FFXI Ultimate Collection Abyssea Edition

After several months trying to like FFXIV and many attempts to go back and try to get into the game, I finally made my way back to Final Fantasy XI. It seems like now was the perfect time to return with the release of the Final Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection - Abyssea Edition. You can get right back into the game with all of the expansions and add-ons for only 20 bucks and it's available as a digital download through Amazon and Steam. This was perfect for me since I had missed the latest addons and at the normal 10 bucks a pop I saved a good ten bucks at least. I honestly can't recall where I left off with the addons since I didn't really end up doing any of the story lines for them past the first one, and of course I stopped playing right before I got the sweet end piece of augmented gear.

Now there is Abyssea and a level cap of 90. I'm left wondering which class I should play. I've spent the last couple of days dorking around on BST and finishing an old 290 axe trial. Is it just me or did experience points from mobs get increased? I started the quest to get into the new areas, I just need to go enter one of the maws and turn in my key item for some visitation time. Without a linkshell, though, it seems a little scary. I mean, what's to lose except a little experience points, right? Still, I wish I could find some Abyssea mentors to help me understand all these time extensions, at as, and insane experience points groups that are available. I guess the first step to that would be to just ask, but I guess I've been busy with other in game things so far. It goes back to th question of what job I want to play. While I've been thinking it over, I've been leveling up some crafts, spending some Gil, making some Gil, and LOVING how the auction houses are all tied into Jeuno now. Take that, FFXIV, why can't you get it right like XI? Superior retainer system my ass.

Another cool thing about this Ultimate Collection is that it comes just in time to snag the 9th anniversary experience points bonus ring and outfits. The Novennial ring comes with an experience point bonus of +100% for a maximum of 9000 extra points per charge and a duration of 720 minutes per go. This puppy has 10 charges, so if you don't let any go to waste that's 90,0000 bonus experience points by the time you're through. Amazing! As far as the novennial outfits go, they are quite Victorian in style and very slick. The male version is not as colorful, but does have a bit of charm to it. Personally, I'm digging the female version. The coloring and design is breathtaking - and that's saying something coming from a hetero male.


Here's my mule, Angrymonkey sporting his bodacious digs.


The female Novennial gear has got to be one of my all time favorite armor designs.

You'll have to forgive me for the quality of the photos, I took them off my big screen TV with my Xoom. They aren't to show off the quality of the game, which has improved by the way with adjustable background ratio up to 16:10, but to highlight some of the things I'm excited about. So, without further delay, I will introduce the Destrier Beret that comes with this collection via special code. This hat turns you into a chocobo! Not only that, but for your jobs under 30, it also adds regen, refresh, auto-raise,  increased skill gain, and increased movement speed! Is that insane? I love it! Picture added to post for awesomeness.



This helm is awesome! It makes me want to play one of my jobs I never leveled.


Here's me as a chocobo!

BTW - there are a lot of speculation threads on the internet that assume this is only for new accounts, but I can confirm that they code works for existing accounts as well.

FFXIV Auction House

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. Honestly, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I stopped playing the game months ago. After loading it up the other day to take a peek at what's changed, I was still mostly unimpressed. Good news though, there's another update coming tomorrow (March 3rd, 2011) that quite a few people seem to be excited about. I won't hold my breath.

The going notion seems to be that the game is in a general beta state at the moment. I'd have to agree that this is true. Actually, if you're looking for an escape... the game probably isn't too shabby right now in comparison to some single player titles. In fact, to a large degree it does feel much like a single player game. Sure, there are real people walking around, but there hasn't been a lot of chatter in the areas I've been to lately. After tossing out a shout to ask for opinions of the game after months of work, I was able to connect with a player who was quite helpful. So I suppose the interaction is there if you're looking for it. Hands down, though, you can easily squeeze out more than forty hours just learning the different classes and trying out leves and missions. The update tomorrow is supposed to include side quests as well. That's always nice.

