Froggies.

Being that Omoi now had her 25 and 35 Ares's hands pieces, the necessary but mundane and almost tedious task of getting her 15's to complete the set was required. When you compare the difficulty of getting the other two pieces of a set to getting a 15, the 15 almost becomes laughable. Either a relative high drop rate from trash mobs, or a specific drop from a specific NM. In this case, it was the 3rd floor Poroggo Madame in Zhayolm Remnants. The reason this is tedious is because popping this Madame requires clearing the entire half of the third floor of Mamool Ja and an Archaic Rampart. It is just time consuming compared to the other goals that we wanted to get done during the run. Now, if they also had a chance to drop some 35 items then that would have been something of more interest, but they are only 100% drops on the 15's. And for some reason Frog Chorus is harder to stun than I remember. :( Well, we did kill it and we got Omoi's Ares hands! She has already turned in the items after searching around for the Bloodwood lumber and she should have her Ares's Gauntlets on her by now. Third completed set for us. We still need to do Zhayolm at least 2 more times to get the 15's for Skur and CK's Morrigan's Cuffs. We went with a pretty big group so we had to equip a few more people. I was hoping that we would be able to get a little more done, but because we were frogged so many times by the first Madame we were limited on time even further and we ended up timing out on the 5th floor Madame. :( I can see why this would be a problem because not only did we have to clear one side of the third floor we also had to clear the three rooms on the other side of that floor to get the stat cells.

Now, for my rant, and today is excellent proof of what I was going to mention. There are groups of people that play this game that actually believe that because SE doesn't fix things that they want fixed then SE is actually an evil entity out to get them. These people actually believe that the game revolves around them and that it would disappear if they were to quit the game. I find this attitude frustrating, as it is obvious to anyone over the age of 20 that the people that make this game do intend to make the player base actually want to play the game. But you can never make everyone happy, and SE has their own goals for what they believe people should be doing in the game, so they inherently can not provide 100% entertainment for every player. If they were to create this perfect game then every human being in the world would be playing FFXI. But some people have no ability to consider their position from an outside view. People that lack the ability to view the world self-reflexively have always appeared dumb to me. I am not saying that people should not do things in their own self interest, but when you are making an argument that you are trying to use to persuade other people to your side, it is best to make a reasonable and logical argument that will appeal to the majority of your target audience. Instead, these people make arguments that are based in extreme opinion and lack any kind of logical support just because they sound good in their own heads.

Take today, for example. Major adjustments have been announced to Campaign, and most everyone is very interested in these changes. They do look good. I went so far as to suggest that this is what they were expecting to release with the expansion had the expansion not been forced to be released before the winter shopping season. To me, this fit very well into my logical conclusion that while the expansion looked like a good start, it seemed to be missing a few things because development had to be stopped for the winter release. This was an easy decision to make for SE, because they can always add more content at a later date with updates. The problem is that this puts those without the ability to look at the situation self-reflexively into an untenable position. As a premise to this argument, I will assert, and I believe I am being self-reflexive here, that the Campaign adjustments look cool. LOL Those that have no engaged in any self-reflexive thought on the situation are left with just two semi-logical paths to follow from this point. They can either continue their unfounded and illogical bashing of the expansion with statements like "This looks like more fail from SE!" or they can just abandon any kind of logical consistency and say that the new Campaign adjustments look cool.

Now this is not an indictment of those that just do not like Campaign personally, just of those that bash it as if no one would ever like it. Campaign like Besieged and well, everything else at the beginning of an expansion, is just a taste of what the event is going to look like updates add more to it.

There are always legitimate criticisms to be made of any game, especially FFXI, but those criticisms should be logical, reasonable and self-reflexive. Your parents always told you to think before you speak, perhaps they should have told you that you should think before you think. I highly doubt those that are incapable of self-reflexive thought will even understand that statement. It's like trying to teach a blind person to read.

Ok, done with the rant. Onto the update!

New Campaign Elements (02/07/2008)

Since the release of the Wings of the Goddess expansion pack, countless adventurers have enjoyed serving their nations in the Campaign theater. Occurring in higher frequency than their Besieged counterparts, Campaign battles offer a more readily available venue, where players may take on more varied and rewarding roles.

As a result, we recognize the need to make adjustments and introduce new content in order to prevent repetitiveness in the gameplay and enemy AI.
Following in that vein, the next version update will herald in a number of alterations and additions to Campaign.
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce four of the new elements that will be incorporated:

Beastman Strongholds
Strongholds will be introduced in association with each Beastman controlled territory. Campaign battles will occur when the Allied Forces of Altana come to hold sway over any territory lying on the outskirts of said Beastman strongholds.

Belfry
Available to both the Allied Forces of Altana as well as the Beastman Confederate, the belfry will become available to armies attacking regions not under their influence once their technological means have reached a predetermined level.
Since they house a "war bell" capable of calling forth reinforcements, it is imperative that players not only protect the belfries of the Allied Forces tooth and nail, but also demolish those of the Beastman Confederate as quickly as possible.

Mantelet

The mantelet is also available to both sides, and will be placed at a location that an army is defending once their technological means have reached a predetermined level.
The mantelet's benefit derives from its ability to restore the HP of friendly players within its vicinity. As such, much like the belfry, they must be defended or destroyed accordingly.

Siege Turret
Available only to the Beastman Confederate are siege turrets, which will appear when an army's technological means reach an incredibly high level while attacking an area not under their influence.
Capable of repeated long-range attacks, in addition to spawning ferocious enemies, the siege turret is widely considered to be the Beastman Confederate's most powerful and deadly weapon.

In addition to the items detailed above, further enhancements will be made to freelances, Campaign Ops, individual unit information and adjustments, and more!
Look forward to a richer, more complex Campaign!

*Beastman Strongholds - New zones, check. New things to kill, check. Campaign battles in Beastman Strongholds, ch... wait, what? I am hoping that they mean that you can do Campaign in these zones as well as a whole bunch of really cool other things. If these zones are just going to be the same as the current Campaign zones, there isn't going to be much incentive to run out to them if they don't have a direct teleport, like CN, EN and GC are now.

*Belfry and Mantelet - Like many things in the original description of Campaign related events, this leaves me scratching my head. Not in that I do not understand the concept, but more in that I am not really understanding the level of importance and relevance for Campaign. Can we place these items? Do they just appear? How do we defend them or attack them? Can they take physical damage, or is their strength determined by Campaign Ops? In the end, I figure that there are two level fundamental levels of relevance for just about everything in Campaign. Either it is critical or it is near irrelevant. Fighting in Campaigns, critical. Head-hunting, near irrelevant. So, in all probability these items are going to be either really important to winning Campaign battles or they are going to be the Archaic Mirrors of Wings.

*Siege Turrents - Just look plain old fucking cool! LOL Probably wont be that important over all structure of Campaign over all but they should be really fun to kill.

So far so good with the update. Looking forward to it!