Face Off

Happy Friday everyone! Jesus Christ it's hot.

Anyways!

The internet was fun back in the early days.

So many new things to explore! And so many things you wish you hadn't seen!

For those of you born too late, or who just didn't give a shit, there was once this website in the darkest corner of the internet called FFXIPlayers.com, wherein people who played could post pictures of themselves.

Finally! A website where you can put a face to that person you've been creeping on ingame!

Now I know what you're asking.

The answer is once during band camp.

But to answer your other question, yes. Your's truly had his picture posted for the whole server to see.

The other day, I was feeling curious and did a little digging on the Google machine. I found a link to something called Wayback Machine Internet Archive and was able to revisit this wonderful site, however incomplete the archive may be.

It was very difficult to navigate using this engine, but I managed to find the point in time when I posted. The picture, however, seemed to be broken and I was unable to find it anywhere else.
(In case you care, the picture was a carefully crafted collage of me with my various guitars that I thought would get me all the bitches)

Dear God, I was such a faggot.

Just reading how I used to type makes me want to go back in time to when my parents first got together and show my soon-to-be dad this post in the hopes he would remove his testicles with a fork.

You can tell I was a game-tard because I used <.<

No one uses <.<

I may have even used it unironically.

No idea why I put Mwahahaha and then explained these were new picture(s). Was that a joke? What's so fucking funny, me? Was I drunk? Probably, but that's still no excuse.

Also, if anyone wants to make a "shout out" to all their friends, please punch them in the dick. I will probably punch myself in the dick later out of spite.

And look at those views! 101! Lordy loo, I was a fucking player back then. 8 comments! Hold on to your ovaries, ladies. Asrail is packing heat.

I also ended it with "The samurai has spoken" because I was a samurai and I spoke, I guess. That must have sounded bad ass to me back then.

I'll go kill myself now.

Heavy Metal

Believe me, guys. I tried crafting in XI.

TRIED.

I wanted to be the best blacksmith in the realm. Working with metals? Fuck yeah.

Maybe I'm retarded, but I just couldn't get the hang of it.

I gathered materials, yes. I gathered crystals, ok. But when it came time to actually craft something, I just had no idea what I was doing.

I looked up the compass. I looked up moon phases. I would face north-by-northwest during a 41% waxing moon. I would sacrifice a chicken to the Allfather. I carefully put all the materials in place and

Son of a fuck.

There goes like, a bajillion Gil.

Nothing made me more pissed than botching a synthesis and losing everything I just collected.

I think the materials themselves were worth more than the item I was trying to make.

Smithing wasn't the only one I tried. I dabbled in all of them, really. I got my cooking skill up to 82 before giving up. Making pastries was brutal, but it stopped being fun when people began undercutting my sushi.

Heartless fuckers.

Seriously, I should make a Friday edition about undercutting. Which I just might do.

Yeah, I'll do that.

FFXIV: The Beginning

Say what you want about FFXIV 1.0

Most likely it will be "It fucking sucked."

Well, yeah. It did fucking suck. But that didn't stop me from playing like there was no tomorrow!

I got the collector's edition pre-order, and you know what that meant! Early access, bitches.

I was playing a week before anyone else. I called in sick that whole week. I didn't give a shit. It was awesome kinda.

Yeah, I know. Everyone thought it was going to be another FFXI. A fun-filled nostalgia trip full of partying in new, beautiful areas.

It turned out to be something different. Too different.

One of the things I always felt was wrong with how XIV 1.0 was put together was the developers were trying to make something completely different than anything else. Even if that meant making it harder on the players.

A very big controversy when XIV first came out was the exp fatigue system. It was quickly scrapped because of the backlash, but if you're curious, this system was basically put in place so you couldn't level one job quickly. The longer you stayed gaining exp on one job, over time, you would gain a penalty until you couldn't gain exp on that job any more and were forced to level up something else until the penalty went away.

There were tons of videos explaining why this was a good thing. Until people realized that you're paying a subscription for a fucking game and you should be able to stay on one job if you damn well chose.

If I'm paying $12.99 a month, which is what the original subscription for XIV 1.0 was, don't penalize me for playing whatever I want however long I want.

Sound retarded?

This is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends.

Remember the retainer market area? If you don't, let me explain.

Unlike the XIV we all know and love today, it started off having no market board. Retainers were still used to sell items, however, when you put an item up for sale, your retainer would go into a separate area full of everyone else's retainers and sit there, waiting for someone to come along and select your specific retainer to buy crap.