But what about the auction house in FFXIV? The developers haven't killed the idea, and may include it in the future... I really hope they do. There are some hardcore players that love the idea of the retainer market system with it's shoddy improvements. But the bottom line is that it takes far too much effort to sustain a healthy economy. Fostering player interaction? My ass. We did just fine in FFXI. I can trade off the auction house through the trade channel in World of Warcraft without much effort. I don't need the entire economic dynamic to be centered around bouncing through floor after floor of retainer areas and dealing with people bazaar'ing items in the wrong floor just to find what I want to buy or compare prices to list my own wares.

You see, to some (myself included), the economy is a very big part of an MMO. There is a whole game inside the game with comparing prices, calculating return on investment, the worth of time spent, the rates of sales, and all the intricacies of supply and demand. Just as in every MMO, the game is always full of people complaining about never having enough online currency and there will always be those who seem to have an abundance. With this comes price gouging, competition, rising and falling prices as markets are neglected or swamped. It can be invigorating.

Logging on to check your mail and see what sold is a common source of joy for many players, whether they are market barons, farmers, or the people who just sell the junk they get while completing quests and grinding.

You can argue against the auction house all you want, but it's an eventuality that must come if the game is to ever see a successful root in PS3 and further PC sales. If you are one of the ones staunchly defending the market wards, you should consider the value of broad appeal. S-E won't serve up FFXIV for free forever and I doubt that current subscriptions would be enough to sustain it -- not even counting the people who would leave if the low, low price of "free" was increased...

I can honestly say that it is a big deal to me and that I just can't see myself sticking with the game without a healthy economic system that is as simple as searching for an item and either bidding or buying with a matter of a few clicks at most.

I had planned on adding a PS3 copy to my collection so I could play between the two like I did with FFXI. So, you see, this isn't necessarily a rant post. More like a Come-to-Jesus plea for help. I was so excited for this game to have all the market intricacies that I enjoyed in XI and that I get in WoW at a very low scale. I think the basis is there between the different crafts, and the game could include a lot more complexity where it seems things were just hashed together. I'm both excited and afraid for the future of this game as a long-standing MMO title in the Final Fantasy franchise. I hope they can pull it together.

Making Gil in FFXIV: Part 3

Over the past few posts we've I discussed several principles behind making gil in FFXIV. Of course, my methods for making the gil I have so far (up over 2.3 million on my retainer right now and an additional 170k on me) have been a little different than the basic suggestions I've offered to date.

I mentioned in an earlier post that if I had it to do all over again, I'd have specialized instead of spreading my time across multiple crafts and sub-crafts. It was great money at first, when the game was new, but over time the gap between that top 5%, who work together and churn out finished products with substantial skill required for off-skill materials, and the common player has continued to increase -- exponentially. This means that by the time the casual player has had a chance to catch up, the market has been saturated and the top tier of non-crafting players are no longer paying premiums for those goods or services.

Case in point: fish glue. This was the first major bottleneck in the craft system. Most, if not all, weapons or tools required fish glue as a primary ingredient or as an ingredient required to make an ingredient. Thus, as far as most were concerned, all paths led through fish glue. The problem was that it requires somewhere in the neighborhood of level 15 Alchemy to make the glue and fishing of 10-15, depending on your fishing pole, just to catch the dark bass reliably. Therefore, the people who began selling both fish and glue at the apex of need were able to charge extreme fees, which were passed down through the finished products and to the consumer. Those looking for the most competitive edge were willing to pay those fees rather than easier until prices naturally fell. After a few weeks others started catching on, leveling both fishing and alchemy, and made a modest profit before even more players followed suit and the bottom fell out of the synths.

There is still money to be made with fish glue, but that money is typically realized by further processing materials across multiple crafts into seldomly made finished goods. By now, most modern weapons are using horn glue. The next tier will very likely use something else.

Truth be told, my income generation as of late has been significantly reduced. I just didn't have the energy to try to spam multiple crafts and I was already too far behind the curve of the power crafters. The thing that compounded the problem the most is the fact that I really don't have any friends on the server that play regularly. So while I do have a significant stockpile of gil at my disposal, I don't really have anyone to play with on a regular basis. So what's the point? Aside from the random person willing to party for their own leves, most of my shouts and says have been ignored.

What I'm trying to say here is that making gil in this game isn't enough. You've really got to foster those in-game relationships or it's all for naught.

Since you've stuck with me so far, I'll let you know what I've been selling.

