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Be Awesome Human Beings

September 4, 2014 by Belghast

Rough Week

This morning as I was getting ready I was happy and in a pretty good mood. All the while I went through my normal morning routine I thought to myself “well at least it is Friday”. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks… it is not in fact Friday. I have no clue why I got it into my head that it was Friday, especially considering it is a short week for us here in the United States. In just two days the week has seemed like a lifetime, and I am really hoping that today is far more manageable. For starters my anxiety has been through the roof as there are a number of changes going on in my work environment, that while they have not actually directly effected me… have a high potential for doing so. So my brain has gone haywire with playing these catastrophic what if scenarios, always managing to pain the worst possible picture.

Tuesday morning my wife’s vehicle had a flat tire, so I sent her on to work in my vehicle and took it around the corner to our tire place. This caused me to get a late start on the day and throw everything off kilter. Yesterday on the drive into work in my vehicle something felt off, like my wife had adjusted my seat in a strange way or something. I fiddled with the controls trying to get it back in order, only to find after getting to work that my seat was quite literally broken. After six years of wear and tear a piece on the side had broken causing the entire seat to somewhat veer downhill to the left. To make matters worse I got distracted yesterday morning while writing my blog post and I never actually published it. While I ran home at lunch to correct this, it set the entire day off once again.

Be Awesome Human Beings

So it really doesn’t help things that parts of the internet that I care about are in a war right now. I’ve tried my damnedest to remain blissfully ignorant about what is going on, because quite frankly I try really hard to limit the amount of negativity in my life. That said I have checked the hashtag a few times and what I have seen is nothing that I want to be associated with. These folks are not just being poor gamers… they are being horrible human beings. I won’t even get into the rant I probably have spun up in me about the practice of attaching “Gate” to something to make it seem like a grand conspiracy. There is no controversy here, no conspiracy… just a bunch of folks being “shitbag douchehead to people” to quote a friend of mine when I asked for an explanation of part of the present climate.

I don’t consider myself a Social Justice Warrior, or a crusader of any sort. I don’t brandish about the title of ally or feminist, even though I tend to align pretty heavily to both of those causes. I like to think of myself as moderate, even though I skew fairly heavily to the left side of the equation. What I do however try and do is be a good human being, and part of that is respecting others and treating them like I would want to be treated in return. “Be Awesome To Each Other” is a pretty damned good mantra to live by if I do say so myself. When I meet someone new, I try really hard to view them as a potential best friend, and not as some stranger to fear and distrust. At almost 40 years I am confident enough in myself to be willing to accept in the thoughts of others without the need to push them out. I seek out diverse thoughts, because they will do one of two things. They will either reaffirm my own beliefs, or cause those beliefs to evolve and become more rich. I am not interested in living in an echo chamber, and so long as people are respectful to each other they have a seat at my internet table.

Life is Nuanced

The biggest problem I see coming along with all of us is this artificial binary mentality that folks seem to impose on the world. Things are rarely ever one of two things with no middle ground between them. I do not divide people into social avengers and knuckle draggers, because we are not cartoon characters with one single overriding trait that defines everything about us. Reducing people to these red versus blue sketches also reduces their humanity in the process. As a result just because someone supports this one thing, doesn’t mean they immediately support everything attached to that one thing. For example I personally have chosen not to be religious, but that does not mean that I hate everyone who has deep religious views and traditions. It doesn’t even mean that I view religion as a horrible thing that we should all rebel against, I just made a personal choice that it wasn’t for me. Dealing in absolutes causes you to miss all of the wonderful subtle shades in between.

