Lack of focus.

I have been pretty busy with keeping myself not occupied with writing my blog as of late. I have a little bit of a writer's block I think, and after almost two years of sustained writing of this blog, I can understand that. Most of my opinions about things are already known, I don't know if I can bring anything knew to the world of FFXI that hasn't already been hashed and rehashed. I will keep writing, but I may lack focus for a little while, and honestly, I really like Sudoku right now and that is killing my writing time at work. :)

On with the show...

Haven't really gone over the new stuff in the update yet, and I do think this update is very, very good. I could add more platitudes to its greatness, but there is no reason to do so. I really like the new Zeni NM system, already dubbed the ZNM system for short. It has decent rewards, the battles are interesting and fun for decent sized groups even if some of the mobs are a bit over powered in some of their TP moves. The drops are mediocre to awesome, and getting to the next tier is not that difficult at all, just need the Zeni to support it. Getting Zeni isn't even that difficult if you know what you are doing. The only complaint I have heard so far is that grinding Zeni is hard, but that person was retarded and didn't understand how to do it correctly. Such is the case with people that do not understand things immediately, they reject it out of hand without a second thought then engage in crying and whining about it as loudly as possible.

Anyway, the point is that these are fun encounters that can be done in between events or as events, or anything in between. There are at least a couple of pieces of gear that I am drooling over already. And the materials from the bosses are legitimate, most importantly Cerberus dropping its hide, which will probably significantly effect the market for Cerberus Mantles. I like the fact that some of the upgrades on the lower levels are small but they are noticeable. For example Chigre drops a +5 Accuracy ring with some random resists on it, which can replace a Sniper's Ring even though the level is much higher, and it also drops a +2 Magical Accuracy ring, which is new. Though not all of the NM's have good drops, most have good situational gear or something that is a treat for some job or another. Lil'Apkallu is another good example a decent set of +healing MP boots and some Footwork feet for Monk, it is interesting because it runs around and uses TP moves afterward but isn't too difficult. The tiers are relatively easy to progress through and even the tier 3 mobs have great drops and the fights are very interesting or difficult or have some twist to them. For example, you have Wulgaru who is pretty devastating because it constantly uses TP moves that go right through shadows, that is until about 75% when its arm blows up, and it gets a little weaker, and then finally, well... its time to have some fun. LOL Have fun with these, I have done tier 1-3 but have yet to do a tier 4, which I am looking forward to. :)