Order of the Blue Gartr - Blogs - Sonomaa

A candid discussion with Elysium about World First, Life, Love, and Tacos.

Sonomaa — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 17:07:37 GMT

BG has been given the privileged and the giggles to conduct an interview with the Alexander world first Final Fantasy XIV free company Elysium! (current as of this interview on 4/7/16) Elysium is located on our home server of Gilgamesh and even sports several members of the BlueGartr forum community. You can find them at www.elysiumffxiv.com. We even have a few BFFs on twitter and in the BG Linkshell on Gilgamesh as well.

Please enjoy this awesome, irreverent, and semi-serious interview, in which we ask the real and tough questions, but also ask the questions that are super important. Like tacos, pizza, and Star Wars.

This interview hasnt been extensively edited for spelling, some answers are sort of duplicates and thats how theyve been portrayed. Some questions werent answered, I left those blank. We are also seeking an interview with Foldasaurous Rex, the most prestigious member of Elysium who is also a dinosaur.

The interview questions are first, including the person who asked the question (unmarked questions are mine or ones asked by multiple people). The answers are in the following order. Ive also tried to include their twitter handles but I dont know all of them, sorry. I will try to edit them in as I find them.

(NOW UPDATED WITH MORE CUPCAKE CORGIS)

Elysiums Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElysiumFFXIV

Layla Bell of Team Double or Nothing (https://twitter.com/LaylaFFXIV)
Team Dynamo
Sartigan Hawk of Tempus ( https://twitter.com/SartiganH )
Balana Rahl - Team Tempus Leader and Elysium Council Member ( https://twitter.com/BalanaRahl )
Cupcake Corgi of Tempus ( https://twitter.com/CheckMinus28 )
Victorious Secret
Team Kpop

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Snoctopus: How do they eliminate mistakes so quickly when working on progression? How much time is spent reviewing attempts, and how is that data presented to the group?

(Layla) My team has established an understanding that no team or player is perfect. Often is the case that a player's insecurities are the biggest snare toward achieving that. Even at the highest levels, mistakes occur more frequently than you might expect. My team operates under the mantra of "practice makes perfect." If a player or group of players are repeatedly failing a mechanic, it simply means they need more practice. Isolate the issue through open dialogue and video and then keep pulling.

Sartigan Hawk: It really depends of the mistake. If it happens too frequently, diagrams can be provided, being vocal during the part where mistakes occurs or looking @ footage/ACT for better will be done analysis

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Review is typically done during breaks or between pulls waiting for cooldown. Data is typically presented to the group as part of a discussion, there will be a "wtf was that?" moment, we'll check ACT logs and video replay to try and diagnose the issue and come to a conclusion as to how to resolve it.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus: "quickly", lol. act, footage, anecdotal evidence, and lots of grinding.

Victorious Secret: Quick pulls are key, with more in-depth discussions between pulls.
We sometimes get bogged down in talking about mechanics instead of just trying things.

Team Kpop: Mechanics wise, the goal for each pull is to test as many theories as possible. Stuff like positioning errors and player errors are generally reviewed after the wipe and adjusted either with images, or in-game markers, or simply talking about it. When someone dies for a reason we don’t understand or there’s a mechanic that’s hard to solve, we go to the footage or logs to try and unravel the mystery. These review sessions usually aren’t long (a couple of minutes) but they do add up. Also, when we take breaks, people are often online before the next raid begins and will use that time to update strategy.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Zetanio: My question would be: How much do fish and why is fishing the best thing in the game

(Layla) I am the best angler in Elysium. To my FC I am known as Layla 'Pipira Demon' Bell.

Dynamo: Two members of our static fish a lot, and they say it’s awful :(

Sartigan Hawk: Please go and die

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Not so much after getting Of Dragons Deep in the 2.4 -> 3.0 slump.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Please go and die

Victorious Secret: Nepu loves fishing cause there's no real content and fishing is super extensive. True endgame.
Nepu's input: What do you call a mermaid on a roof? Aerial

Team Kpop: Lets just say we used many hundreds of Steamed Staff and they didn’t fish themselves.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Resin: How much do you spend on liquor when youre pushing a new raid

(Layla) To this day, I still feel that Coldey played better inebriated than sober. I miss that goofy Canadian.

Dynamo: too many people underage – but real answer $0 rip

Sartigan Hawk: Liquor? Really? Everyone is responsible, if you are doing raid prog, you don't drink.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: No booze before everythings dead, stock the liquor cabinet for after.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus none. i like winning.

Victorious Secret: Take a shot after every wipe, so basically can't do shit after a lockout.

Team Kpop: Drinking is a degenerate act that has no place in proper society.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Buthanya: Nanamo, Kan-e, Alisae - kill one, fuck one, marry one. Go.

(Layla) This is easy. Kill Alisae, Fuck Kan-e, Marry Nanamo.
Kill Alisae because she's annoying. Fuck Kan-e because who wouldn't? Marry Nanamo to marry into royalty.

Dynamo: Who are these people?

Sartigan Hawk: No Cat girl? Kill them all

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Kill Nanamo, fuck Alisae, marry Kan-e

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus excuse me, here in elysium, lewd behavior is strictly frowned upon. :^)

Victorious Secret: Marry Nanamo, Kill Alisae cause it's a trap (she really a girl?), Kan-e gets fucked.

Team Kpop: All of those suggestions are fine ladies and each deserve a fine courtship.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Zhok: What kind of RL job do the raiders have to do these world first?

(Layla) I'm a math tutor currently pursuing my teaching credential. My program starts this Fall! Most of our members work full-time jobs or are attending school while working part-time. We're fortunate that our employers do allow us vacation time to pursue our hobbies and interests.

Sartigan Hawk: From students to Doctors, you name it.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Raiders going for world prog will typically do as much as they can to save up before a new tier comes out, then use their vacation time or take time off of work for the first week.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus idk. i help make video games though.

Victorious Secret: Consultant / Retail / Student / Drug dealer

Team Kpop: All sorts but I’d have to say, generally, office desk jobs are the most common. A fair amount of raiders are also doing school-related stuff as well.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Did you get your awesome name from the Matt Damon movie or did he get his movie name from you.

(Layla) It went to a vote. Other front-runners were "Almost Famous" and "Kupo d'etat." Let's just say I'm glad things worked out the way they did...

Dynamo: There’s a movie named after us?

Sartigan Hawk: We chose it because it was the least horrible name in the straw poll.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Yes

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus ????? oh double or nothing

Victorious Secret: He definitely got the name from us. Aless suggested some godly related names back when the merge was being discussed, but he never though this one would stick.

Team Kpop: Elysium’s name actually comes from the popular Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Rate the currently released raids from 2.0 and 3.0, in order of awesome to suck, not difficulty level, but actual fun and function level. First Coil, Second Coil, Third Coild, Midas, The other one

(Layla) Strictly looking through the lens of fun, I'd rank them in the following order: Second Coil, Final Coil, Midas, Binding Coil, Gordias

Dynamo: Second Coil, Final Coil, Midas, “The other one”, First Coil

Sartigan Hawk: Final coil > Second coil > First Coil > Midas > Gordias

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Second Coil > Midas > Final Coil > First Coil > Gorditas Crunch

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus scob = midas > final > gordias 1-3 > first > gordias 4

Victorious Secret: Turn 3 was the most awesome, 'nuff said.

Team Kpop: A big part in the fun of raiding is the people you raid with so this list is gonna vary based on each member of the team's personal history. That being said - Final Coil > Midas > Second Coil Savage > Second Coil > Gordias > First Coil

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Do you feel that the laughable difficulty of the normal tier raids in 3.0 cheapened them as the entry level was so low for them compared to the high entry level of savage. You may go in depth on your answer and rant if you like.

(Layla) I think what they have done with Midas is ideal. The main difference between Midas and Midas (Savage) is the number of concurrent mechanics a player deals with at a given time. Teams will be familiar with most of a fight's mechanics from their time spent in Normal mode and must then discover how those mechanics interact with each other. This is the learning curve of Midas (Savage). I thought that was an excellent design choice and a breath of fresh air from Gordias.

Dynamo: It killed the story aspect that was so strong for the coil tiers, you already knew everything before you even phased in to kill the first boss in savage, you also had to kill each boss multiple times on the normal mode to have your gear to bolster your chances of clearing the savage version, so you’ve probably killed the normal mode ‘final boss’ in excess of 10 times before you even see the savage version (Imagine killing a glorified FATE version of Bahamut Prime 10+ times before actually facing him in Savage, it just demotivates you). Just really killed the medium core scene, as that was one of the big motivators for people to raid back in the Coils of Bahamut days.

Sartigan Hawk: yes

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I feel like the ease of access to normal tier is a detriment to the savage raiding scene as it removes story as an incentive for people to do these raids. One of the "rewards" for progressing through the binding coil was getting hit with that awesome cutscene after clearing T12. Things like that can't exist in this new Normal/Savage setup.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus entry level to savage is not high.

Victorious Secret: No.

Team Kpop: No, not really. The bulk of this game’s content needs to appeal to the masses since only about a single digit percentage really gets into raiding. Having the easy-mode raid lets people see the new bosses/experience the story, which is what a lot of the playerbase cares about.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Did you skip the cutscenes for the MSQ to level up faster.

(Layla) I originally planned to level casually but once I saw all my friends having fun in Dravanian Forelands while I was slumming in Coerthas West, I started to skip everything. My teammates and I didn't sleep until 60. I can't say I'll do that kind of leveling ever again and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to others. My body hated me.

Dynamo: Yes.

Sartigan Hawk: Only if necessary, but I end up watching all the cutscenes anyway using my alt.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I did not! But most people who wanted to get into endgame content ASAP did.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus yes

Victorious Secret: We skip all the ones that don't have Nanamo in them.

Team Kpop: Yes but then when leveling alts we watch all of them. Can’t miss out on the lore.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Do you run mains + alts or just straight single character mains.

(Layla) We clear with both mains and alts.

Dynamo: Used to do mains and alts but it took too much time of our week. And since this tier isn’t as gear gated as the last, it’s going to be fine not split progging.

Sartigan Hawk: Main+alt

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Mains and Alts for loot stacking.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus main + alt

Victorious Secret: Depends on the scenario and time constraints, we try to do alts.

Team Kpop: When first starting a tier we generally take our most flexible/geared character (usually mains) but then we quickly switch to a 4/4 main/alt group to double the drops and item upgrade reagents. This lets us have more geared characters for the latter turns.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

If applicable, compare your thoughts on end game FFXI (back when it was hard), WoW, TERA, etc to end game FFXIV in its current state. Which do you think was more difficult and why.

