Thursday, April 15, 2004

 

Gryffyn Hits 30th Level...Millions Yawn

I really need to come up with a little Final Fantasy XI icon for my very occasional posts on the subject.

Last night, in a marathon 7-hour session, I got Gryffyn up to the milestone level 30. He is now eligible to go out and unlock the cool advanced jobs, and thereby start the levelling treadmill all over again. Oh boy!! Levelling can be deadly dull, because it's so repetitious. Also, you have to commit to 3-4 hours straight to make any progress at all. I have to mix it up with solo pursuits like crafting and farming, which I can do by myself in shorter sessions.

I only play once or twice a week at this point. It works out to about 8 hours a week, which sounds like a lot. The average player, though, seems to be on about 30 hours a week. I can't do that many hours. There's just too much real life stuff to do, and too much Vanad'iel stuff to ever keep up with. Here's my current "to do" list for Gryffyn, for instance:

• Obtain the bard and summoner advanced jobs


• Finish the Rank 4 missions for Windurst


• Level his white mage job up to 18th


• Level his black mage job up to 33rd to catch up with my friends Riloth and Dydo


• Start the thief job, level that up to 15th


• Work on fishing and cooking skills


• Earn enough money to afford all the gear for all these jobs and crafts

That list might take me until Christmas. Ack. I will not be levelling again for a couple of weeks, at least. I think I've cast Thunder on mandragoras about 1000 times in the last three weeks. I need to give Gryffyn a vacation where he can run around and do things just for the fun of it.

If it sounds like FF XI is a chore at times, well, it is. Because it's designed for group play, there's a heavy pressure to conform to certain methods of play when you're in a group. Leveling is always done by making a camp, sending a pull to lure a monster back to the camp, and then whacking the heck out of it in a certain way. Everyone goes to the same places to level because you can't get in a group otherwise. It creates its own vicious circle--you can try to do things differently, but it'll take twice as long to convince everyone to try it. At least. So you give up and conform.

I'd love to see more options for viable solo play. For now, I'll play solo by crafting, fishing and farming.

Jefferson 11:17 AM