Early on I discovered that brass nuggets sold relatively well, and I could make them before I could use them reliably for skill. So I ended up selling them at 1.5k each. Yeah, no kidding, and they sold like hot cakes.

Lightning crystals have been a nice boon. When I was under the misguided impression that it would be best to level several (all) crafts to provide myself with the necessary sub-items, I started farming/saving lightning crystals for clothcraft. Even this very morning I unloaded 20 for 3k a piece via someone's bazaar. They set the price, I just delivered. Easy 60k and lightning crystals are a byproduct of farming wind shards, can't beat that.

Small items such as rings and bracelets seemed to sell well in the lower level camps. I'd load up my retainer with weapons and armor and rent a stall and then I'd pick a camp and park my character there for the night. A few quick minutes to restock my bazaar in the morning before work would help make those small profit synths add up by the time I got home and was ready to play again.

Harpoons seemed to sell well for a while, but sales are slower now and the majority of lancers are moving on to higher tier weapons.

Animal glue is a nice filler when you don't know what to put in that last bazaar slot. I sell them for 450 a piece and the random sales do add up over time.

Hempen cowls sold well at first but too many idiots are selling them for well below 10k. You can't buy them all out, so the best you could hope for is convenience shoppers outside of town. This is beyond silly because it shows that a lot of crafters aren't factoring shards + time + materials into their profit equations. Really, though, it probably boils down to powerleveling a craft on finished goods, which is stupid for a few reasons with the way the game is currently set up, and then just trying to unload. I suppose this is the reason that more complex crafts held their viability longer, they were just plain inconvenient.

To be honest, most of my gil over the past few days has come from buying under-priced items in other people's bazaars and reselling them for what I believe they are worth. Profit is realized when someone else browses my bazaar and agrees with me. On the same token, if I find someone seeking an item or repair that is profitable for me, in respect to both time and gil, I'll fulfill the request. Example: I will not sell wind shards for 200 gil a piece because I use far too many to justify that price. It would cost skill increase and/or farming time. Likewise, crystals of any type are worth more to me than the standard price I've seen of 1.5k. I can now break a crystal into 16 shards for the cost of 1 fine sand. That gives me skill and shards that I can sell, it just makes more sense to hold out.

Anyway, this is reaching ridiculous length so let's stop for now. Come back soon for more FFXIV financial discussions.

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SE Gives Extended Free Trial for FFXIV

Quote from Loadstone:

Important Notices

2010/10/15 06:30 from FINAL FANTASY XIV

FINAL FANTASY XIV Free Trial Period Extension

First of all, we would like to thank you for joining us in the realm of Eorzea, and hope you are enjoying your adventures.

Since the official launch of service on September 30, 2010, we have received a wealth of constructive feedback from the FINAL FANTASY XIV community, and the development and management teams would like to take this opportunity to express their sincerest gratitude. For those who purchased the collector’s edition and began to play one week before official service began, the month-long free play period is drawing to a close. Considering the nature of much of the feedback we received, however, and the current state of the game, we have decided to extend the free trial period for all users. Please continue reading for further details.

We would like to assure players that the world of FINAL FANTASY XIV is constantly growing and evolving, and the voices of the community are essential to that process. The development and management teams are carefully considering all player feedback, and working diligently to implement whatever changes and additions will serve to make Eorzea a better home for adventurers. We humbly ask for your continued support to this end.

Today, we have released information regarding forthcoming version updates. For further details, please view the following Lodestone Topics:
・Version Updates Coming Soon! (10/15/2010)
( http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/index.html )
・Ask the Devs! (10/15/2010)
( http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=c07a85c2f170a53057f5a39f56e6fc02b03b1184 )
・Message from the Director (10/15/2010)
( http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=f2cf790e548828eb22d3c4dff5f04bf0793632b5 )

Free Trial Extension Details

Eligibility
All users who registered a FINAL FANTASY XIV service account and purchased a character by October 25, 2010 will be eligible.

*Character purchases must have been carried out no later than October 25, 2010 at 23:59(PDT).
*Accounts terminated due to User Agreement infractions are ineligible for extension.
*Holders of multiple service accounts may receive extensions on all accounts.

