Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How to Survive a Vana'dielian's Blog

I mentioned in my first post that one of the next couple posts would be one containing a list of lingo I may use, or have already used. If I think of something I've used, but didn't post on this list, I'll update it.


Vana'diel-- The fictional "earth" of Final Fantasy 11 (FFXI). Pronounced "van-ah-deal."

Quetzalcoatl-- The server in FFXI where my character, Flag, is located. Prounounced "queat-zal-coat-ul".

Tarutaru-- Flag's race. They're not children, despite their childish appearance. They're just short and smart. Pronounced "tar-oo-tar-oo".


Hume-- The human race in FFXI. Pronounced as it's spelled.


Elvaan-- The elves of FFXI. Elves are tall, noble, arrogant, live in the forest and as such are hippies. Pronounced "elv-en".


Mithra-- The "cat-like" race in FFXI. Consider them tan humans with cat ears and tails. A matriarchal race. Pronounced "Mee-thra".


Galka-- The monstrous race! They're tall, strong, muscular, asexual and all male. Pronounced "Gall-ka".



Aggro-- When a monster attacks you. Either it detects you with its sight or its hearing, or you attacked the bloody thing! Pronounced "agh-row".

Link-- When a monster attacks you because it saw you fighting something else. Consider it bestial loyalty to its own kind.

Tank-- A character who takes the brunt of a monster's attacks in group combat.

/tell-- A command used by typing "/tell *character name*" that sends a personal message to the named character. In your chat log, messages marked "Majestica>>" were received from a character named Majestica, and ones labeled ">>Flag" were sent from Flag.

Linkshell-- A shell that produces pearls that you attach to your ear that enables you to talk to anybody whom currently has a pearl from the same shell equipped. It's FFXI's guild/clan system.

Other things, such as jobs, I might also mention. Jobs are different occupations your character can change into in order to make use of different abilities, spells, traits or equipment.

Warrior (WAR)-- The philosophy of "I smash, you die."

White Mage (WHM)-- A healer of wounds and status effects. Can also use some divine magic damaging spells.

Black Mage (BLM)-- A wizard who primarily uses elemental magic to defeat enemies.

Red Mage (RDM)-- A cross between a WAR, WHM and BLM, a jack-of-all-trades. Can do moderate melee combat, and use moderately powerful white and black magic.

Thief (THF)-- Just like it sounds.

Monk (MNK)-- A melee combatant who uses his fists, typically wearing spiked knuckles and the like as well.

Paladin (PLD)-- A tank class that can use white magic.

Dark Knight (DRK)-- A damage-dealing melee class, typically using scythes or two-handed swords.

Beastmaster (BST)-- Makes use of charming monsters to make them fight for them.

Bard (BRD)-- A class that boosts its allies' parameters by playing songs.

Ranger (RNG)-- Uses bows, crossbows and guns to deal damage from afar.

 Samurai (SAM)-- A damage-dealing/tank class that uses great katanas to deal damage and quick reflexes to instinctively dodge incoming attacks. Flag is one of these primarily.

Ninja (NIN)-- A primarily tank class that can also damage deal if equipped properly. Uses ninja tools to cast ninjutsu to confuse and damage an enemy.

 Dragoon (DRG)-- A damage-dealing class that wields a polearm as well as the aid of a wyvern in battle.

Summoner (SMN)-- Through the aid of celestial avatars, a SMN can destroy foes and help its allies by boosting parameters or healing them.

Blue Mage (BLU)-- Obtains the knowledge to use monster abilities after observing them.

Corsair (COR)-- Pirates who use Lady Luck's touch by rolling the dice, boosting its allies' parameters in different ways while firing at opponents with its trademark "hexagun."

Puppetmaster (PUP)-- Making use of automatons, they control their every  move in combat. By adding different attachments to their machine, they can increase performance..

Dancer (DNC)-- During  The Great War in Vana'diel's history, troops of dancers were sent out as a way to boost morale to the troops to fight back invading enemy hordes. Aids its allies with curing abilities and ways to weaken enemies, they're quite handy to have behind you in battle.

Scholar (SCH)-- By studying magic, they've learned how to wield the most powerful white and black magics.

Image courtesy of http://www.holidayls.net/Archives/. Most of the jobs in FFXI!

Friday, January 21, 2011

I Wish There Was a Weather Effects Button For Real Life

Today where I go to school (Bangor, Maine), we've gotten about 18'' of snow.

Taken outside of my school.


I remember when I traveled to the Beaucedine Glacier for the first time, my thoughts were exactly the same: "Where the heck am I walking? I can't see past the snow!" It's a good thing there was an option to turn off the weather in the menu, or else I would've walked right into the claws of a Tundra Tiger or something similar, and had to walk all the way back. The dang place was just a ridiculous blizzard 24/7. I don't know how we didn't fall through the snow, since the drafts would surely be about fifty feet high.

Being a Taru would've definitely not helped me to prevent getting buried in the snow.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Welcome to my Mog House, This is my Warcry.

Hurrah!


Hello, and welcome to my humble rantings, which also might be called my experiences. I used to be a citizen of Vana'diel in Quetzalcoatl myself, alongside my 'little' friend here Flag back when the level cap was still 75. I had about 250-300 days of total time logged to him, all which was accrued in high school. Nowadays, Flag is in a temporal space of retirement eating some rice dumplings 'fresh' from the auction house, and sipping some chai tea straight from Aht Urhgan (pronounced ought err-gone).


It's been about two or three years since I last logged in for anything other than a "hello" to my former mates (my brother accesses the account daily on his character on the same server, so it's not like I spend $13 to say hi). I remember a lot of fond memories from this game, but on the flip side, I also had a lot of crap happen to me, either through bad luck or malice from Internet trolls.

But yeah, as far as intros go, I don't intend to go too far. You'll learn enough from future posts, and one of the next posts will be for those who don't know much about the lingo of the trade.