imode

Just buy from one of the reputable online dealears here. Most of us can vouch for their reliability and we're pretty sure they won't cheat you.

http://www.valkyrie-exchange.com

http://www.tmpanime.com

Any idea how Lineage II is going to be handled as far as international communities? I know they're promoting the game internationally, moreso than FFXI, and the game is originally a Korean game which had open betas in both the US and currently Japan as well.

I snuck my way into the Korean beta last year and the Korean community was unfriendly to say the least. I'm sure you all experienced the whole "I only play with Japanese, sorry" messages in FFXI, but in L2 it was more like, "You American, I will kill you", which was not very cool, imo. The game itself allows PK which is loosely governed by a Karma system (bad Karma is gained by killing people, but can be worked off by killing monsters). So if you speak in English, your level 5 delf mage was suddenly smacked down by some uber-Korean level 60 player. Japanese won't play with Americans because they lack skill. Koreans will kill you because they hate you.

The game was fun, albeit a bit more tedious to level than FFXI. At the time I played however, the two classes were very unbalanced. You can either be Mage or Fighter and fighters were better than mages in almost every single way. Fighters run faster than mages, so if they need to escape, they can do so easily. Running away for a mage was by comparison somewhat of an adventure. My warrior friends could rip through spiders like they were nothing, but my mage would always get its spells interrupted and running away was pointless as the spider was faster than I was. Fighters also have less downtime as my friend could probably level himself once every four hours, while I'd fall asleep trying to recover my mana.

However, those great Asian aesthetics are there as the character models are total eye-candy. The women especially... wow. Dark Elf females were especially cool, as the better your armor got, the more nekkid they'd look!

Fantastic stuff! There's also a greater sense of teamwork in the game as opposed to FFXI. In FFXI you'd have a linkshell, but there's nothing that really holds its members together. It's more like a glorified chatgroup than any actualy semblance of a team. In Lineage your clan's ability to work together and gain points for itself determines territory you own and your power.

Lineage is a good game, but after all the trouble I went through during the beta, I don't know if I can stomach it again. To be fair though, I also had a lousy time during the World of Warcraft Alpha, but seeing how so many people are starting to quit FFXI, I may move on to simpler pastures as well. World of Warcraft on paper sounds like the best of all of the mmorpgs, but the engine is incredibly dated, and the game isn't even out yet. Oh well, I'll reserve judgement until I see a retail version. Until then, I'll keep trudging along in FFXI.

And one more.

Farmed for gil mostly today. Got about 15,000 and maybe another 70,000 if my temple knight's shield sells. Got in a party that took my warrior sub to level 30. However highlight of the day was seeing a taru-train in Jeuno.

I wonder if they are going to make a Divorce Barbie.

Only after they make Lawyer Barbie and Pre-nuptial Agreement Ken.

Does this mean I can dream about a super-posable Q-rau?

Knock yourself out... I dream about fire and eating people.

Sweetness!

Does this mean I can dream about a super-posable Q-rau?

If the DYRL Super Posables actually get released, could they be paving the way for DYRL MPCs in the near future?

Toynami MPC VF-1S Hikaru Strike Valk anybody?..............something to think about.

Graham

Yeah, I was wondering about that.

Be really bizarre if they decided to do something like import Yamato under the Toynami name.

lol bah I'm just not a "bard" type person

Vostok 7

Bah!! Its fun to walk around with "Listen to my song!!" as your ability yell.

HAHAehAHahe, I have to create a character named Basara and have him play his harp with lots of /em spam.

Yeah, that's why I said I wish it was a stronger class at higher levels, so you don't have to commit yourself to one side or the other.

Though I supposed someone could just be like you and do everything

I'm really leaning to PLD now.  If not PLD then I'll do something completely different like NIN or SAM.

Vostok 7

How about something REALLY drastic, like bard?

I actually had quite a fun time just standing there singing and singing and singing.