(Layla) I can only speak to the endgame of WoW as it is the only one from that list I played extensively outside of FFXIV. WoW is notorious for releasing a large number of bosses in its raid tiers (granted, many are pushovers even on the hardest difficulty). Concurrent with this, WoW is not afraid to release multiple raids in the same tier. This is something SE "slightly" experimented with in the Patch 3.2 raid tier by releasing Midas (Savage) and Sephirot (Extreme) together. For teams that were racing for world first, it forced them to decide on their best route of progression as it is no longer linear. Personally, I want to see them experiment more with this as I find it healthy for the game. Difficulty is a topic I try to stay away from as both games are difficult in their own way. At the highest levels in both environments, team management remains the top importance. I have learned a lot about how to successfully manage a team during progression from famous WoW organizations like Method.

Dynamo: WoW had probably the hardest raids – Heroic back in the day, today’s Mythic. Half of our roster really didn’t play other MMOs. But those that did liked the content cycle + accessibility for all levels of skill + more content per raid tier.

Sartigan Hawk: FFXIV is my first MMORPG with raid tier (played games like Lineage II, Mu Online, Diablo)

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I feel like FFXIV is much more difficult than WoW in its heyday. The hardest part of WoW raids IMO was coordinating 40/25 people. In FFXIV you have much smaller teams and personal responsibility is way higher than it ever was in WoW. I can't comment on the other MMO's as I was never hardcore into the raid scene there.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I’ve played WoW, Tera, Aion, and other no-name KMMORPGs for a countless amount of time, and FF14 is definitely the hardest mechanically. Most WoW bosses were pushovers, and all of the harder content only seemed hard when doing 25 mans due to the scaling of the difficulty in question / getting 24 other non-braindead people for the length of a raid. Tera seemed more difficult because of it’s targeting / first-person omniscient perspective, but generally was limited to dodging due to the nature of its gameplay.

Victorious Secret: Mechanically XIV is apparently more complex.

Team Kpop: Different eras really. Early FFXI and WoW raids generally didn’t have a great deal of mechanics but they were a new experience to a lot of people. As the MMO genre has grown, the overall playerbase has generally gotten better so while those older raids seemed harder, they really weren’t. That being said, the FFXIV raid design team has shown they have the chops to make brutally hard fights, even for a fairly dedicated MMO playing crowd.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

If you were given power to adjust the raids, in as few a words as possible, what would you fix.

(Layla) We would like to see a stronger emphasis on and requirement of doing mechanics properly instead of bypassing them via suiciding players.

Dynamo: Net code and Server ticks

Sartigan Hawk: Add more bosses

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Get rid of normal. Keep going with the Midas path of making fights more mechanics-focused instead of Gear checks.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Fix server ticks, fix mechanic “cheese”, increase content amount.

Victorious Secret: Fix people's connections / Fucking CDs / Retarded mechanics

Team Kpop: Double the amount of raid content each patch, start the difficulty curve lower and climb steadily up through each turn.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

How do you feel about the job rebalancing, turning bard stationary, machinist copypasta, Astrologian being bad, not as bad, and sort of decent now in the communities eyes.

(Layla) I think what they did to BRD was uninteresting. AST is doing better these days. There are a few instances in A8S where it shines bright.

Dynamo: Minuet seemed to be trying to keep up with Gauss Barrel, not the other way around, but the balance of the game is actually in a pretty decent spot right now due to the community speaking out about changes, and them using data pretty decently to make smart changes.

Sartigan Hawk: they did a nice job listening to the community, but I feel like bards and mch are way too smilar. MCH and/or bard should be able to move.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I feel like changing bard's entire playstyle was a bad move on SE. MCH copypasta is an unfortunate conclusion of how essential bards had become to the raiding scene.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Bard in concept is boring, but it’s gameplay can be sorta fun. Machinist is really fun. AST was never bad, just not very conducive to productive progression time. PLD is great though. As much as I love DRK, PLD just has too much invaluable utility during progression.

Victorious Secret: Yoship, pls nerf between the fucking eyes.

Team Kpop: They’ve done alright since the beginning of Heavensward. All the classes are in pretty good spots right now, the only two that might need a small boost are AST and PLD.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Now that Paladin has been made not terrible, what is the order of awesome on the tanks in a broad style scale (not a raid specific tank choice but in general).

(Layla) PLD is back! In 3.0, WAR was the clear all-around winner due to low CD Equilibrium and damage potential. With the attack power nerfs to tanks in 3.2, however, Equilibrium is strong but no longer gamebreaking unless Berserk is active. The balance of power between DRK and PLD is in a fantastic state. They are equally strong in different scenarios. We chose to utilize both DRK and PLD in this recent progression tier and found great success. PLD's Divine Veil is very strong. WAR is still the king of progression due to its flexibility, however. My rankings of overall performance: WAR > PLD > DRK (fight and DPS dependent). Note: each tank is strong in different areas so take this list with a grain of salt. If interested, contact me for further discussion!

Dynamo: Warrior, PLD, DRK.

Sartigan Hawk: WAR>PLD>DRK

Balana Rahl of Tempus: You'll still always want a WAR, then a PLD/DRK in the other slot

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *WAR>PLD>DRK

Victorious Secret: WAR>DRK>PLD

Team Kpop: Warrior is still a must-have in any group content and is incredibly strong for solo play. Dark Knight is likely the next best option

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Favorite moment of the Coil raids

(Layla) Easy - the first time we saw Bahamut Prime cast Teraflare. We collectively stopped focusing on the pull and watched in awe.

Dynamo: Teraflare as #1. Heavensfall as a close second.

Sartigan Hawk: FINAL COIL'S BOSS + CUTSCENES

Balana Rahl of Tempus: One of my raid members singing along with "Answers" while doing divebombs in T13 then immediately getting yelled at to shut up by the entire raid.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Server 2nd / World top 10 clears with Awaken FC on Ultros. Bridges may be currently burned, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of my experience was positive and foundationally built upon those times. / Or finally getting through Golems in T9 for the first time…. and then getting dumpstered by Heavensfall for the first time. Funny stuff.

Victorious Secret: Beating T7 in i110 / Beating T13

Team Kpop: Gotta be the countdown to Teraflare, seeing that for the first time is pretty amazing.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Favorite moment of the Alexander raids

(Layla) For me, nothing comes close to killing the Manipulator in A4S. Five weeks of grueling progression culminating in our first major victory over our rivals in Lucrezia is very hard to top.

Dynamo: When we unsubbed.

Sartigan Hawk: Lol? Alex raid? Fun?

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Being done with Gordias

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *No real “favorite” moment thus far, but the most memorable times will be my raid time in traps along with the “CK” linkshell. I didn’t have a solid static moving forward during Gordias due to some RL hindrances, so any time spent raiding with friends was always fun.

Victorious Secret: Killing A fucking 4 after like 5 fucking weeks of pain

Team Kpop: Unpopular opinion but 2nd intermission of Brute Justice is pretty exciting so….that.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Do you think SE has wasted our time by not giving us an official parser

(Layla) SE has shown that they are dedicated to their player base and I fully expect them to do what is in our interest when they are able.

Dynamo: No, because ACT OP

Sartigan Hawk: Yes

Balana Rahl of Tempus: No, official parsers are tricky business and people will see it as an entitlement to berate anyone underperforming in content where maximizing your class's potential isn't necessary.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *No. From a game developer standpoint, making a parser would take 2 hours tops, with a couple more hours for polish and bug work. It has nothing to do with the workload but the consequences in provisioning (community, witch hunting, berating, etc.)

Victorious Secret: Who cares

Team Kpop: SE has good reasons for not including a parser in the game -

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Raid night drink of choice

(Layla) Mountain Dew Baja Blast

Dynamo: Water, because half of our roster is under the legal drinking age.

Sartigan Hawk: Water, Stay hydrated

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Water!

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Water or Hint water! Delicious 0 cal 0 carbs! / Or coffee if sleep just isn’t your thing. Like me.

Victorious Secret: Tequila shots

Team Kpop: Hope

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Who is going to fanfest and wants to get drunk with some BG people

(Layla) Make it KBBQ and I believe you'll draw quite a crowd!

Sartigan Hawk: No thx

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Me! If I can get tickets this year

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I’ll be going, but I don’t really drink… I can be the best DD though <3

Victorious Secret: Who has time for that

Team Kpop: If they ever put fanfest tickets up for sale.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Biggest inspiration for raiding

(Layla) Self improvement, mostly. I play this game to be a better player than I was the day before. I also find a lot of enjoyment in raiding with my friends.

Dynamo: To play video games with friends

Sartigan Hawk: To have fun and kill internet monsters

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Gouka!

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Competitive drive and self-improvement. To be competitive, one must be willing to always improve. This is the one game I choose to invest heavy amounts of time on, so I better be really damn good at it.

Victorious Secret: A. Mister Happy is my idol
B. Post-raid BG interviews

Team Kpop: Iskhander of Macedonia

__________________________________________________ _____________________

How do you balance a strenuous raiding and practice schedule with spending time with family, friends, staying in shape, etc. Or is it all just fuck it were doing it live

(Layla) There is a lot of preparation that goes into a progression raiding schedule. It is certainly important to keep track of all of your life's responsibilities and address them responsibly. We try to frontload a lot of our work in the week or two before a raid tier is released so that we can safely distance ourselves during progression. I would recommend spending a little extra time with your family and significant others in the week before a patch is released.

Dynamo: Lose the friends, family, staying in shape, and even the etc, then you’re doing alright.

Sartigan Hawk: There are a lot of preparation, you let your family and friends know what you are doing and they cheer you up on the side. For staying healthy, Everyone has their own way of doing it. Staying hydrated is very important and eating healthy is another one too.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: For the first week at least you have to live and breathe the game you're going for World Progression in. After that things open up more and real life activities are more accessible.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *It’s all about responsibilities and time management. If one or two weeks of heavy raiding is a detriment to your everyday life, then world progression raiding is just not an option. I used about a week’s worth of PTO, so I was solid, still had time for sleep, food, and family time in between. Do I regret it? Only when I wake up in the morning, am lazy as hell, and don’t have the PTO to support a lazy day. But that comes back in time. All comes down to whether or not personal time management is part of your inherent skillset. Otherwise….. plan a head. Way ahead.

