Apparently this post got stuck in the draft section since august 21th (-_-)

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Je vous présente: The three Musketeers

It appears that Knivezz will be adapting just fine to his new environment

Don't forget to log on from time to time Knivezz ! :'(

Veve~

Meanwhile a lot has changed in Vana'Diel itself as well, after 4 expansions (a fifth is already to be rumored) and major updates every 2 months, the game has evolved a lot.

To name a few changes over the years:

1. Many new areas, new mobs, new NMs, new HNMs;
2. New jobs, new storylines, changed game mechanics, new items, new spells;
3. BCNM, KSNM, Dynamis, Garrison, Ballista, Limbus, ENM;
4. Assault, Besieged, ISNM, Einherjar, Salvage, Campaign, ZNM;
5. All these things I forgot to mention.

If you don't play that much (like me), you're pretty much /shocked everytime you log into ffxi and see all these people running around equipped in gear that you have never seen before (or didn't think it would be so common to have by now) or them hurrying to zones where you might have never been before. I may be slightly exaggerating, but I can only wonder how it would be if you'd come back to the game after 2 years…

Anyway, with so much to do in FFXI and so little time, you basically just want to spend most of your time (read: all your time) in this game with your closest FFXI friends.

Well a good in game activity to achieve that appears to be Salvage

Let me first start off with an excerpt from Uzor, 
which imo describes perfectly what salvage is all about: 

"What you need to know, is that team work is key to Salvage. Unlike Dynamis, where you can leech on others the majority of the time, Salvage requires the team to speak to eachother. It requires people to know eachother well, know their play style, and adjust to eachother. Most events in FFXI, you can throw bodies at it to get it done. However, Salvage is the complete opposite. Here, having less people results in better results, most of the time. Hence why my motto is less is more, more or less."

• Salvage will take exactly 100 minutes every run;
• Team work and communication is of the essence;
• 8-10 is the optimal amount of people for Salvage;
• You should do 2-3 runs a week for the highest reward ratio;
• Blood, sweat, tears, perseverance and FUN *^_^*

So after a late msn group chatsession with a few ffxi oldtimers,
A new Salvage LS was born…

I translate its name as "Let us Salvage", but apparently it's also Latin for "SAVE US !"
Either way, could this name be any more appropriate?

Proud Members:

• Euniss (= Kitty Cat Leir, Samurai of Legend and Bot Hater)
• Lestath (Valor God, Pigkeeper and Italian Sexsymbol)
• Mitru (French Can Can, intellectual and passionate lover)
• Lakhan (Moviestar and Johnny Depp look-a-like)
• Bert (HK brother of Ernie)
• Miyake (Notorious Turkish RDM)
• Hallbrom (One of the best 4 bards I know)
• Belacor (???)
• Veve (EmoQueen)

And with salvage planned 2 to 3 times a week, I finally found myself a solid reason to start up FFXI again !

At the meantime I am meriting my RDM like crazy, as this will be the job which I'll mostly be playing in Salvage (Phalanx II really shines in there ! )   

I am also currently working on a "Salvage Section" for this weblog which will contain strategies, data and pictures of our runs

Mind you that everything you will see on the following pictures is still temporary in every sense of the word; this until I find a layout that suits me the best :D

The Old'Verobar (with an unlimited supply of Yagudo Drinks)
A Mannequin will take place as bartender behind the counter, but I still need to purchase a large Elvaan or Galka as my mithra mannequin is barely noticeable behind the counter

Sleeping Quarters
With my mannequin pretending to search for an appropriate book to take to the bed XD

The Noble bed will be replaced by two Royal beds as soon as it's back in stock, but since it's 700k/piece and it sells extremely slow through the AH, I don't expect this to happen anytime soon :'(

Clothcraft Starbucks Corner
The only time people really enter my mog house is when they want me to craft something for them. Well this is the corner where they can repose and drink some Imperial coffee while they wait in excitement on the outcome of the craftingsession. The benches and table will be upgraded to more antique (read: expensive) furniture in the near future.

The Left wing of my MH is still rather dull, I tried fidgeting around a little with some closetscreens, but that didn't work out as I wanted it to. Please take a closer look at the Harpsichord in the middle of the picture. I got this unique piece of furniture by purchasing the FFXI Music CD: Vana'Diel Piano Collections – Every Vana'day at 22.00 it lights up and plays a remix of the Sand'orian theme. You can see it live in action in the video below

It sounds a little like a Walt Disney tune to me – "It's a small world after all"

Every place in Vana'Diel should be a happy place !

Now that was a good start, especially when I managed to sell
the crappy blessed briault +1 a few hours later for 2.750.000 Gil

Wahaay ! *^_^*

YAAAY after 4 years of crafting, my skills chart has evolved to following blueish look:

Now what to do about fishing… LOL not a chance !

I am still alive, thank you for asking

Do You still play?

Yes I do, but very rarely…

When can we expect an update on your weblog ?

VERY SOON ! 

