the rest of us safe as Zadine, Zephiris, and Miur engaged one after the other on more favorable terms. Verrick and I stayed out of the fighting ourselves, knowing we were needed to keep everyone up and healthy. we made short work of the mammets, and advanced to the next ship.
This one was not so easy. Nag'molada sent a strange biotechnological weapon against us, the likes of which I had not seen before. We were determined to see our way through any foe, however alien it may be, and rushed into battle with Omega. This fight was not so clean. It released wave after wave of energy, rolling over each and every one of us, fatiguing even those of us in the back, furthest away from it. Lordstorm, bearing the brunt of Omega's attacks, was the first to fall and I did not last long after that. In quick order, Omega tore through our defenses and dropped each of us. Luckily, I had prepared for such an occurrence, and had a ward to bring me back so that I might do the same for my party members. Miur had fallen too close to the feet of the monster, meaning he could not rise until we all had unweakened from our knockouts. We regrouped, charged back in to face Omega, and this time it could not stand against us.
We waited a few moments on the cleared deck of the airship, restrengthening ourselves and reviving Miur, the last to rise. We had one more grim task ahead of us, as we saw another alien weapon awaiting us on the final airship.
Ultima was brutal. It dropped bomb after bomb on us, enfeebling us with effects even as it damaged and wore us down. Our hearts were strong, and we stood again its fury for many minutes. Then, a slip occurred. I went down to a knee to rest, just as Ultima targeted Lordstorm. By the time I was standing again with a spell forming on my lips, it was too late, our paladin had fallen. My heart sank as I felt my delay had just sealed our fate against this one.
Verrick was not so quick to quit. A cry for "Pump it!" went out, and Zephiris managed to stall the next attack headed towards us. I went to work bringing Lordstorm back to his feet. The moment he arose, I saw another deadly attack coming towards us. I scrambled through my pack, and barley managed to get my CCB Polymer Pump out in time to stun Ultima's next attack, which certainly would have killed us all.
The battle grew desperate, and our fighters had to dig deep within themselves to find the strength we needed to survive through this. Lordstorm, weakened and barely conscious from his recent fall, drew Ultima's hate and used the protection of a paladin to deflect all blows. Zadine focused his spirit into his fists, and they became a blur as they slammed into Ultima again and again. Miur positioned himself perfectly for an unexpected attack, and quickly, Ultima began looking as hagard as we were. Verrick chained spell after spell in his attempt to bring the monster down before it could recover and front another attack.
Suddenly, we were out of resources. Zadine grew tired and his fists began to slow. Lordstorm's protection had worn off, and was vulnerable once again. Zephiris had lost her wyvern, and was fighting solely with her polearm. Miur was no longer in an optimal position for a damaging attack. Verrick's spells slowed, and I was near the end of my magic pool. Ultima may have sensed this as well, because it readied one last bomb to drop on us. Zephiris quickly advanced with a five thrusted attack, and Lordstorm charged forward with his shield in hand the bash the monster's concentration, stunning the attack.
Perhaps that shield held an enchantment unknown to us. Perhaps the weakened spirit of the paladin surged forth as it connected with Ultima. Perhaps we had simply worn down the unnatural beast so far that one simple stun was what it needed to realize its wounds and succumb to them. I do not know. At that moment, it was over. We stood bloody, battered, and bruised, but still we stood while our enemies did not.
Nag'molada would not be drawn into battle, and instead taunted the Wyrm King and fled. Bahamut exchanged words with us, then prepared to charge a Mega Flare that would wipe us out. In our state, we had no chance of stopping him. Tenzen stepped forward, and used the power of the Phoenix Blade to shield us from the blast. Even with the power of a terrestrial avatar, our airship was crippled from the mighty energies and we crashed into Lufaise Meadows. Our flight was short, having only lasted forty minutes and ten seconds, and we were still on the Tavnazian Archipelego. Despite the distance traveled in miles, we each knew we had come a long way in that short time as we banded together on the grass as we had on the deck of the flying ship.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fan Fest 2oo8
What a blast this weekend has been. It all started out with catching the Alla admins arriving in Los Angeles at The Renaissance Hotel, the destination of this year’s Fan Fest. Once the whirlwind of attaching faces to screen names began, it gripped me tightly until the final goodbyes on Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Walking into the hotel, I immediately ran into Thayos, Vlorsutes, and Drakknor in the lobby. We met up with Pikko and Susperia on the second floor, where I was told that the extra ticket they held could not be transferred to my name. I was a little sad, but half expected this, so I was determined to make the best out of the afternoon that I had with them.