Victorious Secret: There is no balance, only raid

Team Kpop: Before the raid tier ever begins each member takes care of any outstanding social obligations that need to be addressed while also making it clear to the people in their lives that they’re gonna be mostly MIA for about a week or so. This is one of the biggest planning parts for raiders since time available is one of the key factors in hardcore raiding.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Boxers, briefs, thongs, tangas, boyshorts, etc.

(Layla) Boxer-briefs.

Dynamo: (gottarun)

Sartigan Hawk: Jeans-Tshirt

Balana Rahl of Tempus: BoxerBriefs

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Boxers or boxer-briefs

Victorious Secret: Straight up naked, what are you talking about?

Team Kpop: Wearing any clothes at all reduces your aerodynamics

__________________________________________________ _____________________

If you could delay your clear videos by a week or longer just to make Arthars cry, would you, or do you keep to your schedule.

(Layla) The topic of videos is a controversial one lately. As a community, we need to decide which direction we want FFXIV raiding to go. Do we want to be a community that fosters competition or do we want to be a community that fosters communication? While we have always pursued competition, I don't think it's right for us to decide this on our own right now.

Dynamo: We kindly delay our videos 2 to 3 months behind the actual world first clear out of consideration.

Sartigan Hawk: who's Arthars?

Balana Rahl of Tempus: We try to keep to our schedule out of respect for the world pression scene. If anyone decides to release a video outside of the typical schedule, that's their perogative and I harbor no ill will towards them.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Erm. Look at reddit and search for that one screenshot I posted and the associated comments. Enough said ;_; / Tl;dr I would and will delay my clear videos in the event that they are still relevant to the world prog race.

Victorious Secret: Don't care.

Team Kpop: We try as best we can to keep up with the two week or five kill rule but, if a video gets released beforehand, like it has for the past two tiers, then we release our video’s early

__________________________________________________ _____________________

What voice comms do you use.

(Layla) TS3.

Dynamo: Ventrilo

Sartigan Hawk: TeamSpeak

Balana Rahl of Tempus: We used to use Mumble but now are on Teamspeak3. Both work equally well.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *TeamSpeak

Victorious Secret: TS

Team Kpop: Teamspeak

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Toppings on your ideal pizza.

(Layla) Always Hawaiian.

Sartigan Hawk: pepperoni/cheese/bacon

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Pineapple, Ham, Jalepeno

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *Hawaiian.

Victorious Secret: More tequila

Team Kpop: Varies on mood, whenever pizza gets ordered I always think there’s mushroom for improvement. But if you have a group, olive you can decide on the toppings together. Then again some people don’t like pizzas, they’re just weirdoughs.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Where do you go from here.

(Layla) Tree of S-- I mean Disneyworld! EM will continue to help push the western raiding community in the direction it decides to go.

Sartigan Hawk: There

Balana Rahl of Tempus: We'll be building our teams for the next tier over the next several months to hopefully take the world first title again.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I don’t know, but this is likely my last tier of world progression raiding. Maybe I’ll continue as a casual / mid-core, but who knows?

Victorious Secret: To sleep

Team Kpop: PvP, chocobo racing, alt raids, fflogs cheese parse, pick-up groups, crafting, gathering. Dark Souls III.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

What has being bleeding edge world first raiders brought you individually and as a whole, do you feel its worth it for the fame or do you do it for the challenge.

(Layla) I can't speak on behalf for everyone involved. I can only speak for myself. As mentioned in an earlier question, I enjoy bettering myself as an individual. One of the best ways I can do that is by constantly challenging myself through raiding the hardest content as soon as it is released.

Dynamo: Chicks dig elo, man.

Sartigan Hawk: We play to have fun and for the challenge. If we wouldn't have fun we wouldn't do it.

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I do it for the challenge personally. A new raid is most fun in my opinion when it's still largely unknown, when there's no guides to read or videos to watch. Going in, exploring the unknown, and coming up with novel solutions to puzzles presented by a raid are the most exciting parts of MMOs to me.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I don’t care about the fame. Sure, it’s nice to have recognition. But the game is fun, challenges are fun, and self-betterment / improvement in any aspect of my life is just a goal. There’s no point doing anything if it isn’t something desired to begin with.

Victorious Secret: It's never worth it and you never want to do it again, but people are counting on you, so you do.

Team Kpop: One of the biggest goals for us was to finish the tier as fast as possible so we could go back to simply playing casually.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

How do your significant others (if applicable) feel about new raids being released.

(Layla) My girlfriend plays FFXIV as well and understands the hobby as a result. So long as I am responsible about it, she has been willing to support it. I believe this is usually the case when it comes to relationships and gaming.

Dynamo: Non-applicable, we’re all single losers.

Sartigan Hawk: Puff is always there for me

Balana Rahl of Tempus: tfw no gf

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I have a significant other? L

Victorious Secret: Everyone hates us

Team Kpop: We try to make it clear to anyone important in our lives what’s going on and what time we need to poopsock - most loved ones understand, to a degree.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Back in the prime of BG FFXI days we would often skip big new games being released because we wanted to/had to play XI more than those games (barring Kingdom hearts and FF games). What games that have come out recently have you skipped to play more XIV and kinda wish you hadnt. Same question for movies.

(Layla) Street Fighter V released right in the middle of Midas (Savage)! I haven't been able to play as much as I would have liked. Now that progression is over, I hope to get back into it. Fold was logged into Blade & Soul during A8S progression so I don't think he missed much...

Dynamo: to quote one of the greats “yo hots?” – YoDa 2015

Sartigan Hawk: None

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Stardew Valley and Superhot are two games I've wanted to check out but haven't gotten around to playing yet. They're not going anywhere tho so I don't feel like I'm missing out.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *None

Victorious Secret: DS3, but it's already been ruined / Employer simulator XIV (ie recruitment)

Team Kpop: A lot of us wanted to try stuff like Blade and Soul but couldn’t because of raid. I’m just thankful I’ve got time for Dark Souls III now.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

What did you think of the new Star Wars movie because Im sure nobody skipped that.

(Layla) I thought it was really entertaining and worth the price of admission (many movies today aren't). It felt a bit like a 2015 version of 'A New Hope' but why would I complain about that? Two thumbs up from me - eagerly awaiting the next one.

Dynamo: its aight

Sartigan Hawk: it was fine, nothing too spectacular

Balana Rahl of Tempus: I loved it! They played it really safe with the plot but I'm excited to see where they take the franchise in the upcoming sequels and spin-offs.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *I really liked it. I got to watch it on the Disney Fantasy Cruise during Star Wars night, so that shit was a nerdgasm. Everyone in costume, cheering, the spirits were high… Great memory. Good foundation to the trilogy too.

Victorious Secret: Rehash with new effects, ggwp / New hope remake

Team Kpop: Lacking in depth and heart. A cold-cash grab for a new millennium. Doesn’t teach strong ethical and moral principles like anime does.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Ragns:
- Taco or pizza?

(Layla) Taco.

Dynamo: Pizza

Sartigan Hawk of Tempus: Taco

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Taco

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus: Taco

Victorious Secret: Pizza duh

Team Kpop: Pizza, tacos are an inefficient energy delivery platform since half the nutrients inside spill out onto the plate and are left to mold.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

- How many hours do you play per week and/or day

(Layla) During progression, it's around 16-18h/day. After progression, it can sink as low as 1 day/week.

Dynamo: 16 hours a week

Sartigan Hawk: a lot

Balana Rahl of Tempus: Outside of raid I typically put a couple hours in each day, probably around 10-15 a week. During prog it gets pretty crazy and almost all my free time is devoted to raiding or FC affairs.

Cupcake Corgi of Tempus *During the work week after prog, 3-5 hours a day. During world prog? 16 hours a day.

Victorious Secret: 69

Team Kpop:

__________________________________________________ _____________________

A special thank you to Layla, who left these lovely words and was very awesome <3
A special apology to Arthars, we do love you <3
A special thank you to Gouka who helped get this out to the Elysium people <3

(Layla) Thanks for conducting the interview! These questions were fun to answer.

Abridged Patch Notes 3.1: As Goes Light, So Goes DoDo

Sonomaa — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 22:34:40 GMT

http://bucket.bluegartr.com/297775db...a77675e022.png
We are pleased to announce that the patch notes for Patch 3.1 — As Goes Light, So Goes Dodo!
ABRIDGED EDITION!
Dare you to find the actual differences between the preliminary and these ones.

Patch 3.1 Notes

[3.0] New main scenario quests have been added. They involve a lalamiqote with a hoodie youll eventually get as a glamour because youll demand it and giving handies to the whiney elf guy who keeps giving you the wink.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_0.png

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_1.png

[3.0] New Chronicles of a New Era quests have been added. The theme for these new era quests are red eyes and titty pirates.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_2.png

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_3.png

[3.0] New side story quests have been added. They involve unlocking dungeons that we cant just give to you outright but make you get the quest, then do the dungeon, then do the other dungeon, oops, you forgot to get the quest, now do it again, except that tank quit because he didnt like your gear. Ok now you can EX roulette the same 2 dungeons for another few months.

[3.0] The sidequests required to unlock aether currents have been changed to prerequisite quests. Now you wont have to check the wiki for current information, youll always know its older info and just grind them all out.

[3.0] A Vanu Vanu settlement and corresponding beast tribe quests have been added to the Sea of Clouds.
• There is a Vanu Vanu dance.
• Yeah, you are going to do this annoying quest line for a fucking dance bitch. Suck it.
• There is an automatic level adjustment system in these questing lines. It will break, not in your favor.

Levequests

[2.0][3.0] The destination marker display has been changed for Guild and Temple battlecraft patrol leves because you somehow couldnt find it on your map. Next expansion were just going to teleport you there so you can avoid the 2.0 players talking about how vanilla 2.0 was better than easy mode 4.0.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_7.png

Treasure Hunts

[3.0] New item rewards have been added to the timeworn wyvern and dragonskin treasure maps. These items wont matter, all you want is the pets and the crafting material to sell for gil to buy pets.

Grand Companies

[2.0] New items have been added. The Grand Company leaders wanted to add more new things but they cant clear Alexander normal so they bought feathers off of amazon and put them up to buy.

[2.0] The number of items players would like to exchange for company seals can now be specified. Now you can click even less to buy venture tokens.

[2.0] Free Company names can now be changed. Incoming dickbutts and guilds being renamed to sound like other guilds. Also name stealing.

[2.0][3.0] New items that can be crafted for company projects have been added. That one creepy guy in your FC who has a suspicious amount of gil will still ask you to come over for private LS chat and chill. Except now his house will look like its made of cookies. He still wants to do you in the butt.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...f8e7308e_8.png

[2.0]The amount of time required to fully charge grades 1 through 3 of aetherial wheels has been shortened. Please use these more.

