Trials Of A Noob

[Tosheden]

[align=center]Roleplay........to some, it's a unique way to immerse yourself into the game to further your entertainment. To others, it's weird, creepy, stupid etc. I often wonder why it's hate against those who do and those who don't. I look at this subject as a whole in the sense that the minute you pick up a controller or load up your toolbar, your roleplaying. From this moment, the reality around you fades and you slip into this fantasy realm, sometimes with a customly made avatar or others with original protaganists. You're thinking about getting stronger, beating this team, do this mission, kill some people, you have a direction, right? You are taking control or pretending to be someone who you aren't. This is roleplaying to me in a nut shell. However to some this goes a bit further, this group BECOMES their character and do actions that are in the guidelines of that particular game. It's basically playing the game the same way but in different levels of awareness. It's the difference between just playing the character or becoming the character.....so aren't we all two sides of the same coin?

 

 

 

 

Entry #6

 

 

 

[align=left]E6:1

9/7/13 was the date of the 7th Annual Full Cold Moon Gala event. I logged in and burned some time away by doing a couple Leves. I hadn't realized that I didn't buy or make any clothes to wear to the event  (I was making Tosheden go formal to give him something to be a bit annoyed about since he is 70% of the time.) So in a split decision I got a suit off the market that ran me a good 4000 gil and this what I came up with. Here I was standing with Siben, Marcus, and Loki. I'm pretty sure Dennntha was off somewhere trying to sneak in or score a date along with more members I hadn't officially saw in game until today. After we moved around in line a bit we chatted for awhile and listened in on all the conversations that was going on around us. To my surprise I've never actually attended a RP event this big that wasn't a warzone. The games I've  played usually had light population for people who would go to these things but here on Balmung I got a nice idea how huge the RP community is here. Probably the biggest I've ever witnessed in any game and a really great turn out, Odin even spawned and some of the RPers reacted to the change in scenery which I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures because I was IC at the event can't snap shots and RP at the same time just yet anyway. But Tosheden did write something in HIS diary ......

 

 

 

E6:2 (Tosheden's IC Entry #1)[/align]

       Gah....This Ellion guy. Tells us to go to this social gatherin'. I hate goin' to these things. Bunch'a goody two shoes tryin' to impress each other. Depressed Adventurer tryin' to find a gal to cry on. The list goes on. Anyway, I went with Denntha, Loki, and Sibs. The line was HUGE! I didn't like how many people it was I had this feelin' that someone I did business with would be there. But I was nervous bout whether or not I'd see HER. Or she'd see me. Which reminds me, Ellion is an asshole for two reasons, One for bein so damned hard to read and two for keepin' that info from me he says "Muramasa, we made a deal correct? Until we complete our goal, you must loan me your time and your skill. When the realm is safe I'll give you the information you need"....Kiss my ass. Save the realm? This guys' is outta of his mind. And to top that ya never really know what he's thinkin' unless ya eye em long enough. I can't exactly kill him cause then I would be out of a lead. That's not very smart. Regardless, I have to stick around for now, I can't complain too much though..he keeps pretty fine gals around. Atleast it's plenty Eye Candy. And the money. In any case underneath all that fur he's a man of his word, despite being a prick and insane. Sibs on the other hand... The guy creeps me out sometimes he's mysterious, like that guy out of some cheesy romance play. But he's also a pretty good wingman so I guess it works out. We did sneak in after all. Loki was inside already by the time we got in...talkin' about "they let us in due to an increase of monsters in the area. Next time you two should behave" okay Boss lady.

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         Denn disappeared too now that I think of it, I did see her on my way out but still I can only imagine what she got into that girl knows how to have a good time and drink you under the table, Heh. I ended up bein seated with Loki, Sibs and two other guys. I wasn't really following their gossipin' I was too busy enjoyin' the food. And then next thing I know, Sibs tosses his date on me and I have to take Loki home. Oh and Mr Fashionably Late, Ellion, comes afterwards. He even tossed me into a dance competition with Loki. I can still hear his laugh and him sayin' "Goodluck Muramasa"...BAH! He's a bigger asshole than me most of the time. Luckily, Loki can move her hips pretty well so I'm not complainin'. But I still I didn't feel like dancin' I could have been trainin' or somethin'. We also came in second place. Oh well...[/align]

 

[align=left]        Thankfully "work"summoned me away and I had to leave shortly after. I was ready to go after the food honestly, but then Ellion decides to be.....Ellion and tell me I can't leave unless I clean bathrooms in the HQ. Really....this guy....ugh! Turns out he was jokin' and I hate it cause I can never tell right away.. Loki was kinda pissed off too I think. She did get tossed around twice that night. Poor girl. But duty calls. Speakin' of duty...the Airship's here. Later..