Extension Period
An additional thirty (30) days, for a combined free trial period of sixty (60) days.

*Free trial period end dates and initial billing dates will be automatically extended. Users are not required to take any action.
*Extensions will be for a period of thirty days regardless of billing cycle length. Regular billing will begin upon conclusion of the extended free trial.
*Should automatic renewal of options be disabled, the free trial will still be extended.
*Users notified by automated mail of either the end of their free trial period or the beginning of their billing period will still receive the extension.
*Extensions will be processed by the Square Enix Account Management System on or around October 19, 2010. An official announcement will be made at that time.
*Information regarding new billing period dates will be available via the Square Enix Account Management System.

Making Gil In FFXIV - Part 2

If you caught my last post about making gil in FFXIV, we covered some of the basic ideas behind making money: buy low sell high, craft for profit, inventory stagnation cost, etc. I also made a point off mentioning that in the current system, one can adequately get by using leve gil and item rewards to outfit themselves - wearing what rewards they can, selling what they can't, and purchasing or trading for items they need. Crafting things yourself can be fun, but is not necessarily necessary.

Since you're still with me, assuming that you are if you're reading this, it's probably safe to say that you're looking for more than just getting by. As of last night I was sitting just above 1.7 million gil - and while that may not impress some, it's definitely more than just getting by with the basic necessities. Even so, my character has yet to equip rings, bracelets, or other extravagances - many of which I've sold plenty of. Those things, while important to some who may be looking for top physical or magical performance, are not important to my primary goal at this point in time. That goal, of course, is to make a sizable amount of gil prior to the market normalization. I expect that this event will likely occur sometime before PS3 release and will be greatly influenced by the recent market ward system update.

Regardless, the real thing that many new players want to know is what they can sell for good profit. And while this may be different from server to server, there are some safe bets that can help you to make gil.

The first apparent need that I ran into as a new player was manifested from a lack of fire crystals. I could not find these at all when I first started out and aside from leveling my ore-based crafts strictly from leve synths, this was a major clinching point. I soon found myself farming these by killing fireflies and glowflies in the Limsa area. I later discovered that star marmots and first-tier coblins dropped them occasionally and that the second-tier of these families dropped them a bit more frequently.

It wasn't long before I realized that another deficiency was a lack of wind shards. After a little investigation I discovered that these shards could be obtained through gathering with highest points into wind resists and by killing sheep and later puks and dodos.

The biggest thing here is to pay attention to what the crafting classes need. I can tell you that selling fire shards at the blacksmith guild shop would probably net you the most sales, while lightning crystals would sell well at the weavers guild.

If SE's previous MMO, FFXI, taught us anything it was to never underestimate the power of selling to vendor. Obviously, not everything you come across in the game will be worth getting excited about, but it would be a good idea to take some time as you clear your inventory to notice which items pull in decent returns. Marmot pelts are a level 20-ish leather synth but also sell for somewhere in the ballpark of 500 gil apiece directly to vendor. This spells instant profit if you can't seem to unload at the guild overnight for increased revenue.

Listen, if you are like some players I've run into who don't check vendor prices before bazaaring, you could be making your savvy peers some easy gil simply by buying up your junk and making a quick trip to offload to an npc.

If you pick up crafting, be aware of the full cost of attempting to churn out finished products with complex or higher tier material requirements. Sometimes it really is better to sell parts to other crafters who have bought into the misconception. You'll gain skill, make gil, and won't be struggling to put things together before you can realize a profit. Another point to consider is that once the initial supply choke point is breached, the cost of shards often dissolve in the equation of undercutting. This means that at certain points of saturation, you'll actually make more by not performing the synth at all and just listing the shards themselves. This makes for very inefficient leveling of skill for the novelty of selling a finished product. While there are few things cooler in the game at this point than the concept of armies of players utilizing your weapons, armor, and jewelry, you have to be wary of being sucked in to the mindset that many other players will succumb to. If you do, these people will become your competition - your goal should be to make them your customers.

At the risk of creating a post worthy of 'too long, didn't read,' I'll end this here. You know the drill by now, stay tuned for more musings on gil making in FFXIV.