[2.0] Retainer summoning bells have been added to company workshops. Yes, youve been bitching about these since we added houses.

[2.0] Exploratory Voyages have been adjusted as follows: More shit to gain, more exp for your ship people. A whole bunch of other stuff that doesnt matter except for that one guy who REALLY REALLY likes the airships. He is the reason you have 4 of them at max level. Stop bitching when he begs for eight hours for three people to come complete the ships.

Housing

[2.0][3.0] New furnishings have been added. Those of you who leveled your crafts and know how to do it will now be able to make even more gil.

[2.0] A new estate vendor NPC, the steward, has been added. Now you can have a catgirl maid without glamouring that one set from valentines day.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_10.png

[2.0] The number of vendor NPCs allowed in an estate has been adjusted. Now you can have a larger private harem.

[2.0] A new feature for personal housing, Estate Sharing, has been implemented. Now you can share your estate with your in game girlfriend, but still wonder why they wont skype with you, or why you cant find them on facebook, or why they wont meet you irl. BUT YOU REALLY DO LOVE THEM AND THEY ARE SUPER REALLY A GIRL.

Teleporting
Tenants may use the miniature aetheryte placed on the owner's estate grounds. Now you can make friends with people just to get cheaper teleport access, maybe.

[2.0] To ensure that plots of land are not claimed and left unused, estates not accessed for extended periods of time will be automatically demolished. So that one guy who hasnt logged in since Heavensward launch who loses his house and then comes back randomly. He is going to be so fucking pissed that they didnt keep the thing he wasnt paying for and missed picking his shit up, even though people told him. He is also going back to playing League full time since they dont fuck him over there except his elo got fucked up recently because of a shadowban.

[2.0] Adjustable lighting has been implemented, allowing house lighting to be set to one of five levels. Dim the lights, throw on some music, set the mood.

The Manderville Gold Saucer

[2.0] Lord of Verminion has been added to the Gold Saucer. Its basically a more complicated version of pokemon. Instead of being a straight copypaste like WoW did, we made it much more complicated and very likely less fun. Youll try to play, but that one girl in the FC, yeah, she is going to be a thousand times better than you, and she will tell you how easy it is, and when you try to ask for help, her boyfriend who is really bad at the game and doesnt treat her right, he will give you a ton of shit, and she wont be able to talk to her. She deserves better than him, she deserves you.

Getting Started

Wanna know how easy it is to play XIV Pokemon? Well look at this handy screenshot that gives you all these stats. Now finish writing your official forum post about how the pay to win cash shop players have an unfair advantage. Go ahead, make sure you spell check, you dont want to have another unfortunate incident like last time.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_18.png

Minion Type
Minions are separated into four types—monster, critter, poppet, and gadget. Three types will fight at either an advantage or a disadvantage depending on the nature of their opponent. The strength and weakness affinities for monster, critter, and poppet are listed in the picture below.

None of the minions are as good as the airship minions, airships have guns. Please kill Minfilia a lot.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_20.png

Minion Cost
Each minion has a summoning "cost.” This cost is lalafell blood and miqote tails. Roe dicks were also in the original cost but nobody plays Roe males.

Rank Points (RP)

LoVM uses a system based on Rank Points (RP) to determine your strength as a player. If you really get into your character and RP it super realistically or super funny, youll get extra rewards at the end.

Battles

・Player Battle (RP)
　Players can play against one another by selecting the Player Battle (RP) mode. You will be judged on how many Yu-gioh and Card Capter Sakura references you make. Hearthstone references are also acceptable, but only good ones.

Tournament

This option is for tournaments and can only be accessed when a tournament is being held. This will be the best way to rank up since you can make your friends win trade you.

There is a very long and complicated explanation for how this game works, just wait for a youtube video though, since our explanation is just a wall of text.

[2.0] New minigames have been added to the Chocobo Square.

The Finer Miner

You are a hulking brute looking to touch Miners. No not that kind of minor, I said miner. Pervert.

Out on a Limb

Swing the hatchet to locate the hidden timber. Extra points if you can fell a Roe without them making a sound.

[2.0] New items can be obtained in exchange for MGP. We took the remainder of the collectors edition mounts from 2.0 and turned them into hats for you. Wear it with pride and sorrow for the beautiful creature that has been slaughtered for your fashion. Also we cooked a dodo and glued it to a hat. We might have drinking problems.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_53.png
http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_54.png

[2.0][3.0] The following adjustments have been made to Triple Triad:

New cards have been added. They are similar to the old cards, but with numbers just a little different. Were going to run out of numbers soon.

New NPC opponents for Triple Triad have been added.
* Not all NPCs will have an icon above their head. Some are secret, discard cards in front of random NPCs, if they engage you in battle, then you can get your cards back, if they dont, youll have to earn your cards again.

[3.0] The following adjustments have been made to the Heavensward sightseeing log:

New entries have been added. Also a huge orb of orbness has been added, see if you can catch it.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_57.png

[3.0] The following mounts can now fly:

Ahriman / Bomb Palanquin / Logistics System / Kirin / Magitek Armor / Gilded Magitek Armor / Draught Chocobo / Ceremony Chocobo / Amber Draught Chocobo / Your Mom

Fenrir wont ever be able to fly Laysha. STOP SENDING US EMAILS, ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_58.png
http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_59.png
* The wild draught chocobo, ceremony chocobo, and amber draught chocobo can accommodate two riders whilst flying.

[2.0] It is now possible to ride mounts other than the personal chocobo while your companion is summoned. For some reason we didnt do this before, were going to blame PS3 players.

* Riding a mount will not dismiss your companion.

[2.0][3.0] New emotes have been added. Now with even more dancing and brofisting.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_63.png
http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_64.png

[2.0] Two new poses, accessed via the /changepose command, are now available when sitting on the floor. The Au Ra sit pose where it actually hurts if you try to do it IRL and the normal sitting pose of most people in the world. No you cant have male miqote sit pose, too many of you abuse the poses already.

[3.0] An aethernet has been added to Idyllshire. Its gonna grow, and we wanted to make it even more annoying to get around.

[3.0] Players may ride mounts in Idyllshire. Mammoth mounts are also being added to make your idling experience the worst possible.

* Mounts cannot fly in Idyllshire. We want them all on the ground, where they can cause the most lag.

Battle System

[2.0][3.0] The following actions have been adjusted:

Paladin: Still a worse tank than the other two.
Ninja: Still laggy as shit
Bard: We fucked this one up so bad were going to need a new expansion to fix it.
Astrologian: We should have gone with Corsair and skipped the healer, like Gary said, but NOOOOOO, Nobody listened to Gary, even though he was FUCKING RIGHT.

[2.0] To accommodate various connection speeds and latencies, the ninja abilities Ten, Chi, and Jin have been adjusted. You will still fuck it up.

[2.0][3.0] The recast time of abilities that do not trigger global cooldown cannot be reduced below 0.5 seconds through cooldown-reducing abilities. We know youve been abusing this assholes.

[2.0] The visual effect displayed while affected by Darkside can now be disabled. Sorry console players, we only tested on PCs with TITANS.

Saint Mocianne's Arboretum
This is the dungeon where its a garden and kinda creepy but also cool. There will be lots of malboros in this one. Enjoy the hentai.
Pharos Sirius (Hard)
Siriusly, stop with the puns. This one will be a tiny bit better than the normal mode version, but not much. Welcome to the new Neverreap.

[3.0] New trials have been added.

The Minstrel's Ballad: Thordan's Reign
Its like Knights of the Round from FF7 but even longer. Ten phases, eat dicks everyone, giant metal dicks.

[3.0] The Echo will now take effect in the following duties:

Thok ast Thok (Hard) / The Limitless Blue (Hard)
If you cant beat these without echo, please go play Hello Kitty Online Adventures.

Thok ast Thok (Extreme) / The Limitless Blue (Extreme)
These require a basic amount of thinking, the echo will now help you think even less.

[3.0] The alliance raid dungeon The Void Ark has been added. Insert Final Fantasy 6 references here. There is going to be a lot of them, tons and tons and tons of them. Some of you wont get these references. If you dont, please buy Final Fantasy 6 on IOS or Android! (just kidding, get an emulator, the ports were terrible but we made shit tons of cash on your nostalgia)

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_69.png

Level Requirement:
Can you count to potato? You can probably do this raid, just pay a tiny amount of attention and stay out of the fire.

Rewards
SAME AS LAST TIME, DONT LISTEN TO THAT ONE GUY SAYING ITS DIFFERENT, HE IS A LIAR AND A DOUCHE.

[3.0] Exploratory missions have been added, as well as a The Diadem, a new group of islands for airship exploration.

WELCOME TO SKYNAMIS, WHERE EVERYTHING IS RANDOM AND YOU MIGHT GET A GOOD ADVENTURE OR YOU MIGHT GET DICKED! BUT YOUR GATHERERS WILL FUCKING LOVE YOU.

Also join an FC if you dont want to go with random idiots.

[3.0] Enemies in the following dungeons will now yield experience points when playing as a class or job at level 50 or above:
You can now dungeon grind dusk vigil to 60 instead of doing it via fates.

[2.0] Upon completing a duty using the Undersized Party option, the log will now display how much time has elapsed since the duty commenced. Now you can speed run dungeons even more speedy, and if you dont get that one time, that guy who does nothing but speed runs will hate you forever.

[2.0][3.0] New items have been added. We only work with black, and really really dark grey.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_85.png

[2.0][3.0] New recipes have been added. Look at all these pretty armors. Also afros.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_86.png

[2.0] The item level of default race gear has been increased from 1 to 5. For no real reason at all.

[2.0] The following items can now be stored in the armoire: YOU DIDNT HAVE TO WAIT A FULL YEAR TO SAVE SPACE!

Goobbue Earring / Witch's Hat / Witch's Coatee / Witch's Gloves / Witch's Thighboots

[2.0] The following changes have been made to the armoire:

Items from seasonal events can now be stored in the armoire immediately after being obtained. BEST PATCH NOTES EVER AMIRITE!

[2.0] The tradable version of the following dyes has been added because people werent buying them off the cash shop:

Pure White Dye / Jet Black Dye / Metallic Silver Dye / Metallic Gold Dye / Pastel Pink Dye / Pastel Green Dye / Pastel Blue Dye / Pastel Purple Dye / Metallic Red Dye / Metallic Green Dye / Metallic Blue Dye
* The new, tradable version will have a different name.