 

 

 

E6:3[/align]

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After logging in the following day, I teleported back to Gridania. To my surprise the gil farmers were in full force. I was blown away by this because I've never seen them spam so much. Usually they would get silenced  right away or they just didn't spam back to like that. I am used to getting tells from them but man having to add 'Asafs gthaws' to blacklist every time you enter a city is quite annoying. (Thank god for the recent patch)

 

 

E6:5[/align]

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Now I have to really give it to SE for having time to do an event along with having so many server issues and trying to fix them. Takes a pretty headstrong company to provide this kind of service despite the circumstances. It just goes to show you can't always count someone out even though they slip and fall on their ass. I find my self slowly becoming more and more trusting of the company as a whole. I feel thats something important between buyer and seller, mutual trust. I trust SE to handle issues soon as they are able to fully fix them. I mean, the servers are doing exceptionally well more and more people are able to finally create their character on their servers they've been locked out from doing. Kudos guys. 

 

 

E6:6

Costa Del Sol turns into a warzone during this event killing bombards for some kind of tokens that you use to purchase the clothes from the NPCs in all 3 City-States. I collected a lot of these but I didn't really want much from vendor I got a pair trunks for the future "Lets go to the beach" type of gathering. 

 

E6:7

Curious George...I see what you did thar SE. *Achievement Unlocked* (Become A Warrior) Well I officially broke into my first Job. I'm still getting used to it I had no idea that the soul crystal was for your job items though. It occured to me at level 30 I still didn't get a piece of equipment from the story missions to occupy this slot. Until of course I finished the quest and realized, 'Hey! I'm Warrior now!' One down and a hell of a lot more to go...[/align]

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[Kisume]

Wow...just...wow!! This was an amazing read! The pictures really help to capture the moment of each entry you wrote. I've been kinda lurking the forums for awhile now and only recently made an account because I felt compelled to tell you this actually made me buy the game. So thank you for sharing this <3 looking forward to the next ones.

[LandStander]

Yes, more trails! We demand it!

[Tosheden]

Wow...just...wow!! This was an amazing read! The pictures really help to capture the moment of each entry you wrote. I've been kinda lurking the forums for awhile now and only recently made an account because I felt compelled to tell you this actually made me buy the game. So thank you for sharing this <3 looking forward to the next ones.

Thank you! lol I couldn't help but smile reading your reply. It's really a nice feeling to be able to show someone this game from a new players perspective. Welcome to the forums btw, and FFXIV!

 

 

 

Yes, more trails! We demand it!

It'll be more. As of now I'm sort of on a unintended break juggling school, family, etc. But the good news is that I just scratched a class off my list today with the final I just took. So my time will slowly free up more as the weeks go by, ILL BE BACK!! :tonberry:

[Tosheden]

[align=center]Burn out.. it creeps up on you ever so quietly and before you know it, your logging in and find yourself with either not much to do and all the time in the world, or not enough to do because you've done everything. Mine was different--Beta testing perhaps played a huge role in me suffering from a slight burn out. But it was more RL getting hectic which ultimately kept me outside the game for a good month and some change. I'm glad to be back and actually have time to enjoy playing the game again and cheerful that the Company was waiting on me to get back. I made some changes to my progression, no more crafting GET TO 50! Then relax and craft. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

 

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[align=left]Entry #7

E7:1

10/13/13 I touched down back into the world of Hydelan. Not many Nightblades were online since it was about 10am EST and most are west coast residents. But here I was ready to pick up exactly where I left off. This time things were different. I had a bit of a newer mindset towards my characters growth. I wanted to get things started with him and keep it rolling. My first mistake was spreading myself too thin early on by focusing on crafting. Don't get me wrong, I occasionally like to lock myself in a lab and create things for hours just like the next maniac. But I also felt like I was missing out on other parts of the game I have yet to experience, leveling, and more frequent RP encounters. Shortly after snapping this shot as the sun bounced off my heavy armor I returned back to Limsa and dropped all my crafting items on my retainer where I told myself it will set... for now. 

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E7:2

My so-called return was botched when I got sick and literally slept for like a week. The day I recovered and managed to log back in I was greeted with "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!!!?!?!" and a bunch of other welcome backs. Good ol' Denntha was ready and willing to aid me in catching back up. We did a couple leves together until it was time for a scheduled RP event with another Free Company named Grim Echo. I want to say this day was more of an official return because I felt like I got a ton of things done in one day. 

 

 

E7:3

After finishing up the last few leves me and Denntha joined the rest of the company and Grim in some sort of ruins/temple area outside of Gridania. A meeting took place that was bit of a summary of recent events. This was really beneficial to me to attend this because I've been out of the loop for sometime. Aside from NB these guys were strangers, which I'm not against befriending (or having a rivalry with..IC of course ). Every so often a few players would drop in and just watch things unfold but didn't bother interrupting. I know if I was a gathering this huge in the middle of no where I'd be curious too. 