This is where we start our tour – The Moogle Residence – The furniture inside looks really fancy, but there is not much more added value. In fact, you can't even use your storage from the present. Makes sense though

Now let's continue our walk from outside our Moogle house and try to make our way 
to the center of Southern San d'Oria (S).

The decor seems a little more detailed. Some banners and different NPCs were added.
All SHOPS are closed in the past ! So there is not really much you can do in these streets, but to listen to the fresh Sandy music and complete the two quests that are already implemented.

A nice top view on Southern San d'Oria (S) Plaza

This is where you would normally find the chocobo stables. In the past there are just a few npc soldiers who are staring at some chocobos. You can't rent these chocobos (perhaps in one of the next updates?). 

Center of South San d'oria with a closed gate in the distance which should lead
us to Northern San d'Oria (S), but is currently inaccessible.

The Auction house with a local pig. Of course the auction house isn't working in the past, but here it functions as a place where you can sign up for all sorts of mini-missions, most comparable to the assault missions in ToAU. The NPC at the tree (you can hardly see him) is the person who teleports you to the battlezones where beastmen are attacking the outposts (like Jugner, E-Ronfaure,…) and you're able to team up with the allied forces to hold them off. The fights are a mélange of Garrison and Besieged and will give you a decent chunk of EXP at the end of each battle (excellent to solo or while waiting for LFG). The more you show your face on the battlegrounds, the higher you will climb up in rank and status on the warladder as well.
A higher valued medal means for example more EXP as reward.

But more details on the actual Campaign struggle in a later update… 

Back to our tour, this is the exit to East Ronfaure (S). Certain zones like La Theine and
West Ronfaure just don't seem to exist in the past…
Curious how this will work out in the future

This is how East Ronfaure looks like as soon as you exit Southern San d'Oria (S)

And this is how the exterior of Southern San d'Oria looks like by night.

As I experience it, there is just not much content yet in the new expansion. Besides the addition of Campaign and the brushing up of certain zones in the past, it's obvious that SE still has a lot of work to do contentwise. Then again, the content of FFXI expansions were always far from complete when they got launched. It will take at least a year of SE version updates, before we can truly review what Wings of the Goddess really has to offer. 

Just displaying some pictures without any comments…

Since we're on the subject of spoilers anyway

1. Only your party (no Prische) fight Archduke Kam'Lanaut and his brother Eald'narche.
2. As the Promathia fight, it's a very fun, but easy fight.
3. Did Lion now die for real… or not?
4. After the ending of major story line, you can choose yourself a fancy new jewel.
5. Having both the RDM and BLM job I chose for:

On top of that I unwillingly managed to upset someone in game who actually really means a lot to me.

Basically you'll trade in 2 M.Att. of the genie for +8 INT on the Morrigan, while you give up the conserve mp on weskit and get refresh in return. People however keep trying to convince me of how SUPERIOR Morrigan's Robe is compared to Genie Weskit on non resistant mobs.

I personally took the test how much difference in damage they both would give on
Mount Zhayolm Ebony Puddings 

**Using the BLM Calculator of AceofSpades with the right INT and MAB correlation formula,
following variables were used**:

• MAB from Traits

• 1.32 (BLM70)

• 0.10 (5 merits)

• 1.250 (Pudding)

• None

• 112 (My INT is 112 with Nuking gear/food)

• 91 (Normal INT of pudding)

• .37 without genie or morrigan (so +7 or +5)
• sorc. ring 10 ugg. pendant 8 novio 7 moldavite 5 zenith hands 5 yigit feet 2

 Data Table

***Calculated Values are unresisted damage without any bonus such as weather and day.

Conclusion:

Perhaps Morrigan's Robe is indeed a great piece of armor for any RDM out there who wants the refresh and doesn't have a Dalmatica or any RDM to prove himself to be a somewhat of a nuker without having to level up BLM.

For BLM however, the 20-25 added damage is not going to do it for me…
Here are my main arguments why I am sticking with my Genie Weskit:

• The three Salvage pieces are really hard to get (especially the macha part). Even if you're Salvaging 3-4 times a week, it can still take months before you gathered together the necessary pieces.
• With the current Khroma Ore prices on Shiva, aMorrigan's Robe is almost three times more expensive than a Genie Weskit.
• I personally

• prefer the more stable +6 elemental skill over the +5 M.acc
• think that the refresh on Morrigan is not much better than the Genie's Conserve MP trait. that one mp tick/second isn't going to rock your boat if you're constantly nuking 200mp+ spells. For resting you'll still be obliged to use Yigit.

Last but definitely not least, I just think Morrigan is plain ugly. I told people before that when nuking in Weskit I really feel like an evil macabre tattooed Black Mage, while the Morrigan's Robe is merely a sweater I would wear at home when I am sitting near the fire place. Nothing BLMish about Morrigan's and we since we all agree on looks > Stats, the extra peanuts damage of Morrigan isn't going to touch that principle one bit