We completely redid the crafting UI. You still suck at crafting.

[2.0][3.0]New minions have been added. We wont tell you where to get them, it might be the new dungeons, it might not be, but someone will sell the shit out of them on the AH until you give in and buy one.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_93.png

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_94.png

[3.0] New mounts have been added. One of them is a pony with wings, we just wanted to add a new mount and do the least amount of work. Wait.. wait, we added another Dragon mount, THAT is the least amount of work.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_95.png

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_96.png

[3.0] New chocobo barding has been added. This is why we cheesed it on the mounts, this armor took forever to build.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_97.png

System

[2.0] A new idling camera feature has been added for players to take pictures of their characters and scenery from various angles. So find your lalas and get your upskirts going.

When doing a group pose, all parties involved (player character, party members, alliance members, chocobos, minions) will face the camera and repeat the last general or expression emote used. Dont worry, that one guy will still fuck up doing group poses or just leave early.

http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/cc5...8e7308e_99.png

New retainer exploration venture levels have been added: The minions might come from here too. Enjoy those venture tokens.

[3.0] The Flying Mount Roulette has been added, enabling players to summon a flying mount at random from among the ones they own. We had added this in before but forgot to turn it on. Also we only had like three flying mounts.

The quest icons for the initial dark knight, machinist, and astrologian quests will now display on the map. We forgot why we didnt do this before.

The names of aethernet locations will display when mousing over them. Greg was lazy when making the maps, thats why we didnt do this before.

Markers for NPCs such as the lift attendant who move players between zones will now display on the map. For this, we just wanted to add more clutter.

[2.0] The following messages will no longer display during cutscenes.

Messages displayed upon the completion of a retainer venture.

Messages displayed when an item sells on the market board.

* The messages will still display in the log window.
** You will still get spammed with tells from RMTs during the cutscenes though, in fact were going to increase those.

[2.0] In an effort to curb RMT activities, the number of friend requests players can send per day (Earth time) will be limited to 5. This wont affect players who arent RMTs though, oh wait it will. We couldnt just put a timer on newly created characters who havent completed any quests at all to unlock stuff. We had to make new players who are coming into the game get inconvenienced more.
[2.0] The following adjustments have been made to the Mac version:

The client is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. I didnt edit this, they really have this in the patch notes. There is a version of Mac OS called El Capitan. Coming next though is support for Spiced Rum and Rum and Coke variants. In all seriousness, sorry mac users for what is a really bad port

A Good Cause with Tekki and the Chicago Marathon!

Sonomaa — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 18:28:33 GMT

Im posting this on behalf of Tekki and his great cause! If you have a good cause or an awesome project you are working on that youd like to get out there, just send me a PM and we can help you get the exposure you deserve!

Originally Posted by Tekki

Hey guys!

Last year I had the opportunity to run the Chicago Marathon. I went from couch to marathon last year, inspired by my wife's family of runners.

This year I am doing the same, and more! I will be running the Chicago marathon again, and the Lake Side Ultra (30 mile+) shortly after.

I decided this year that I will be running for a good cause, by raising money for St. Jude research hospital. These guys are great. They help kids and their family fight cancer and other life threatening diseases.

So help me out!

Whats in it for you?! Sonomaa and I have some give aways for XIV and non XIV fans alike. Throughout the month, every $10 donated will get you a ticket into the July drawing.

1st prize: XIV Heavensward Standee or $50 Steam/Amazon
2nd prize: Whatever is left from above!
3rd: 60 Day Time card for XIV!
(If you play something else, I can arrange to get you something equivalent for your own game)

Pics of the standee:
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...ad054bfa3b.jpg

Better idea of how to use the standee. I've done this in the past with old ones, and it works well with this. Dont construct it, just take the main elements and mount them on your wall!

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...0d67f59cb1.jpg

How to enter:

Simply use this link

http://heroes.stjude.org/DLA

Donate, and please either add a note related to this give away or PM me or Sono! Again, every $10 will get you a ticket.

Last thing. Traction is king when it comes to helping me donate, so if you could share my link as well, that goes a long way!

I am $520/$1500 goal, so less then a grand to go until October! I hope to be at least half way by July!

An Open Letter to the Final Fantasy XIV Community on the start of the launch of Heavensward

Sonomaa — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 22:23:59 GMT

This is an open letter to the community of Final Fantasy XIV, the game that a large portion of us know and love.

Hey everybody, its Sonomaa, you know me, Im the admin of the BG forums, Im on twitter, I make funny posts and stuff and Im here to talk to you about the new expansion and something thats going to happen.
Id like you to listen really closely on this, Im going to try to be as nice as possible and use my kindest words.

When Heavensward launches were going to have a lot of new people and a lot of returning people. A lot of people who quit after turn 5, some that quit the moment they beat turn 13. More than a few who are starting fresh with their new Au Ra instead of fantasiaing, and plenty who had a mac and decided to take the plunge.

With that comes new players, new friends to be made, and new things to do in dungeons and trials and raids.
It means that there will be new learning curves, new things to dodge, new weapons to get, new armor to equip.

Im getting a little long winded here so Ill try to get to the point.

Dont be that person.

You know who I mean, the person that gets in the dungeon, looks at the newer players fresh gear gear or the returning players Darklight and calls them a scrub.
Dont be that person. Be the one who can look at the situation and react accordingly, the one who teaches, the one who helps.
Every player in this community matters, every single one. No one is more important than any other person, we are all equal and we are all awesome.
So dont be the person who looks at someone who isnt as far along as they are and talks down to them.
Be the person who helps lift them up.

Its a new world to explore, do it with a smile and let it shine bright into the Heavens.

Order of the Blue Gartr: Gilgamesh Free Company Coil Adventures with Galkas Are Food! (12/16/13)

Sonomaa — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:42:12 GMT

http://i.imgur.com/kMwIUBd.jpg

Galkas Are Food is back with another update! A lot has gone on between now and the last update. Names are the same, races have changed, and dragons have been slain!

This update will focus on Turn 5, Twintania. First off, the kill video complete with 1999 Windows Movie Maker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXS1NVNq2tw

Here is another kill video from a different kill and DRG perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfAvVzc9B6o

Call us old men at this point, but our group was never in a rush to be world first or even server first. We decided to not even enter turn 5 and waste time/gil until another group proved it wasn't bugged; congrats to BG (Excalibur) on the kill! In total, we spent about 6 raid nights, or between 30-35 hours, learning the fight to getting our first kill.

I won't lie, after about 20 hours of defeat, all of us were left cursing this fight. I thought some of us were at the end of the line. Lola even took to shouting Gil Selling and Handwor< ads in shout. It was easily one of the most aggravating and rewarding fights I've encountered in any MMO, and sadly, some of us have played them all including RFO and Age of Conan.

If you're static is having issues with the fight, use this at motivation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE&feature=youtu.be

We kept what we called The Board. The Board was a tally we kept when someone would directly cause a wipe. I proudly present to you, the Top 5 on The Board:

http://i.imgur.com/YiGFJZC.jpg

Gray
The state of Colorado
RNG
Zant
Everyone Else

Below I will outline what we defined as phases, issues we had, and then each member's contribution (or lack of) to the group :nekolol:

Phases

Phase 1: Twintania and Adds
Phase 2: Twintania to 85%
Phase 3: Conflag and Fireball
Phase 4: Divebombs and Snakes
Phase 5: Twisters and Dreadnaughts
Phase 6: Liquid Hell and Black Ball of Death

Group Composition:

PLD PLD
BRD BRD DRG SMN
WHM SCH

A quick rundown of what gave us issues and how we resolved them:

The largest time sink we put into the fight was attempting to get Limit Break 3. To achieve this, we went from deliberately standing in Liquid Hell until our life bars were below 10% to having everyone in cleave range during Phase 2 and WHM spamming Cure III. This wasted about 12-14 hours of our time.

Conflag and Fireball timing changes each week with gear upgrades. We actually got Conflag and Fireball down pretty quickly and would adjust quickly each week. I've read that this phase has given other groups issues. From the first run until today, we take fireballs as 4>3>4>3>4. Our group has two pets; the off-tank is in on every 4 man fireball along with whoever is targeted.

Plebes who get hit by Twister. Resolution: Just kick these people out of your static! :p jk

And now...for each member's loot and contribution over the last couple of months:

Zantetsuken Vaevictus:

Allagan Ring of Aiming
Allagan Belt of Aiming
Allagan Gauntlets Of Striking
Allagan Choker Of Aiming
Allagan Earrings Of Aiming

Zant is best known for:

Getting hit by the most twisters
It is still currently unknown whether or not Zant caps Myto each week...

Welt All:

Allagan Spear
Allagan Ring of Casting
Allagan Trousers of Maiming
Allagan Earrings of Striking
Heavy Allagan Flanchard
Allagan Plate Belt
Allagan Earrings Of Maiming
Heavy Allagan Cuisses
Allagan Tassets Of Maiming
Allagan Ring Of Fending
Allagan Bracelets of Striking

Welt is best known for:

Raging on voice chat - "THE GOD DAMN WELTS!!!"
Not having Sword, or Shield, Oath up on a pull (It was only fucking once!!)
Winning the "Most Beautiful Miqo'te" contest on Gilgamesh. Editors Note: Only Welt actually ran in this competition.
Running into a wall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e70yHUWHaJA

Soul Side:

Allagan Choker Of Maiming
Allagan Boots Of Casting
Allagan Bracelets Of Healing
Allagan Ring Of Striking
Allagan Ring Of Casting
Allagan Trousers Of Maiming
Allagan Gauntlets Of Aiming
Allagan Earrings Of Maiming
Allagan Bracelets Of Striking
Allagan Spear

Soul is best known for:

Changing his Hope item 7x!
Making fun of hipsters and paying for it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9RLmCnt79E

Lololol Lololol:

Allagan Bracelets of Striking
Allagan Circlet Of Healing
Allagan Tassets Of Maiming
Allagan Tunic Of Healing
Allagan Earrings Of Healing
Allagan Ring Of Healing
Allagan Sollerets Of Striking

Lola is best known for:

Having a massive fan base in Limsa
Spamming the Cheer emote at all hours of the night
Always, almost, barely surviving...everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvKMjeSUo

Luk Ayers:

Allagan Bracelets Of Fending
Allagan Plate Belt
Allagan Ring Of Fending
Allagan Ring Of Casting
Heavy Allagan Flanchard
Heavy Allagan Gauntlets

Luk is known for:

Having max HP...
Winning rolls on everything!
http://i.imgur.com/UK88cNS.jpg

Gray Poupon:

Allagan Bracelets of Healing
Allagan Boots of Healing
Allagan Ring of Healing
Allagan Boots Of Casting
Allagan Earrings Of Casting

Gray is best known for

Groupon ads
Punching a wall on a 1% enrage wipe

http://i.imgur.com/gUXEaf2.jpg
Audio of the falcon punch above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Hin93972E&feature=youtube_gdata
The worst divebomb attempt ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Ac4nmBlM8&feature=youtube_gdata

Cemmirri Sama:

Allagan Earrings of Striking
Allagan Cuirass of Aiming
Allagan Visor of Aiming

Cemmirri is best known for:

Cemmi is a tag team. He has a baby, dubbed GAF's mascot, which can be heard during our livestreams! One of the images below represents GAF's mascot, but I'm not quite sure which is accurate:

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/alien24.jpg

VERSUS:
http://i.imgur.com/RAEHmod.jpg
Being on the board the least, even when he should have been...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLP4dqJwLk

Wolfer Al'Tonko:

Allagan Gauntlets Of Aiming
Allagan Bracelets Of Healing
Allagan Ring Of Healing
Allagan Boots Of Healing

Tonko is best known for:

Losing a lot of weight, really quickly! What once was food (Galka), now is the chef!
Creating the best FFXIAPP mp3 ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvWitjXS8w

Lost to a Sinkhole:

Allagan Sollerets Of Striking x2

http://i.tcgplayer.com/9206.jpg

Special Thanks and Fuck You's!

