an ffxiv mini-rant.

FFXIV is a double-edged sword for me. I love playing with other people and enjoying social aspects of the game, but, as a new-ish player, everything is just that -- new! I enjoy the excitement of a new boss or mission. However, there are always those in the party who have done said boss or mission multiple times previously, thereby granting them wisdom I simply do not yet possess.

For example, tonight I entered my first Titan battle. A friend I've made on the server offered to help as healer, so we got into the duty fairly quickly. However, I promptly fell off the edge after the second Titan jump. I had no idea one could fall! I felt, predictably, very foolish. Our second wipe was due to us not attacking the heart (I definitely was, so I am not sure if that was actually my fault). The third was because I didn't attack the gaol -- a stone encasement that randomly wraps around a player. It wrapped around our healer (the helpful friend I'd dragged into the fight, yeah). After that one, one of the other party members stepped in to offer some "critiques." At that point, I fully understood what to do, and we did not wipe again -- I just needed a couple of trial runs to make sure I understood it. Honestly, I am not sure how else I am supposed to learn, but I am expected to enter the battle as a new player with utter omniscience.

Many players I know read up on the battles or watch YouTube videos of how to do each fight. To me that seems a bit like cheating and definitely wasteful of my off-game time, plus doesn't it suck some of the fun and surprise out of it? It only took us ~20 mins to complete the Titan fight, even with three wipes. I just don't think it's a huge deal to let new players play through without making them feel silly. Perhaps this game would be a bit more lighthearted with a group of friends who were just messing around and having fun together. /shrug

At any rate, I do have a couple of new friends I've been playing with in-game and I am thankful for that. Hopefully, I will continue to build something of a community and, eventually, I will just reach a level where fun is the only option. Haha -- totally kidding, I know it only gets worse in end-game.

Odin & Thancred & Level 30.

•  I have a crush on Thancred. 
•  I walked into an Odin battle and promptly died. 
• I completed Haukke Manor & Toto Roc with some FC mates. 
• I hit Level 30.

Sprout Begone.

I had the opportunity to spend all of Veteran's Day on my couch playing FFXIV. I did rise for boba tea, fish tacos and a very moderate amount of apartment tidying. I am pleased to announce that I am now a Level 27 PUG and thoroughly ensconced in the MSQ (though I am blocked from continuation until I reach 28). I also discovered, through my FC, that I am actually paying for teleports -- that's not MP expenditure indicated on the tele screen, that's a price! I mean okay, so maybe I wasn't paying close attention and maybe I was wondering where all my quest money was going. But I have tele-ed SO MUCH. I felt like too much of a noob to mention it to my FC people -- all I can say is, it's highly fortuitous that I joined Maelstrom and obtained my company chocobo through copious FATE participation (I named him Torimond, he's amazing) because I am going to have to cut down on the teles.

The point of this post is not to draw attention to my obvious noobishness, but to rejoice in the fact that my noob sprout has been removed in-game. Huzzah! That means I have put at least 40 hours into Osiria at this point.

No more.

Wandering Around Gridania

Osiria: The Span of the Empire

It had been a month now since her return. A month since the wagon had brought her back to the nation she had left behind so abruptly several years before.

However, Osiria now found herself suffocated by the sweltering heat, as well as the constant stream of refugees and consumerism prevalent in Ul'dah.

"This city is hotter than Ifrit's asshole," she cursed.

Sand adhered itself to her sweat dampened fur faster than she could shake it off. However, she still believed her decision to re-commit herself to adventuring in Ul'dah had been the right one. Under the tutelage of Master Harmon, she had acquired the necessary skills to become a pugilist of moderate talent and means.

Osiria had relentlessly fought her way across the dunes, but now the cool ocean air called to her and she considered shucking Ul'dah for the rolling tide of Limsa Lominsa. She left a few necessities with Bash for safekeeping, donned her best knuckles and allowed herself to disappear into the aether.

All Saints' Wake.

Osiria: Return to Eorzea.

Osiria rubbed the grit and sand from her weary eyes. "How much longer?" she wondered to herself, cursing the blinding desert sun. Leave it to the Ul'dahns to ferry people about in sweltering caravans. "As if some of us aren't covered in fur," Osiria mentally added.

Had it really been three years since she last set her eyes on the iron gates of Ul'dah? The same rhetorical question kept bubbling up into her consciousness, along with a compilation of emotions, primarily composed of nervousness.

Osiria had deserted both her adventurer status as an archer in Gridania and, eventually, forsaken Gridania herself. She inwardly rolled her eyes at the idea of "finding oneself", but unfortunately there was no other way to describe the leave of absence she had taken.

Due to said absence and the subsequent rearrangement of her priorities, Osiria's rank in the Archer's Guild was gone, her friends spread between the three nations only gods knew where, and yet her drive to serve Eorzea remained as great as always. She had returned as soon as she'd heard of Eorzea's plight, how could she not? However, this time Osiria staked her claim in the city of Ul'dah, land of the silver tongued merchants, whose gates she strove to meet that on very day.

Things were different now, Osiria knew. The roads were more dangerous, the people more corrupt and the adventurers more plentiful. In her own mind, Osiria owed a great debt to Ul'dah, for it was there she discovered much about her own inner strength, the special spark that had led her back to Eorzea. She also knew the Pugilist's Guild would be her first stop inside the city.

Osiria nodded silently, as if to agree with her own conviction.

"Woah there!" the driver called. "We've arrived in Ul'dah! Get your gear, and get out! I've got another run to make today."

Osiria required very little additional prompting and, armed with nothing but the clothes on her back, she jumped out of the caravan and into the bleak desert heat. The white sand seemed to cook her the soles of her feet straight through her thin boots as though they were leather skillets.

"First things first," she noted. "A stop at the Adventurer's Guild."