Last time I got excited about anything that was related to dynamis currencies was when SE announced they would be cutting Dynamis costs in half. I was pretty stoked at the notion of currencies dropping in price as a result. At the time, I had Limbus currency as solid reasoning. When SE dropped Limbus prices from 50k to 30k (god that seems like so long ago), Ancient Beastcoins followed suit.
Yeah well, people are dumbasses and kept buying up currencies at super inflated prices. Prices have actually gone up since the cost of Dynamis was cut in half. Logically, half-priced dynamis should have encouraged more groups to go, thus filling the market with more coins causing increase in supply. I would have expected an increase in demand as well given a lot of people looked at Dynamis prices and thought "ZOMG FIVE HUNDRED K FOR MORE THAN ONE ONE HUNDRED?!?!?!", but I figured the supply would have far outweighed the demand.
What actually did my theory in here was the fact that SE increased the drop rates in the northlands and CoP. Dynamis by nature is a long, boring event. Especially when the zones are being stingy. In reality, unless you're specifically after currency, there is no point in doing cities anymore. You can target different monster sets in the various CoP zones and get, what appears to be, a much higher chance of picking up a city's AF2. Dynamis-Qufim, for example, has Obsidian seeing 6-7 normal AF2 drops just on our normal path and we kill 20ish turtles and 5ish statues.
Couple that with AF2 dropping on average in double digits in the northlands, and you have yourself a recipe for FEWER coins on the market due to the lower time limit in CoP and the generally lower drop rate in Xarcabard due to fewer kills. Also dump people getting what they want and not doing Dynamis anymore on top of all that and you kill the supply even more.
I'm not going to get my hopes up until I actually see this implemented. I do know that increasing supply of something will generally cause prices to go down and this is apparently directed towards that. If it turns out to be along the scale of the ANNM drops, I wouldn't look for prices to drop at all, but if SE actually manages to make it worth people's time to do Union, go-go Wal-mart priced coins.
Rant Note
Regardless of how many coins are infused into the game through this, it still doesn't take away from just how idiotic some upgraders are in buying coins for near triple the cost of just putting a 12 man group together and going to the zone you need. I get some people are already commited to doing Dynamis with certain groups, but there are plenty of other start up groups out there that are likely looking for sponsors...they just don't know it yet.
Einherjar
Obsidian had T3 and T2 this week. Normally I would post and rant about some things that went wrong or observations that I had...
...and nothing is really going to change about that...
...but I wanted to take the chance first to point out that with a T1 win tomorrow, Obsidian will have done something that it hasn't done since we started doing Einherjar. They will have won T3-T2-T1 in succession for the first time ever. To some of the more hardcore gamers, that may invoke thoughts of "Yay? We do that all the time...". To those who don't see the pattern I had set up for the rooms initially based on being aware of what Obsidian is made up of, it'll probably invoke thoughts of "Wow...they've come a long way." And they have.
After the first 3-4 months of spamming a specific tier to get our mules set up (yes T2 and T3 were brutal to us while we were finding what worked best for our group), I set us up for doing Odin every 7th run day. There were two reasons for this. The first was that I knew we had people that could only make it on Saturday and we had people that could only make it on Tuesday. Having Odin on odd run days means I'm alternating the days and giving people fair shots at doing Odin. The second was that I wasn't super confident in our group's ability to win those 3 runs in succession and I wanted them to have multiple chances to do so between Odins. I felt that if we were winning consistently enough, I could eventually drop Odin down to every 5th run day.
The crew eventually did start showing they could win consistently, but never 3 in a row across all 3 tiers. Prior to my dropping Odin down to every 5th day, we would generally win 3 out of every 4. It got to a point where I could mostly chalk those losses up to bad luck. Those of you real familiar with Einherjar and how it works will know that sometimes it's just going to sodomize you w/o lube and there's nothing any amount of skill, gear or talent can do about it. The same pattern generally applied once I changed the pattern too. Something would trip us up and we'd have to use that 4th run to make up for it. To their credit so far, they have yet to fail and cause me to reschedule Odin.
