The Adventures of Deathgnome
Jul. 28th, 2006 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianI feel better. I don't feel well, but I feel better. At least I'm not constantly intermittently hot and cold. Now, if I could just ditch the headache, the slight dizziness, the nausea and the abdominal cramping, life would be good.
The Adventures of Deathgnome
I've been playing this since Monday night, and not all has been well for Satomi Deathgnome. This has something to do with her player being a moron. See, FFXI controls are not the world's most intuitive things, and the little keyboard control cheat sheet thing you get in the disc case is ... difficult to parse when you're not used to it. Therefore, I didn't have a fucking clue how to do the simplest things. Like trade, or pull up a map, or equip a weapon. Which explains why Satomi Deathgnome has 11 in Evade and 13 in Elemental Magic - until last night, she was fighting Bumblebees and Tiny Mandragora (and occasionally Rarabs, once she got past lvl3 in general) armed with little more than her teeny fists and the beginning level BLM spell 'Stone'.
However, some random taru happened to notice that this lvl6 BLM wasn't carrying a weapon, assumed she didn't own one and actually tried to hand me a maple wand without asking for anything in return. Now, I can understand casting Healing and Protection spells on random people for no apparent reason - it's just a little mana, after all, and easily replenishable - but giving someone a weapon, even a low-level one? I asked 'Why?', as you do, and between that and my inability to take him up on his invitation to party (he was either white or red mage, probably white), it came out that I had no idea how to bring up the main menu. So he walked me through that and, while we still didn't party at that point, now I can at least equip things. Weapons! Now I can do 4-6 HP's worth of damage on a hit instead of 1-3.
The other thing I can equip is a fishing rod, and by that time, I could afford something better than that idiotic Willow Rod I was lugging around. After a few false starts, mainly to do with not having any clue how to let go of an overly difficult catch or how to reel something in when its stamina bar was down to nothing, I finally started catching things. In the end, after hours of fishing, I caught one single fish - a lowly sardine. Okay, fine, I also caught three rusty buckets, two pairs of rusty leggings, two copper rings, two lumps of kelp and, oddly, 1 gil, but still, I'd like to catch actual fish. On the other hand, the gil I get for selling all the junk I fish out of Windhurst's waterways is coming in handy. I didn't get much for the sardine, the kelp or the leggings, but the rusty buckets sold for 50 gil apiece. I haven't even tried to sell the copper rings yet.
And I can also use my Moghouse for storage, which means I don't have to go off and sell things just to clear my inventory so I can get more things to sell ad infinitum. So now I can develop crystal stacks instead of just selling them one at a time. It also means I can store items I need to synthesise stuff. I've been meaning to start working on my culinary and crafts skills, but am considering focusing on the fishing first, partly because it's the most boring and I want to get it over with and partly because if I want to do the crafts and cooking, I'm going to need gil. Not wanting to meet [GM]Dave or Jormungand, I'll pass on gilsellers and fishing bots, and do my time killing rarabs for earth crystals and fishing the waterways of Windhurst like everyone else.
But of course, you don't want to hear all this peaceful nonsense about fishing and storage and craftwork, do you? No, this is not what you have come to expect of Deathgnome. You want to hear about Deathgnome living up to her name. So ... on to combat stories!
* So I levelled up to Level 6 and discovered that I could kill some rarabs with one judicious cast of Water. Something with more challenge was required to make best possible use of my wonderful new Blind and Poison spells. So I decided, "It's time" ... and went up against a Crawler. Note on Crawlers for the uninitiated; they look like a cross between a caterpillar and a great horned toad. And, particularly when compared to a Taru, they're huge. I mean it. HUGE. So I decided, "The worst that can happen is that I delevel" and had at it. And I killed it. Keeeeeelled it dead. With a fair bit of HP and MP left over, too. Then I made the mistake of deciding to go after a Carrion Crow without healing up first. I went squish very hard, went back fully healed, and kicked its arse. SQUISH!
* I have got to stop assuming that I'm going to come out of each fight with the same amount of success and HP loss. This sort of thing happened again as I was tromping out to the lake area where the river crabs hang out (I was hoping for water crystals. I did get one eventually). I killed one and had fared quite well so I tried for another one and ended up flat on my face in the mud. Decided not to come back and kick its arse, because there were those goblin thugs around next time I tried.
