Mid-July 2015 Update!

I haven't done an update so since I'm feeling kinda down recently, I'll do one right now in the middle of July.

Games are really awesome right. They take you out of the real world and let's you enjoy the virtual...yada yada, you know what they say about entertainment. Well, Heavensward just dropped around a month ago and I have been spending most of my free time playing it. As far as the overall feel goes, I think it has delivered at least to its expectations if not better. There is so damn much to do! Hopefully once I start clearing them, I'll have more time to go back to doing other things.

Aside from that, Hearthstone's not so bad. I managed to hit rank 7 before the end of the month despite not playing as much. I tried a variety of cheap decks this time like Face Hunter, Hybrid Hunter, Midrange Hunter, Aggro Tempo Mage and Patron Warrior. Face got me all the way to rank 13 or 14 I believe before running into Handlocks that run double healbots. Midrange/Hybrid hunter then got me up to 10 and Patron Warrior all the way to 7. It's really interesting to see how the meta shifts over time and over ranks.

Meanwhile, my Persona Q is slowly...making some progress...lol

Now for more depressing news...mostly about the games industry because I care for it.

First, Iwata-san's passing. He's arguably the most engaging CEO in the games industry and possibly an inspiration of many aspiring game developers. It is truly a sad moment for Nintendo, for its fans and above all, for the games industry. Hopefully Nintendo recovers from it and continue creating great games. They just stepped into the social market, which is a big step but in the right direction imo.

That aside, a friend of mine discussed with me about starting his own indie game company. The last time I went to Casual Connect, it seemed that indie game companies are floating in SEA but now I know that Singapore is behind, if not sinking. Every indie game company I know are barely making ends meet. Some will probably be gone in a couple of years time unless they manage to land a crazy good title. Kinda depressing.

Starting an indie games company in Singapore sure is difficult. Basically what I heard is that you will get no funding until a playable version. 'Playable' is, of course, subjective but by normal means it takes like minimally 3 full months to create a 'Playable' version of a really small scale polished game. Money will then kick in through funding to keep everyone afloat to hopefully make their next game. Hopefully one day, one of your games will make it big and your company can grow.

Sounds nice in theory, except that there is no real incentive for people to stay in the company, I feel, other than your promises of a brighter future. As far as software development goes, there are so many higher paying jobs which practice better software development techniques compared to games so if you are your own boss running an indie company, you have to realize the 'competition'. I already have a couple of friends who are burnt out from a couple of years of games development despite studying to be a games developer for nearly a decade.

And this is just skimming the surface of the many problems that can occur.

Well, I'm not exactly rich, passionate or business-minded enough to start my own company. Just thinking of starting up an indie games company makes me jaded and tired.

Aside from that, Konami has done some questionable stuff a month ago from, I think, anyone's perspective. With Kojima Productions disbanded and the new Silent Hill cancelled, we can guess that internally, it's not very healthy. I do not have doubts that Konami will still be fine, but it seems like a mess in there so it will probably be some time before we hear any news I guess.

On the bright side, this weekend I have a LiSA concert and upcoming would be a Eir Aoi concert follow by maybe a Japan trip with hopefully another concert (Animax?), and following that would be AFA!

The best part of my 2015 is yet to come!

お楽しみ~！

FF14 Heavensward existing class patch notes thoughts

Okay second part of Heavensward patch notes regarding existing class changes. Below are just some of my thoughts and speculations. Maybe in the future I can look back and see if they came true?

Disclaimer: Note that the only classes I haven't played are Ninja, Warrior, Monk and Archer so what I view from those classes are purely from a bystander perspective.

The existing skill changes compilation I read were from here. It seems like there's a lot of nerf in AoE damage, defensive buffs and debuffs. There are also buffs in attack skills in general.