Additionally I feel like it is important to be nice to the folks in your life that you don’t have to. You obviously have to be nice to the people who hold sway over you, and you also likely have to be nice over the people you want to influence. However as we go about each day we pass by so many other people that we have no involvement in at all. I find myself judging people the most in the way they treat these people, the ones they don’t have to be nice to in the least. It could be as simple as smiling and saying “Hi” as you pass someone in the street that you don’t know, or offering to open a door for someone who is heavily burdened. I’ve had so many good things happen to me over the years mixed in with the frustrations, that I try my best to pay this kindness forward. The problem is I feel like this overriding sense of debt to the world around us is lacking. If you felt like it was your responsibility to help other human beings… you’d find it impossible to act the way folks treating each other in relation to this whole issue. Ultimately this is not a male versus female issue, or a gamer issue… this is a human issue. When you diminish any part of that humanity regardless of influence… you end up diminishing all of it in the process.

Unintended Post

Many times when I sit down to write in the morning I don’t have any form of an agenda. Today was more or less one of those days, but the issues surrounding our community have been weighing heavily on my mind. So I started typing and all of this came out as a result. I don’t intend to be a crusader or any cause other than that of basic human decency. So please as you go about your day today… be awesome to each other. It sounds silly, but it is a pretty simple tenet. Try your best today to go out of your way and be nice to someone you don’t have to. Open a door for someone, let someone into traffic in front of you, or hell even tip a bit more than usual to that beleaguered wait staff at lunch. Just try and do something today to make the world a nicer place to live in, instead of making someone else’s day worse.

The Atma Weapon

September 3, 2014 by Belghast

Hat For All Occasions

A few weeks ago my friend Tam stumbled onto a hat in his inventory that he has picked up somewhere. It seems he played the game significantly longer than we did, and it seemed to come from some event, or at least that is the impression I got. It was a cute white bunny samurai hat and he used it with his cavalry armor to create a rather unique looking tanking set. This lead me over to the market boards to see what other interesting hats existed, and I stumbled on a very similar hat but it was red and black, and instead of having a closed in mask the visor was completely open. I managed to pick it up for only 1500 gil or so, and immediately I noticed it fit perfectly with my Warrior relic set. So I glamoured it onto the item and started my life as a bunny samurai tank.

Shortly after that I noticed that it also seemed to work pretty well with my Dragoon armor since it also had a lot of black and gold in it. So once again I glamoured the item over my helm and began another life as the bunny samurai dragoon. Tonight I finished getting my Bard job up to ilevel 90, and as I was re-glamouring my pieces to the foestrikers gear set, I wondered just how well the bunny helm would work there too. Turns out I like the look since the Foestriker set has a lot of red in it already. So basically I am a bunny samurai for all occasions. I think Tam is a little bummed that I took his style idea and ran with it… but seriously… it works amazingly well for a Lalafell. Sadly however I don’t think the bunny samurai thing will work quite so well for my caster sets. I can’t really see a bunny samurai healer being a thing… but damned if I won’t try and make it happen.

The Atma Weapon

I’ve talked a few times in the past about the Relic weapon quest chain in Final Fantasy XIV. Essentially for those who are not familiar, it involves a long series of quests and battles to forge a weapon and then harden it while doing battle with the three original Primals. The end result is your relic weapon, which then can continue to be upgraded through additional quests. The first “Zenith” step is extremely simple in the grand scheme of things. It involves purchasing three Thavnairian Mists from a vendor in Mor Dhona for 300 tomestones of mythology each. So to get this step you literally just need to run practically any of the endgame content be it dungeons or raids, they all reward decent chunks of Mythstones. Once you have your items you simply take them back to the same vendor that originally forged your weapon and by using the forge yourself you can perform the upgrade. This takes the original ilevel 80 item to ilevel 90, and at this point I have the Zenith step on Warrior, Dragoon and Bard.

The next step is significantly trickier, but last night my friend Warenwolf managed to complete his, so I have renewed focus in finishing mine up. Essentially the Atma step is a tricky way of making players revisit old content. You get the various Atma parts by grinding FATEs in twelve different zones. Kodra noticed that the zones that are missing… are the ones that were traditionally FATE grinding hubs at release. So gone is South Shroud and Costa Del Sol as well as the later hubs of Coerthas, Mor Dhona and Northern Thanalan. The final list looks a little something like this.