* Can I mention that I hate those things? I've killed one goblin thug already, but only because it was down to half its HP after having eaten a Taru WHM for breakfast. I got six gil out of that but given how much effort it took me to kill it halfway, I don't want to hit another one of those until at least lvl10. (Four more to go, and I'm rapidly approaching lvl7. Go, me!) The problem is that those miserable fuckers randomly attack you. Doesn't matter if you're healing or whatever; they will start hitting you with ranged weapons and finally wind up killing you. I am looking forward to getting another couple of levels and casting spells of ultimate pain and torture on the fuckers. And I've been doing really well at dodging them lately (or, in one case, running them onto warrior n00bs so they can get mauled by the goblin sonsabitches for awhile) but I do have a Plan B now. If one starts hitting me, I am going to turn around, cast Blind, cast Poison, and run. That way they can't see me and they're incapacitated, and I might escape with my life.
* I was doing the 'lost post' quest, which basically involves slaughtering rarabs and finding lost letters. I'd found two (and keep finding those same two over and over again), but the other two were up in the local canyons. It hadn't even occurred to me that the canyon area, being farther away from the zone in point, would contain much harder monsters. After all, I was just stalking rarabs, who I can kill in a single blow on a good day. Sure, they had proper-sized Mandragoras (rather than just the Tiny ones), but they weren't so hard. So I was a little surprised when a player I passed on my way canyonward investigated me and then immediately started casting Protect II and some other protective thing on me. I thanked them, they said 'np' and we went our separate ways. And then I saw a giant bumblebee and figured, "If those things are to the Bumblebees I've been killing as the Mandragoras are to the Tiny Mandragoras, I should be fine." Ten seconds later, I'm squished, protection spells notwithstanding. Note to self: not completing that quest for a few more levels.
There will be more from the Deathgnome, I'm sure. But for right now, I think that'll do. Tune in next time for more adventures in Vana'diel when we talk about how Deathgnome's player is starting to learn to use those emote shortcuts, and how easy it is to get lost (and bored) in Windhurst, as well as whatever other shit I'll have faced in game.
...I need a Deathgnome icon.
The Adventures of Deathgnome
I've been playing this since Monday night, and not all has been well for Satomi Deathgnome. This has something to do with her player being a moron. See, FFXI controls are not the world's most intuitive things, and the little keyboard control cheat sheet thing you get in the disc case is ... difficult to parse when you're not used to it. Therefore, I didn't have a fucking clue how to do the simplest things. Like trade, or pull up a map, or equip a weapon. Which explains why Satomi Deathgnome has 11 in Evade and 13 in Elemental Magic - until last night, she was fighting Bumblebees and Tiny Mandragora (and occasionally Rarabs, once she got past lvl3 in general) armed with little more than her teeny fists and the beginning level BLM spell 'Stone'.
However, some random taru happened to notice that this lvl6 BLM wasn't carrying a weapon, assumed she didn't own one and actually tried to hand me a maple wand without asking for anything in return. Now, I can understand casting Healing and Protection spells on random people for no apparent reason - it's just a little mana, after all, and easily replenishable - but giving someone a weapon, even a low-level one? I asked 'Why?', as you do, and between that and my inability to take him up on his invitation to party (he was either white or red mage, probably white), it came out that I had no idea how to bring up the main menu. So he walked me through that and, while we still didn't party at that point, now I can at least equip things. Weapons! Now I can do 4-6 HP's worth of damage on a hit instead of 1-3.
The other thing I can equip is a fishing rod, and by that time, I could afford something better than that idiotic Willow Rod I was lugging around. After a few false starts, mainly to do with not having any clue how to let go of an overly difficult catch or how to reel something in when its stamina bar was down to nothing, I finally started catching things. In the end, after hours of fishing, I caught one single fish - a lowly sardine. Okay, fine, I also caught three rusty buckets, two pairs of rusty leggings, two copper rings, two lumps of kelp and, oddly, 1 gil, but still, I'd like to catch actual fish. On the other hand, the gil I get for selling all the junk I fish out of Windhurst's waterways is coming in handy. I didn't get much for the sardine, the kelp or the leggings, but the rusty buckets sold for 50 gil apiece. I haven't even tried to sell the copper rings yet.
