Arrode.com # FFXI and AION

Exploits of my online gaming

FFXI Plans

Dec 4

Posted by arrode in General | 1 Comment

Winter classes are back in swing, so we’ll see how much time I have to devote to FFXI at this point. I have some accomplishments I want to get done relatively soon:

  1. Get DRK back to 37. I lost a lot of levels on it when my character was reset.
  2. Finish Alchemy. I’m sitting at 98.6+2 right now. No reason not to finish this promptly.
  3. Finish making gil so I can repurchase all my gear. I sold off all my gear when I quit.
  4. Finish meriting RDM and BRD. I lost a lot of f’ing merits too. D:<
  5. Finish leveling BLM. Sitting at 65 is fun and all, but 75 would be lovely sooner rather than later.

Optimistic goals seeing as I haven’t even logged in at all this week due to classes. We’ll see how far I get!

.DAT editing

Nov 9

Posted by arrode in General | No Comments

For those who kept asking about .dat editing and what it is specifically there are a number of sites on the web that cater towards updating data models in the game with fan-made ones. For the most part this is harmless and easy to do. My resources page has a few links to rather good .dat sites.

FFXI Dats and MMO Xoops are two good sites to get dat files from. I’ll warn you the later has a lot of crazy Japanese hentai-esque stuff, so be careful, but the first is in English and has a lot of fun .dat models you can change your characters to.

TECHNICALLY dat editing is illegal according to Square, but I honestly see absolutely no harm in it if you just want to update the aesthetics of your character! Just a forewarning that it is against Square’s TOS, so use it at your own digression.

For those who aren’t sure how to update your dat files. Basically you’ll have to figure out what dat number corresponds to which specific piece of armor you want to update. Like if you wanted to update your character’s hair color you’d have to look for the specific dat that corresponds to your character’s face design. This can be done by finding the number in things like Model Viewer and then replacing the specific .dat with the edited one. Make sure to make a backup of the original and which folder it came from in case the custom dat isn’t what you were expecting. Obviously make sure you rename your edited dat to the same name as the one you want to replace and put it in the right folder.

Not so hard. So enjoy. :3

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Duelist Boots :3

Nov 8

Posted by arrode in Dynamis | No Comments

Finally! Dynamis-Valkrum last night. So I’m officially 2/5 now for RDM after 3+ years. HOW SAD (technically 3/5 since I did get the tabard in Beaucadine last year, but since I was rolled back, I lost the armor)! I also consider this one of the better pieces for RDM/BLM so I’m quite happy to have it. Thank you ED~! :3

Now back to the slave mines to study for finals. >_<;;

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Happy Halloween!

Oct 27

Posted by arrode in Dynamis, General, Rise of Zilart | No Comments

Happy Halloween everyone!

I took a break to do all the seasonal events Square’s released for us including buying the 3 pumpkins I didn’t get last year from each of the nations, finishing off the Trick Staves/Treat Staves, and getting the Eerie Cloak +1. Fighting Pyracmon was a ton of fun, actually! The cloak’s stats are kind of useless, but it was fun getting it. :3

What else have I been up to? Helping my boyfriend Arigh get rank 5. :) I took him through 4-1 yesterday and revisiting all the old areas for magicite was quite fun, actually.

And then of course, the obligatory Dynamis-Sandoria. :) RDM shoes did drop, but my lot was epic fail at 13 or 17 or something along those lines. It seems even after all these years my lots are suck.

Hey look, it’s a galka BLM. LOL :D

And that being said I leveled my WHM for the first time in two years a few days ago. LV62 > 63. Amazing!

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Moved my journal

Oct 14

Posted by arrode in Miscellaneous | No Comments

I decided that since Arrode.com wasn’t really doing anything that I should move my FFXI journal to it. So here it is. :) I just transferred over the database, but a lot of the subsections haven’t been moved yet. Will be working on this tonight when I get the time.

So what have I been up to?

Oct 9

Posted by arrode in Dynamis, EXP, General | 1 Comment

This week wasn’t really anything overly exciting. I’m getting used to the game again and playing on my off time, which is seldom thanks to it being mid-quarter at my college and as we all know: work first, play later. :D Well, sort of.

I’ve started doing Dynamis again with ED. Hopefully with more consistency since Dynamis times better fit my schedule now. I think before I had conflicts because I worked one of the days that Dynamis was held and the weekend time would often get taken up by social events with friends. So yes, hopefully I’ll have better attendance this time. :3 I’m still sad I lost my Duelist’s Tabard because the amount of people still lotting on it is quite substantial and I feel bad trying to lot a second one, but I guess it can’t be helped. My lots are epic bad anyway, so I won’t be surprised if it’s another 2 years before I get another tabard.

