What is an "Item" worth to you.

[Shia]

This is sort of a continuation of the post I replied.

"What is **** Item worth to you?"

This is the question I have been asking recently. If you have read the reply to Keits's post, one of my trusted and respected player (JP) has done something which hurted alot to me and others who were been friends for more than 2 years.

As some of you know, Black belt quest requires to kill some tough HNM. Not one but 3 of them. What worse is they are contested by many players. Specially amoung JP players. Before going any further I better explain to who I am refering to. I will not post the name, I have some dignity in me still. This person is 60rdm 75mnk (main) 60+thief and alot more jobs over 60 i guess. I was introduced to this person when I was about 50 (rdm). He/She helped me do the Teleport Vaz quest guiding through Fei-Yin. He/She was helpfull, giving advises about monk. I guess it was this person which made me play my monk. The second time we met Him/Her was when we were doing some Avatar tours (65 ones). We did shiva and titan and he/she offered us to help. It was something one day I was thinking of returning the favour (although the quest itself was beneficial to them aswell).

Fast forward to last month. One of our LS members has removed his link pearl all of a sudden. Appart from his job was getting intense, I heard from our members that he was having some sort of depresion (sp?). I haven't asked any further since it felt I was pushing too much into territories which I do not belong. Now moving to last week we did fight Lord of Onzozo. After defeating, our 75 Pld has stated that he was stopped or was attempted to stop in doing Lord of onzozo from some one in our server who belongs into the Hated HNMLS. I for one didn't know who it were but he stated that he won't mention the name. I carried on, since I hated asking questions of something which is hard to tell. This HNMLS consists of players who has no life... in fact the make their living through selling gils. Yep you heard me, most of the person in this HNMLS are doing HNM for their living. I bet not all of them but at least the Leader and the sub leader is known of doing this. So you say whats the problem? It doesn't interfier with us. Wrong... it does to some or maybe many people in our server. At least it affects the other HNMLS. The Sub LS of this HNMLS hunts Fafnir, A HNM dragon in Dragon Aery who drops some nice loots and also one of the components for the Black belt quest. Well this Sub LS has engaged him around 3AM JPN time... and Slept him... for a period of FIVE HOURS. Yes you heard me FIVE HOURS. This was to control his spawn time. Since he pops every 24hours they made him spawn on a time where no one appart from them could hunt. This made people who wants to attempt him mad... and one of those people is our 75 Pld who want one of his Abjuration bad. They also do Adamantouise every night, not sure about Behemoth but probably they are after too.

Now comming to 2 days ago. We were doing some skill ups in Castle Zvahl (sp?). When the pld mentioned about the Sub LS is yet again doing Fafnir. The LS member who removed his pearl for a while was in our party too he is a bard so I will mention him as bard from now on. We did not talk about why he did nor anything. Just wanted to have some fun moments. I noticed that this 75 monk friend was in Dragon Aery aswell. So I thought he/she was competing for the spawn... I was wrong. I was told by the 75 pld that he/she was a member of that Sub LS. For a moment I didn't say a thing. But after he stated this everything came clear. The sudden event that the 75 monk obtained the "black belt", the issue when our Pld was stopped by someone in which who he didn't wanted to tell the name. The reason why that person was always in Dragon Aery. Then the bard began to talk, that the monk friend has joined this LS to obtain the "black belt". The immediate question I made to him was: "Even if that means dropping out his 2year old friends?" The response was cruel, both the pld and the bard /nods.

Really I was quite shocked... not only he/she has left his/her friends to join an HNMLS (if this is the only reason then I won't blame him. It was his/her choice and his/her own path) but he/she EVEN THREATENED the pld friend to not kill Lord of onzozo. Later on, he/she also sent a tell to the pld to not bother comming to attempt Fafnir since they can't win... Yeah right of course if you SLEEP KEEP THE DAMN THING TO CONTROL THE SPAWN TIME obviously can't win... at least for those who has jobs early in the morning. I have also been told that many of his/her old friend had still hopes of she/he leaving the HNMLS, only to have a response of he/she will continue doing this till Chain of Promathia comes out.

Ugh crap this is getting longer than I expected... As a final note... the question is as follows. What does "certain item" is worth for you. For this Monk, the Black belt which is the item was worth selling his soul to this HNMLS and values it more than his 2year old friends. He/She has changed. Which makes me sad, and at the same time makes my angry. But again. This is supose to be a game. For those people in that HNMLS this game is their life income. Heh ironic, but I don't want to argue with them lowering myself to their standards.

