Grover's Bad Awful Day

Props to you if you can understand the beginning reference without having to click the link!

September 11th

Short post today, but mostly out of habit. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since the attack, I can remember where I was. It was my second week of middle school and it was supposed to be an important day as we were going to learn how Exploratory classes worked. I'm glad I didn't go, because my middle school teachers were really... REALLY awful. On the other hand, I stayed out of school that day to witness history, an unfortunate part, but history none the less. Lots of people's lives permanently changed that day.

Looking forward to weekend!

I want to take some time and get off the depressing-tone of my last blog entry.

I'm almost finished with summer classes! And I also saw who will be teaching the course for the Fall in my Physics lab. I can say I'm pretty happy with the schedule as is, but we'll see if anything changes. I heard one of my professors tends to be rude, but I don't tend to judge people until I've actually met them.

On Saturday, I'm planning to be back on the ball for working on Selatria and BETA projects. There will be two new movies coming out next week, look out for that!

We also had a new movie that was kind of in development hell for a while, so check that out.



Tomorrow I get to help feed orphans and do some filming. Until next time!

A mish-mash of what I'd like to do in the distant future.

I'm going to give it a go and write this post a day early. It'll auto-post itself at midnight on the 7th in any case.

If you ask the average person who has me on their friend list on Facebook or Google+ (or even this blog, depending on what posts were read), one would get this shallow assumption that I'm a person who just posts about games and doesn't really think of anything else.

It is true that I do love gaming, and everything associated with it, but I just don't like putting details of my private life on the interwebs. Well, not that much at least. I try to cater to my audience when making posts, whether it be on Facebook or YouTube or whatever. In all of that, whatever my real life details involve is kind of irrelevant. Most of my friend list is admittedly people whom I've never met face-to-face, and I keep information about me to a minimum if for privacy/safety reasons.

I think I went off tangent for what I wanted to post about... anyway one of the things I want to do when I get settled down into a career is to take some time and travel the world when I have my time off for vacation. I've never been in an airplane (some of you may be shocked), but I'd like to travel and see other continents like Austrailia, Europe, and Asia. I would also like to see the East Coast. A few years ago, I had a great desire to visit North Carolina for personal reasons, but reasons for that have changed and I would like to visit Washington D.C., New York, maybe even Florida.

Other than gaming, my main goals in life are to travel the world and write about stuff. I love exploration and writing. But I guess the latter is an acquired taste.

I don't really know where I was going with this post. Until next time.

Frustration!

Good place to vent, yes? And an appropriate one. (For whoever is reading.)

Here is the "rule of XIV", or so it's coined by me. Whenever I want to do something, the game will crash. The game will always crash. About to save the world? Game crash. Kill the ogre you lose 20 times on? XIV stops working.

Hey, it dates back to FFXI days, too!

Wanna fight Alexander? Nah, internet will go out for a week! (2007)

Riverne-Site #A01? Pfft, lets disconnect the Summoner so you can't do sh*t. (2004)

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That's all. I just want to say that games hate me, or my computer, or my connection.

Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Naoki Yoshida: Part XI -- My thoughts on upcoming content

FFXIV Airships as presented in Letter XVII

See also: Letter from the Producer XVII (9/1)
See also: Hunter's Moon: The Curse of Dalamud (9/2)
See also: Abolition of Physical Levels / Attribute Point Revisions (8/30)
See also: Battle Regimen Suspension (8/29)
See also: Materia: A Matter of Mystery (8/26)
See also: Changes to the Battle System (8/25)
--Changing to Claiming/Engaging Enemies
--The Enemy Link System
--Bonuses to Experience Points

As per a new Letter from the Producer, I'm inclined to post my thoughts and feelings of the state of FFXIV.

Background:

I tend to check the forums at Zam and EyesOnFF on a regular basis (okay, almost constant basis), and every time FFXIV is mentioned, it seems to cause discontent and skepticism among the gaming community. And rightfully so., the game undoubtedly sucked at launch, and there tends to be a chunk of players that don't believe the game will ever improve (or get a PS3 release, even.) I'm not one of these people, but that's what's out there.