Level syncing is quite fun! I was leveling in Yhoator Jungle with a pick up party and hit level 61 on BLM (again) this way. I really, really can’t stress how happy I am with the level sync system and think Square should’ve implemented this years ago. I’m sure a greater player base would’ve stuck with XI had this been the case.

I also have been running around helping with SAM quests in Zi’Tah. I really like the samurai quest even though I still have severe trouble finding Norg. I hate the Elshimo maps with a passion. They’re just outright horrible. Retracing to areas that I remember a lot from my lowbie days is quite nostalgic.

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{Reraise} Arrode, {Yes, please.}

Sep 28

Posted by arrode in EXP, Wings of the Goddess | 2 Comments

Hm, so where should I begin?

Ok, sometime after my last post I decided to deactivate Arrode to take a break for my co-op in college. I was also doing a lot of internety things that didn’t include FFXI, so I was going to take a few month break.

I decided to come back around May 2008 and discovered my password was changed. Strange, I thought. So I called customer support, found out my credit card didn’t match the information on my account and was stupidly told by the Square-Enix employee my account was lost and I should start over. I flipped out with /angry motion and decided that I was just going to quit XI all-together if Arrode was forever lost due to being haxxored.

A few months later after talking to my LS, I realized that I could get Arrode back and the woman I had talked to was just a flaming moron the first time. So I sent in my notarization, waited a while, and finally got Arrode back after a long, retarded process in the first weeks of September. I logged in and of course all my items/gil are gone.

YAY!

So I called a GM, asked for a character revert, got it granted and realized they had reset me to September 2007. So I lost a bit of AF2, missions for Wings of the Goddess, and levels on my BLM. I was 64 or so when I quit in January and I’m back down to LV58, but with the new Level Sync system, this hasn’t been a problem. I’m almost back to 60 after a few days of lol leveling with Valkrum Dunes and Qufim parties. 8D Being wanted in parties again is pretty sweet, imo.

So yes, I should be studying, but I just wanted to hop in and update this sucker and tell you all that ARRODE IS BACK FROM OUTER SPACE!

Woohoo!

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Happy (late) New Years!

Jan 6

Posted by arrode in EXP, Wings of the Goddess | No Comments

Yeah I realize I kind of suck at keeping this thing updated, but anywho!

I’ve been ever slowly leveling my BLM solo style. After 60 getting parties as a black mage is nearly impossible, so I decided to try out soloing and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. There are pros and cons to the method of course, the first con being it’s actually quite boring to solo for hours on end. But the pros are that if the camp isn’t taken, you can EXP at your own rate without any real worry of incompetent party members, LFG, etc. The EXP per hour solo is around 7,000-8,000XP without any kind of EXP bonus item, so it’s not awful yet not spectacular either. At the moment, my BLM is LV64 and leveling in Bibiki Bay. One more level and I can finally get out of there on to more fun areas!

I’ve been playing around with some .dat mods to make Arrode prettier. I honestly don’t like how all but two models of hume female look and I always thought my model was the most aesthetically pleasing followed by the one with the short bob-style hair. So I was elated when I found some nice .dat files online to make my character even more feminine and pretty. :D

Behold Arrode’s facelift!

Nice pretty long hair on Arrode as well as more sexy eyes. :) I’m 100% happier with the new design for Arrode. 8D Makes me feel like I’m a plastic surgeon, pwahaha.And some pictures I’ve finally got around to linking to from my quest to unlock the two new jobs in Wings of the Goddess!


Amazing, a floating book!


My future schoolgirl outfit. After I finish BLM and SAM of course.


Your target is always out of reach no matter how close you stand to it. :( Stupid Dancer quest.


Doesn’t the Maw kind of look like one of those Alien spawn babies that stick on your face?


Take me to your leader.


A really freaking long drop.


Cait Sith!


Falling randomly ala Kingdom Hearts opening FMV.


A pretty new zone with some very high fishing spots.


Old Ronfaure!


Some creepy ladybug mobs.


And of course, a random screenshot of GM Shanaela! Woot woot.