Particular skill changes that caught my attention:

Enhanced Medica replacing Proshell  - This is incredibly awesome given that Cure III range is so crap. This means that we can be more liberal on our AoE heals. Proshell removal is probably just to balance between all 3 healers so when Scholars get paired with Astrologians, they don't feel like they missed out on anything.

Quick Stoneskin replacing Graniteskin - Awesome also. Graniteskin removal, like Proshell removal, is probably for balancing out the 3 healers. Quick Stoneskin is actually very nice for tank busting mechanics and PVP where cast time really matters.

Selene Changes - Wow, looks like a lot of changes for the Scholar pet. The 'mass leeches' skill can be useful I guess, but with statuses that cannot be removed, it's hard to conclude it's usefulness. It will probably be good in a couple of fights here and there though.

New Class Skills

Summoner

Holy shit summoner. With all the AoE nerfs to Holy and Flare, They might very well be the best burst AoE class in the game with these new skills. I'm expecting a nerf coming their way because with Tri-Disaster and Dreadwyrm Stance, they might also be the best single target caster DPS (they already are currently, but this might put they waaay past BLM).

 Scholar

They ramped up Scholar's ability to heal, which kind of confuses me a bit because that is traditionally a White Mage's role. I'm not exact certain about what to conclude about Deployment Tactics, except that it can gives everybody a powerful shield. Actually the new Scholar skills made me wonder where both Astrologian and Scholar stands between healing and shielding. In general, Scholar seems like very well rounded healer now, instead of a shield specialist.

Black Mage

Ley Lines is the most interesting new ability in my opinion, specifically on a job that is as immobile as a Black Mage. Sharpcast looks crazy good on paper because it forces procs. The effect of Enochain + Fire4/Blizzard4 really depends on how good they are in the BLM rotation I think. As the description holds, they do not look very impressive. It might be just there to increase overall dps and make rotations a bit more complex.

Bard

Bards seems to get a more complicated dps rotation! Hooray! Getting their own version of fester seems fun too. I personally feel that Warden's Paean will become another class defining feature for Bard, unless Yoshida is a bastard and have 'un-Paean-able' statuses.

Dragoon

Pretty straightforward. They get their version of Grease Lightning. Wait, then what would that make the relationship between Dragoons and Monks? With the lack of new attacks from monks, it seems that Dragoons might becoming top DPS, but only if they manage to the new positioning attack right all the time to extend Blood of the Dragon (well done, I just realized I almost described Grease Lightning).

Monk

Yay, AoE attack. Tornado kick is weird, because at the moment, monks do not want to lose their Grease Lightning. Integrating it into monk's rotation might mean that Perfect Balance timing is more important than ever. In general, it feels like Monks are less reliant on maintaining Grease Lightning, since they can gain it back faster with Form Shift. This could translate to just better overall dps.

The Chakra mechanic looks like a throwback to Monks in RO1, so we might see Monks become more bursty depending on what they can do with it.

Ninja

The support melee is more supporty! Now they can reduce enmity, which probably makes them best friends with Black Mages. Other than that, they just simple dps increase.

Paladin

I really think this is Yoshida's secret favorite class now. They get dps increase and a 1 hit version of the old Manawall. Divine Veil is siiiiiick on paper and can prevent raid wipes or mechanics that constantly throws AoEs (like T11?). Oh and they get a form of  Lay On Hands, finally.

Warrior

I was actually wondering what dps class this is, then realized it's the Warrior. At this point, I'm entertaining the thought that Yoshida might change the Warrior icon to purple. Warriors are still really good tanks if done right though. Also, having a TP restoring skill really helps since they cannot cross-class Invigorate. I think they will be really fun to experiment solo/duo dungeon runs with, since their kit is looking more and more akin to those solo classes in other MMOs.

White Mage

Everything is good here. Every skill just makes White Mages do what they already do better. Aero III and Assize is going to be awesome for clearing mobs with the nerf to Holy incoming. Asylum is always good to have; there is actually a similar skill in PvP. Getting our own small Lustrate is good (Tetragrammation). My only hope is that it's "Instant" is really instant unlike Benediction's.