I'm not going to gush with pride and whatnot at this achievement. I've felt it was long overdue and that's not to say we won't get tripped up anymore. It could happen between our upcoming Odin and the one after it, but I will say that I finally feel like a lot of the time and energy I put into this event is coming full circle. Leaders like to see the people under their direction have success and a lot of it. While I'm the first to admit I certainly have my moments and some people prefer other leaders to myself, I hope that everyone truly understands it's never been about drops for me (drops are a side effect of anyone's success). I had a huge chip on my shoulder that got mostly knocked off after our first Odin win. The chip wasn't related to my specific nature or abilities so much as it was related to knocks a linkshell I've helped to build over the years has taken (some legit, some ignorant).
I've been asked several times why I'm still associated with Obsidian. I'm first to admit I've considered leaving several times with most of the reasons behind said consideration being real life circumstances. Generally though, when this question is asked to me, it's asked by leaders/members of linkshells people would consider upper tier or in some cases, by people who would consider themselves upper tier, but are merely fooling themselves. Some have asked me from a "What else do you have to prove?" standpoint. Others have asked me from a "Why would someone as accomplished as you are associate with so many noobs?" standpoint.
That last question, in and of itself, is exactly why I've stayed with Obsidian. We were all noobs once. We all had to work for our gear and we all have to start somewhere. The difference though is that the vast majority of the time, those "noobs" are far more grounded in reality than most of the elitist jackasses could ever hope to be. Judging a group of people by their in-game accomplishments is petty and shallow. If you can show they're super lazy, by all means judge away, but if someone's going to judge because they don't have a full salvage set, all their OPs etc cause they spend 40-50 hours/week working and taking care of children, then said someone really needs to go experience the real world for a few years.
I've said repeatedly through this blog that "If you aren't willing to teach, you have no room to bitch." Not everyone has memorized ffxi-wiki or reads BG on a daily basis to keep up to the minute on every single thing possible in this game. To some people, the fun of logging into the game just to chat it up with others is all that's necessary. To others, it's a matter of being the go-to guy for information or a matter of making sure you have the absolute best gear you can have. To each their own. Obsidian's membership is made up of people you can actually have real life conversations with and I'm willing to bet this doesn't extend to many linkshells who can do what Obsidian does consistently.
Back on point though...Einherjar is what it is. There aren't many groups that can win across the board consistently. You either have to be super geared with moderate numbers (20-24ish) or you have to be modestly gear with large numbers (34-36) or somewhere in between. Obsidian is probably somewhere in between. We have a group of people that would find their way into most end-game shells rather easily on gear alone and we have a group of people that need to do some serious work (but they still effort and that's all anyone can ask). Hopefully this is something we've managed to build that will last for a long time to come.
The Return of Mr. and Mrs. Pun
So two years ago, a few of us started a bit of an annual event. I don't know who's idea it was originally, but I do know it's been something I've been looking forward to each year. The event is a get-together and a cook-out. We've yet to name the event (we need to do that so I can call it something other than 'the event'), but the original group that got together were Kaelis, Erimentha (Kae's wife), Sirinity, Looco (Sirinity's wife :P), Girlfriend and myself. We all convened at Kaelis' house for some tasty burgers and mango shenanigans.
The next year was at Siri/Looco's house. Same 6 of us showed up and we had a guest appearance by Lakroost. While there, we were talking about where the one this year should be. Kay suggested at her folk's house in Maine. Now for those of you that are geographically challenged...where Maine sits in relation to where Kaelis/Eri and Siri/Loo live is about 20 hours away by car. Her folk's house would be perfect for an event like this, but the haul would be long and flying there is too expensive (nearest airport is an hour away and no major commercial liners go there for cheap). Anyway, long story short...we're doing that up there this year and this serves as the platform for which I tell the rest of this story.
About a year ago, Kaelis/Eri had to leave FFXI for a number of real life reasons. No one can knock anyone for that and it takes a good understanding of reality to make a decision like that. Some can look at the first sentence of this paragraph and say "They all come back", which I agree with, but the general consensus among us was that if there was any person that could quit cold turkey, it was Kaelis.