And I can also use my Moghouse for storage, which means I don't have to go off and sell things just to clear my inventory so I can get more things to sell ad infinitum. So now I can develop crystal stacks instead of just selling them one at a time. It also means I can store items I need to synthesise stuff. I've been meaning to start working on my culinary and crafts skills, but am considering focusing on the fishing first, partly because it's the most boring and I want to get it over with and partly because if I want to do the crafts and cooking, I'm going to need gil. Not wanting to meet [GM]Dave or Jormungand, I'll pass on gilsellers and fishing bots, and do my time killing rarabs for earth crystals and fishing the waterways of Windhurst like everyone else.
But of course, you don't want to hear all this peaceful nonsense about fishing and storage and craftwork, do you? No, this is not what you have come to expect of Deathgnome. You want to hear about Deathgnome living up to her name. So ... on to combat stories!
* So I levelled up to Level 6 and discovered that I could kill some rarabs with one judicious cast of Water. Something with more challenge was required to make best possible use of my wonderful new Blind and Poison spells. So I decided, "It's time" ... and went up against a Crawler. Note on Crawlers for the uninitiated; they look like a cross between a caterpillar and a great horned toad. And, particularly when compared to a Taru, they're huge. I mean it. HUGE. So I decided, "The worst that can happen is that I delevel" and had at it. And I killed it. Keeeeeelled it dead. With a fair bit of HP and MP left over, too. Then I made the mistake of deciding to go after a Carrion Crow without healing up first. I went squish very hard, went back fully healed, and kicked its arse. SQUISH!
* I have got to stop assuming that I'm going to come out of each fight with the same amount of success and HP loss. This sort of thing happened again as I was tromping out to the lake area where the river crabs hang out (I was hoping for water crystals. I did get one eventually). I killed one and had fared quite well so I tried for another one and ended up flat on my face in the mud. Decided not to come back and kick its arse, because there were those goblin thugs around next time I tried.
* Can I mention that I hate those things? I've killed one goblin thug already, but only because it was down to half its HP after having eaten a Taru WHM for breakfast. I got six gil out of that but given how much effort it took me to kill it halfway, I don't want to hit another one of those until at least lvl10. (Four more to go, and I'm rapidly approaching lvl7. Go, me!) The problem is that those miserable fuckers randomly attack you. Doesn't matter if you're healing or whatever; they will start hitting you with ranged weapons and finally wind up killing you. I am looking forward to getting another couple of levels and casting spells of ultimate pain and torture on the fuckers. And I've been doing really well at dodging them lately (or, in one case, running them onto warrior n00bs so they can get mauled by the goblin sonsabitches for awhile) but I do have a Plan B now. If one starts hitting me, I am going to turn around, cast Blind, cast Poison, and run. That way they can't see me and they're incapacitated, and I might escape with my life.
* I was doing the 'lost post' quest, which basically involves slaughtering rarabs and finding lost letters. I'd found two (and keep finding those same two over and over again), but the other two were up in the local canyons. It hadn't even occurred to me that the canyon area, being farther away from the zone in point, would contain much harder monsters. After all, I was just stalking rarabs, who I can kill in a single blow on a good day. Sure, they had proper-sized Mandragoras (rather than just the Tiny ones), but they weren't so hard. So I was a little surprised when a player I passed on my way canyonward investigated me and then immediately started casting Protect II and some other protective thing on me. I thanked them, they said 'np' and we went our separate ways. And then I saw a giant bumblebee and figured, "If those things are to the Bumblebees I've been killing as the Mandragoras are to the Tiny Mandragoras, I should be fine." Ten seconds later, I'm squished, protection spells notwithstanding. Note to self: not completing that quest for a few more levels.
There will be more from the Deathgnome, I'm sure. But for right now, I think that'll do. Tune in next time for more adventures in Vana'diel when we talk about how Deathgnome's player is starting to learn to use those emote shortcuts, and how easy it is to get lost (and bored) in Windhurst, as well as whatever other shit I'll have faced in game.
...I need a Deathgnome icon.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:05 pm (UTC)