However, while things get optimistic every patch or so and people start playing in droves wondering if the game is in a playable state yet, people get angry when it's not and go back to forums to complain, and then you get threads like this or this or this or this. Reviews/opinions are all over the place.

Anyway, I wanted to say that my hat is off to you, Yoshi-P. Most people don't realize that game development is a very slow process, and re-engineering it to tend to a pessimistic player-base is one hell of a detriment to morale. I personally think Square-Enix's biggest mistake was not having you on the FFXIV team sooner, but that's just me.

Okay, onto the topics!

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Airships/Chocobos:

Coming next patch [1.19]. We will apparently be able to raise our own as well as ride one. In a Final Fantasy first, chocobos cannot escape aggro, and if you get hit enough, the chocobo can kick you off, leaving you to run. That also means there's no time limit or minimum level restriction. (To my understanding.)

And Airships will link Gridania/Limsa/Ul'dah together via a short ride. Honestly, that's a relief, puts less of a strain on my anima. However, I wonder what the requirements to ride an airship will be. In FFXI, it was pretty hefty. I would not be surprised having a company storyline requirement in XIV given a certain mechanic's appearance in the storyline, just sayin'.

It's also stated that it will be a short trip. Although I initially liked the immersive-ness of waiting 15 minutes for an airship and looking at all of the zones below in FFXI, it was too long of a time-sink, and I just don't have the time to play as I did years ago in XI. Especially if I'm in a hurry to do an LS event or catch up with a party.

Physical Level/Attribute Point Revisions/Suspension of Battle Regimen:

A while back we were given a poll on battle system if we wanted to have set stats based on physical level or get rid of physical level and do full stat allocation. I'm glad they did somewhat of a mesh of the two. We lose physical level, keep class ranks (now called levels) and have set stats with leeway for customization in 1.20. What worries me though is how is that going to change from what we have. Will it make future content easier or tougher. And with the suspension of battle regimen, how will that make Dzemael Darkhold possible?

Materia:

The famed system from FFVII is making an appearance in XIV as an addition to Weapons and Armor? Something like that. I hope the bonuses are great enough to validate the suspension of Battle Regimen. I just hope this system doesn't release in a broken state akin to the Evoliths in FFXI, because this isn't the first time they tried to attempt this.

Battle System Changes:

It's interesting that they're completely getting rid of the "claiming" system. Fighting current and future open-world notorious monsters may be a challenge if people are going to fight for 'rights' to the drop from the monster. But then again, it might foster a more helpful environment where people join in for the sake of speeding up kills or helping out someone who is struggling to solo or duo something with a friend. But it can also result in a lot of "kill steals".

Given that the majority of future content is going to be instanced, we'll see. But I'm kind of skeptical on this.

Fall Event:

Can someone explain what this entails? It's far too wordy to make sense out of it.

Miscellaneous:

I'm going to call it out right now, the second primal battle listed on the letter is going to be a fight against Leviathan.

Job system and redefined actions are also coming in the future, patch 1.20/1.21. Not 1.19
_


That's about it. That's most of the important things out of the letter and related posts. Or at least, what I feel is important.



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Happy September!

Happy September! New blog look and theme for the occasion. It's more personable and to my liking. Or at least I'd like to think so. It also makes it easier on my eyes. The conflict in blues in my last layout hurt my eyes when reading sometimes, and I imagine that may have happened to you. Or maybe it still does, I don't know.

Anyway, as a ritual I always post this video on the social networking site every September. Back then it was MySpace bulletins, but now by the time this is posted, it will be on Facebook as well. It's about a woman on Family Feud back when Richard Dawson was hosting and what she answers when asked "during what month does a woman begin to look pregnant". Well, you'll have to see for yourself.





and then there's also this, for the sake of being adorable.






PS: I lied. I had this whole train of thought about talking about Final Fantasy XI, but then I figured what's the point?