Ever feel so bored?

So bored that when you log in to the game, you don’t have even the slightest idea what to do. Umm.. I must say I’m not an easy person to bore. I kind of enjoy everything. Yeah, it’s a game, enjoy it. You’re supposed to be entertained by your game. Don’t let the boredom stop you.

But I also know that since the game has much changed, some people might not be able to keep up with the pace, or many friends might have quit, so there are less people to hang out with. That might bore you easily. Everyday life or real life situations/issues might also be  factors that give you the long face even when you’re logged in to Vana’diel. Then now, what’s the point if you feel so bored and cannot enjoy the game anymore? How sad!?

Now we wouldn’t want that to happen to us, would we?

But what if it already happened?

Find yourself some motive, I would say. Be active. The more you sulk and sigh, the more depressed you can become. Don’t just sit there wasting your breath! Get outside, have some adventures! Seek some fun! Be productive, get some achievement for yourself. Move forward. Or, if you can’t be productive, you can opt to the destructive method, but at least be creative! Use your imagination.

For example…

Your Moogle is so bossy and he complains too much about you keeping too many junks in your Mog Safe. You two often argue, you insist that keeping junks is the key to wealth, because all junks might come in handy some day. He keeps yelling at you that the Mog Safe is so going to explode if you don’t stop  stuffing garbage in it and threatens to throw you out, along with your junks.

What to do?

1. Move out.
2. Let him throw your stuff away.
3. Burn all the junks.
4. Burn the Moogle.
5. Burn the junks and the Moogle together.
6. Exploit the situation and make money out of it.
7. Sip tea and enjoy the campfire.

3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 seem to be the correct answers for me.

Dig out your junks, look at what you can do wit them. Synthesis, yes. Most junks can be used as synthesis materials. So, make use of them to skill up your crafts. Aim correctly, and use your crystal, preferably Fire Crystals….and burn away your little white devil with flapping wings.

Aim for his butt, or his head, doesn’t matter. And light him on FIRE!

Ah, well, more seriously, messy Mog House can be a big hassle, especially when you’re changing from jobs to jobs or leveling up lowbies or mid-level jobs. Not only that you’ll need a lot of free space to switch equipment around, but after you’re done with party session, junks accumulate themselves if you don’t have a good measure to manage them. It will, if you don’t do anything about it, soon become a serious problem, Inventory Crisis!

The best way is if you have time during party sessions or at the end of the day, try to sell them on the AH, or NPC, or if you have the craft skill that it takes, craft them into something that’s more profitable or space-effective.

So I pulled out my Earth Crystals, Sulfur, and Bomb Ash, sent them to Aikanana who has high level Alchemy, asked him to make Firesand for me. The I dug out my Silver Ingots (accumulated since long ago as well as made from Goldsmith session with Aurrek a few days ago), and Fire Crystals, then used them with Firesand to make Silver Bullets. From skill lv 20 to 23, it took about 3 stacks of Fire Crystals, netting me 11 stacks of Silver Bullets.

Then I bagged all my bullets, saving up more space in my pocket.

A few junks are now out of the way, and now I’m just 1 more skill level to go until capping with this recipe.

I don’t even care when I break crystals or ingredients, heck it feels good, especially when level gap is small and I often get skillups from breaking.

So, if you feel bored, and really run out of idea about what to do in the game, don’t just sit there and stare blankly at your monitor, your Moogle, or your own character, no mushroom would grow on those even if you glare harder. Tidy up your Mog Safe, Mog Locker, and Storage. Even if you’re not bored, but just want to break something, smash something, or burn something, you can also use those destructive desire to drive your craft skill as well as your Mog House clealiness.

Break, smash, destroy, burn!!! Be destructive productive.

You might even be able to create a menu called “Blackened Moogle.”

Have fun!

Just don’t burn down your Noble Bed, or you sleep on the floor tonight.

Hmmmmmph! After several years of FFXI, my Cooking finally got to level 96.

