Finally Turquoise

A Stronger Message

Yesterday various things happened, and it left me feeling like I needed to present a slightly stronger message about my feelings regarding issues.  I still stand by my statement earlier in the week that everyone simply needs to be excellent to one another, and that would go a long ways in fixing issues.  Since then some things have happened and I feel like I need to make a blanket statement about a few things.  First off I support equality and diversity in gaming and in pretty much everything else in life.  I tend to think of myself as a Humanist, and I would like to think that I give everyone out there an equal shake.  I believe human beings are infinitely wonderful things, and that we should treat each other with respect.

Similarly I like that gaming is slowly becoming a more inclusive place.  I am almost 40 years old at this point, and I’ve watched gaming come in and out of acceptance several times and I figure with the influx of mobile devices, it isn’t much more different than every family owning an Atari 2600 or a Nintendo Entertainment System.  Gaming has no less meaning today than it did when those events happened.  So I feel like there is room in gaming for anyone who cares to pick up a game and play it.  As such I totally support all sorts of games, even the games that folks have been calling “non-games” like Gone Home an Depression Quest.  I come from an era when games didn’t have graphics, so I don’t see something like Depression Quest being all that different from a text based adventure game like Zork, and without it… and MUDs you all would not have the games that you likely love today.

Finally I feel like this most recent controversy is a deeply confused situation.  I feel like there are most definitely people who in earnest believe that this is a fight about journalistic integrity.  The problem is there is so much *ism being thrown into the discussion by folks supposedly supporting the cause that any sane and cogent discussion gets pushed out.  So far the best run down of the entire issue is in this topic, where someone interviewed a bunch of members of the movement trying to find a thread of commonality.  I highly suggest you give it a read, because I found it informative and coming out of it I have a better understanding of the intent.  The problem is based on a huge informational dump that came out today…  the noble members of this movement apparently were in fact being played by the very same folks they claimed not to support.  It seems as though the woman for whom their outrage started this entire thing, really was a Social Justice Rogue… and I use that term with ultimate respect in what she managed to pull off.

#IStandWithGanondorf

Finally Turquoise

ffxiv 2014-09-05 18-20-18-962 Now that I got my statement out of the way, and feel that I have underlined and bolded my views on the situation.  On to really important things like the fact that I finally… after spending like 60k buying fruit and then growing my own batch and using almost all of it… managed to get to Turquoise.  I have to say it is absolutely glorious to behold, and now I just need to either farm Leviathan for a barb and collect all the mats to get the Tidal Barding crafted… or hope the market prices go down to a place where I can afford to buy it.  It does make me exceedingly happy to scamper about on the mount while grinding FATEs for my atma bits.  At this point I have three more zones left:  Middle La Noscea, East Shroud, and North Shroud.

The method that finally managed to get me there was in fact the spreadsheet.  The problem is the method is not infallible.  I think this is in part due to the fact that you get slightly randomized bits of color per fruit fed.  So instead of hitting Turquoise green on the first try I hit Apple Green.  I used the sheet to figure out the colors I needed to add to that to get to Turquoise and then BAM! I finally worked.  Generally speaking there will be a 2-4 fruit spread where the sheet will “guess” that you will arrive at the color you want.  Initially I was feeding the bare minimum to hit the color, but it seems safer to overfeed a fruit to hit more in the middle of that range.  If you don’t play FFXIV and the chocobo dyeing game… this all sounds like madness… and more often than not it is.  I hit my goal color and am supremely happy for the time being.

Nightmare Tides

I have not really played much rift for the better part of a year now, but once again it is expansion time and I find myself eyeing the game.  Storm Legion more or less was a bust for me.  It featured a couple of extremely interesting early zones, and a whole slew of extremely grindy later zones.  I realize this is odd to hear me complaining about grinding when I am so happily grinding away for an Atma weapon.  The problem with Storm Legion however is it felt much like the Veteran ranks in Elder Scrolls Online feel…  grinding without purpose and progress.  It took an immense amount of time to push through the levels from around 56 to 60, and while I have made it through on two characters… I have lacked the drive to do it again on either my Cleric or my Mage.  This expansion however drops the 10 level grind to a 5 level one, and I am hoping that it becomes more manageable.  I know I will likely be playing this, as I am far more interested in it than I am say Warlords of Draenor.

I don’t really plan on having a big rallying cry to get folks into the game.  Quite honestly I would prefer if everyone stuck in Final Fantasy XIV and playing it happily.  I want to stay playing FFXIV regardless of away missions out into Destiny or even Rift.  I am of the opinion that had I not worn myself out doing NaNoWriMo I likely would not have left Final Fantasy XIV in the first place,  and never ventured back into World of Warcraft.  That might just be my brain revising the facts of the time, but it seems reasonable.  I remember very much being unable to get into the game after a night of writing hard and fast to hit the goals.  Anyways in any case…  I would prefer Final Fantasy XIV to be my base of operations, and not Rift.  That is not to say however that I am not intrigued by the content.  I still have a whole bundle of good feelings about the game and the company behind it.  I guess time will tell if I plunk down the money to play it, but I feel like October 8th the announced release date will be here before we know it.  Also I feel like it is pretty damned brave to be releasing against the Warlords juggernaut.

#Rift #FFXIV

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