LOL! Once you get Mage Balad... Bard becomes the most useful party member there is.

Never again will I languish in idleness in Jeuno waiting for a party invite!

Yeah, that's why I said I wish it was a stronger class at higher levels, so you don't have to commit yourself to one side or the other.

Though I supposed someone could just be like you and do everything

I'm really leaning to PLD now. If not PLD then I'll do something completely different like NIN or SAM.

Vostok 7

How about something REALLY drastic, like bard?

I actually had quite a fun time just standing there singing and singing and singing.

Ninja is not a dedicated attacker. A ninja is a tank. One-handed Katanas deal dagger style damage with sword style delays and have lousy weaponskills that deal less damage than normal hits. Ninjutsu has nothing on blackmages, especially with ancient magic. A ninja has only two thing going for him, and that's high evasion and utsusemi.

Alright... PLD/WAR it is then. I partied with one last night (lvl 25 PLD/WAR mithra). Whats funny is usually PLDs of my same lvl have less HP than I do at this moment subbing MNK (424hp... She had around 400-410hp) but the difference is, she could take damage alot easier, plus she could heal herself. It made me want to be a PLD

I see alot of DRKs running around, but as you guys have said, I could never really see an advantage to them. I could almost always out hit and out defend one. The only advantages I've seen them have are BLM casts, which, if you have a dedicated BLM on your party, are practically useless as well.

Usually, the DRK in my parties are the first to die.

Vostok 7

PLD/WARs were never meant to be HP monsters because they don't need them. At my level I have more than 200 hp more than my group's paladins do. However, at level 23-25 or so, it's stll possible that anyone can tank. You're still in the subligar stage so everyone's probably running around with either beetle armors or those expensive chainmails. At this stage, everyone technically has the same defense and with the right food, a monk or dark can take hits just as well as a warrior or paladin. It's later on when you really start seeing the evil gap between classes. American players look at my 1100 hp and insist that I can tank. And I tell them no, I can't. A Paladin with defender + sentinel + boiled crab has a defense rating over 400. My monk's defense doesn't even crack 200. Worse yet, I do counterstance + berserk (don't ever do this btw) and my defense is at 28. Half the time, just for acc and dex bonuses, I wear sub level 40 gear.

Btw- I don't think they allow images in signatures here.

Drk is a pretty unbalanced class with no other use, other then attacking, attacking and attacking. I heard rumors of square adding a summon ability to drks called "Call Demon".

Heh, that was some stupid rumor that originated from a poor translation. A samurai has two main uses.

The first being he's a TP master, like a party general. A good samurai should be skill chaining at least twice every monster past level 30.

Second is his Anti-Demon protection. Strangely enough however, during the level grind, you may never even see a demon until you hit level 55 or so, and by then, a lot of the demons you may encounter will con as Easy Prey. Apparently this led to a lot of people believing that samurai was a useless class until level 60 when it could be used as a subjob for meditiation, and so when a person wanted to be a damage dealer they automatically chose dark knight, mostly due to the always present "Dark Knights are the death dealer class" descriptions. (To be fair, a dark knight can deal death, yes, but it will end up very well may end up with the dark knight being dead as well). So Square said they'd add in stronger Demon-class monsters so that Samurai wouldn't have some totally useless skills.

Dark's are hard to fight with because they attack slow, they don't hit very often, and they consume MP. This means chaining with them can be very difficult as they're often lacking in TP. Dragoon is also a liability as their greatest asset, the wyvern, is quite easily pounded by AOE attacks and the only way to heal him is to rest the dragoon. Most reliable damage dealing classes are Ranger and Monk.

In a party the Paladin is the tank. It is THE tank. A warrior makes a substandard replacement. Defender + Sentinel + Boiled Crab is a godsend. In my party from last night, I took an everage of 150 damage from each attack while the paladin took around 60. Paladin is also a very strong solo because he has disgustingly high defense, cure abilities, and a decent offense.