Before, I’ve been slowly skilling up until 95, then I hit a wall due to recipe’s ingredients rarity. King Truffle is a big hassle to farm, or even to buy from Auction House. Cornie went out of his way to the Crawler’s Nest and farmed it for me, and we got 1 and a half stack. However, with my inventory issues, I didn’t attempt to gather other ingredients to start skilling up. What’s the big pain for Cooking at high end is that most recipes require around 6-8 ingredients each! And the dishes are mostly unstackable. That means I will have to prepare at least 20 empty slots just to attempt the craft with 1 stack of crystals, or 12 synths.

Anyway…

One day (Tuesday 11 May, to be specific) I ran into Aurrek who’s leveling up his Smithing to support his main craft, Goldsmith. After exchanging crafting information of ourselves, he found out that I could actually craft the claws he needs for his recipe. We quickly agreed to team up crafting and so each of us hauled over the ingredients we needed. I dug out my Beetle Jaws and Steel Ingots which I’ve been collecting from Desynths of various goblin junks. He brought his Mythril Ingots and ironed them into Sheets.

I was more than happy to make Claws for him, because I found out after first try that I could still get skill up from that recipe XD After a few more synths, I capped that recipe with my Smithing at 32. What was super funny was that…..I made a pair of Claws +1.

Oh yeah, and we would HQ stuff when we can only use the NQ one as the ingredient for what we really want. LOL.

That happened with my Buffalo Jerky => Bison Jerky too. RAWR!

We made at least 8 pairs of Claws and Aurrek used them up. Unfortunately, he got just a tiny bit of skill points. We were disappointed and I told him to try my superstitious theory…. Waiting for moon phase and correct day for optimal skill up chance. He said he would do that too, but didn’t say it because the Claws would just sit there for too long. So I suggested we keep ingredients, or farm ingredients for the Claws as well as his sheets, and spam craft later.

After we decided to pause his recipe until time was right, Aurrek asked if he could help anything with my Crafting. Well, my Goldsmith has been at 17 for ages because I didn’t attempt to level it up since last time. So I asked what recipe I should do, since Silver Ores are hard to come by on AH and was hard to dig up. He said we could buy it from the Guild. And that day the price happened to be very cheap! So we camped the guild and buy them up, getting my Goldsmith from 17 to 20 which was cap level for Silver Ingot.

As far as I can remember, we couldn’t finish my Goldsmith at cap 20 at first because guild shop closed. So we had to walk around and wait for it to reopen again. Meanwhile I used my Pullus Torque to costume as a baby Chocobo and ran around.

Was damn fun hahaha!!! (Click on this picture for larger image)

Later that week we went to farm some money, starting from Delkfutts for Alky and Pallas, as well as the Gigas’ stinky socks (yuck!) Could only get 1 Alky pop and a lot of Pallas. Only 2 Pallas dropped though. The sock yield was, however, unexpectedly profitable.

While we were fighting witk Alky, I was entertained to see him changing colours when he got hit with different additional effects. LOL

Yellow was from Auspice, while green was from Aurrek’s Sirocco Kukri, I think.

We made quite a big amount of money from that farm session.

Feeling rich, Aurrek insisted upon having me level up my Cooking with the money we earned, while he does his Goldsmith because the time was perfect for both our recipes. And he didn’t want me to waste my time helping him with his Goldsmith while letting such a good Moon phase to pass without doing anything with my Cooking. So, he went and bought me more King Truffles. Piling up with what Corn farmed me long ago, I could attempt about 3 stacks (36) of synths. All those, in the end, gained me 1.0 skill points, bringing me from 95 to 96!

However, since Aurrek dumped his money on my Truffles he didn’t have enough to buy Mythril Ingots for his own level up recipe >.>

Before the appointed day for crafting session, we went to Davoi and Monastic Cavern to farm Orcs for Mythril Beastcoins and etc. The yield was too low and turned out to be a little waste of time. However, we managed to get like half of what we needed, the rest were bought from Auction House. We left Davoi in a hurry and headed to Jeuno for some items, then came back to Bastok as fast as we could, to be able to craft on Darksday, as I always like to do with my Cooking skillup.

So, after one crafting session (with a lot of broken crystals and a few broken ingredients, LOL), we moved forward on each own main craft. I can’t remember what level he got to, but mine is now 96. I’m very happy with tthe result, but one downside is that I had about 25-30 bowls of Brain Stew to deal with XD

Uhh… Been busy busy with work. Deadlines coming up. So now it’s 29th of September but I’m writing an entry for the 26th, pretending it was in present!

