This morning I am really struggling at the whole getting my act together thing. I slept well enough and had a warm purring cat snuggled up against me all night. Since my wife is out of town she has taken to sleeping on her pillow and curling up against me. I really appreciate the company, because for whatever reason this summer convention season has been the roughest for me. I think it is because I no longer have the busywork that came with leading a large guild to keep me occupied. Whatever the reason I am having a lot of “low mental health” days, and am having to fight pulling the covers over my head and forgetting the world exists.
First Retraction
So I have to warn you… sometimes when I say things I am just talking out of my ass. I should have done a bit more research on the Ice Strider mount. It showed up in my mailbox on the day after the queues got completely maddening. Upon opening my mailbox I saw everyone and their brother riding the thing in Meridian and just assumed it was a peace offering from Trion because of the patron queues. Apparently that is not entirely the case, but it was a peace offering of sorts.
Basically from what I have been able to glean… the Ice Strider mount is a freebie for anyone who purchased the “Storm Chaser Edition” of Storm Legion… aka the whole pay for a year of Rift get the expansion and some other goodies for free. Since all of us that did that still have several months of sub left before that deal runs out… they gave us a unique version of the 1350 gem mount for free and an additional $50 in gems as a “we’re sorry we went f2p but we aren’t giving you back your money”.
I am completely fine with this, I just wish they WOULD give players a pet or something for the insane patron queues. Much the same as when The Secret World went f2p, I felt like the rewards they give lifetime subscribers were more than enough to make up for the initial cash outlay… I also feel like the perks that Rift gives patrons are more than enough to make up for the cash outlay.
The only thing I would still like is I feel that patrons should get some kind of a monthly gem stipend. Every MMO F2p/Hybrid model has this BUT Rift. My station cash accrues station cash at 500 per month if I am just sitting there doing nothing with it. I feel that as a patron I should be getting some sort of similar perk here. It is not enough to riot and burn down the city over… but it would be nice.
More Laptop Woes
Well the guy I was trying to buy the laptop from has gone completely unresponsive. Making it worse he has reposted the laptop this morning on Craigslist. I have no clue why he decided he did not want to sell it… I am guessing he was holding out for the original price listed… since I did talk him down a little bit. Would have been nice for him to just say “look I really need the X dollars” and see if I was willing to counter. I get the impression I have been dealing with a teenager, just based on sentence structure. At this point I am looking at options through traditional retail venues for the same laptop. This whole process is maddening.
Four Job Fiesta Begins
Last night the FF5 Four Job Fiesta event kicked off, or at least Gilgabot started responding to assignment requests… and as a result everyone was off to the races. It has been literally years since I have played this game… I originally played it when the English translation hack first became available for the SNES rom version. This was back my junior year of college in 1996-1997 ish. So I remember almost nothing about the game, but I remember I never actually beat it. One of my best friends has been pestering me for years to join in the bandwagon… so I have.
You can follow my progress and assignments on my player page on the website: Belghast. If you are interested in participating yourself… I think you can still sign up. Check out the rather arcane twitter based sign-up process here. So far I have been assigned the Wind Crystal job and the Water Crystal job. My first job was the Black Mage, that I was fairly happy about… since the black magic tends to be the workhorse of ANY Final Fantasy game. My second pick… not so much… Red Mage is probably in my bottom 5 of all jobs available… probably absolute zero is the Bard… but Red Mage is close. I have no clue why… but I have disliked Red Mages since Final Fantasy 1. They always seemed to be not quite good enough at anything… to make them a pick worth having.
I will continue playing later, but I am doing the play through on my PSP using the Gameboy Advance version. So far I am really impressed with the way the GBA ports work. If I ever find my GBA… I will totally pick up official copies of these games. I do however own the ps1 ports of all the early final fantasy games… so I feel far less dirty about emulating them. I have to say… given my spastic play style… the emulators are the way to go. Save states are a godsend for when you need to set down the game and go do something. Sadly this is only something that really works well in emulators… quick saves are nice but still take several screens before you can walk away.
I hope to make some serious progress today, because happy Final Fantasy music does a decent job of making me forget just how depressed I am. I mean seriously… who cannot be happy while listening to the Chocobo theme? I get bummed about the current state of JRPGs… but this golden age will always make me happy. There will likely never be a time when I don’t have one of these on my phone or somehow accessible easily.
Wrapping Up
Well today is Fathers Day, so hopefully you all have a great one. I know I am slotted to have a late lunch/early dinner with mine as a combo move to celebrate Fathers day and preemptively celebrate my Birthday which is this coming Wednesday. I will still pick up the check… because that feels like the proper sonly thing to do. I am not sure why… but I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I pick up the check. I like taking care of people… and I think that feeds into that protective instinct.