Aaaand that's it!^^

Heavensward soon!

FF14 Heavensward patch notes thoughts.

Preliminary Patch notes are out!

Here are my thoughts for most of them.

Let's start from the top. Real talk here.

Playable Content

Areas

New areas and stuff. Not much to comment other than graphics. Art-wise for normal non-snowy areas look very Vanguard:SOH style: lots of brown, lots of medieval, lots of ruin, lots of moss, and...brown. Snowy areas look very Everquest: Scars of Velious: mainly pointy stuffs and dragon-like stuff littered over barren whiteness. Quite lovely. I loved Velious in Everquest so I'm pretty sure I'm going to love this place. I would love to have our FC house in a snowy place!

Flying continents are always amazing, of course. Brings the epic feel to the game.

Quests

Nothing much here, except that Beast tribe daily quest allowance increased from 6 to 12, which means more free exp especially for Ixali crafters.

Guildleves

There's this new thing called "Temple Leves" which is basically giant leves that uses up 10 allowances. There doesn't seem to be much motivation to doing these except that it drops this thing called "amber-encased vilekin", which we still have no idea what it can be exchanged for.

FATEs

Nothing interesting here. More FATEs. Much wow.

Treasure Hunt

Nothing interesting here. More map types, much awesome.

Grand and Free Companies

Company Workshops! This is puts some EVE Online into FF14. Basically, crafters (or rich people, usually they are both) within the FC can come together and craft awesome stuffs, like airships! I think this new feature is pretty nice and adds a whole new level of content for crafters. 

Speaking of airships, there's this new thing called Exploratory Voyages. If a Free Company has an airship, you can send it on one. From a glance, it seems like a very detailed super retainer. I'm quite interested in how much Square allows this to affect Adventuring. My speculation is that it won't affect that much, but on hindsight, I can see how you can implement it such that it does.

And finally, new company actions! Glancing thought, the Jackpot ones (increases MGP payout) is so smart, especially if it affects mini-cactpot (I don't think it...will for the giant cactpot one?). If so, I can see our coffers drain at every midnight now.

Housing

New furnishings...etc. The Triple Triad table is actually interesting. I'm wondering if others can spectate a match.

The Manderville Gold Saucer

[2.0] Players can now purchase up to three mini cactpot tickets per day.

Holy crap? It gets more expensive after each try but...holy crap?

Other Playable Content Stuff

Nothing much that we don't know about here. New sightseeing logs, Au Ra race, new hairs (I don't think they are that interesting). Being able to view weather forecast is cool. Flying mounts. Oh yes, flying mounts. Like many others, I'm excited to have one, but I didn't like the addition of griffons. I really don't think it belongs in a Final Fantasy setting at all. But whatever pleases the crowd right? Griffon + snow = profit!

Battle System

Okay I'm just going to talk a bit about the 3 new jobs. It's going to be interesting to see how all 3 of them works out and fit into the current meta. Just some thoughts off my head:

Dark Knights

Are Dark Knights going to replace Warriors as a preferred tank? Or Paladins? Which do they synergize with better? How mana or energy reliant are Dark Knights? This might affect synergy with bards and ninjas. Potentially, like Ninjas, their existence in a static that aims for optimization might change their lineup.

Machinist

What support does Machinist provide? I don't think they are all out dps because then they would be competing with our 3 other melee dps for physical prowess. I don't think any melees will like it if Machinist does more dps than them, which means they might support based. If so, how are they compared to Bard, which already seems to have everything.

Astrologian

Astrologian seems hardcore, potentially. Also seems fun. I'm definitely playing one on release. Either way, the way their stances work make it seems like they synergize well with the other healers. There will probably be different playstyles depending on what your other healer is, which I thought is interesting.

Limit Break Changes

The limit break for ranged physical DPS has been changed to an attack to all targets in a straight line before the caster.

