Diary of a Mad White Mage

But my boyfriend showed up at my house with a shiny new toy! (And yes, it is shiny. The box is very shiny.) He bought me the new MMORPG, Aion, which I've been secretly going gaga over the past few months. But, because I had just got back to FFXI, I thought I would give it a year or two before I picked it up. But...yea. FFXI has become a shitstorm of unnecessary drama, fueled by the one and only Coty, who's gotten a huge ego since we GAVE her her TH4 gloves without competition because we thought (in good faith) it would help the linkshell. In reality, it was a major detriment, because this caused her to rear her ugly "I'm-better-than-you-even-though-I-have-no-clue-how-to-play-you-job" mentality.

So, on a more personal note: Coty, fuck you. You're a shit THF and a shit puller. You're absolute garbage. The only thing that could keep you alive is a bot that hacked the server to give them unlimited MP and no recast timers. When you level WHM to 75 and did end game on it for 5 years, then come talk to me. Otherwise, shut your bitch-ass face up, because no one wants to hear you anymore.

Now, onto a topic that's worth writing about.

Aion.

Hm...

Where to begin?

Well, I guess to start, I was nervous about installing it, because the specs are just a tad bit higher than what I have. But since it was a gift, I couldn't necessarily say no. So after installing it, and patching it, I finally got to play.

Wow.

The graphics are amazing. Even on low settings. They look better than my FFXI graphics, which I used the registry hack for, as well as dat swapping the user interface. (SE's looks like shit.) And I've WAY above and beyond the specs for FFXI. But the graphics in Aion really are amazing. They aren't as depressing as FFXI (Gustaberg anyone?) or as cartoony as WoW. There is a balance. They look semi-realistic. (As realistic as it can be for a game where your character can have wings magically appear and fly.)

Gameplay wise, it plays like WoW, and EQ2. (Cue the haters!) You have a bar at the bottom of the screen, where your abilities/spells are, and you press numbers 1-0 as well as Alt 1-0 to activate them. Your chat is in the left hand portion of the screen, unlike FFXI where it takes up your whole fucking screen. You have hotkeys, which can be customized to your liking. M = Map. P = Profile K = Skills ect. Movement is either ASWD, the up/down/left/right arrows, or like in FFXI, your number pad on the keyboard. For a seasoned MMORPG player (READ: You've played more MMOs than FFXI), you'll get used to the controls quickly.

Opening movie was really impressive. It got me excited to play the game, and it showed a brief synopsis of the story. The lore is pretty cool too, so if you're interested, look it up.

The game itself is pretty relaxing. Because EVERYONE is a noob, there's no 1337 attitude. Of course, that doesn't stop people from trying, but the chat log is pretty easy to ignore.

The class system is as basic as it gets. You start off with 4 basic classes, each of which can split off into one of two at level 10. I started off as a Mage, and my choices at level 10 were Sorcerer or Spiritmaster. Since I'm not a fan of pets, and I AM a fan of blowing shit up, I opted with Sorcerer, and I'm really enjoying it.

This game has by far the greatest amount of character creation options I've ever seen. You can make your character extremely unique, to where another person won't look exactly like you. Everything is customizable, from hair color, to eye color, to the width of your head, to the height of your character, to how big or small your breasts are. (No joke.) Take the Sims 3 Create-A-Sim and stick it in an MMO, and you have Aion's character creation.

There's a balance between exp given from quests and exp from grinding, so if you love to do quests, you can do them and level up pretty quickly. If you hate quests and just want to grind, you can do that too. I've done questing for 11 levels, but I noticed as I was questing, I was earing fairly high amounts of EXP for killing shit.

So it looks like Aion will be my main focus for a bit, since dynamis has become a revolving door of noobs, retards, and general fuckwads, and salvage went in the shitter thanks to that bitch's little snide comments.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT SE SHUT DOWN FFXI APP!

Don't believe me?

Square Enix, you have reset the glimmer of hope that was left in me.

Now just ban Kaces and all the Armada fucks on Cerberus for their bot, and FFACE too. And for fuck's sake, shut down fucking NASA!

1) Work has drastically cut in on my playtime. (Not that I mind. I like my job better than I like this game.)

2) I really only do dynamis. I haven't exp'd in forever.