Making Gil in FFXIV - Part 1
Making Gil in FFXIV - Part 3

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Making Gil in FFXIV - Part 1

So, last post I mentioned that I've been working on ways to make gil in FFXIV. This is a pretty big topic in itself, so there's really no way to cover it in one session. Instead of trying to do that, I'll start at some of the basic principles. Of course, this may prove rudimentary to some, but stick with me and we'll get to the beef of it all soon enough.

One of the neat things about online economies, such as those in massively multiplayer online role-playing games, is that they are as dynamic as the players who populate the virtual worlds of the game itself. Within these confines we often see the same behaviors, though sometimes amplified or muted based on the interpretations of individual online personas. Generally, though, we find that those who are not savvy at handling their real-life funds also struggle in-game. Thankfully, understanding the basic concepts in-game can also translate to the outside without costing you anything more than some of your dedicated leisure time.

There are some phrases that will resonate with a certain sense of familiarity: buy low - sell high, it takes money to make money, supply and demand... Thankfully, there is more than just these principles to get us by in FFXIV, though they are the bread and butter foundation to a gil making strategy.

So far, it seems that you can get by just fine in the game by playing your standard disciple of war or disciple of magic class. You can happy do your leves, collect your cash and item rewards, and supplement the rest of your gear by shopping frugally and making connections with other players. By killing mobs, you can trade materials and shards / crystals for goods and services. Or, sell them out-right for more liquidity and less restraints with your buying power.

On top of that, it is also viable to pick up one or more crafting classes as well. Here you will need to balance your efforts to avoid the obvious, and sometimes less than obvious, time sinks. These are usually dual-purposed as gil sinks as well, so keep an eye out. The finished product is not always the one that will net you the most gil per effort or time. With so many other crafters working as peers, juniors, and seniors on the supply line, you've got to examine the synths that ail make you money. You have to keep an eye on the competition. Sometimes you'll suddenly get a break in steady sales only to discover some nimrod haas parked his retainer a few feet from yours with blow out, rock bottom prices. This devalues your product, possibly saturates the market, and leaves you in a tight spot. Do you buy him out and relist the items at the going rate or do you mark down your own items and research your next product? There are several factors to consider. How rare are the materials required? How much do you already have invested? How much can you afford to lose if things don't go according to plan? And perhaps a bit more subtle, how much will it cost you to have bazaar slots taken by items that will not move - in other words, how much potential income do you stand to lose?

My next post will include a few more specific ideas on how to make gil in FFXIV, so sign up for my RSS feed or stop by again soon!

Making Gil in FFXIV - Part 2
Making Gil in FFXIV - Part 3

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FFXIV - All Things Considered.

As a purchaser of the FFXIV Collector's Edition, I've been spending a fair amount of my time in the land of Eorzea this last week. I've definitely learned a thing or two, mostly from figuring out that I had done it wrong initially. Primarily, my mistakes ended up being in the form of non-specialization and taking some of the more expensive leveling routes for some of my crafts.

It was frustrating to hit level 10 Blacksmith without having an easily recognizable finished product that I could churn out and sell for profit while a level 8 tanner (leatherworking) was able to sell me Smithy's Gloves +1 that he was able to make. What the hell? I console myself with the thought that I may see the fruit of my labors manifest in the next 5-10 levels. But this is just one of the things about new games. I could be totally oblivious to some synth out there that could help me to realize a more immediate return on my time and material investment. There just aren't any reliable guides available yet. We who go forward are the trailblazers, lighting the way for those who may follow.

******

I actually started this post a few days ago but didn't get around to finishing it. Yeah, I've been that occupied with my time in Final Fantasy 14 lately. It's been a learning process, for sure, and every day I walk away with a better understanding of the game and its many intricacies.

I'm looking forward to posting more about my adventures and shedding some light on what I've discovered so far. Most of my time has been engulfed in the creation of goods and turning a tidy profit. I'm now sitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 600k gil and I'm definitely looking to expand that to over a million while the game is still new. If you're interested in the FFXIV economy and how to make money, be sure to check back in! No, I'm not going to try to sell you a guide, I find a lot more value in an open, 2-way conversation on the ins and outs. So bookmark this blog or join my rss feed and stay tuned!

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