 

 

 

E7:4 The Meeting Tosheden's IC Entry #2

 

     After returning home to Limsa, I decided to go to Costa Del Sol for a bit to relax. Soon as I set my feet in the sand I hear a familiar voice go, "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!?" from the other side of the coast. I feel like I bump into Denntha more often than anyone else I'm currently affiliated with. Funny, I was expecting that kind of reaction from Ellion but it was sobering to hear someone I knew I could trust. Shortly after being bombarded with questions, I was told that we were to report to a secret meeting with our "allies". And I had to drag her ass through the forest to get there...lucky me right?

 

     I can't say I enjoyed standing in the rain listening to some guy I don't even know talk about things I wasn't present to see at the time. But I guess it was nice to see the crew together. I hate admit to it but I sort of missed being around them. It gives me a secondary purpose, I guess. I caught myself drifting in thought during the meeting once it started. I did catch the important parts though. It seems Ellion has gotten even more ambitious in his mission since I've been away.. Things may just get interesting after all. But this made me realize how trivial my personal mission was in comparison to his...still I can't sleep until I find this woman, Primals or beast tribes won't keep me from completing that objective either.

 

 

      Surprisingly enough, Ellion didn't chew me out for turning my linkshell off for a month and a half. Either he was too busy to notice or he simply didn't give a rats ass as long as I came back. Regardless, I'm glad I didn't get assigned bathroom cleaning duties at the HQ for it. Apparently, the ball is now rolling because jobs are being handed out. I'm part of the strike force now, eagerly awaiting my first assignment and pay... because that asshole on that trip I'm sort of broke now and barely had enough for a ticket back home and missed out on a lot training. Speaking of... I should probably go and make up for loss time besides.. my damn hand hurts from writing. 

 

 

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[Tosheden]

[align=center]Holiday seasons are here, for most of us, it's times like these that call for nothing other than.....EXTREME LEVELING TIME!! Well let's say, in MY case that's what it basically is. To some of us, this will be our first MMO to have played during the winter months, to others, such as myself..this will be their bazillionth time. But if it's one thing you can agree on is plenty food to eat at the computer and all the eggnog you can drink and be merry with your volks in voice chat. If your into that kind of thing your into.. 

 

 

Entry #8

[align=left]E8:1

It wasn't until about the level 35ish ranged did I realize how necessary doing FATES were. Leves just weren't cutting it and it was the only thing really available when you are 1 level under continuing your story plot and halfway to that level. Something I ran into quite often actually.. Plus to add to that, at the time, I was still on the fence on whether or not I still wanted to be WAR. Initially, I had troubles adjusting to tanking and actually leading a team through a dungeon. Versus just focusing on keeping myself alive. It was an old habit that FFXIV eventually broke me from. Tanking in other games compared to this one felt different... it was different. Positioning...managing hate or enmity....crowd control. All of these are old news to a new age seasoned Tank. But to me, it was sort of new. The good part is it doesn't take very long for me to catch on to things.

 

 

E8:2

UI Customizations.. At some point everyone has to deal with it. Unfortunately, I never changed mine until way later down the road. This was mostly because of the fact that I was running out of hotbar space and the urge to wanting to keep it somewhat organized became too strong to ignore. This was a nod towards me sort of mentally preparing myself for end game and the harder dungeons. Climatically this comes close to 10 levels away from me being at max level on my first class.

 

 

E8:3

Lightning Strikes Twice, was an event created by our head and chief Yoshi-P. If you played Final Fantasy 13 then you know who Lightning is. In participation of another game expanding that series, we get event that allows us to fight along side her in a few FATES to unlock some vanity weapons. This was pretty cool but maybe I'm one of few that kinda favors 9 and 7 a bit more. However, I couldn't pass up the chance to have screenshot of her and all her glory. Whether you like her or not you have to admit she's kind of a bad ass. 

 

 

 

E8:4

Garuda one of my favorite Primals next to Odin. And it has nothing to do with the fact that she's a half naked, sadistic, harpy with a pair of jugs that are pretty nice to look at once you get pass the hair and claws. (I lied) This ushered me into mechanics that were more dominate in this encounter than previous dungeons that I've done so far. Taking cover, avoiding attacks with no casting circles, you name it. Grauda was by far my favorite Primal encounter next to Ifirt. You really had to be on your toes and after this made me realize how important knowing what your doing as a Tank is pivotal. 