Well, actually it wouldn’t have been this bad if I wasn’t slacking off. I really deserve this, hahaha! Oh boy. Anyway, although I’ve been busy, I still play FFXI everyday. Sometimes I only log in to do my daily routine like taking care of my chocobo, going out to NM camp either to help friends kill it or just keep ToD, as well as attending to weekly schedule like Sky.

Burnnnnnn!! Moogle, burn!

But since we got the Super Kupowers “Ease of Exploration” that allows warp between towns for 300 gil a trip, I went over to Windurst to take my guild tests on Bonecraft and Fishing. So, today I got to use my Lu Shang’s Fishing Rod for the first time! Ho! I’ve purchased it from Janimal for like…a week, maybe? But was too busy to go out to fish anywhere ;_; Well, today the first and only fish I’ve fished up with my Lu Shang’s so far (even until now, 29th Sep.) is the mighty Monke-Onke! Fresh from East Sarutabaruta. It was then turned in at the Fisherman Guild, making me a Journeyman in fishing, finally. I’ve reached level 48 in fishing last week on the ferry, after leaving it at 46 for like a year or so….

My Bonecraft guild rank, on the other hand, became Apprentice, at the level of 38. Guild test item was a ring…uh… what was it? It used Ram Horn… Oh yes, it’s Horn Ring. I broke the first Horn that I bought from the AH and felt stingy, so I went to hunt some rams in the La Theine Plateau and then Konschtat Highlands. It was so hard to find in the plateau, and I had competitor in highlands. Anyway, the 3rd ram I killed dropped 2 Horns. Good. Success. Passed guild test. Yay!

Then, I came back to Bastok, and headed over to Alchemy Guild. Test item for the Craftsman rank at level 58 was Hi-Potion, which happened to be plenty in my stock due to my recent skillup recipe. SO yeah, today I passed 3 guild tests. Here…

In comparison to my previous screenshot of the craft levels, I’ve made quite some progress, though not much.

Fishing    46 => 48
Woodworking    40 => 42
Smithing 30, no progress.
Goldsmithing    16 => 17
Clothcraft 51,  no progress.
Leathercraft    22 => 29 (Rank up from Initiate to Novice, with a Dhalmel Mantle, which I cannot recall how and when….)
Bonecraft    36 => 38
Alchemy    57 => 58
Cooking    90 => 91

On a side note, today in attempt to make a Shrimp Lure for catching a Monke-Onke, I had leveled up my Goldsmithing a bit on synthing the Silver Beastcoins. So it just hit level 17 before I did all those guild tests.It broke a lot, but I got a lot of skill ups, so, well… I don’t mind!

Well, since it’s Sunbreeze Festival, recently my Vana’diel Adventuring life has been full of chatting, frolicking, relaxing, and slacking off. However, in this couple of days I’ve done something considerably productive.

I’ve mined with Duckie and got Jan a bunch of Darksteel Ore for her Smithing. I’ve made as well as signed a few furnishings, cages and tables for examples, for myself and a few friends. So, now my Fafnir Statue does not seem like it’s going to flip off the table anymore. Moreover, I’ve received a Hammock from Jan and thus I rearranged my Mog House! In 2 days, I’ve gained over 5000 Guild Point from Culinarian’s Guild because Jan reminded me to turn in GP items. I’ve also leveled some of my crafting skills.

Short story : Today I got my Woodworking to level 40, and am ready for Guild Test. It requires a Traversiere (Bard’s instrument) and I bought one (how sneaky!) from Jeuno.

Long story : Today I went to mine in Gusgen with Duckie and then left her (she was leaving for bed as well) to join Cornelious in Kuftal. He was with his Japanese buddy named Kennchann. We fished for Devil Manta and ran around killing stuff, hoping for NMs to pop. We got 2 or 3 Mantas, I can’t remember, but non dropped the Angelskin. Also, my fishing kinda suck, I couldn’t hook the NM >.> All I got was Pugils. Lame!