Sounds incredibly underwhelming and boring on paper. Sounds like AE limit break with less area and possibly more damage. If that's the case though, I can see how it replaces caster LB in certain fights though. Pretty safe move. Still much much better than Bards casting healer LB.

Attribute Changes

[2.0] Player attributes have been adjusted as follows:

- Skilspeed and spellspeed now affect damage over time and healing over time effects.

Finally. About time. Also, maybe SMNs can share gear with BLMs now? And very good news for WHM. We'll still need to see the formulas though.

- The effect of determination on auto-attacks has been reduced.

This is just to reinforce the skillspeed/spellspeed changes.

- Critical hit rate now affects damage dealt with a critical strike.

Wow. So it's crit damage AND rate now? Sounds really overpowering. 

- Certain attributes no longer affect parry or block.

No comments. 

Fantastic changes which opens up for more experiments with gear, depending on how well they balance. In the future meta, at best, we might be seeing different BIS for different fights along with different rotation with different BIS. At the worst case, we'll just go back to the 1 BIS to rule them all. 

Pet Changes

[2.0] Pets have been adjusted as follows.

- The base accuracy of pets has been raised. Furthermore, all pet attacks will now be treated as if attacking from the rear.

- Pets will now receive the attribute bonuses of food items.

Awesome changes for SCH and SMN. To be honest though, these should be in since day 1 so from my perspective it's more of a bug fix. 

- In order to receive the effects of the caster's spell speed attribute, all pet actions excluding auto-attacks have been changed to elemental damage.

This one is pretty rad. /shrug. 

Duty Finder Changes

Undersized Party allows you to bypass restrictions of a duty while Minimum IL syncs you to the duty's minimum requirement. Both are really really cool. Undersized Party allows for cool experiments like maybe solo warrior runs....would make decent online content for your blog or whatever. Minimum IL is lovely. It allows players to experience old content as close as possible to its release. Reduces the amount of "BACK IN MY DAYS" rants for old players, I guess.

Loot Rules can now be set

We finally have multiple loot systems: Normal, Greed Only, Lootmaster. To be honest, I can't believe it took them this long to implement this. Watch out, DKP loot system might be coming Weird though, to have DKP for 8 man runs. Must be more unnecessary than I thought.

Hunts

Nothing much. New kind of hunt seal? I hate hunts so I'm not really interested.

PVP

Lots of interesting changes and fixes. We can finally figure out WHY we win/lose now that they are showing points gained from various sources. There are also new rules for Frontlines which I cannot wait to try out!

Items

Tons of small, interesting things here. Let me cherry pick:

[2.0] High quality items can now be converted into normal quality items.
The ability to reduce HQ stuff to LQ is always useful.

[2.0] Players can now purchase replica Zodiac Weapons from Drake in the North Shroud (X:30 Y:20).

AWESOME! No more stupid WHM christmas tree stick!

[3.0] Disciples of the Hand and Land can now exchange blue crafter's scrips and blue gatherer's scrips for items and gear.

Looks like tomestones/marks/seals for crafters and gatherers. No idea what it is, but good to see content expanded for crafters and gatherers.

Collectables
Recycling mechanic. Always nice in any MMO. We'll have to wait and see what things actually get recycled for.

[3.0] The crafting specialist system has been added.
Essentially means you cannot be a "Master Crafter/Gatherer". Er, this is good and bad. Good because market won't be flooded and a crafter can probably earn better dough. Bad for consumers because everything is back to being rather expensive. However, still good for the game in general because the market will be stabler. I won't go into details here.

[2.0][3.0] New minions have been added.
[2.0][3.0] New mounts have been added.
Yay! Sorry.


System
Nothing much here

Casual Connect 2015 Report

A bit overdue, but I'm gonna just drop this here:

My Casual Connect 2015 Report.