At release, there was no searching for items that retainers sold. If you wanted something, you had to go into a separate instanced room and search each individual retainer, hoping to find that hat you're looking for.

You think the developers would have listened to the massive amounts of people wanting a market board, but no. They decided to dress up the dead horse and add a "search function." Why quotations? Because this "function" let you search an item, and it would tell you which retainer had the item for what price. You still had to go to the instanced room and find the retainer. But no fear! They later added a tag command so you could put a star next to the retainer's head that had the item you wanted, making them a little bit easier to spot in the crowded room.

Just what we wanted!

Here's a hypothetical situation for ya'll. Let's say you wanted to start leveling Gladiator. What's the first thing you would do?

If you said "Go outside and start killing shit." You are correct. That is what you would do in 1.0

If killing shit got slow, what then? If you said "Look for FATEs in the area," slap yourself. FATEs didn't exist in 1.0

Think of something else.

If you said "Do Guild Leves," good job. That is what you would have to do to gain enough exp to level up.

So now you're level 16, a good solid level. What then?

If you said "Hop on the duty finder and go to your first dungeon," fuck you. There were no dungeons. Dungeons were added almost at the end of 1.0's lifespan.

So? What do you do now?

If you said "More Leves," good job. Unless you make a random ass party full of strangers, Leves were the only way to level up in 1.0 until dungeons were added way later.

What if you managed to create a party? Well, you better learn placement for your attacks.

You might be saying "But I'm not a Dragoon or a Ninja! What do I have to worry about placement for?" Slap yourself. Dragoon and Ninja did not exist in 1.0 And everyone had to worry about placement. Each attack was directional and lowered the opponent's defense slightly depending on where you struck.

This was kind of important because any monster you would need to fight to gain any decent exp could be between 50 and 99. Yes, there were level 99 monsters, with very high defense, which made the defense break of your attack position necessary.

Combat got you all flustered? Why don't you go try crafting for a bit and cool off?

Just grab your materials and-

What's that? A crafting list?

Hahaha. What do you think this is, a good game or something? There's no crafting list in 1.0

You just have to throw stuff together and hope it makes something maybe. Any crafting abilities you happen to have are in a long vertical list, start scrolling. Also, if you do make something, be sure to write it down. It's not like we're getting a crafting log any time soon.

So, you need materials, but you've searched every retainer in your home city and can't find anything. The next logical step would be to travel to another city, correct? Correct.

Get going. You have a long walk. All the maps are connected into one giant clusterfuck that is almost impossible to navigate. There are still aetheryte points, but don't get used to teleporting around. You can only do that so many times a day before you're forced to walk everywhere.

Yeah, right about now, you're probably saying "Fuck this game." But I played it. It was free to play because it was such a broken piece of shit. I played it right up until they wanted to charge monthly for it then I stopped. I picked it back up at 2.0 after Yoshida fixed everything and I've been playing it ever since.

Of course, there are a few good things I could say about 1.0

Few. Very few.

For one, it did have a great sense of adventure. Everything was completely new. Traveling to other areas and acquiring teleport points was fun in itself. And as always, the landscape was beautiful. Everything felt so alive and I couldn't wait to get home from work and keep playing.

The lodestone was another great idea. They don't do this now, but during 1.0, the lodestone itself kept track of your achievements and uploaded them on your profile. Check this shit out.

Hell yeah. Rigorous training and raw determination. More like Leve grinding forever.

This was a fun touch so you could see what you achieved and when. It's something I wish they would bring back.

Not sure why the pumpkin heads. Always with the fucking pumpkin heads.

Last, and Least

Quick, what's my least favorite place in the game?

If you said "Valkurm Dunes," you're kinda right. Here's half a taco.

The dunes were hell for anyone starting out, and it sucked for that reason. But once you got about level 30 or so, it was a fun place to be. You can go watch everyone die and not get bothered by tunnel bat aggro.

So, yeah, I hate the dunes, but it's not my least favorite place. It was a trick question because I never mentioned this area before. And for good reason: It's fucking horrible.

The place I'm speaking of?

Valley of Sorrows.

With a name that metal, I thought it would be awesome. Maybe something fun to murder or a hat to obtain. But noooo.