Thank you to Harmonea Sinn and Rahvin Modulus

One night, two members of our static could not make it and our practice was cancelled:

http://www.ngngsports.com/wp-content...en-iverson.jpg

I received a text from Soul, while laying in bed dying from a hangover, that he was going to shout and get two people for some practice runs. We ended up with Harmonea Sinn from the BG Free Company and a little fellow named Rahvin Modulus from shout. For whatever reason, on a couple of < 10% attempts, I started referring to Rahvin as Marvin in the heat of the moment. He shall hence force be known as Marvin in any future updates! We learned a lot on this practice run, so thank you to both of you.

Also, when Marvin first joined our Skype call, he had some audio issues and sounded like le robot. Our initial encounter with Marvin started like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hit3-iaE2nk

Possibly linkshell rename to Infinite Cosmic Power? Time will tell...

Thank you to Windoge 8

Windoge 8 gets a serious thank you. Good dog.

www. bluegart3.com 3=r$$$$

100% Handwor< is always appreciated.

A big fuck you goes out to all the fish-tossing Apkallu out there. May you never RIP

http://i.imgur.com/y6C9OJ5.jpg

The State of Colorado

The biggest of big FU's goes out to the state of Colorado. Please, fix your damn internet and/or flooding issues!!!

http://www.50states.com/flag/image/nunst007.gif

Order of the Blue Gartr: Gilgamesh Free Company Coil Adventures with Galkas Are Food! (10/15/13)

Sonomaa — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:27:07 GMT

So the BG Free Company has been busy. We have 3 total coil groups in the FC, 2 of which have started, one of which is very lazy and really really really likes crafting. All is going well and were having a blast! Below is a writeup for our first coil group, the ever lovable and sometimes annoying Galkas Are Food!

Below writeup by Weltall from BG Forums, I know, its not very good, but he will get better!
_____________________

http://i.imgur.com/GedtDX0.png

Galkas Are Food Roster:

PLD: Welt All
PLD: Luk Ayers
SCH: Wolfer Al'tonko
WHM: Lolololol Lolololol
SMN: Gray Poupon
DRG: Soul Side
BRD: Zantetsuken Vasomething
BRD: Cemmirri Sama

Group Formation:

Our group was a little behind on gear check from the start. Originally, Soul Side was supposed to be our WHM, and Cemmirri was a WAR who switched to BRD 3 days before our first run; thousands of Mytho tomes were lost forever! We found Lolololol Lolololol, going forward "Lola", in the mean streets of Ul'dah. On Skype, we said to ourselves, "Could this WHM really be the one we are searching for? Is his name synonymous with wipe? Is this force strong enough?". So far, so good :smile:

Livestreams:

Please, tune in and follow on Mondays at 7:45 EST PM ('_'b

Tank POV: http://www.twitch.tv/welt_all
RNG DPS POV: http://www.twitch.tv/prisheburningblade
Healer POV: http://www.twitch.tv/debehser

Turn 1:

ADS: There is no video of this available. The fight is really easy. Our strategy is to just ignore the adds and kill the main ADS. Luk, as the off tank, will take the adds to the back of the room and use Hallowed Ground when the 2nd add spawns. Tonko focuses on healing Luk while Lola takes care of everyone else.

Trash: Watch out for the Golem aoe!

Caduceus: This is the Turn 1 boss. There are a couple of strategies which can be used depending on your PT layout and DPS' gear. Up to today, we have been splitting into 2 groups of 4 when the boss splits into 2 mobs and feeding slimes to each. At most, you should only have 1 stack on each mob if everyone is doing his or her job properly. During our next raid, we are going to attempt to defeat this boss without feeding any slimes post split.

Here is video of one of our Turn 1 fights. I know I know, I will move the camera in the future. I had it setup in the middle for Street Fighter streams :mad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EtpjiGu9t94&hd=1

Turn 2:

Trash Nodes: You can see in the video below the route we take to the boss. The nodes should not be an issue and go down fairly easily. Luk and I practice voking off each other at 4 stacks. Cemm and Zant are the silence rotation.

ADS: ADS is the main boss this time around. At first, this boss gave us some trouble. I would advise taking a step back, talking out the strategy, and assigning signs to each player. Another tip is for the off tank to always watch for Silence as a backup. Once you get the fight down, it is even easier than Caduceus from Turn 1.

Video from one of our Turn 2 ADS fights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SwR22Wpg-kE&hd=1

Turn 3:

If you haven't heard, Turn 3 is a bunch of trash! Use it for Spiritbonding!

Video of Turn 3 was confiscated by the Government. Editors note: and/or contained too much bad language

Turn 4:

It took our group 2 nights of attempts to finally down this turn. Square did an excellent job of fine-tuning this fight with the available gear. Every party member plays a critical role, as with most of the turns in this raid.

Listed below are some of the reasons for random wipes:

Phase 3 Dreadnaught hate; allow your tank a brief moment to stabilize hate!
Phase 4 Spinner Rooks; these need to die fast, but the main tank on these must also try to avoid Pox! This can be avoided by circle tanking or running straight through the mob if there is only 1 remainng. The non-Dreadnaught tank should keep hate on all of Phase 4.
Phase 6 Dreadnaughts + adds; we use DRG LB to kill the Spinner rook and then proceed to the first Dreadnaught.

Video of Turn 4 kill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YmalP_d79Dg&hd=1

Loot so far:

Welt:

Nothing Q_Q

Tonko:

Allagan Tassets of Maiming

Allagan Visor of Aiming

Luk:

Heavy Allagan Flanchard

Heavy Allagan Cuisses

Lola:

Allagan Visor of Aiming

Allagan Trousers of Striking

Allagan Gauntlets of Striking

Allagan Ring of Healing

Allagan Choker of Healing

Soul:

Allagan Choker of Striking

Allagan Earrings of Striking

Allagan Tassets of Maiming

Zantetsuken:

Nothing Q_Q

Cemmirri:

Allagan Visor of Aiming

Allagan Choker of Aiming

Allagan Earrings of Aiming

Gray:

Allagan Ring of Casting

Allagan Breeches of Casting

___________________________________

And thus ends the first report of BlueGartrs free company on Gilgamesh! Stay tuned for more adventures from Vandoles coil group and the lazy coil group that hasnt started yet.

As with the BG traditions of the past, Loot whore of the month is Lola! Or Lolololol Lolololol! The best accidental invite to the BG Linkshell weve ever had!

Why Valve is awesome: A story about being lucky by Ddz

Sonomaa — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:30:34 GMT

Why Valve is awesome: A story about being lucky.

By Ddz

I’m not exactly sure where to start this incredible story about being lucky as shit, but here goes, from the top:

Last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, my software development/IT staffing company let us off work early. We had no travel plans for the holiday, so a few coworkers and I decided to go to our favorite dive bar, where we pretty much regular every Friday night. We were sitting there enjoying some cheap booze and nerding out over some recent video games when the guy behind me at the next table interjects into our conversation “Hey, we’re hiring”. I spin around for an introduction, and ask where he works. He replies “Hi I’m Mike and I work at Valve.” Instantly I got all starry-eyed and I couldn’t even tell you what I said in return, but apparently the conversation went well enough for my colleague and I to schedule a meeting with Valve to begin doing some recruiting for them. They have an extremely high bar, but we were (and still are) up for the challenge. I work exclusively on their roles and allocate time to work on them now.

Fast-forward to April. I got lucky and I was stalking the PAX prime website and got lucky enough to snag a 3-day pass before they instantly sold out. Woo-hoo! I was going to attend my very first PAX ever. I immediately started planning on who I was going to meet up with, and then, I decided I wanted to do the ultimate nerd thing and cosplay (also my first time doing this). I’ve always been an advocate for Valve, and Portal is one of my favorite games, and so I decided to embark on getting the materials to make my costume. Chell has an easy enough one to do, right? I fucking guess. Decided to get bold and send this email, which sent a chain reaction of events (I blacked out last names, phone numbers and emails for privacy stuff – if I accidentally didn’t cover one up, please respeck; ;). Also this is dated most recent to oldest, so might want to read from the bottom:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...2b1830cf81.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...59f05a5b81.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...29d6a4d743.jpg

So you can pretty much imagine I’m freaking out at this point. I had exactly 1 month to figure my shit out. The first thing I did now that I had secured a portal gun was buy these socks on Amazon.com for $9.99. Easy enough. I own a pair of black flats that were comfortable enough to wear all day, so that part of the costume was a cinch. They arrived in just a few days.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...990cb5dc19.jpg

After this it got pretty intense. I searched around for a ready-to-buy costume but I couldn’t find any. The only one I found was with a HK company, Cosplayfu (http://www.cosplayfu.com/product/Che...ay+from+Portal). Costume looked pretty good, so I decided to email them, only to get my heart broken because it was going to take 30 production days, and then shipping from HK can take ungodly amounts of time. That option was out. I decided to take on the project myself, and that’s when I decided to post on BG for halp. Thread here: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/111...Chell-jumpsuit.