Momoko In Eorzea Part 5: "Disappearance of Rai Dunia Side Story: Misadventures of Momoko and her Popotoes"

(This post is pure 'rant' style. I'm just going to type whatever's on my mind in attempts to recount what was on my mind with minimal vetting, if any at all. Sorry for any bad English you encounter. Please enjoy my verbal vomit ^_^)

Last Tuesday, our FC senpais organized a really fun Escape-style event for us which I had the honor to participate in. Let me do some small background information about me and riddles first.

Personally, I am terrible at riddles. If there is something that I'm terrible at doing in my life, it's riddles. I'm probably the kind of person who you bring to Escape games and confuses the heck out of everybody in the team. It could be because I am allowed to think without constraints and my brain is kinda trained to break puzzles more than to solve them (thanks Dungeons and Dragons -_-). It could be that I think too much or when I attempt to think 'out of the box', I went to outer space instead. It could also be because I am very detail orientated, which is possibly due to my stay in Digpen, which causes me to blow every detail out of proportion like those Illuminati videos on YouTube. I dunno. Maybe I'm just dumb. But how can I be dumb if I know I'm dumb?

SORRY!

BACK TO THE TOPIC!

That being said, it doesn't mean I don't like riddles. I still enjoy playing Professor Layton series, although I don't think I have solved any riddles other than those really straightforward-single-step ones.

Expectedly (or unexpectedly as my ego claims), I didn't get very far in the Escape game. I only managed to solve the first puzzle and that was with much hand-holding towards the end of the event. The organizers are probably interested in what happened, and here is a recount including my thought process in the whole event. Unfortunately I did not have many screenshots, so it will be mostly words.

------

The event started at the basement of the FC house. Cyrn-kun was there giving out the first clue:

{“Guys!! It’s an emergency!! The Baa is gone!! He left a note… His last words of farewell?

Hyur does not belong!! find the murderer at:
hutwuyrentysuevren
Twhentuysrihx
Ywulrun

/tell them “YOSHIDAAA"}

How the heck did Cyrn-kun manage to pronounce those words? Must be an incredible Lalafell feat! Oh wait I'm Lalafell too. Hmm nevermind. I shan't think too much on that. Our dear FC leader, Baa-chan, is missing! We must find her!

Okay, really at this point, the puzzle seemed very easy. I immediately opened up my trusty Notepad++ and replaced the letters H Y U R with nothing. Easy Peasy! 

"twentseven Twentsix wln "

Wut? First things I spotted were a "seven" and a "six". So what is a "twent"? And why is one of it capitalized while other is not? It could be deliberate? Or it could mean that the murderer just happens to capitalize one and not the other. STILL I have no idea what is a "twent". Well, in a sense, it DOES look like "twenty" and if it is, it would make some sense. But the removal of 'y' is most likely more deliberate in my mind than it being a design issue due to the nature of 'HYUR' having a 'Y' foiling the organizer's plan to fully spell out the numbers correctly. And it could be that having 'HYUR' mattered more and hope that the players did not think too much about the lack of 'y'. Still, the removal of 'y' seems more deliberate so I went with that first.

"twent" still means nothing to me. Much less "wln". Standing outside the FC house, I semi-afk'ed to look at the words on Notepad++. I undid and redid the process to affirm myself that the removal of 'y' is indeed deliberate, for this case anyway. So I took a small leap of faith. Maybe I'm supposed to "/tell YOSHIDAAA" on a person named "Twent Seven". Who knows? Around this time, there was a PSA going around saying that we should  take into account the "lag" time with the NPCs that we /tell to. So I randomly decide to "/tell Twent Seven YOSHIDAAA", even though it is unlikely that it is the solution. And waited for the 'lag time'.