Over the course of said year w/o Kaelis/Eri, I've visited them a couple times on my trips to visit the Girlfriend. I came to several realizations during that time that led me to believe I could convince them to come back to FFXI. While I didn't have too many online interactions with Eri, Kaelis was a part of a static group of friends I had made during my time in Obsidian. Certain friendships you develop in game eventually transcend the online world completely. Before you know it, you have one of those friends you didn't even have to effort to make. Given the info about the event I laid out and the number of times I've visited since, one can assume that since Kaelis left FFXI, there was obviously a hole in several parties that were made by our collective clique.
After coming to the realizations that I did, I started talking to Kaelis about returning rather seriously, even if it was just for a temporary and mostly selfish reason.
Y'see...I had this big idea where when we get together early next month for our annual event, that all of us who are there will be able to log into FFXI on Saturday morning and fight Odin together. I didn't want only a few of us to do it and the others who weren't active in FFXI to feel left out. Time was of the essence then given the requirements to fight Odin.
And conversate I did. I felt like the realizations I had would allow Kaelis/Eri to make their return w/o really changing their real lives. I felt for them to do so, he needed to learn to do two things. The first was how to say no. It happens to most of us where parts of our real lives become neglected because of an innate pressure to make people you care about happy. That means staying up late to help finish something or over commiting yourself to a series of events that particular week. Which leads to the second...don't overcommit yourself. I felt hopeful after my conversation that Kaelis would return...
...and the Girlfriend felt like Kaelis was just humoring me as he's been known to do several times in the past.
And later that night I got to rub it into the Girlfriend's face. The return of Mr. and Mrs. Pun had happened. While I don't anticipate that they'll be in game as much as they used to be, the fact that our clique is one step closer to being full circle again is exciting all by itself. Over the weekend, I spent some time farming up some projects for a couple weeks down the road that Eri's BLM will need along with introducing Kaelis to a lot of stuff that was implemented since he's left. I didn't realize just how much this game had changed in favor of the casual player over the past year until Kaelis started asking me "wtf are these treasure caskets all over the place for..."
So with a huge WELCOME THE FUCK BACK YOU TWO, look for linkshell channels to be littered with puns.
The Return of King Cranky Cat
This year's annual event also includes a few potential new guests as well. Siri and Looco are on the invite list, but likely aren't going to make it due to Siri being 7 months preggers. (Face it...would you want to drive 20+ hours with that sitting on your bladder?). So that leaves Kay, Kaelis, Eri and myself as the regulars that are going to be there for sure. We also have confirmation that Canuck will be there fresh off a 40 hour drive from the murder capital of the world.
Then in looking at my MSN list a few days ago, I remembered that another old friend of mine who has had several on again, off again love affairs with FFXI and most notably the original website moderator for Obsidian was in the vicinity of Maine and quite possibly right along the way up there.
So I extended the invite to Suraph...a.k.a. King Cranky Cat.
For those of you that don't know Suraph, his advil consumption during his Obsidian sackholder days were legendary along with his bear-trap of a mouth whenever he was particularly annoyed.
Much to my glee, he accepted and returned to FFXI himself. While I anticipate that he'll be spending less time in game than Kaelis and Eri, the fact that he'll be able to do Odin with us potentially when we're all gathered together in Maine is very exciting. And since he returned, I figure now is as good a time as any to bust out the King Cranky theme song as a welcome back. If you know the Green Acres theme song, this fits it.
KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING CRANKY IS THE KING FOR ME!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS CRANKY AS HE CAN BE!
Eh...fuck it, I'll just make him a trading card...(mainly cause it was his b-day over the weekend and I can't remember the rest of the song...).
Here you go!
So yeah, I managed to get 3 good friends to come back to FFXI (albeit temporarily) between my last blog post and this one. Now I'm super excited about the BBQ coming up early next month :)
I'm King Cranky Cat, and I approve this message.
ReplyDelete(and I'll approve any message that encourages the destruction of the taru children from CoP)