Conversations.

I talk to people. This shouldn't come as much of a shock, but I try to go a bit deeper than the regular "Sup" and "LOLGenbu." I try to actually engage people in the game, about the game. Its very easy to get lost in this game, focus too much on one piece of gear, obsess over its flaws, and lose sight of the great freedom the game provides. For me, this myopic focus is on gear and leveling, but it happens to everyone. We get upset when we can't achieve our goals in the time we want to achieve them. We lament time wasted camping and not getting claim. We rage over the lack of drops, a broken synth, undercutters, etc.

But we love the game, and we love the greater part of the game, the vision that goes far beyond this weeks Kirin or Nidhogg or Jailor of Love. We love the friendships, we love the challenge, we love the action.

Here is a conversation I had with Draconum. I was shocked to learn that he has no jobs at 75. I was pleased when I learned the reason why (oh, and the compliments about the blog are a huge ego booster, so I totally left those in ^.^).
(Just to be clear I did chop this up to get it to fit, it would have been huge and filled with other people's conversation if I hadn't).

It was a great, uplifting conversation. Not everything is the relentless march to the end. The end of what? Where ultimately are we going? Is the game really so much a reflection of real life that we can look at it in much the same way? That we need to enjoy the trip and the people around us, rather than consider only the goals that we have for ourselves? There is no "beating" the game, so why not enjoy every moment.

And just so you dont think that I have gone all philosophical and intellectual on you, I had this nice emote conversation with Ryskar shortly after talking to Draconum.
And that sums up the entire spectrum of the game quite nicely I believe.

Vespasian and Omoi have been trying to get a Morgenstern for quite some time now. The Morgenstern is the 500 WS points Critical hit club. Apparently, it is the second best high damage club in the game, second only to Mjollner. It drops out of the KS30 Contaminated Collesium which, if you dont know, is a fight against a rather silly Marlboro named Evil Oscar. So we headed up to Horlais Peak to fight Oscar and his bad breath. Oscar is funny because he isn't that hard really, but he does have a move called Extremely Bad Breath that is one shot death if you are in range. He takes three breaths before hand so you at least get an alert. It takes a little practice, but it is a very doable.
The last time we went we were unlucky and didn't get any Morgenstern's, this time however we were much more lucky. We also got some rather rare Morbolger Vines which will help me get my Brown Belt for whenever I level MNK (probably sooner rather than later).
When it was my turn to go we had a rather easy fight and I got to open the chest. only to discover this crap:
LOL, and yes, I did obsess over my crappy drops. Well, at least Omoi got a Thyrsusstab out of it (the Critical Hit staff).

In the end Vesp and Omoi both ended up with Morgansterns and Hellzfury, Omoikitte and I ended up with Morbolger Vines. Its actually a pretty bad assed looking mace, like the one that Naja Salaheem uses. I had a rather interesting lot on my Morbolger Vine, to which I was accused of dabbling in the occult and other such slanderous utterances. I certainly had no idea what they were talking about, then alone why they would level such horrible accusations. I am just an innocent elvaan.
ANYWAY...

After we had finished up the runs, a couple of us decided that we wanted to go get some merit points. So Kalgar, Hellz and Tamarisk left, and we picked up Ice who just got off of work. I peeked around for the last two members and found Battera, a very nice JP WAR, that once saved a pretty horrible party that I had put together. Battera is the man! Tarutaru King! I hope that everyone has the pleasure of meeting him. He is really upbeat and converstaional compared to most JP players I have met. We also picked up Emir, a Ridill WAR (jealousy woot!) and headed out to the mire to fight some Imps and Flys.
But before any of that came to pass, we found this poor soul laying face down in the Mire. Sorry Gaw, you got screenshotted, and you will now go down in history on the blog. Too bad for Gaw that Amensia blocks two-hours. f(o_o)f

We managed to get three or four pretty long chains, this one being the best that I got to see. I died twice, sadly, and once it didn't break the chain so we might have gotten something higher. This was with a party of Nin, War, War, Mnk, Rdm, Whm. More proof that you dont need a bard to be able to get high chains. People spend way too much time hoping for that perfect party instead of actually going out and getting some xp. The lovely thing about the mire are the Jnun and the wonderful e-peen that they provide. I was doing pretty good damage all night and my new Swift Belt was pretty nice for the additional haste. I was able to recap xp on Ninja from losing it to Evil Oscar and get another merit and a half.

That was my day, it was pretty fun over all.

I should mention the changes to SMN that SE is making. I dont really think that it will change the fact that alot of people will still see SMN's as a healer, but it will at least provide the SMN's with more to do that just casting Ecliptic Howl or Earthen Ward over and over. Some more damage from SMN would also be nice for xp parties, as long as they can manage their MP.