Then after we killed a Pugil (other people got the Manta) Corny /heal to rest and we talked a little bit. He then went quiet and wouldn’t get up. Meanwhile, Kennchann went to check on Treasure Coffer for some money. After a long while, Corny still didn’t move, so we suspected he fell asleep already XD Poor thing! He’s been up all night and must be very tired.

So, after one more attempt to fish up the NM (which failed) Kennchann logged out. I asked a camper there (Twolipsrbetter) about aggro pop and he said sometimes Scorpion pops in the area. Therefore, I abductedCornelious to Altep with my Teleport spell and left him there. I went back to Bastok and started leveling up my Woodworking until it hit level 40.

Oh…and….

Trying to level up my Woodwork, I used Beetle Arrow recipe and then Fang Arrow Recipe, burning some of my junks as well as mule’s Crystals.

Well, during the production of Fang Arrow Heads, I also got my Bonecraft to level 36 from 35. Oh, and by mining as a team with Duckie, we got a few Silver Ores which I synthesized and gained a few skill points, bringing my Goldsmithing to level 16.

Other crafts, however, haven’t moved yet.

Tags: Aleczan, Bonecraft, Cornelious, crafting, Craftsmanship, Duckie, Goldsmithing, Kennchann, Woodworking

Well, after several years ofr training, my Cooking has finally reached the last leg of journey. Now I’m on the road of 90’s towards 100. Now I’m finally a Veteran Cook!

This month I’ve been trying to reach level 90 by using the Rolanberry Pie recipe. I think I made about 20 stacks of the pie, earning me 3500 – 5000 gil per stack from Jeuno Auction House. That is almost 100k gil. Sweet!

After Cooking, I had a minor problem about inventory slots. My mules were also full with items. So I tried to use up some crystals. I continued my Woodworking from level 24. The Recipe was Shihei. So, first, I had to make myself some Black Ink (I’m stingy person when it comes to ingredients.) Since my Alchemy was high enough to HQ so many jars of ink from the cheap Nebimonite in AH, I could happily spend money buying Bast Parchment.

From level 24 to 28, I made like 6-7 stacks of Shihei, refilling my Shihei supply. ^^ It really worthed the time and effort. Still, I can level on this recipe until 29.

Oh, hmmm this month I had also leveled up my Clothcraft from 40 to 46. But I can’t remember when or on what recipe…. I’ve been very busy with so many things in real life and some of my memory of moments in Vana’diel went blank….  I know it wasn’t Sanjaku because that’s capped at 41.

Gahhh….umm.

Oh….?

Well, ahhh!

Now I know.

After looking it up in ffrecipe I now recalled about what I used. It was Bird Fletching until level 42, then Insect Fletching until 46. Because Insect Wing was one type of the junks I had to burn away from my Mog House. I think I used about 10 stacks of Insect Wings. The first few level from 42 were tough because of the level gap. But using the Advanced Synthesis Image Support, I managed to pass through 44-45, then continued regularly with no support to 46. Then my Insect Wings stock became empty. I am now trying to camp AH for Insect Wings before I start leveling up again.

Today (or you may say it’s called “last night” :p) at about 1 A.M. here, was when Vana’diel had New Moon. The first day of this round of New Moon was Firesday, good for my Cooking! Though there’s no solid evident or official theory about skilling up tips, I prefer to level up my Cooking on New Moon, and – if possible – on Darksday or Firesday, since at this range of level, I’m almost always using Fire Crystal. Oh, and I would be facing West. It could be just my imagination, a coincident, a placebo, or whatever, but I notice that I DO get skill-ups more often on this setting.

วันนี้ (หรือบางคนอาจบอกว่า มันเรียก “เมื่อคืน” ก็ได้ กั่ก ๆ) ประมาณตี 1 โลกแห่งวานา’ดีลเป็นช่วงจันทร์ใหม่ (หรือคืนเดือนมืดนั่นแหละ) และวันแรกของช่วงจันทร์ใหม่ครั้งนี้ก็เป็นวันไฟ ซึ่งดีสำหรับสกิล Cooking ของเรา คือถึงมันจะไม่มีหลักฐานอะไรมายืนยัน และไม่ได้มีทฤษฎีไหนมาบอกโต้ง ๆ แต่เราก็ชอบเก็บเลเวลวิชาทำอาหารในช่วงเดือนมืดอ่ะ และถ้าเป็นไปได้ต้องเลือกวัน Darksday หรือวัน Firesday ด้วย เพราะเลเวลระดับนี้มันเจอแต่สูตรอาหารที่ใช้คริสตัลไฟทำ อ้อ เพราะงั้นเราก็เลยหันหน้าไปทิศตะวันตกด้วยนะเวลาทำอาหาร คืออาจจะจินตนาการไปเอง หรือเป็นเรื่องบังเอิญ หรือเป็นการหลอกตัวเองอะไรก็แล้วแต่ แต่เท่าที่ผ่านมาเราสังเกตเห็นได้ชัดเลยว่าทำแบบนี้แล้วได้สกิลอัพเยอะดี

