Looking For Party – New Spaces, New Faces

On March 27^th Square Enix made a complete overhaul of the game system on Final Fantasy XIV and started to merge gaming servers. This was to bring together the quieter servers and pull them into the heavier populated ones with the purpose of enhancing the gaming experience for the players.

So my Lindblum took on Saronia and became Sargatanas. Nothing major has changed, other than there are far more people running around the cities and there are more call outs for parties.

My static linkshell has decided to move spot – this is pretty major in the light of things! We took on a new place just beside our old one (we found whenever events are on it is CONSTANTLY covered in non playable characters (NPCs) and very annoying!) and started looking at the other big event shells surrounding us. The leader has been experimenting on new raids and speed runs in order to obtain new high end level gear and has been working pretty hard at it. He and another member have been focusing on strategies for each new area to try and get all the best drops, so we have hardly had a chance to run with them. But this has given us the opportunity to branch out and play with some new people. It has been pretty refreshing to see Ul’Dah buzzing with fresh faces.

We have found ourselves playing alongside a few upcoming shells right now. The people are all lovely. Some are very experienced in MMORPG universe and others are on their first adventure into online RPGs. We have had a few experiment runs with them to get ourselves acquainted with the new people and to help out as much as we could in their job quests. We spent the Easter break getting to know the group a bit better and working away on some outstanding quests.

In light of this big change I made a decision: I am going to level ALL of the jobs. I know it is going to be a slow process but it will keep the game fresh for me for a very long time. I am all too easily settled into a job that I enjoy and have been guilty in the past of becoming lazy, sticking to what I know and becoming most stubborn when asked to try something new. But what harm can it do? If I really don’t like it I can just level it and then put it to one side.

What I have been finding out, much to my surprise, is that I REALLY enjoy Gladiator. This eventually becomes the job path to becoming a Paladin and both are generally known as the tank class. Now I am no natural tank, in fact I am pretty rubbish at being the meat shield! I prefer to go off and hit the hardest and bring the enemy down at speed. As a tank you simply cannot do this; you need to focus on keeping the enemy’s attacks solely on you (generally known as keeping the hate). But I am really starting to get a feel for it and am working out my hate management. I have two rather awesome guys close to my heart who have been giving me some sound advice (and picking on me too, but this was to be expected!) and telling me what I can expect from this class. I am even dabbling in a bit of magic with Conjurer and Thaumaturge and slowly but surely getting SOMEWHERE with crafting. It does take forever to level!

It’s been a few weeks now and some names are becoming known and some are being black listed to be avoided at all costs! It’s going to take some time to get used to saying Sargatanas so I hope they don’t change any more names, especially when the end of the world comes…