All I have to say is what a great expansion and update experience this truly has been. Made 500k+ profit on day one just synthesizing potions for kits....

Hahahaha, yeah too bad that's all that's went right...

Now for the real story (gonna be quite a text wall of bitching so read on if you want.)

First issue I'd like to address is with Summoner. I mean what in the fuck did they do to screw that up. "Let's just break Carby mitts and other perp costs for Summoners so when they look at the new ability we gave them they can enjoy it." Seriously now, with Penance Robe/ Ying-Yang Robe; Fay Corzin (Perp -3)/HQ Stavesx8; Evoker's Ring; AF+1 Feet; Nashira Hands/ Carby mitts, my perp costs are all over the board. I don't even know what to expect in capped areas. Other than that the new abilities are a good addition but for the amount of things screwed in the process, I question its worth.

The aggro abilities of mobs also confuses me deeply. I'm doing missions in Toramai Canal (sp) and I aggro a mouse, I walk four or five steps backwards so I won't aggro more than one and prepare to fight it. It goes yellow and de-pops without even hitting me, what the hell is with that. I mean it's good I didn't have to fight it but at the same time, I was looking forward to killing it quick and painlessly. Also, certain beastmen mobs won't despawn on zone lines, remaining there to kill lower level characters in case one was to zone in. It's funny the first few times but zoning into a zone to raise three to four people because I feel bad for them is getting tedious now, especially in Qufim.

Onwards to the glitch with merits. If you zone some and check your merits, there is a chance some categories may be cleared. Happening to both SMN and BLU for me, I noticed that the capped merits I had disappeared. Now I Understand they are still active and working but the whole idea of the glitch just boggles my mind as to why it occurs. I can't even assume why.

Onward to my final topic, the actual expansion itself. What to say? Well I'll tell ya what, Square Enix did a great job with this one. Let's black screen people at random if they or if they do not use windower. It did not occur directly to me but did happen to a friend I was helping on mission who was playing on full screen normal FFXI. So we had to redo the fight again post-maintenance and so far I've did that Ninja fight a total of four times just with one black screen, one fight for myself, and two more to help others who asked me to. The lack of cut scenes and one of the most overused story plots of all time seems to be a nice addition to the recent expansions. Whoever said this goes up to Chains of Promathia difficulty was either more gimp than a melee scholar in a colibri party (yes I have witnessed it, don't ask,) or high on crack. It's far from difficult, just the amount of time wasted on it seems to be a major headline of it. Run to Sea Serpent Grotto and take pictures of mobs, run to Gustav tunnel to fight some easy Ninjas, go fight some mobs in Zi'tah and Ro'Meave that are not difficult what so ever but will still take a ton of your time if you plan to solo and do not have jobs such as Red Mage, Warrior, or Summoner to 75. Yes, there may be more but those are on the top of my head at the moment. Then go to Toramai Canal and find eight ??? so that you can turn the difficulty of the BCNM severely down. Go to Temple of Ugg. and Den of Rancor and find SIXTEEN absurd ??? so you can have access to the final fight. Make sure you've hot your unlit lantern! Unless of course you threw that out many years ago like myself after beating the initial Zilart Tonberry fight. That one is my own fault though so nothing on Square Enix there. I just believe this expansion isn't living up to what people are saying it does and that it really is only another time sink for veteran players. Have fun with this one all as I know I didn't.

Just one last thing to bitch about before I conclude this update. Fuck all you people who decide "hey a friend of mine is waiting for me to do a BCNM with myself later tonight but there is a shout going on so I guess I'll just go to that because I want to have the expansion completed earlier then him because I'm cool like that." Yeah well this has happened to me twice already so I honestly don't know what to say, I suppose I should just be more thoughtful of who I decide I want to bring along with me on further endeavors. Yeah, I suppose that would set the mood for this post, along with my six hours of sleep in the last night mainly staying up to help others out. I remember one day I was at a gas station at around 2 A.M. at night and I let a man cut in front of me in line because I was in no rush. He was very thankful and said "You plant shit and you harvest shit but if you plant kindness you harvest kindness." It was a small farm hickville town I was driving through and I actually took the time to think about this while driving. Replace the second kindness with shit also and then it becomes a correct statement. Sorry to bitch any one who reads this brains out but as you can see I can't seem to find much good in any of the recent happenings.

I'll post again later when I'm in a good mood maybe, I'll be in game later tonight if anyone wants to do anything. Trying to organize a subligar run if anyone's intrested, @4 at the moment.

Later~