Then around 5 minutes later, Onion-kun walked up to me. I was mindblown. Did I get it right? How is it even possible? It doesn't even make any sense! Well, it does but it makes the least sense of all the conclusions I came up with. She then opened a trade window and passed me a bowl HIGH QUALITY MASHED POPOTOES. What could this mean?? Did I succeed? It makes no sense! Is it a clue? Popoto = potato = Titan = T? "Twentseven" = "T went Seven"? T = Titan, Titan = T? "Titan went seven?". Oh my god it's a completely logical(?) sentence! What's going on?! Do I sign up for Titan EX? Oh my god Baa-chan is a healer! Healers must go to 7 o'clock in Titan for Gaol mechanic! Then what does six mean then??

Many minutes went by trying to find out whether Titan killed Baa-chan and how. I still have no idea what "wln" or anything means at this point, but this went on until 15 minutes after Onion-kun told me to ignore the Popoto because it was a mistake. Why 15 minutes? Because my brain was still on tilt over the "Titan went seven" thing so I took that long to get it off my head before trying another lead. I guess my brain was proud that it reached that ridiculous conclusion and became attached to it.

I went back to the other conclusion about "twent" meaning "twenty". I think it was close to an hour into the event by then? Despite me saying that I ignored the Popoto thing, the Mashed Popoto was still in my inventory and it's giving me random signals to link it to everything >.<

Well, "twenty seven" and "twenty six" could mean anything. I thought they could be coordinates, room number, or even house number. I tp'ed to Ul'dah thinking that since it is a place of Lalafells, maybe it's where "Hyur do not belong". I was thinking maybe Raubahn is an exception and is a Lala-friend (you know like how elves have elf-friends?). Unfortunately, X:27 and Y:26 does not exist in Ul'dah. So I teleported back.

Okay, so the thing about teleporting for me is that I have the habit of opening the map first when I reach my location. I teleported back to the Goblet and I SAW NUMBERS when I opened the map! Surely, this must be the answer?? Desperate, I traveled to house #27, hoping that "twenty six" means room #26 at that house. And guess what I found there! A Lalafell standing at the entrance! I /poked, /wave, and ran circles around him without any response. Sadly not even a "/tell YOSHIDAAA" worked. On top of that, house #27 is a small house so there isn't a room #26. Dejected, I retraced my steps.

So it was around this time I was crying in the FC house and in FC chat. Since it was nearing the end of the event, Lumi-chan gave me hints and asked me to think about what "wln" means. FOR SOME REASON, my brain could only think of "wah lan", "WIN" and "western latern" (seriously, don't ask me where the last one came from). With Lumi giving me more hints, and me honestly trying very hard not to look like an idiot and cry/laugh in real life, I finally figured that "wln" means Western La Noscea (or as I like to call "Western La Nose Car").

At this point, I actually felt happy and sad at the same time. I felt happy because...well I solved the puzzle. I wasn't sad from receiving hints. I was sad about the fact that I felt happy. I was going full "mature kodomo" mode at my computer, saying things like "why am I happy over this?"

I finally teleported to Western La Noscea and moved to X:27, Y:26, which is at Aleport. I ran around looking for anyone I recognize but couldn't, so I started gauging how far can I walk before a coordinate changes. I walked towards the gate, and the coordinate changed. Hmm, the NPC must not be outside. So I walked down towards the port. I stopped at the Orwen, the NPC that hands Levemete, when the Y-axis turned to 27. Okay it must not be here either.

So again I'm stumped. I looked at all the players standing around and found one that belonged in an FC that is somehow very familiar and was pretty sure that a couple of their FC members raided with not just me, but our other FC members before. Maybe it's her. It must be her. I mean, what are the chances that a member of an FC, that has members that raided with members of our FC, is conveniently placed at the exact coordinates I'm at, right? Below is a screenshot of what I did:

She said "Please look forward to it!".

FINALLY! I FOUND THE ONE!!!

Bearing in mind the 'lag time' mentioned earlier, I waited. Soon after, she teleported away! "Yes!" I thought. "She's coming back with the next hint!". I mean, she was standing there the whole time, why only teleport now? Coincidence? Surely not!