Southern Thanalan: Atma of the Scorpion
Eastern Thanalan: Atma of the Bull
Western Thanalan: Atma of the Twins
Central Thanalan: Atma of the Scales
Central Shroud: Atma of the Maiden
East Shroud: Atma of the Goat
North Shroud: Atma of the Archer
Upper La Nocea: Atma of the Water Bearer
Middle La Nocea: Atma of the Ram
Outer La Nocea: Atma of the Lion
Lower La Nocea: Atma of the Fish
Western La Nocea: Atma of the Crab

Upon doing some research last night it seems that there is an equal drop chance for all zones that never actually improves over time. In fact you don’t even have to get Gold completion, you can get an ATMA to drop on bronze, silver or gold just so long as you have participated enough to actually get credit for the event. Supposedly the drop chance for an ATMA is somewhere between 1% and 10% depending on who you talk to. I have managed to get four drops so far, but some of my guild members have ground for upwards of six hours and never seen so much as a single one. I feel like this is the sort of thing that is best done in passing, however with Waren getting his it has lit a bit of a fire under me to go ahead and grind out mine as well. Sure there are other paths to upgrades, but at this point I feel like I want to do this.

Western Thanalan

The zone I have been hung up on for the last three nights is Western Thanalan. I have been trying to knock these out in a single region before moving on to others. Western Thanalan might just be the bane of my existence, and probably one of the hardest zones to habitually FATE grind in. As you can see from the map the zone is broken into three four sections divided by a series of pathways connecting them. This means it is extremely tedious to cross and often times by the time you get to a FATE a different group of adventurers will have whittled it down to nothing. Now that I at least know that Atma parts can drop on bronze contribution I am far less stressed. Previously I knew I needed to get to a FATE before the 50% mark to be able to pull enough aggro to earn Gold contribution. Now I simply just need to touch it, or hit a few overpowers to get credit at all.

I could move on to another zone, but I feel like this is probably the most difficult of them all. I might as well get the worst one out of the way so I can move onto other zones that are easier to traverse. I feel like more than likely Southern Thanalan will be another problem child, however you can pretty much live in the north or the south either one and grind plenty of FATEs since that zone is so diverse level wise, there is not a ton of overlap between the events. Additionally it seems like there is almost always a FATE up in the Amalja Beast Tribe daily area. Here is hoping that I will manage to get this ATMA tonight and be able to move on, while still keeping some of my sanity. However my mission is set, and I will get my damned Atma relic upgrade.

#FFXIV #RelicWeapon

Lightning Strikes

September 2, 2014 by Belghast

Anniversary Events

For the last few weeks there have been a truly silly number of events going on in Final Fantasy XIV to commemorate the first anniversary. To some extent this game is a bit of an aberration. No where else is a game allowed to fail miserably, and then rebuilt from the ground up to be a much better experience. Game simply fail and fade away into obscurity, however in the case of a Square Enix I guess they felt obligated to fix the blotch in their lineage of games. While it had a bit of a rough launch due to severely underestimating the popularity, things have generally stabilized and as a result the game truly is a joy to experience. The relationship Square has with the player base is extremely interesting. They still make mistakes, but they seem to be extremely forthright about them. For example when they released the 2.3 patch and the players ended up doing something with the hunt system they couldn’t foresee… they completely overhauled the system as a result making it significantly better.

This history of awesome interaction is reaching a bit of a crescendo during the Anniversary events. As a result they have planned a solid month of things happening in game, bringing back some of the limited time events that happened earlier in the year so that players that missed them the first time could participate. This makes me so amazingly happy, because the one event that I really wanted to participate in was the Lightning Strikes event commemorating the launch of Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns. I have a rocky past with the FFXIII franchise, in that it is one of the few Final Fantasy games I have never been able to finish. However the nifty things you get from doing the event provide some rather unique looking graphics here in Eorzea. One of my regrets was not being around when it happened the first time and not being able to collect the weapons.