Funny, I am also an Ex-EQ player. Mob contesting is much much more intense in there, but I never found myself selling my soul to an uber guild just to get the item I wanted. Patience, is something I had and what I am strong at it I guess...

 

[Synical]

when its stopped being fun, and started ruining the social aspect, its too high a price.
if they are making real money doing this, then its a factor of real life greed, and greed is always an ugly thing.
too bad it will spoil the fun of those in here that just want some fun and a break.
~Syn

 

[Malakai]

Shiia, I am sorry to hear that you have lost a friend. It is too bad they have changed as you said, and chosen their new path, instead of their friends. I personally don't understand why someone would chose an unreal object (black belt), over a real person, where your friendship could last a lifetime.

I agree with Synical, when the games ceases to be fun, it ruins the social atmosphere, making some situations very stressful. It will be a while before I am at you levels, so I dont have to worry about the HNM's yet, but I am not happy to hear that I will not be4 able to fight certain ones because of the Uber guild controlling spawn times and such. I hope the rest of your FFXI gaming is filled with fun and excitement, and that you don't have to deal with bad things anymore.

 

[Sculli]

Stuff like this is common in MMOs. There have been all kinds of efforts by developers to counteract this problem, SE is less successful in that, imho anyway.

Apart from that, people pay the monthly fee to spend their time as they please, it's not for someone else to judge. Someone does something unexpected that you don't like? Build a bridge and get over it, it will happen again, and again and again, no sense in getting worked up about it.

Lost a friend? Make a new one.
The newer the MMO, the weaker the bonds between players, imho anyway. I still socialize with people whom I met in EQ beta, with whom I played the game over some 4 odd years, and there is no way in hell they would pull shit like that, but perhaps that is because they are in their early 30's, have seen the worst of the worst in online gaming, *AND* because they actually care what I think of them. Then again, maybe I am wrong, who knows.

Bottom line is; worry less!

 

[Pupusa]

Sculli is right, the newer the game, the weaker the bond between people. I've been playing Counterstrike for over 3 years, in those 3 years I've been on the same server, became a mod on the message boards, and met a shitload of people who live near my area. Unlike CS though, MMORPG's can cause people to do some truly messed up things, just to get a "Blade of Asskicking +1".

That's why I like to only stick to one LS, and get to know the people inside of it, I don't like to jump around, and add a crap load of friends to my buddy list that I will never talk to. Even then though, I still wouldn't sell out my LS friends or Real life friends just for an item. I play this for fun, and I have the most fun when I get along with people. I'd rather be a mediocre player and be cool with people then have uber gear and be known as a prick.

OT, but the coolest thing was 2 years ago, we decided to have a huge get together for everyone on our CS server, it was great, people were coming from Canada to New Jersey and different places all over the US, it really shows how people can get along together. Maybe we should do something on this message board like that, LOL. Good luck guessing who I am.

 

[Shia]

From my past MMORPG, no player will stay eternaly in one spot. MMORPG is a continuously improving game adding contents, new items, new areas and such. The moment when a player seeks something which your current group of people cannot handle and goes elsewhere is not unusual. This is where I agree.

However FFXI was the first game which in addition of the LS move, THREATS the old friends of not do this not do that just because they are one of the strongest LS in the server. Normaly in my EQ days I have seen many people leaving my guild joining another high end guild for progression. Then we some day meet on an unexpected place where we share our achievements what we have done, and so on. So despite the different path, we both have taken what we though is good.

In FFXI its a tad different. Many people who joined the ranks of HIgh end LS has changed attitude wise and greed wise. The Ex-Monk friend has nothing left of what she/he was before. She/He now is a greedy self centered bastard just like most of that LS's members. Although it might not be unusual for some people, for me it was a shocking and at the same time annoying happening. Good thing at least FFXI is not the "Kill this super boss in order to experience 90% of the content" like PoP in EQ is. Hope Chain of Promathia stays the same system.

Taking different path is one thing. Taking different path and threatening his/her old friends to not do so and so mobs because it is intefiering with her item aquiring is another thing. This is totaly imho. I will leave as it is now. Said my part, vented out. No need to continue I guess. Just wanted to tell this kind of things can happen in FFXI.