3) Dynamis has been shitty. Read on.

So the drama gods have reared their ugly heads and descended upon FundMyRelic once again, only this time in a huge way. Oh what fun!

So on Saturday, we did....Sandy? Yes, Sandy. And it was horrible. 5 wipes, mediocre coin drops, although a decent amount of AF from what I saw. But 5 wipes? Seriously? Really? Yes.

When FundMyRelic was at its peak, we had an AVERAGE 45 people per run. On Saturdays, we would peak to over 50!!! So, our puller, the "genius" known as Coty (more on her intelligence later), got used to pulling these enormous pulls. But it was A-OK! Because we had over 40-50 people! So it was fine! And we hardly ever wiped.

However, as interest for the LS dwindled, and people stopped coming, we're lucky to average 2 full alliances at this point. Tuesdays are especially brutal, and they ended up going in with like 28. (I say "they" cause I didn't go. More on that as well.)

So, back to the genius known as Coty. You would think that because we had a significantly less amount of people than we did 3 months ago, she would alter her pulling a bit, right? Wrong. She hasn't. She's still doing these monster pulls, with 8 mobs and 4 statues plus an NM, sometimes more. The SMN pull she managed to get ALL the summoners, even the ones with Carby. One Leviathan woke up and Astral Flowed and wiped us all. Nice.

So this genius continues these monster pulls. At one point, it was said in vent (after we wiped AGAIN) to make the Summoner NM a sac pull. However, she, along with everyone else except a select few, didn't hear the LS leader because they were all too busy listening to Stephaniel playing the fucking Lion King over Ventrilo. What the fuck...

So she pulls the SMN NM...along with everything else, and we wipe. Again. Goodie.

By this time, I had left the dynamis vent channel and went to another to talk to some friends, because it was obvious to me that the DYNAMIS vent channel wasn't being used for dynamis. And truth be told, I stopped caring. After I watched the LS wipe a 3rd or 4th time before we even got to the boss, I seriously stopped caring about the run at that point.

So we get to the west gate. Coty pulls a monster pull again. We wipe. Again. My BRD dcs and never comes back. (Not that I blamed him.) Coty leaves party to join another. Ratix comes up into the channel we're in. "Hey Ratix, did Coty dc?" I ask.

"Uh no...she went to a different party. She said to give you a break."

Yea right. I smelled bullshit a mile away.

So we continue with dynamis, continuing to wipe and/or die constantly. Get the 3 minute mark and she managed to sac pull the Ninja NM for the time extender. God dammit. I so wanted time to run out that night. 3 minute marker comes again and I drop my glass, and patiently wait outside for everyone to get kicked out and R3 the corpses. In hindsight, I should've simply left, because at the end of the run, the only person out there was Coty's husband.

So after the run, I warp back to Whitegate and go to read a book while talking on vent. I got a tell from Ratix to please move down a channel. So I do. It's Ratix, Megadoom, and myself. Mega is going on and on how frustrated he is, not that I blame him. I concur with his thoughts. Then, totally out of the blue, I ask again why Coty left party.

Ratix: "She wanted to give you a break."

Me: "Well, I didn't tell you before, but I smelled bullshit as soon as you said it."

Ratix: "..."

Megadoom: "Tell her the truth."

Ratix: "No."

Megadoom: "She is our friend and she deserves the know the truth."

Me: "I knew it was bullshit."

So they tell me. Coty went around running her mouth to any sack holder that would listen that I am a "bad whm." At first I was pissed, then I lol'd. A lot. Let's go over the facts:

1) I've been a 75 WHM for years. She hasn't even broken the threshold of level 37.

2) I'm almost fully merited in my WHM merits. I capped out the important merits. She is still stuck at 37.

3) I am THE only full time WHM, or the only one that prefers to go WHM over other jobs and attend consistantly. We have other WHMs, yes. But they either have other more useful jobs or are in the same boat I was in with BRD: They don't like it, but they come it because the LS needs it. Or, they just never show up, or only show up when drama arises to put their 2 cents in. *cough*

So we're all talking in vent, the 3 of us, and by the end of the conversation I was amused. Mega was pretty frustrated. Ratix swore up and down to us that it WOULD be taken care of by Tuesday's run. Great. Fantastic. We kept our mouths shut. I didn't confront Coty. I just left it alone.