We ate at California Pizza Kitchen on Hollywood and Highland. As many times as I have walked in front of the shopping mall, I had never actually been inside it yet, and it was quite impressive. MTV had a store there, where they sold paraphenalia branded with their logo (though it all looked more at home in the 80s with their classic designs and color schemes) and omnipresent Rock Band 2 merchandise. They even had three “stages” setup for anyone to walk up and try some songs out. While I was able to play both bass and guitar, the epicness began when Usagichan took the mic and belted out Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”. I was photographing, and only casually noticed Pikko was filming with her camera. The next morning, that video was on Alla’s front page.
After rocking out, I got a chance to play tourist myself for a few minutes. I took Thayos out to Hollywood Boulevard, and we were searching for stars for him to snap pictures of. He found a suitable choice when he spied Harrison Ford’s star in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater and the Virgin Megastore. He is a slight Indiana Jones fan, I have come to understand. Sadly, this was all the time that I had, and I needed to leave to get to work that night, so I left Hollywood thinking I would not see any of them again.
Epic win occurred just a few hours later. Pikko and Susperia had successfully lobbied to let me use the extra ticket! Talk about an R/Ex drop! I was so excited that I would get to see everyone again.
I started out for Renaissance Hotel and fan Fest early the next morning (well, early for me anyway), but sadly missed the opening ceremonies due to excessive car accidents on the freeway. Really, someone should screen people’s Chocobo licenses more often. I managed to arrive just before lunch time, and hung around with the Alla admins again in the Premier Site room.
The first sight I got to take in was the Fan Art Contest room. They hung up entries drawn by the fans on boards, giving it a sort of miniature art gallery feeling. Many were hand drawn, some were computer generated, and others were a combination of the two. The styles ranged from mangaesque to muralistic large pieces, and even a few monochromatic olde worldy pictures. I was pleased with many of the submissions and jealous at the same time. In glass cases were the “crafted” entries, being statues, repurposed children’s toys, plushies, and even a box of food. There were many that were impressive, but we only had the option to pick one drawing and one crafted item for the winner.
Lunch at the hotel was free and better than I expected from a buffet. It was probably the healthiest meal eaten by many that weekend. Did I mention it was free? That was nice as well.
After the first lunch group was done, it seemed a good time to get into the line to try out the upcoming Moblin Mazes content. We were setup with a party of six premade characters to choose from (I got stuck as a galka monk) and entered into a zone that looked much like Maze of Shakrahami. Our mob was a water elemental, so I felt pretty much worthless against it, but it was not terribly difficult. After the battle (which lasted 5~ minutes) we opened a chest which netted us 960 moblin marbles (probably a new form of assault/conquest/imperial/allied/zeni currency as nothing appeared in our inventory for them), but no items dropped. We still had a few minutes before the next group came in, so I tried talking to all the goblins in the shop to see if any displayed any sort of rewards or loot. No such luck though.
After the Moblin Mazes preview, we lined up for a chance at the Swarm special event. A fellow Garudian mistook Susperia for Pikko, so we began teasing her about it. The Alla people wandered off, leaving Susperia, Pachi, and I grouping with three strangers. The event was not all I hoped it would be. We stood around in the Silvermines, and one mob every second dropped from the ceiling. Most of them could be one-shotted (I was a hume war/nin wielding a greataxe, but no ninja tools >.<), and we received points on how hard the mob was. It was less of a coordinated event, and more of just a total zerg against the beasts, with every character for themselves. At the end of five minutes, our points were tallied and we were ranked in order of our scores. It seemed a pleasant diversion, but not something that I was overly thrilled about. It was interesting to note that the Swarm room included controllers for us to use while we played, but no ninja tools, while the Moblin Mazes room had ninja tools, but no controllers.