Now, Cape Teriggan sucks too, don't get me wrong. Both of these areas look like this:

It's like they took the dunes and wrapped it in perpetual sadness. The dunes at level 10, basically.

But at least Teriggan had stuff to kill. There were bunnies, and goblins, and crabs, and manticores, and shit-stained pants around the manticores. It was an interesting place. Shitty, but interesting.

However, Valley of Sorrows takes this and removes everything interesting about it. From what I remember, there are about 4 raptors and a big bird you can murder. Also an adamantoise NM sometimes, but that's it.

And the area is small. Super fucking tiny.

That's it. I can pee from one end to the other.

What purpose does this place serve? Aside from the San d'Oria mission, there's nothing else to do here that I recall. No beaches, nowhere to hang out that won't make you die inside.

This place lives up to its name. I am overcome with sorrow just from thinking about it. It's what I assume Azkaban prison is like.

I don't even think the monsters actually want to be in this area. They just kinda have to because they can't find the way out.

 And people actually had the audacity to want to party here.

Pride of a Nation

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. If you don't live in the USA, celebrate it anyways. It is a day for remembrance. A day of independence. Pop some fireworks and drink some beers (you know I will).

As we reflect on the history of a fledgling nation who declared its independence. 'Merica.

If you don't live in 'Merica, shame on you.

How could you not want to live in a nation with a gigantic national debt and expensive healthcare?

But also freedom or something. And Walmarts. Lots of Walmarts.

I realize not everyone can pick where they live like in FFXI.

So, I would like to take this time to remember a great man. One who also fought for independence, not just for his own fledgling nation as well, but of all nations, against the tyranny of an evil overlord who sought to take their freedoms by force.

I am of course speaking of Volker, the Champion of Bastok.

It was with his mighty blade that the Shadow Lord was vanquished in the year 864 C.E. during the Battle of Xarcabard.

The Shadow Lord came back years later, but that's beside the point.

This man, this glorious human being from the greatest nation in Vana'diel risked his own life to save a continent under siege. He didn't do it for glory. Or money. Or anything I would do it for.

He did it out of selflessness. The world was in trouble, and he stood up and did something.

His actions put an end to the Crystal War and saved everyone from enslavement. If anything, take this day to remember this great man.

Also, drink beer.

Weekend Update

Hey, guys. Just a little update.

I have two PS2 HDDs with a bunch of screenshots on them from between 2003 and 2012. Trying to figure out a way to  transfer them to PC. It's very difficult to find a way, with the PS2 servers being shut down and all. But I will figure something out. So, just a word of warning, there will be a huge screenshot dump when I get this going.

Thanks for sticking around. Have a great weekend.

The List

Finally Friday, amirite? Time to kick back, grab your favorite beer/learn to drink beer, and enjoy the weekend.

I haven't forgot about your Friday Insider Edition!

Hey, guys! Do ya'll remember Basmarck Bitchlist?

You DO?

Well, end of fucking post then.









































Oh, you're still here? I guess I'll entertain you for now.

For those of you from different servers, or those who just plain don't know, BismarckBitchlist.com was the original Encyclopedia Dramatica.

It was a wonderful place where people from the Bismarck server could come together and share their mutual hate of anything and everything and everyone and everything.

The site was run by players Killuminati, Hoodlum and Rustymetal, three of the biggest known cheaters on the server, and consisted of childish bitching about anything Bismarck-related with the sole intention of stirring up drama.







Classy.

The website was eventually shut down because these swell fellas decided to post GM addresses and personal information, telling people to find them and kill them.


I had the... Privilege, I guess?... Of checking out BBL before it was taken down, and let me tell you...

It was fucking retarded.

There was a thread of player pictures pulled from another website, FFXIplayers.com, with childish comments about them.

A friend of mine, Moonpie, had her picture compared to a screenshot of Gollum from Lord of the Rings by people that probably hadn't even met her ingame.

There was even a thread where people just simply came in and posted "Hey, this person is a bitch. Make the game harder for them." And people would fucking do it without question because retardation runs rampant on Bismarck.

Really, really stupid shit.

We were known as the drama server because of these guys.

Several message boards also consisted of hacks and glitches for XI which are of course, illegal ingame and would result in you getting banned.

And guess what happened to the creator's characters?

Go on, take a wild guess.

If you guessed "they were banned for cheating", nice detective work, Robert Langdon.

From what I heard, they still play XIV and are "not cheating anymore".

We'll see how long that lasts.