Too Many Irons...

I somehow managed to get way too many irons in the fire the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure how long it will take to get them done, but here's a run-down of what I'm working on.

Dynamis Pulling Maps

Last week I got the hair-brained idea to try to make my own map for Obsidian utilizing my thoughts and observations on pulling the various zones. The main idea behind this was to give the new sackholders something they can physically look at w/o having to work too much to decipher. Training new sackholders is always a difficult task due to pulling and I'm trying to take a bit of a different approach.

As I was looking around at the maps I use for references, I thought I should probably take the best of each map and try to apply it to a map we use internally. I approached Lect about it since he's a photoshop master (and I'm not...). If the initial draft he sent me is any indication, these are going to turn out a lot better than I thought they would.

The problem that I have with a lot of the current maps is that they're all missing something or another. DynamisLounge maps are by far the best ones out there I've seen, but in the case of their Dynamis-Windurst map, I had an issue with their numbering scheme. They do the zone differently than how we do it. I'm not knocking their method if it works for them and I'm not saying their method won't work for us, but it's just not the method we developed over the 5 or so years we've been doing Dynamis and there isn't a map out there that really illustrates how we do Windurst.

Another popular series of maps are the ones created by Dona.dlp.jp. Whoever did this series of maps did an outstanding job of dotting all of the HP/MP statues as well as original spawn locations and extensions. Their maps are just the location of the original statues with a secondary map showing trigger statue spawns. The problem with these maps is that they do not show what triggers what.

The last example are the maps created by "F&M". Another JP linkshell. Their maps simply show pathing, dot out the extensions, NMs and what not, but nothing else.

I wanted documentation of what spawns where. I wanted to create a map that had a key to it where a puller could see they were about to come up on statue 34, look at the key, know it spawns some BSTs and 2 other statues and be able to give a heads up to the crowd (specifically tanks and sleepers).

With all that in mind, I set out to combine this:

- Similar use of numbered pulls like DynamisLounge maps illustrating what statues pop where, only in a more sensible manner to how we do Dynamis.

- Visually friendly like the Dona.dlp.jp maps.

- Pathing routes illustrated like the F&M maps.

- A key to the numbered statues detailing what spawns.

As Dynamis-Windurst started yesterday, I set Gawayne to the task of documenting what pops from what statue. We used the numbers that were used on the DynamisLounge map as our references for the time being until I can transpose them to the numbers we're going to use. We managed to document everything but 12 statues (not counting triggers). If you look at the two DynamisLounge maps, we didn't pull statue 80 (and it's subsequent triggered statues obviously) on map 1 and we didn't have time to pull statues 140-150 on map 2.

I have a draft of the Windurst map already, but I don't want to publish it yet until color schemes become a little more concrete. Like I said earlier, if the initial draft is any indication, these things are going to be easy enough to read and decipher that even a guy who hasn't ever been in Dynamis before can probably pull.

Sackholder Training Manual

This was something else that had been missing from the Obsidian leader forums for a while. Usually when we promote Sackholders, it's one or two at a time. Since we promoted 4 this time, getting them all together in one spot at the same time is tough. So I took it upon myself to write up a very long-winded 7-post guide in the leader forum explaining the various administrative tasks Sackholders are responsible for.

Generally speaking, you can divide the administrative tasks up into the following categories:

Bidding/Attendance - These are done as one group due to how a run is "finished" on the website. Finishing a run puts the drops and attendance in. Separating these two out just makes things complicated.

Glass Pickup - Nothing real time consuming about this. Just need to know the pattern we use to pick up the glasses. For you naysayers out there that believe where you pick the glass up from has no bearing on the zone itself, I won't argue with you, but the pattern is simply more of a "Why not?" thing.

Parties - Probably the most frustrating aspect of being a sackholder. When you make parties for 48 people or something and you end up with 7 no-shows and 4 more who show up that weren't signed up, it can wreck your job changes and set ups.

Pulling - Most time consuming and arguably the most critical facet of being a sack. Don't have to be super smart to realize that whoever is filling this role for the run dictates the pace and is generally the figurehead for that run.

Scheduling - Simple enough. Try to get one of each city run, a couple CoP runs double with Tav, a couple Xarcs and a Glacier run in each month and try to fit it in with what's already scheduled on the Dynamis Calendar.

Applications - We've been weak processing these lately due to how we have them filtered. The applications get sent to Sacks based on what job the applicant applied as. Since we're undergoing some rather major turnover, it's been a little difficult keeping up.

Communication - Broad connecting facet of being a Sackholder. I emphasized this point due to the fact that without it, the rest of the facets of being a Sackholder are moot.

The good thing about this guide that I've written is that the other veteran Sackholders can add to it or modify it based on their own experiences. I'm hoping this evolves into the central location for information that Sacks can go to if they have a question about how to handle a certain situation.

Critical Break 60-100

I've mentioned this before. It's about halfway done currently with Alchemy, Cooking, Smithing and Goldsmithing left to do.

I've been writing so many guides lately that this took a bit of a back seat. That and the fact that I'm not up against a deadline until mid-November. Celestria and Ninjafox both have copies of the Woodworking and Leathercraft guides respectively for their input, but having written so much the past month, I'm getting a little burned out on writing.

(Yet here I am updating my own blog...the irony...)

PSP

This would be my current video game crack. When Girlfriend was here a couple weeks ago, she used some of her free Gamestop gift cards to help me pick one of these up. I ended up going to buy Crisis Core ($9.99 from Toys R Us) and Dissidia ($39.99...) for it. Along the way, I discovered that the PSP store had FF7 for download for $9.99.

Can I just mention that the PSP store is probably going to be bad for me financially?

So I've been playing these three games off and on between writings and FFXI events. Needless to say, I'm in a bit of an Final Fantasy food coma.

Crisis Core is a fun game. I had forgotten most of the little details that were present in FF7 as I was playing through the start of this. Playing FF7 in conjunction with Crisis Core has definitely brought back a lot of memories. It's also brought back a different perspective on the game itself since a lot of own perceptions about life have changed. I've always been a sucker for prequels though. I always find it neat when a decent writing team can connect a prequel to all the little details in the money-making juggernaut that created the demand for said prequel in the first place.

Dissidia I'm mixed on. It might be because I haven't played any games in the street fighting genre in probably 10-12 years. Visually, the game is great. It's definitely awesome to revisit old characters from the previous FF games and have them developed a little more. My main issue with Dissidia would be the controls just seem so loose. Button combinations rarely fire the way they're laid out and this is either due to poor command recognition in the game itself or I'm just getting old and rusty at games that require fast reaction speeds. My other not-so-major gripe is that the left out Kain.

In more specific FFXI-related information:

- Fishing is now 84
- I'm 0/8 currently on the Cursed Cap -1 quest.
- I need to rebuffer my Dragoon.
- Going to attempt our first Odin after the minimal number of runs (3) on Saturday. If things go well, I may start alternating days every 2 Odins instead of every 1 just to squeeze in a couple more Odins over time.

Back to work I go. :)