Dance of my People

Enter the Jigglehats

ffxiv 2014-09-14 22-10-22-567 Yesterday the Breaking Brick Mountains event started in FFXIV which is a repeat of an earlier event used to commemorate the launch of DragonQuest X.  For those not terribly familiar with the Dragon Warrior/DragonQuest franchise, it has a rather distinctive art style.  So seeing that art style appear in Final Fantasy XIV is extremely entertaining.  The quests have this great Dragon Quest stylized “Quest Accepted” and FATE related text that just makes me happy to see in game.  The quest itself is rather simple.  You talk to Havak Alvak near the Central Thanalan gate in Uldah, which sends you to talk to the Beefy Businessman down by the Thaumaturge guild.  From there you have to find a specific fate called “Brick by Brick”.  This will lead into one of two other FATEs either called “Brick by Stone Brick” or “Brick by Gold Brick”, both granting you quest completion.

One of the things I love about Final Fantasy XIV seasonal and special events is that they are super easy to complete.  I used to hate how frustratingly grindy other games events were, in that if you did not participate every single day of a holiday you could not get all the prizes.  Even with the Lightning Returns event, and trying to collect all of the weapons… it essentially meant I had to farm 5 different FATEs and then was completely done.  This event in total took maybe 30 minutes, and most of that was travel time.  Completing the quest nets you a Thug’s Mug cosmetic helm and a Wind-up Brickman cosmetic pet.  Next to the Beefy Businessman there is a Toughie Peddler NPC that sells the amazing “Jigglehat” or more properly known as the King Slime Crown.

It has become common place for our guild and the members of Howling Moon free company to mingle around while waiting on things to happen.  The events of last night are pretty common, in that we each tend to hang around the market board just down from our house, which can be seen in the background of the above image.  It all started when Joren Noye started up with this amazing outfit that he had built around his Jigglehat, that was mostly comprised of a dyed to match vanya robe.  What happens when to amazing Lalafell meet?  Well we dance of course, and within moments the ever adorable Jade Taiga showed up as well.  Well it was not long before Ayla Noye joined in as well, and we had an impromptu jigglehat party.  You have to love any game that supports this sort of random dancing in silly hats.  My friend Tam is convinced that the entire point of this game is to collect ever more amazing hats.

Paladin Soul

ffxiv 2014-09-14 09-52-39-215 I spent most of yesterday working away quietly on my Gladiator turned Paladin.  I completed the final level 30 Gladiator quest, and went through the opening quest for becoming a Paladin.  So far the 30 and 35 quests that I have completed are significantly easier than most of the job quests that I have done on other characters.  I am guessing that at some point in the near future they will drop the floor out from under me with a quest that is significantly more difficult than the others.  I personally thought the final level 30 Gladiator quest was rather challenging, in that I seemed to fail it the first time for no apparent reason.  I was doing everything they had told me to do and then all of the sudden I got duty failed.  Upon trying it again this morning I apparently did all of the things that I was supposed to and then some because I passed, but still have no idea what I did the first time versus what I did the second time.

I started the day at level 28 and finished the evening about halfway to 36.  I have yet to really sit foot in a dungeon yet, and have been mostly doing the FATE grind.  First in Costa Del Sol and now I am out in Coerthas.  In part I guess I like FATE grinding because it is mindless and something I can do over and over.  Additionally I have really become addicted to the whole Quick Ventures system, and I view FATEs as a way to feed Venture tokens to my Retainers.  For those that are unaware you can buy 5 venture tokens for 1000 grand company seals at your grand company quartermaster.  So far I am digging playing the Paladin again, but in truth I am mostly leveling this so that I once again have a good class for grinding FATEs to get Atma parts.  I maybe made a mistake in going for the Atma weapon on my warrior first.  That is pretty much the ideal fate grinding class, and in order for me to get another one up with that sort of survival… I am going to have to play my paladin.

Moonwalker

Destiny_20140913141700 Other than playing quite a bit of Final Fantasy XIV, I spent the bulk of the rest of my weekend playing some Destiny.  At this point my Titan is level 10 and I am spending most of my time in the Moon Patrol zone.  While I was waiting for FATEs on Saturday to spawn for my Animus book, I was hanging out on the PS4 wandering around either the Cosmodrome or Moon Patrol areas.  This is pretty much the ideal play style for me.  I like wandering about doing mini quests and killing lots of Fallen and Hive aliens.  However if you listen to our podcast you can tell that several of our cast have a real issue with the fact that the game has very little tangible story.  The story that does exist is questionably written and even more questionably acted.  For me, it is enough story to keep me entertained, but we have already agreed that I need and more importantly want significantly less story than most folks.  Wandering around and killing things is totally enough motivation to keep me enthralled, especially when the controls feel so damned good.

Destiny_20140910225853 The weird thing for me is I tend to lose motivation to do the various missions whenever I actually unlock the patrol zone.  It is as though the mission only serve as a vehicle to unlock patrol and once I have done that I have no real interest in progressing further.  At some point soon however I should really finish clearing out the moon, but in the mean time I am wandering around the surface looking for interesting stuff.  I love it when I find a chest or a new place that I had overlooked previously.  I love exploring this game, but find it more than marginally frustrating when I encounter the “turn back now” wall around the outskirts of the areas.  At least with the Cosmodrome you have understandable boundaries that limit you to just being on this one island.  On the moon you can see forever, so it makes no sense why I cannot wander out in the open, as there are no logical obstructions.  In any case, I am still really enjoying the game and look forward to playing more of it.

#FFXIV #Destiny

4 thoughts on “Dance of my People”

  1. You know, since you have to spend 825 seals (oil + 2 mists) to get the paladin weapon to zenith in the first place, you could really just re-buy your bravura and spend 900 on that. I think you just like grinding a lot.

  2. Re: Destiny: For some reason a lot of the story, or maybe it’s more accurate to say a lot of the lore, is on the Grimoire cards.

    I finished the storyline last night and hit level 20. I’m enjoying the game a whole hell of a lot, but like you I went into it more with that MMO mindset of explore, level up, find cool gear, and then repeat. I find the minute to minute gameplay super fun so I’m not really concerned so much with the story, though I didn’t really think it was bad.

    But so often I decide to do a mission and never quite get to it because I have to shoot all the things and then maybe a public event spawns or I run into someone else and decide to help them out or….

    Dinklage though… I tried to roll with him but wow. Y’know what he sounds like? He sounds like a voice actor who basically thinks video games are stupid, so he’s just phoning it in because he really doesn’t think the work is important. He just wants to get that check.

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