Lightning Strikes

The event centers around completing a series of quests involving reports of a strange pink haired woman in Eorzea. At the request of a reporter you pick up the trail outside Limsa Lominsa by doing FATEs in either Middle or Lower La Noscea. I ran most of the FATEs in Middle where there was constantly a group gathered up at the spawn point. It feels as though they have greatly reduced the requirements needed to get Gold in a fate. During the days after launch this event would have been extremely frustrating, as during some of the times I was out there yesterday there was at least fifty players all vying for the same crab mobs. The FATE name you are looking for is called “Sister Crustacean” and involves killing a bunch of Megalocrabs as they spawn. The catch is that not every single one of these FATEs actually includes the lightning event. How you can tell is that you get a unique FFXIII themed “Fate Started” graphic at the beginning. Additionally if you roll up on it as it is in progress the music is from FFXIII not the standard FFXIV fare.

Once you complete the first step of the quest you follow the trail to Uldah where in the Steps area another reporter asks you to go off and gather evidence. This once again involves going out into one of two regions to gather clues. From this point on the fates you need will have “Lightning Strikes” in the title making them significantly easier to find. In Eastern Thanalan the one you need spawns over the highbridge and up near the South Shroud zone entrance. In Southern Thanalan the FATE you need spawns north of Little Ala Mhigo near the Eastern Thanalan zone entrance. The awesome part about this fate is you get to fight one of the really cool mechanized behemoths that existed in FFXII. These are fun fights and take a significant amount of time to whittle down, so generally speaking if you see the fate spawn you have more than enough time to run across the zone. While grinding for Atmas yesterday there were more than a few times I helped out with the FATE just to tank it.

Dangerous Machinations

The quest line picks up in Old Gridania near the amphitheatre and from that point onwards will keep working off of that same NPC. It is the reporter for the Raven that you have encountered before in other quests. These next few FATEs are more tricky, in that there are a wide array of spawn points for each. This next step takes you to Coerthas and has you fighting some strange machine that looks kinda like a walking cuisinart. It is a similarly long fate to the one where you fight the Behemoth so you generally have plenty of time to reach it. If the FATE has been up for awhile there is a chance of failing if Lightning dies in the process of fighting it. I had that happen this morning as I was taking this screenshot. In any case you collect another piece of evidence and turn it over to the reporter in Gridania who sends you out once again on another quest.

This final step of the quest chain takes place in Mor Dhona and once again has a viable spawn location. Generally speaking it will spawn somewhere near Saint Conach’s Find. During this step of the quest Lightning summons up Odin to help her in battle and you fight the FFXIII representation of Bahamut known as Chaos. While not a particularly difficult battle considering how many people were gathered up to help, I figure this would be more than difficult if you tried to solo it. Chaos has a series of almost unavoidable AOE attacks, that while none of them deal spectacular amounts of damage… it would slowly wear you down without the aid of a Chocobo to heal or an actual player healer. In any case it was a rather impressive fight, and since I was tanking I saw the boss without much issue. However there were numerous other players that complained that they could not see the encounter at all due to the number of people surrounding it.

The Resolution

After all of this effort you return to Old Gridania where Lightning is waiting on you. You are of course treated to a rather lengthy cut scene explaining what exactly is going on, and why she is visiting Eorzea. While I’ve given plenty of spoilers about how to complete the quest chain, I am going to refrain from giving any away on what actually is happening. I found the overall story arc to be charming at least, and it was fun getting to run around with one of my favorite characters from FFXIII. I am perfectly okay with Lightning being the female equivalent of Cloud Strife, and all of their lack of depth. I like the character because she tends to be all about killing things… which is conducive to my own goals. The reward for all of this is a cosmetic outfit. If your character is Male you get an outfit to look just like Snow, and if your character is Female you get to dress just like Lightning. Additionally completing the quest chain unlocks several hair options at the Aesthetician so you literally can replicate Lightning or Snow exactly if you so choose.