So Tuesday comes. I go to Bastok to help, despite the fact I don't need ANYTHING from there. I get there, and whatthefuckisthis? Kaylyn is on WHM. Eh fine, whatever. Someone tells me she started the tank party. Ok, now what the fuck.

So, the time goes by, and I'm standing there, along with Megadoom. Megadoom's BLM party is also started by someone other than himself. We're both locked out of parties. I say fuck it and warp right in front of them. Mega just doesn't go. Send Ratix a text message. He says he'll take care of it as soon as he gets home. As soon as he gets home, he announces a sack holder meeting at the end of the run, which he knows damn well I can't make because I have to work in the morning and I work a job where I can't afford to be tired and fuck up. "Fine, we'll have it tomorrow."

Uh...what? After you swore to me up and down on Saturday in front of Mega you would take care of this BEFORE the run Tuesday? K, now I'm pissed. Whatever. My buddy Z invited me to a call on Skype, and a couple of the people in there are giving us the play-by-play in dynamis. Lots of wipes, from what they were saying. Lots of retardation. Lots of bullshit. (Although Claus did get RDM AF which made me happy cause he's a cool dude and deserves it)

So, run ends, and my blood is still boiling because I was practically lied to. Send a text message to Ratix saying I'm canceling Salvage. Never said why, but the reason is this drama drops our 11 man Salvage group to 5 people. I'm not stupid, I did the math. If I kicked out one person, they would take a few of them with them. Plus, I just don't feel like dealing with half those people anymore, other than obtaining this stupid ass relic. After that, I'm thinking of cutting ties completely.

So he begs me to get on vent...at 1am....when I'm trying to go to sleep. So lack of sleep + impeding on my sleep time + knowing full well I have work in 7 hours = I'm cranky and you're going to get bitched out. So I bitched him out. My only points were 1) You lied to me. and 2) If you're going to be a leader of an LS, then LEAD. If you want me to take care of this shit myself, then just tell me, but you WON'T like the manner in which I take care of it, I can guarantee that.

So after much cussing and yelling, I couldn't sleep. Talked to a few people a bit, then went to bed, and was groggy as shit the next morning. Was late into work by 10 min. FML.

So....sack holder meeting the next day. What an incredible waste of time, let me tell you. Magically, Coty's PC wouldn't allow her to be on vent, but she can be on vent during every dynamis run pissing us all off np. So there was no epic confrontation, because...well....I assume she chickened out. Typical. Usually the ones with the biggest mouths tend to be the ones with the smallest balls.

So the meeting turned towards other topics. Like skilling up in dynamis. A problem, I think, should've been resolved MONTHS ago! (But what do I know? I'm just a WHM) Also, they changed the lotting rules again, to accomodate loot whores and retards. Awesome. Now I can expect even bigger competition for BRD and DRK, neither of which drops a whole hell of a lot. Sweet. Ratix also called me out, so I stopped paying attention and ignored him. Literally, I just didn't respond. Don't sit there and call me out when the person who started all this drama is hiding behind her husband like the little bitch she is.

So in this sack holder meeting, who shows up but the two chicks who haven't shown up to dynamis in weeks/months? And they had a lot to say, considering they haven't been there in a very long time.

The rest of the meeting I just didn't pay attention to, because I didn't care enough to pay attention.

I haven't decided whether I'm gonna go to dynamis anymore. I'll probably go just on the runs I need, which are Sandy and Jeuno. Tonight is Windy, which is a sure failfest, so I'm debating whether I'm gonna go. If I do go, I'm just gonna be by myself in my own little party, not in the alliance, and without a linkpearl or vent on because I don't feel like dealing with 90% of those assholes anyway.

Dynamis has become an obligation, therefore it has become a chore. It's not fun anymore. I've been saying that for weeks, and no one's listened. Ah well. I have a sneaking suspicion the LS isn't going to last long after the relic is completed, despite several promises made that it would. I just don't trust the word of my LS leader anymore. He couldn't even squash a problem staring at him in the face. Why should I expect him to continue an LS he's told me is so much grief and stress? I don't. I guess we'll find out in a couple of months....