 

 

E8:5

Random acts of kindness, even in mmos, apparently hasn't officially died. I remember loading into Revenant's Toll in order to catch some FATES for extra xp and I get tell from a random player named Endermerrin Rosethorne. I'd be the first to admit that when I get random tells I'm sort of caught off guard, not exactly sure what to say. And the funny thing is he didn't know much what to say either but told me trade him anyway. He ended up giving me a HQ chest piece with all 4 Material slots that hard Parry in them. I was really grateful because it was something I could wear until I got the rest of my gear from Curious Gorge. But this solidified that Random acts of Kindness of in MMO's isn't completely dead after all. 

 

E8:6

This picture I stood here for a good hour partially AFK looking up walkthroughs and guides for dungeons. I realized that it was a good a idea to have a grasp on newer dungeons that I have yet to do. It also began to occur to me that it's not always an uncommon thing to hop in Duty Finder and be with people who've never ran that specific dungeon before, and probably don't have a clue what to do just like you. I had to eventually hop that hurdle, I'd be the first to admit that I've done a run before and didn't know what to really do which is understandable in some cases, but I got chewed out for it, Even though it was my first time actually doing that run, I mean you gotta start somewhere, right? This gave me quite the bitter taste in my mouth for not only Duty Finder but being a tank started to seem like a lot of pressure I wasn't used to yet. However, this picture signifies that I've got a new outlook on the subject and  began to better preparing myself to deal with the waves as they come. First run or not I no longer feel under pressure being a tank. In conjunction this causes performance to turn out way better than it normally does. 

 

 

 

E8:7

After finding my new resolve I decided to give The Aurum Vale a shot. And it was a good turn out. The players involved were also good company. For two people it was their first run. The other two have ran it before and was actually in voice explaining it to the other person... and it wasn't me. Now we did wipe twice on the Second Boss and twice on the last. But I was okay with it not being on me those few times. And that's not a jab at them at all. But I feel bad if I miss up being tank because usually that means if I mess up and die the whole group wipes. And that's where that pressure came in. I was coping with it and I decided to not let it ruin me enjoying actually playing a Warrior. 

 

 

E8:8

I didn't really learn the importance of FATE groups until later levels. I had already knew doing fates where slightly beneficial but I didn't exactly know how FATE Groups operated, until I joined one. Bodies dropping, exp spamming your chat box, and you were guaranteed to get a gold rating long as you got there. Needless to say, after seeing how these worked it made my last two levels pretty easy to obtain. And I was happy to see the end of the road and finally be able to start doing end game stuff. Just in time for 2.1 to come out. 

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[Tosheden]

[align=center]*Casts Raise* Hey folks, Sorry about the huge cliff hanger on this. There's a reason for it, basically I've been playing the game when RL allows me to do so feel free to post and scream at me. But rest assured I haven't scrapped doing these nor have I stopped taking screenshots of literally everything I see haha MOVING ON....anyway enjoy [/align]

 

E9:1

Man oh man how I remember these tireless hours of running content over and over again for better gear. I mean c'mon...whats an mmo without a grind right? Exactly. The funny thing is at some point I had what I'd like to refer to as "Tank Anxiety" it's something about the class that you have to fully to commit too in order to perform. And we all know what happens when a tank doesn't perfom...don't we? Which means you've gotta be on your ps and qs. I guess the statement I'm looking for is I've gotten used to tanking a bit. Relic hunting sort of prepares you for it. Well at least it did for me. So I have to thank Mr Yoshi for making endgame actually tough and time consuming.

 

E9:2

Hi my name is Tosheden Muramasa and I'm a glamouring addict. I always was a firm believer in the fact that you should be able to dress your character the way you wanted too in order to give it more "personality". You probably notice Tosh looks a bit different too, I decided to make him age a bit since I did take a couple months away from game I wanted to make him look different when I came back and this is what I came up with. Thank lawd for the preview option now.

 

 

E9:3

The Atma feasts on your inner completionist soul. These things for completely random from what I understand. Some have really good luck others not so much. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the occasional time gate I've only gotten one so far since I haven't really tried to get them until recently. As you know, sooner or later The Atma will continue to feast on your inner completionist soul so it is only inevitable that you go for it. The cool thing about Atma is that you can group with others and do them. This can lead you to making new friends, raiding buddies, you know the social stuff. Oh and you continue to upgrade it too...

 

E9:4

Did I forget to mention I created an alt for DPS? Well rewind that.. I created this character as an antagonist for my main character. (You'll have to read the bio to piece the hooks together). However this character sort of grew into it's own. I know I could have easily leveled a DPS class on Tosheden but I wanted to switch things up and wanted something that played ninja-ish MNK is it is (for now). Meet C'hito K'yzen--part time bandit full time puncher.

 

E9:5

I often compare The Binding Coil of Bahamut to content from an old game. In that game they had something called heroics which were basically glorified boss fights with a ton of mechanics to handle Coils definitely bring back some old memories. I use MNK in coils and have yet to tank them I know eventually that is going to change. (Wewt T4 Clear)