Just as we exited the Swarm room, we heard that Scott from VG Cats was signing and sketching upstairs in the Premier Site room. Vlor, Thay, Pikko, and Usagi stayed downstairs in the main conference room, updating the Alla site and ensuring good seats for the Dev Meeting, while the rest of us lined up for sketches. I managed to complete my Tarut Card set in line, I got a personalized mithra drawing of my character in starter RSE, and then had to hurry downstairs, as we were already twenty minutes late for the Developer’s Talk.
I walked in right as they began to announce the new Scholar merits (YAY!). While my SCH is still a little low to be meriting just yet, I am getting close and am glad to see that S-E are not letting the new jobs go idle without endgame potential the way the ToAU ones were for a long time. My eyes popped out when I saw the SCH relic armor though. It made me want to start Dynamis runs finally. I am so excited to relvl SCH again so I can finally hit 75 and start trying it out in different battles.
They announced more relics and merits for Dancer, but since I have never played DNC it did not mean much to me. It really seems like S-E are putting it in a more frontline position, with the possibility of making it a new tank. Of course, I am not sure how many people are willing to tank with it yet, but one can still hold out hope that a job with native enmity generating moves will find the occasion to step up to the task. The relic armor looks rather nice as well.
The Devs went on to talk about their measures against the RMTs. They started off with a video called “STF Wars”, where the screen scrolled with all the names and servers of the people banned in the last year. It went on for about two minutes, and needed to be sped up or else it may have been over ten minutes long. It was good news and a welcome sight for legitimate players everywhere. The majority of their plan seems to involve a form of catch and release; waiting until the gilseller is close to reaching an objective, then banning that account and all their mules. The most amusing part was the repeated catch phrase that ended each hypothetical scenario, a quick summary of events all leading to “LIFELONG REGRET!”
This was followed by the costume contest. They brought out all the cosplayers on stage, let the S-E judges pick their ten favorites, and then let the audience decide who the winners would be. The top three finalists all had amazing outfits: one guy wore a pinkish octopus mask and the robes/staff of a soul flayer, a gal wore the green SMN complete with plush Carbuncle and a SMN horn, and the winner was a most impressive BLM in full Morrigan’s Set, with a Pluto Staff and even elvaan ears (I had to get close to notice these even).
The awards ceremony came next, with all the entries for the fan art contest announced. Sadly, only the one of the three finalists for the drawing category showed up to accept their award, so we never got to meet the original artist. The developers picked an entry submitted from my favorite FFXI webcomic, LVLUP!, as the developer’s choice winner. At least two of the three winners for the crafting contest showed up. Pikko won second place with her Mandy Bento dish (which she humorously stated “I made it this morning” when the emcee asked her how she created it), and the first place winner was an impressive statue of a chocobo raising its babies. More awards followed, such as first to register, last to register, farthest traveled, least distance traveled. They followed up the awards ceremony with a stirring performance from The Star Onion’s keyboard player, Kumi Tanioka. She ended the set off with her “last song”, “Ragnarok” from the Alexander fight at the end of the Aht Urghan storyline mission. That was an experience for me, as that is my favorite song in the game. She came out and did a few encore songs after a brief Q&A through a translator, and then the events were over, which gave more time for socializing and Moblin Maze runs! I took a picture with Kumi Tanioka as well, as the crowds were dispersing off to their rooms.
We ended the night much as we had the night before, at the Rock Band 2 store and in CPK again. This time, it was my turn to get candidly taped while singing AFI’s “Girl’s Not Grey”. We had Darkdoom along with us, and retired back to the hotel, to attend a party held in the FFXI Vault player’s rooms, until I finally had to leave before the parking lot I was staying in closed, I got towed, and stranded in Hollywood. I ran into the developers wearing party hats and masks in the elevator, carrying a birthday cake to someone’s room. It was a funny sight to end the night.