For those who didn't know, the Aetheryte is right next to Delivery Moogle. I stood there in sheer excitement and anticipation for someone to appear there and walk up to me. A few minutes later, I think Lumi-chan was getting all worried and started querying for my location. Well, that confused me a bit. Isn't this Magatsu Kusanagi part of the plan? I figured it is okay to ask so I did. Lumi just went straight up "No"or something along those lines. Eh?!

Hmm I'll try to describe what it felt like with an embarrassing story that happened to me in Secondary School, so bear with me for awhile. Basically it was Home Economics. I was supposed to 'cook' cup noodles, so I did the right thing at first: put the seasonings into the cup, pour hot water, and wait. Then I just decided that I wanted dry noodles and poured all the soup out, thinking that it will still taste the same, but dryer. This feeling is similar to the feeling I had when I tried to eat the dried noodles with high expectations of its taste. It's like embarrassment, humor, amazement, disappointment and dejection all at the same time.

Aaaanyway, Lumi came out from where-ever she came from and I spotted her. She told me to follow me and I started to tail her. My first thoughts while tailing were "Ohhhh I'm so dumb! I didn't check the top of the wall!", the wall being the one was behind the delivery moogle and the Aetheryte.

Then she led me down towards Orwen, which I mentioned earlier, is the NPC that gives levequests.

Down? Why down?

Isn't this X:27, Y:27? Hey that's not...wait?

She opened the door behind him and entered.

...

THE DOOR OPENS?!?!

*faints*

I walked in and it appears that it is a tavern of some sort. Lumi walked towards the end of the tavern and I followed. It was X:27, Y27 while following her but when I reached to the end...

X27, Y:26.

Western La Noscea.

mind=blown.

orz

-------------------------------

And that is the end of my story for this event. I hope everyone enjoyed the recount. I didn't bother (and didn't have time) to vet it so I apologize again for any bad English anyone encountered. I told myself to just type what's directly on my mind to make this recount as 'pure' as possible.

I would like to give a very heartfelt shoutout to all the organizers in our FC: Lumi-chan, Hanskun, Cyrn-kun and Baa-chan. I can really see the effort put in and I do hope you all had fun seeing how everyone tackled the riddles.

And also shoutouts to all the FC members who participated, turning this event to very lively and funny event. I was laughing at the FC chat most of the, when I'm not laughing at myself.

Special shoutouts to Onion-kun for providing a fantastic recount of the entire event for lost participants like me to read up and also making me tilt over a High Quality Mashed Popoto. For those interested in the walkthrough of the event, here's her recount in the form of a story book!

Another special shoutout to Laguain who was 1 step short of passing me another High Quality Mashed Popoto and hence also 1 step short of making this recount slightly more epic.

I really enjoyed it, despite not really going through all its contents. In a sense, I experienced 500% of the intended experience of the first puzzle, so I don't feel that bad. I really felt that this brought the FC closer, and one of the ways it did was to generate more internal jokes (somehow most of which revolves around me though -_-;;).

For those in FC who didn't participate and is reading this: You should really participate. Don't give up at the first puzzle and you might create your own little 'misadventure' like I did! (being optimistic ^_^;;;)

Honestly, it was way more fun than I thought, and IMO, more fun than an actual escape game, especially since it is homebrewed, has nothing physical involved and doesn't cost a cent. I could go on about how I really appreciate people who create and play games within a game, but that would be another topic for another time.

Hope you enjoyed the recount!

This is Momoko, signing off~!

--------
PS: I just found that Magatsu Kusanagi was from SeeD, an FC that one of our ex-FC member: Snow-san, was in. A couple of my friends were in the FC too, which explains why I felt like she's the right person to "/tell YOSHIDAAA" to.

Last shoutout to Magatsu Kusanagi if you are ever reading this. Why on earth did you tell me "Please look forward to it!" though? Oh crap, maybe it's a mistell?!!