Today’s recipe is Yellow Curry. Capped at 85.
สูตรอาหารวันนี้ Yellow Curry เลเวลตันที่ 85
Fire Crystal คริสตัลธาตุไฟ [AH price 1,000 a stack]:
Coeurl Meat [AH price 7,000 a stack]
Wild Onion [AH price 6,000 a stack]
Selbina Milk [NPC price 648 a stack]
Popoto [NPC price 516 a stack]
Curry Powder [NPC price 579 each, x12 = 6,948]
Turmeric [NPC price 5,172 a stack]
Distilled Water [NPC price 132 a stack]

Estimated cost per 12 Synths : 27,416 gil
ต้นทุนโดยประมาณของวัตถุดิบ 12 ชุด : 27,416 กิล

I used 48 Crystals and the synth results are as following:
ใช้คริสตัลไป 48 อัน ผลการผลิตมีดังนี้:

Started on Firesday, New Moon 10%.
ตอนเริ่มเป็นวันไฟ เฟสของดวงจันทร์เป็น New Moon 10%

1. Broke แตก : Onion, Curry Powder, Turmeric, Water
2. Broke แตก : Milk, Popoto, Onion, Powder, Turmeric, Water
3. Success สำเร็จ :
4. Success สำเร็จ :
5. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
6. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
7. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
8. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
9. Broke แตก : +0.1 pts. Curry Powder, Turmeric, Water
10. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.

11. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
12. Broke แตก : Onion, Curry Powder
13. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
14. Success สำเร็จ :
15. Success สำเร็จ :
16. Success สำเร็จ :
17. Success สำเร็จ :
18. Success สำเร็จ :
19. Broke แตก : Meat, Milk, Onion, Turmeric, Water
20. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.

21. Success สำเร็จ :
22. Success สำเร็จ :
23. Broke แตก : +0.1 pts. Milk, Curry Powder, Turmeric
24. Success สำเร็จ :
25. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
26. Success สำเร็จ :
27. Success สำเร็จ :
28. Broke แตก : Milk, Water
29. Success สำเร็จ :

At this point the Firesday ended and turned into Earthsday, New Moon 7%.
พอถึงตอนนี้วันไฟก็หมดลง…เปลี่ยนเป็นวันดินแทน เฟสของดวงจันทร์กลายเป็น New Moon 7%

30. Broke แตก : Milk, Water

31. Success สำเร็จ :
32. Success สำเร็จ :
33. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
34. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
35. Success สำเร็จ :
36. Success สำเร็จ :
37. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.
38. Broke แตก : Turmeric, Water
39. Broke แตก : +0.1 pts. Onion, Milk, Turmeric, Water
40. Success สำเร็จ :

41. Success สำเร็จ :
42. Success สำเร็จ :
43. Success สำเร็จ :
44. Success สำเร็จ :
45. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts. (Now Level 82!!!)
46. Broke แตก : Onion, Milk, Water
47. Success สำเร็จ :
48. Success สำเร็จ : +0.1 pts.

48 Crystals: 11 Broken, 37 Successful.
1.7 Skill Level: 0.3 from broke, 1.4 from success.

Max Total cost : 27,416 x 4 = 109,664 gil
ต้นทุนรวมสูงสุด : 27,416 x 4 = 109,664 กิล

Estimated income (from Yellow Curry AH price of 5,000) : 185,000 gil
รายรับโดยประมาณ (คำนวณจากราคาตลาด แกงถ้วยละ 5,000) : 185,000 กิล