Walking into the hotel, I immediately ran into Thayos, Vlorsutes, and Drakknor in the lobby. We met up with Pikko and Susperia on the second floor, where I was told that the extra ticket they held could not be transferred to my name. I was a little sad, but half expected this, so I was determined to make the best out of the afternoon that I had with them.
We ate at California Pizza Kitchen on Hollywood and Highland. As many times as I have walked in front of the shopping mall, I had never actually been inside it yet, and it was quite impressive. MTV had a store there, where they sold paraphenalia branded with their logo (though it all looked more at home in the 80s with their classic designs and color schemes) and omnipresent Rock Band 2 merchandise. They even had three “stages” setup for anyone to walk up and try some songs out. While I was able to play both bass and guitar, the epicness began when Usagichan took the mic and belted out Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”. I was photographing, and only casually noticed Pikko was filming with her camera. The next morning, that video was on Alla’s front page.
After rocking out, I got a chance to play tourist myself for a few minutes. I took Thayos out to Hollywood Boulevard, and we were searching for stars for him to snap pictures of. He found a suitable choice when he spied Harrison Ford’s star in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater and the Virgin Megastore. He is a slight Indiana Jones fan, I have come to understand. Sadly, this was all the time that I had, and I needed to leave to get to work that night, so I left Hollywood thinking I would not see any of them again.
Epic win occurred just a few hours later. Pikko and Susperia had successfully lobbied to let me use the extra ticket! Talk about an R/Ex drop! I was so excited that I would get to see everyone again.
I started out for Renaissance Hotel and fan Fest early the next morning (well, early for me anyway), but sadly missed the opening ceremonies due to excessive car accidents on the freeway. Really, someone should screen people’s Chocobo licenses more often. I managed to arrive just before lunch time, and hung around with the Alla admins again in the Premier Site room.
The first sight I got to take in was the Fan Art Contest room. They hung up entries drawn by the fans on boards, giving it a sort of miniature art gallery feeling. Many were hand drawn, some were computer generated, and others were a combination of the two. The styles ranged from mangaesque to muralistic large pieces, and even a few monochromatic olde worldy pictures. I was pleased with many of the submissions and jealous at the same time. In glass cases were the “crafted” entries, being statues, repurposed children’s toys, plushies, and even a box of food. There were many that were impressive, but we only had the option to pick one drawing and one crafted item for the winner.
Lunch at the hotel was free and better than I expected from a buffet. It was probably the healthiest meal eaten by many that weekend. Did I mention it was free? That was nice as well.
After the first lunch group was done, it seemed a good time to get into the line to try out the upcoming Moblin Mazes content. We were setup with a party of six premade characters to choose from (I got stuck as a galka monk) and entered into a zone that looked much like Maze of Shakrahami. Our mob was a water elemental, so I felt pretty much worthless against it, but it was not terribly difficult. After the battle (which lasted 5~ minutes) we opened a chest which netted us 960 moblin marbles (probably a new form of assault/conquest/imperial/allied/zeni currency as nothing appeared in our inventory for them), but no items dropped. We still had a few minutes before the next group came in, so I tried talking to all the goblins in the shop to see if any displayed any sort of rewards or loot. No such luck though.
After the Moblin Mazes preview, we lined up for a chance at the Swarm special event. A fellow Garudian mistook Susperia for Pikko, so we began teasing her about it. The Alla people wandered off, leaving Susperia, Pachi, and I grouping with three strangers. The event was not all I hoped it would be. We stood around in the Silvermines, and one mob every second dropped from the ceiling. Most of them could be one-shotted (I was a hume war/nin wielding a greataxe, but no ninja tools >.<), and we received points on how hard the mob was. It was less of a coordinated event, and more of just a total zerg against the beasts, with every character for themselves. At the end of five minutes, our points were tallied and we were ranked in order of our scores. It seemed a pleasant diversion, but not something that I was overly thrilled about. It was interesting to note that the Swarm room included controllers for us to use while we played, but no ninja tools, while the Moblin Mazes room had ninja tools, but no controllers.