Momoko In Eorzea Part 4: "New weapons and getting ready for Heavensward!"

Heavensward is coming in around a month time! So some of us are kicking into the gear of clearing as much content as we can before it hits.

Well, firstly, we cleared T9 for the first time as an FC! It was a swell journey, hiccups here and there but we finally cleared it. 

Secondly!

I got my monetary goal! I think when I started this goal, desync level was zero, only had half my crafting levels at 50. Since then, I have been PVPing semi-regularly to farm wolf marks for i70 gear to desync and getting all my crafters to 50 (armorer is now 43!). It was painful trying to gather all the materials when you are not rich in game -_-

Anyway, now I can finally move on to other goals ^_^;;

Thirdly, I have been leveling my Black Mage. Black Mage is ridiculous in this game and I'm not talking about dps-wise, though they are the only class who are able to see sick numbers appear in one blow. 

The reason for trying out Black Mages, other than the novelty factor of 'trying out a new class', is because from a design point of view, Black Mages seem to get everything good. As I level up, the class felt exponentially better. What other Black Mages said is definitely true; past level 30, Black Mages just seems to become more fun. The other classes I played just do not have to same feel to me, although they are overall fun in their own right once you hit the max level.

Oh and lastly, I completed my Zeta!

Well I actually completed it a month ago around the time I went Tioman (if you read my previous posts), but there I was a little too busy to blog about anything since then.

Don't you think it looks like crap? I kinda miss my old staff. I took a picture of it so that I will feel miserable about my Zeta.

Heavensward in a month! Gotta get ready!

April 2015 update!

It's April and a month more to my birthday! 

So me and a group of friends did a 3-day Tioman retreat. For those who don't know, Tioman is a nice island off the coast of Malaysia. It's nice to experience life with almost no internet for 3-days. Some of my friends went for a full snorkeling, but I was more in a slack-ish mode and really only wanted to eat Ramly burgers, drink beer and sleep ^^;;

We did fishing though! We had pics of it too, but my friend hadn't uploaded it yet. It's pretty nice to see like...really blue seas and skies. I'll probably drop pics here when it's up...which is probably...gonna be awhile.

Also had a glorious BBQ at the beach in the night. I was mildly intoxicated enough to ask my friends (and Heber aka Johnny Tseng) to help me create this glorious picture for our FF14 Free Company!

All in all, the trip's pretty great! Took my mind off stuff in general. But damn the mosquitos at night are brutal -_-;;

Aside from that, I'm can't really say much about work stuff here, but things have been quite hectic. Lots of things are happening internally which I can't really say much about but from the company's general point of view, it's progress. I'm still trying to fit into my new role, and still trying to figure out the future. 

Because things are...happening, it emphasizes that I should not stay past midnight anymore. Which means that I need to somehow make myself tired and knockout at night, since for some reason, my brain gets active after midnight.

Other than that, I'm just going to share some stuff I thought about at the end of the month. Fighting games are pretty much done and over with to me. I haven't been training anything in fighting games for close to 2 months, and it looks like it's going to stay this way. This is mostly due to lack of time, and other dedications like side projects, FF and the desire to actually play more games. Street Fighter 5 don't really interest me all that much either. Mike Ross is right. You don't 'quit' fighting games. You just fade away from it. 

But I just started going back to Hearthstone! Like...finally. This is thanks to it being ported to Android phones. Been trying to see and watch what the meta is. Hearthstone is really a tilting as hell game but meeeeh there are some really cool stuff you can do in the game which I find pretty fun like Reincarnating Kel'Thuzard and stuff.

The year ahead is pretty exciting for me though! LiSA concert at July, Eir Aoi concert at October, I might fly to America at the end of the year and maybe even take the chance to drop by Japan on the way back!

Oh yes, the new Nagato Yuki anime has been airing for some time too...I hope Japan isn't flooded with merchandises by then -_-;;