Additionally through the first steps of the quest chain, you get 2 Otherworldly Parcels. One will be consumed by completing the quest, but the other you can use in Limsa Lominsa next to the quest npc that started this whole event to purchase a FFXIII themed weapon. If you are like me and you wanted to get more than just the one weapon, you can do that as well. Each time you complete the events in either Middle or Lower La Noscea you get two ore Otherworldly Parcels. So by completing the fates four more times you can purchase one of each weapon. They can of course be stored in your Armoire in your Inn Room to free up Armory Chest space. While not all of the weapon graphics are amazing, I wanted to complete the full set just in case I had a later need for one of them. The Armoire is a nice way to dump seasonal stuff into permanent storage so it is available later if you end up wanting it. Overall it was a really fun event, and I look forward to doing the Dragon Quest X tie in event when it happens in a week or so.

#FFXIV

2014 Blaugust Wrap-up

September 1, 2014September 1, 2014 by Belghast

Wrapping Up Blaugust

This mornings post has taken a bit longer than I had originally hoped for and is caused by a number of reasons. Firstly I slept in extremely late this morning, and secondly we cleaned the house for a bit before I finally sat down to tabulate the results of this months contest. Additionally it took me a bit longer to roll all of the dice than I had intended, but here I am writing the wrap up post. There is no way I can adequately express in words what this entire endeavor has meant to me. Like I have said more than a few times… I really expected to get maybe five participants at most in this month long challenge and instead at last count we had 52 individuals that joined in.

More than that I have watched a fledgling community solidify around the shared challenge. There has been so much cross posting as part of this event, where someone will post an idea… that will spark another blogger, and another until it has echoed through the entire community. We’ve had discussions on the meaning of gamer, a handful of surveys and and most recently an interesting discussion on what exactly our blogs name means. My ultimate hope is that going forward this connective tissue we have built will stay just as strong as it has the last month. There has been some talk about trying to organize a series of twitter chats using a specific hashtag to have long freeform discussions about the things that matter to us in our community. I think I would love to see someone take the ball and run with this one, because I know it works well in my wife’s mathematics communities.

Blaugust Survivors

In my mind each and every person that participated in the contest is amazing. I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to devote to this initiative. Even if you couldn’t post every day… your attempts and struggles mattered to me. Towards the end of the challenge I became extremely focused on who was posting every single day, but I don’t want you all to lose sight of the fact that just by joining in you have won to me. As such I want to take a moment to recognize every single member of this Blaugust community and give you a nifty little banner that you can attach to your blog with pride. You came, you saw, you rocked this Blaugust thing! I’ve kept the images huge on purpose to allow you to scale it down to fit your blog without losing resolution.

Blaugust Winners

The next group that I want to recognize is all of the folks who spent hour after hour making sure they had a new post each and every day. I cannot express in words just how awesome you all are. Some of you are seasoned veterans at this blogging things, but even more interesting is just how many on this list have not even made their first year anniversary yet. I know it was a struggle for some, but you all rose to the occasion and created some extremely interesting content as a result. You not only survived Blaugust, but you kicked its ass and are taking a victory lap. Once again you get a nifty doodad for your blog, to significant that you Won Blaugust 2014.

Now For the Prizes

As with any contest there have to be prize winners and a good chunk of this morning was spent rolling a lot of dice and recording the results. You can check out the full spreadsheet here of the rolls for each of the winners. I am not sure how long my prizes will last but quite honestly I would love to give each and every one of the winner something for being so amazing. I’ve had a few people mention that they are willing to donate for the cause, so over the coming weeks I might see if I can make that happen. However for the time being… the final results are in and…

Grand Prize – Alternative Chat
Also Awesome 1 – Missy’s Mojo
Also Awesome 2 – I Has PC
Also Awesome 3 – Echoes From The Abyss

I will be getting with each of you over the next few days to pass out your prizes. If I still have prizes left to give I will be going down the spreadsheet and sharing the love as best I can. Hopefully the whole prize thing doesn’t lose sight on the fact that all of you that participated are awesome, and strength willing I hope to do this same thing again next August. Here is hoping we can continue to support the creation of awesome content in our little community. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves, and I look forward to the next event!