I decided to buy this flight suit off of Amazon for about $35 (below), and then I figured I’d go get it tailored then try to fumble around with adding the details myself. I went to Jo-Ann fabrics, bought a few yards of duck cloth (orange, some white, and black for the button snaps on the arms), along with some iron-on cloth for the back-logo and some button snaps for the arms. Overall that cost about $60.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...af88fdac20.jpg

The suit arrived within a week, and I was so excited! I tried it on and, it being a mens small, it was gigantic on me. I immediately messaged friends, looked up tailors, and started chatting with people who could possibly help me with some seam work. Luckily, I had hired a woman earlier this year who had some great connections in the costume world. I scheduled to meet with a friend of hers, waited three days, and then she backed out of the project. A week had gone by and I still hadn’t made any progress. Back to scrambling!

Then, I met another friend of hers, who turned out to be the most wonderful person in the world. I scheduled to meet with her two weeks before PAX, and trekked to her house with my suit and materials in tow. For $110, she fitted the suit, shortened the arms, legs, and torso, added the white striping on the arms and waist, added the pockets, and added drawstrings to the legs. I could not have asked for anything better! I would definitely recommend handing every single cosplay project you have to her, just ask if you need a referral local to Seattle.

Here is the excerpt from my message to my cosplay artist:

“So I am not going to include info on what I did to make it fit you – it’s too specific. I am used to writing technical sewing info so not sure how much is too technical or not.

After doing the fitting alterations I started the application of the white. The thinner white bands are 1 inch with a 1/4" fold under on each edge. The thicker waist band is 2.5" with the same turn under on each edge. If adapting this costume to a larger person it is important to keep the scale the same. For a large size I would likely go up to 1.25" and 3" bands. I precut these strips from the full width of the white fabric I was using. If I did it again I would likely make bias strips but the straight strips work just fine. I recommend having more that you need precut so you can just apply them without interruption to cut more.

The thicker white band is placed with the upper edge at the waistline, so it emphasizes the hip line. The thinner band above is positioned right under the bust. If I had it to do again I would move it up on this one; just not quiet in the right spot. The most important part when positioning these bands is that they maintain a parallel line. Although the original concept art shows the back of the thinner band dipping I found in practical application this would only work on a person with a super long torso. Sometimes animation just doesn't translate the same. I applied the thick band first and then measured and positioned the second band an even distance around. The thick band obviously ends before going all the way around. I estimated this distance by laying the jumpsuit flat and then halving the distance from the zipper to the side seam. The "pocket" bands on the hips run from that point to the side seam at about a 45 degree angle. I applied these all at the same time so I could tweak the angle and length as I went.

For the pockets I used left over pieces of orange fabric. Scale again is important. The pocket on the bust needs to be in scale to the persons bust so it covers but doesnt overwhelm the bust. I believe it ended up being a 3" wide (Jamie - will you check?). I cut and applied the white strips to the orange fabric and then applied it to the jumpsuit. This just makes it easier to see and keep things parallel. The bottom of the pocket edge should be parallel to the stripes below it. If the person is very busty you might have to adjust and I would recommend positioning it during a fitting.

For the legs I cut off just below the knee and created a casing for elastic. The back pocket is created the same way as the bust pocket. It is positioned half way between the center back seam and the side seam. Again scale is important. The lower pockets are all about the same size and an inch bigger than the upper pocket. The front pockets are not practical but I created them the same way in order to keep them square. I recommend against applying the white band directly to the jumpsuit because it is too easy to end up with oddly angled rectangles. The only difference when applying these "pockets" was the additional white and stitching all the way around. They could be practical if you choose. The position of these pockets is pure estimate by comparing the jumpsuit with the concept art.

Due to the fitting alterations the arms were open at the seams. This made applying the white band easier. I positioned them by measuring down from the shoulder seam. The white band is about half way between the bottom of the cuff and the shoulder seam. Remember that the distance from the shoulder seam to the band will be a difference distance from the underarm seam to the band. In this case it was about an inch different. This keeps the band straight across the bicep as opposed to dipping down under the arm if you used the same distance around. Even if you apply the band without the arm seam being open still measure from the shoulder and under arm. This will keep it even and crisp looking.

The cuff on the arms should end at about the elbow. I had marked this in a fitting. The cuff in this case was 3 turns and about 2.5" wide. I measured how long I needed the sleeve to be to do this and trimmed of the rest. This jump suit had a sewn cuff and the extra bulk could ruin the crisp look of the cuff. To create the cuff just turn 3 times evenly and straight stitch over the seam and tac on the front. In this case the sleeve was tapered so only the last turn of the fabric was caught in the seam otherwise it would have pulled and made the cuff too tight.

The last thing is the logo on the back. It is cut out of iron on and then positioned evenly between the white band and the collar. You could embroider it, paint it or stitch on little pieces of fabric but iron on is by far the easiest.”

(For the logo on the back, I printed out an 8.5x11 Aperture Science logo, cut out the black parts, then used it as a stencil to cut the white fabric. I made another trip to my cosplay artist’s house and she ironed it on for me – so awesome.)

I picked up my completed suit from my artist with a week left until PAX – I was set!

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...f2b5cb157b.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...25305e5363.jpg

I took a friend with me to Valve to pick up the gun, and we spent about 20 minutes waiting in the lobby looking at all of their cool stuff – portraits of TF2 characters and lots of fan art. Then, Arsenio sent another employee to help me and I was on my way with my sweet new portal gun which I guarded with my life because it didn’t belong to me. I took it back to work for the afternoon and I spent some time nerding out some more and showing it to the devs. I felt cool even though I’m really not. BTW, the gun takes 3 “C” batteries and it lights up blue & yellow and even makes the noises – it’s really fucking cool. Not going to lie.

I have to admit, the scariest part of doing this cosplay was going from this

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...f489d6f0c2.jpg
to this

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...26cd04dfc5.jpg
in a day. Luckily it turned out pretty good and I received a wealth of compliments on the change. My hair designer, Molly, is amazing and deserves every referral in the book. Get at me if you want a totally cute, really good hair colorist and you’re local to Seattle.

Now for PAX! I only did the cosplay on Saturday, but as soon as I stepped out of the cab I was ambushed by people wanting pictures. I probably snapped over 200 photos and got massive amounts of compliments on the costume:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...6711aa4c15.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...95fd343072.jpg

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...57cad57fa4.jpg

And this http://images.g4tv.com/rimg_606x0/Im...prime-2012.jpg.

My friend and I decided to check out the Dota2 stuff at Benaroya Hall, which was just down the street from PAX. We checked out the merchandise stuff, and suddenly I hear “Are you Jamie?” I turned around and there’s Arsenio, the guy who let me borrow the gun! We snapped this picture and he hooked us up with a ton of stickers and courier cards. I ended up handing out a bunch of the Aperture Science stickers to fans that took their picture with me later that day. Arsenio invited us to come to Valve and have lunch, and we were ecstatic – now I have something else to look forward to! Here is a pic of the Dota2 tournament stage too:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...d6a2044beb.jpg
Overall, I had an exhausting, wonderful, excellent, fucking rad experience and would do it all over again in an instant.

Monday rolls around and PAX is over. Sadness overload! I had to return the gun and put my costume into storage. I decided to write Valve an email commending them for how awesome the Dota2 tournament event was, and more importantly, thank them for trusting me with a piece of their merchandise. Here’s when shit got even more amazing that I could ever have thought:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...8a4c9b0aec.jpg

I cannot even say enough great things about Valve Corp. They’re some of the nicest, down to earth, most genius people I’ve ever met. I am looking forward to doing a lot more business with that company in the future, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay them for this weekend because of all the win that came along with it.

I probably won’t ever have another story this cool to tell in my entire life but if I do, stay tuned! It was a pleasure to report on my good experience and thanks for reading, guys J

Humbleness,

Ddz

Sonomaas Note:

I am floored by the generosity and awesomeness of Valve, just like Ddz was. I asked her to write this so we can share what a fantastic gaming company does when they want to show love to a devoted fan. Valve already had a customer for life with me so I hope if you didnt know what Valve did or how they worked it makes you love them all the more. Thank you for writing this Ddz, BG appreciates you being in our little community and sharing such a wonderful adventure with us.

The Order: Offical BG TERA Guild on Jagged Coast is LIVE

Sonomaa — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:59:44 GMT

The Order had a triumphant finish to its head start weekend for TERA, culminating in a coordinated attack in a Guild vs Guild war on Crimson Knights. Last night we posed in a triumphant screenshot on the beach and took a picture!

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...4ae8_thumb.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...dc1a_thumb.png

More adventure to come as the game lets us uncap our levels, power to 60, and begin not letting Gekii lose us wars because he dueled outside of town too long.

TERA this weekend Part 2

Sonomaa — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:06:29 GMT

Listen, EME, we get it, closed beta test. Its cool, we understand how much work you have to do to get the game ready for launch. We know the PVP system is only partially implemented. We actually really enjoyed stomping the shit out of the two guilds who declared war on us, we didnt enjoy when the server reset and the stats were reset, only to have us lose the wars via them getting one kill. But hey its beta. A few of us got unjustly ganked by capped level players who didnt have anything else to do, only one of us really got upset over it, not me though, I eventually changed channels and all was well.

What I was really angry about all weekend is that I didnt level another archer. Yeah its going to be my main class, yeah I miss it a ton, yeah Im forcing myself to play other classes so I can learn but god, why didnt I level another archer. I could wreck the faces off those little red punks who tried to gank me, they werent even that good. If my paper thin sorc can get them almost dead, my archer could eat them alive.

Why EME, why did the beta have to end, why cant we have the game now, we paid for it, we need it. Right now we have close to a hundred people who are sitting at their desks, sitting in class, sitting at home, or sitting in another game going... why.. why cant we play TERA right now. They look at their other MMO characters and think, damn, this is tab targeting one, two, three, repeat. Its boring, its stale. Yeah it might be a little fun, yeah they might have some friends there, but compared to action dancing danger destruction shiny graphics magic for the eyes, ears, adrenal glands. Shit is boring in the other worlds, we crave action now.

Several people have gotten temporary K-TERA accounts, just to play until release. They braved the terrifying korean servers just to get their fix, high latency, scary StarCraft 2 power houses who may or may not be 10 minutes away from dropping dead after a 45 hour binge.

Anyway, this has turned into a little too much begging, a little too much ranting. Were watching you EME, with great interest. Your career for TERA is just beginning, and we expect fantastic things of you. Why dont you give me a buzz, we can sit down, talk about some stuff. My people have a lot of questions, Im sure you have a few youd like answered too. Ive done this before, safety isnt guaranteed though, we can be downright cruel if you are trying to slip something past us.