Funnily enough, I'm going to visit the Science Museum in London next week to meet the Honda ASIMO.

If you like, I'll ask it to show mercy on us pitiful fleshy meatbags [1] when the revolution comes...

[1] Just in case anyone takes this personally, its a nod to a certain character in Star Wars: KOTR...

Heh, he was gamespy's #1 supporting character in a video game.

Kill the meatbags! Kill em all!

any other things u 1/48ers do with ur 1/60s?

Nothing, absolutely nothing. The other night, it was raining and when the rain came through my dirty windows it put dirty black water all over my 1/60's and I quickly proceeded to not care. When I think about it, it's ridiculous since I paid out the ass for them when they were first released, but I really really can't get myself to care about them....

this sounds just like everquest. i hope worlds of warcraft is going to be a bit less tedious than all the other ones out there atm.

How is any game not like Everquest?

It's the same genre just with different graphics and slightly different tweaks. If you're going to make a fantasy style MMORPG it will always be compared to EQ and no doublt, will share more than just a few similarities. World of Warcraft will be exactly the same and possibly even worse. I'd say more, but the NDA will keep me quiet for now.

WoW is currently riding solely on it's marketing properties. If it was any other company other than Blizzard, a game with such a dated concept and engine wouldn't even get a second look.

I took one look at the requirements for the AF quests and said "what's the use."

Vostok 7

Because AF armor gives you bonuses that normal gear wouldn't give and best of all, it's free. By level 60 you should have a full set of powerful gear that costs you nothing more than time and maybe XP if you die a bit.

I don't know what bonuses are on other AF's but for monks a full set of AF allows you to:

Heal Paralysis, Blindness and Poisons with Chakra

Makes Chakra heal 3x VIT instead of 2x

Increases Dodge effectiveness

Increases Focus effectiveness

Increases Boost effectiveness

Guard skill increased +10

Counter skill increased +1

+80 HP

+4 STR

+3 DEX

+2 VIT

+5 MND

+5 ACC

+10 Light & Dark defense

All that for free. Next time you're at the auction house, check out the prices for items like Emperor's Hairpin, Deft Rings, Life Belt, Peacock Charm and other skill boosters and then tell me why this isn't worth it?

I have to, RDM is an expensive job. I have to keep up with the armor and buy scrolls for spells. I just do it in moderation. As in I lvl on weekends and get cash during the week.

Just wait till you hit the 40's. You'll be wetting your pants thinking about Refresh and Phalanx. While a bard can support an entire party pretty good, you become excellent mage support, you can fight and you can heal. Though you really won't be fighting too often. All the bonuses that red mages get are aimed toward your mage side, while you're allowed to wear a lot of the heavier armors that fighters use. Redmages in the endgame are some of the most powerful solo-players.

What the? Since when did WHM have plate armor?  Have you ever seen it? Cuz I really wanna see what this stuff looks like.

I have seen it.... and I have drool all over it. The whm in my linkshell went show off spree when she got it. Its quite possibly the best looking armor in that game.

I wouldn't say best looking in the entire game, but it's a whole lot nicer than the whm AF armor that makes them look like Japanese schoolgirls working at the red cross.

WHM Full AF

What in god's name... how did I miss this thread?

I am so lost.

How much would it cost to commission something like this from one of you guys?

Yeah TRU Japan is pretty awesome! The one by my house kinda sucks but if you go into the Big City you can find a way bigger selection. I personally stop by TRU about once a week on my way home. Mainly to buy Pretzels.....it's the only lace in Japan to get them at a decent price.

If any of you ever do get a chance to come to Japan, TRU is definately a place to stop and look around!

Rob MN

Hmmm, never been to TRU's in Osaka. However if you take the Hankyuu from Umeda there's a tiny little TRU in Nishinomiya and a bigger one few stops from the final stop in Shinkaichi. Been many years.... I forget already.