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Hm

Nov 29

Posted by arrode in Dynamis, EXP, General | No Comments


Long time since I last updated. The newest expansion pack, Wings of the Goddess is sort of meh so far. I don’t really know how I feel about it. I spent some time unlocking the two new jobs: Scholar and Dancer, but have yet to try out either as I am still emo-ly leveling BLM. I’m up to 61 after having soloed my last 1k EXP tonight plus soloing Goblin pets in Bibiki Bay (which is now entirely desolate, compared to how it used to be when ToAU was released). EXP is pretty good soloing, averaging about 8k per hour without EXP bonus items and relatively safe, though boring and repetitive. Getting party invites has pretty much come to a screeching halt after LV58ish when leveling in ToAU areas becomes viable. It’s a darn shame because TP Parties are not as good as they say they are and I still parse doing 40% (or more) of the entire party’s damage without having any downtime. But alas, looks like I’ll be soloing to LV75 at this rate, with the occasional party invite.

In other news, I’ve acquired the RDM AF2 body and BRD AF2 feet in a week. Yay! So far, I’m 2/5 on RDM and BRD.

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The advancement of the black mage in training!

Aug 31

Posted by arrode in Dynamis, EXP, Salvage, ToAU | No Comments

So what’s been going on lately.. hmm. I head back to college in a few days, but I thought I’d share the quasi-interesting things going on in my life ingame.

When I quit XI two years ago, very few LSes had beaten Dynamis Lord in Xarcabard. I remember ED’s few attempts at it resulting in a total wipe at approx 90%. Of course, this was prior to the days of RDM/DRK being known to be useful for this kind of thing, so yeah, went to Dyna-Xarc with ED a few weeks ago and watched them decimate poor Dynamis Lord in under a minute. How things have changed! Of course Dyna-Xarc was emo and we got 0 AF2 drops that entire time. At least we got a Shadow Mantle. ; ;

Have since been catching up on AoAU missions. I can’t say I’m finding the storyline too interesting and it pales in comparison to the fun I had with Promathia’s storyline and BCs. None of the BCs have been overly challenging and I guess this is Square’s attempt to curb the anger produced by the “difficulty” of the Promathia missions (though I don’t think they were that hard, to be quite honest with you). I’m current with missions though I haven’t done the final BC yet just cause the final rewards suck and I don’t have the inventory space to hold yet another useless item (the lv50 rings + blue coronet). So perhaps I’ll never finish the missions because I just don’t care to. <_<;;

Salvage has been fun/stressful as always. We have a good set of constant players (about 12 of us who attend weekly) and we’ve got some pretty good drops thus far. We’re continuing to go every Friday and have got lots of gear so far though we’re still having a bit of trouble with the Long-Bowed Chariot NM thanks to our lack of healing. Otherwise, we’ve had some pretty cool drops so far (though I haven’t gotten anything as of yet) and I’m debating between getting Morrigan’s Robe or Cuffs first. Both are exceptional pieces of gear for RDM, so I’m having trouble deciding. Either way, the cost of the ores needed once all 3 pieces have been acquired is disgusting. D: Plus I hate having to do assaults to get points. Since I’m effectively 2 years behind everyone else, I’m still a PSC and killing rocks in Lebros Cavern every week to get my points. *dies*

I’ve been leveling my BLM rather arduously since I last posted. My BLM was 37 a week or two ago and now I’m up to 53 and having fun all the way. BLM is a lot easier to play than RDM and a lot less stressful. Being a good BLM really equates to two things: A) lots of INT gear and B) Elemental debuffs + not overnuking. I’m finding that a lot of parties have gotten stupid lately and don’t do Skillchains at ALL anymore. I mean I understand opting against a skillchain if it requires the melees to use gimp WS to form it, but if you have a Samurai, Ninja, and Warrior for melee, not having a skillchain makes me want to punch people. And LOLTPBURN is bullshit, I’m sorry. TP burn is effective once warriors get Joytoys + Ridills and merits and /NIN, not before. I’m so sick of people saying DMG is better just spamming WSes if their WSes are doing >100 dmg. I’ve had a number of parties that didn’t even know HOW to form Skillchains in the late 40’s-50’s. That’s ridiculous. LERN 2 PLAY people. I constantly parse my BLM’s dmg to be doing between 25-30% of the entire DMG in a party without a Skillchain. With skillchains, I easily am doing over 50% of the DMG in a party. BLM is a strong job, but it truly shines when melees skillchain.

And oddly enough, BLM is one of the most E-peen jobs I’ve ever seen. 2-3 BLMs in a party is pretty common now a days and it’s like.. everyone instantly /c’s your gear, checks your spell damage and tries to compete. I’m quite proud to say that while I don’t have nearly as much MP as tarus, my spells are always stronger. :D DD Yay for merits and +30 INT gear pwahaha.

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