Just as we exited the Swarm room, we heard that Scott from VG Cats was signing and sketching upstairs in the Premier Site room. Vlor, Thay, Pikko, and Usagi stayed downstairs in the main conference room, updating the Alla site and ensuring good seats for the Dev Meeting, while the rest of us lined up for sketches. I managed to complete my Tarut Card set in line, I got a personalized mithra drawing of my character in starter RSE, and then had to hurry downstairs, as we were already twenty minutes late for the Developer’s Talk.
I walked in right as they began to announce the new Scholar merits (YAY!). While my SCH is still a little low to be meriting just yet, I am getting close and am glad to see that S-E are not letting the new jobs go idle without endgame potential the way the ToAU ones were for a long time. My eyes popped out when I saw the SCH relic armor though. It made me want to start Dynamis runs finally. I am so excited to relvl SCH again so I can finally hit 75 and start trying it out in different battles.
They announced more relics and merits for Dancer, but since I have never played DNC it did not mean much to me. It really seems like S-E are putting it in a more frontline position, with the possibility of making it a new tank. Of course, I am not sure how many people are willing to tank with it yet, but one can still hold out hope that a job with native enmity generating moves will find the occasion to step up to the task. The relic armor looks rather nice as well.
The Devs went on to talk about their measures against the RMTs. They started off with a video called “STF Wars”, where the screen scrolled with all the names and servers of the people banned in the last year. It went on for about two minutes, and needed to be sped up or else it may have been over ten minutes long. It was good news and a welcome sight for legitimate players everywhere. The majority of their plan seems to involve a form of catch and release; waiting until the gilseller is close to reaching an objective, then banning that account and all their mules. The most amusing part was the repeated catch phrase that ended each hypothetical scenario, a quick summary of events all leading to “LIFELONG REGRET!”
This was followed by the costume contest. They brought out all the cosplayers on stage, let the S-E judges pick their ten favorites, and then let the audience decide who the winners would be. The top three finalists all had amazing outfits: one guy wore a pinkish octopus mask and the robes/staff of a soul flayer, a gal wore the green SMN complete with plush Carbuncle and a SMN horn, and the winner was a most impressive BLM in full Morrigan’s Set, with a Pluto Staff and even elvaan ears (I had to get close to notice these even).
The awards ceremony came next, with all the entries for the fan art contest announced. Sadly, only the one of the three finalists for the drawing category showed up to accept their award, so we never got to meet the original artist. The developers picked an entry submitted from my favorite FFXI webcomic, LVLUP!, as the developer’s choice winner. At least two of the three winners for the crafting contest showed up. Pikko won second place with her Mandy Bento dish (which she humorously stated “I made it this morning” when the emcee asked her how she created it), and the first place winner was an impressive statue of a chocobo raising its babies. More awards followed, such as first to register, last to register, farthest traveled, least distance traveled. They followed up the awards ceremony with a stirring performance from The Star Onion’s keyboard player, Kumi Tanioka. She ended the set off with her “last song”, “Ragnarok” from the Alexander fight at the end of the Aht Urghan storyline mission. That was an experience for me, as that is my favorite song in the game. She came out and did a few encore songs after a brief Q&A through a translator, and then the events were over, which gave more time for socializing and Moblin Maze runs! I took a picture with Kumi Tanioka as well, as the crowds were dispersing off to their rooms.
We ended the night much as we had the night before, at the Rock Band 2 store and in CPK again. This time, it was my turn to get candidly taped while singing AFI’s “Girl’s Not Grey”. We had Darkdoom along with us, and retired back to the hotel, to attend a party held in the FFXI Vault player’s rooms, until I finally had to leave before the parking lot I was staying in closed, I got towed, and stranded in Hollywood. I ran into the developers wearing party hats and masks in the elevator, carrying a birthday cake to someone’s room. It was a funny sight to end the night.
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