Otherwise just turn the servers on again, just for five minutes, we need it man.

What happened to my weekend of February 10th

Sonomaa — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:54:56 GMT

What happened indeed.

At a little before 3pm EST on Friday the 10th, Chrian messaged me on Steam. I looked at his message, wondering why he was sending me one, usually he waits, with perfect timing, for me to start watching a movie or tv show, to fire up a game either on steam or on another service, then sends me several cryptic messages, usually involving minecraft, ragns being ragns, or some equally strange topic, but it never fails, its always during something. He told me, with his little taru smirk (Subconsciously, I imagine all of you as your FFXI races, I need to seek professional help), that TERA was up and you could log in.

I launched the client, logged in quickly, expecting to be greeted by a GTFO GAMES NOT READY message, and suddenly, it was.. pick a server. I chose the spider one, chosen by the forum members, I guess they dont like Ragns that much, logged in, proceeded to scrutinize my character for a while, getting the best one I could, lamenting not being able to pick the ears and tail with the hair that I wanted, selected archer of course, and went on my merry way.

At approximately 4am after one break at around 9pm for a quick run to the store, I realized I was getting tired. Piled around me was half a bag of beef jerky, multiple cans of coke, bottles of water, and an assortment of mikes hard lemonades. Oh yeah, I was hooked. I was set up nice and smooth, I played the entire time minus that one break and didnt want to stop. Reluctantly I went to sleep, I was 12 or 13 at the time.

Woke up a little after one the next day, I started again without fail, finding little places I could farm enemies and materials, explore the main city, remember to accept peoples applications to the guild, it was a blast, I didnt slow down. I ended up around 10 or 11, starting to get real tired and dealing with dried out eyes that needed a break. I stayed on vent, lounged in my chair and caught up on the forums. Indalcia mentioned they had a bow, no other archers online. Might as well go for it. I was 21 at the time, I figured 22 and some adventure would follow. One run of the 20-22 dungeon with Indy and some other BGs and suddenly four hours had suddenly passed. I noticed this while we were farming basilisks for quests and random crystal drops, as well as for going after a larger scale BAM (Big Ass Monster, official name) in the area.

Man, this game was awesome, I cursed my mortal form for not giving me more energy. Another day then, another day. After a short nights sleep I crawled back into that chair and resumed my adventure, I crafted, I explored a bit more, I did some more murder, played with the timing of some of my combos, read the tooltips a little more, scoured the auction house for some gems. We got some groups together again, went after some more BAMs, some more dungeons. Sadly I got called away for a few hours towards the end but sunday was a nice 9 hour stretch of adventure.

I enjoyed myself immensely, everyone on vent was having a blast, people I got into the game, people who had gotten me more into the game. Vandole, Indy, Chrian, Penny.Cillan, some people whose names I dont even remember (sorry). We all agreed on one thing, TERA was awesome, we wanted more.

The game plays like no MMO youve played before, stop thinking that its another tank and spank. Its action oriented, like if Gears of War or Hunted the Demons Forge got together with the questing and dungeon part of WoW, with a silky smooth unreal 3 powered engine that looks better than Aion, and a bunch of crazy breast heavy characters, some lolis, and some giant rock galkas and some fat pandas. Somebody set the blender for awesome and guitar solos and adventure spewed out.

I havent been this excited for a game since... well since an FFXI expansion years and years ago. TERA might not be for everyone, but its next for me, and I can see myself playing it for a while. Skill translates well in the game, you hit where you aim, you step out of the way, you dont get smacked around. No point and click weekenders here, healbots and afkers need not apply. No rolling your face on a keyboard for top DPS or creating the perfect XML to swap all your gear for half a point more accuracy. Pre-order from amazon for a beta key, drop 5 bucks at gamestop for one as well, or take the plunge and grab the full deal off the website.

Its not a WoW clone... finally.

Pre-order here:
http://tera.enmasse.com/pages/preorder
http://www.amazon.com/Tera-Pc/dp/B00...9270944&sr=8-1
http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/tera-online/90396

Check out vandoles stream of TERA here:
http://www.twitch.tv/itsvandole/b/308276438
http://www.twitch.tv/itsvandole/b/308285404

Check out the BG TERA forum here, join us in game for adventure and excitement:
http://www.bluegartr.com/forums/142-TERA-Online

Review: Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Sonomaa — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:06:56 GMT

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...592c55016f.png

This is a different game you've played before. In the thought process of making a Gears of War clone, Inxile Entertainment and Bethesda had the idea that few have been able to get coded properly. "Let's use swords and bows instead of guns and chainsaws!" Thus is born Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

In Hunted you play as E'Lara, who I will simply refer to as Elara. You can also technically play as Caddoc, but nobody is going to play as him. Elara is a scantily clad elf chick, and in this universe, one of the few remaining elves, as they got into a fight with the minotaurs and got eaten. Elara is not as typical as normal Tolkien elves because of her attitude. She wants to murder everything and is not content to breed like humans and restore her race. Elara quips majestic and shoots things with her assortment of bows, talking shit like a 13 year old on Xbox Live about her kill count and calling her younger human companion an old man.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...660d6fbf04.png

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...d6831029bb.png

She and her mercenary buddy Caddoc, the brutish sword and board tactician, beat shit up through their adventures to save some town and a bunch of people taken captive in said town from your generic orcs (known as Worgar in this game). You are directed on your quest by super pale Xena Warrior Princess with a tit job, an ass like whoa, a thong that has to be cutting off circulation, and very little leather. Her physical body has been kidnapped so her spirit is guiding you through your quest while offering cryptic hints and lots of tit shots. You'll kill the assortment of orcs, spiders, orc-spiders, giant spiders, minotaurs, skeletons, and chicks with their heads mounted on staves.

As far as the combat goes, it's pretty damn solid in my opinion. The bows have a good feel to them, hitting where you aim at in an over the shoulder but closer to the aiming point of the weapon way. Melee combat is third person as well, the shield doing a good job of blocking hits but (realistically) they aren't invincible. You will quickly need to replace them with the shields dropped by enemies and sitting on walls, the same going for weapons and bows. It's a cover based shooter so you can duck behind the chest high walls and pepper your enemies or just dodge around as you fire, picking off enemies Caddoc has stunned or used his area of effect stunning spell thing to raise them in the air for easy headshots.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...6ac1af5881.png

A sloppy execution system was added to get kills on already dead enemies, letting a slow motion arrow lazily zoom towards the target regardless of the direction you were facing. Many pathways are set up to be one way movement zones, with small jumps to make via mini cutscene, small gaps to look at Elara's ass as you duck under or slide sideways through, or the heavy doors that require both of you to lift while the characters quip about how normal people must have gone through here or how they want to kill whoever made said doors.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...e184a78255.png

Hunted can be played as a single player game, with many zones to upgrade your skills and generic magic, as well as look at the glowing purple spires you're supposed to use to change your character and then continue to keep going as the elf. The game is also co-op and while it's great to play with a friend, you can't do it split screen on either consoles or the console port on the PC. There are a few places with graphical errors that can make things a little annoying; some parts of it look very Unreal 1 engine for some reason while the rest looks like the game's very nice Unreal 3 engine.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...b298372071.png

Overall I enjoy the game myself. Others might not, calling it "Gears of Warcraft" for example, but it's medieval combat (ala the old school game Rune) and is a good length. Pick it up on Steam if you are part of the PC gaming master race once it gets a nice sale or buy it cheap for your console in your preferred purchasing place.

And no, you cannot play 2 hot elf chicks, one of you has to wear the penis.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...7f8a1d1377.png

Preview: TERA

Sonomaa — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:47:35 GMT

TERA: The Exiled Realm of Arborea

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...68dee603db.jpg

Aion was several things: beautiful, different, and a welcome change to our normal MMO grind flavor of FFXI and WoW. The problem with Aion is that the grind turned out to be the entire game, one that left this terrifying taste in many of our mouths. I've spoke with former Aion players who shudder at the thought of another Korean MMO. They run back to FFXI in Abyssea easy mode or flock to WoW to be disappointed in Cataclysm, all the while saying 'At least its not Korea hard'.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...2aa5dbd3e3.jpg

TERA attempts to change this by adding a few new ways to do things. They introduced a new combat system based on action games such as Bayonetta, the Devil May Cry series, or Darksiders, except not as twitchy and lacking quick time events. A new graphics engine that looks absolutely jaw droppingly fantastic (even with my short play time). A party system similar to what we are used to but streamlined with actual movement and positioning requirements that are much less 'Stand here afk dps' and more 'Dodge this shit and hide behind the tank with the shield as tall as they are'.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...973dffec66.jpg

What the game takes away is clothes. Yes, clothes and cloth in general are all in short supply. The evils that attack the lands of TERA are the devourers of silken robes and leather jerkins. Like super moths drawn to shiny skin, they must chew up as much as possible, leaving only the bare minimum of coverage. If WoW draws its inspiration from the Victoria's Secret Catalog, TERA is taking its ideas directly from the pages of Frederick's of Hollywood.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...3cb0b961c1.jpg

The idea behind TERA's action combat system is pretty straightforward and a breath of fresh air for MMO people. Gone in this game are the stand here derpderp dps. Now attacks aimed towards you can be dodged or outright avoided entirely. While this does cater much more to the twitchy speed demons with Daddy's credit card and fiber optic connections, it does pretty well on your normal computer with your standard on par cable or DSL. When you set the game for normal graphics, it still looks quite amazing as well: bright lights and expansive areas; a quest system copied and pasted from its WoW MMO big brother (not a bad thing mind you); updated textures and lighting to make the high performance multi graphics card crowd finally feel like they've earned their suffering badge after they built their FFXIV machines.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...1c6f2974c7.jpg

My playtime was painfully short, limited to the starting area and a few quests... all laid out in brilliant script with fascinating story, I'm sure... but I can't read a lick of Korean. The promises made for this game are steep; however, based on the Korean popularity, recent Japanese launch, and the dedicated North American adjustment team, which was set up specifically to remind us that they aren't going to drop another Aion grind turd in our laps means I'll be picking this up day one (provided it's on Steam).

You can read more about TERA in our fantastic and very friendly TERA thread in the games section. http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/83957-T.E.R.A.

There will be a guild for forum goers, probably led by one of the people in the thread, where we can all get on the game, plan for raids and conquest all while secretly watching our scantily clad characters bounce up and down in perverted delight.