Returning to the fray

Almost each and every year there comes into being a single event which has happened since the ancient forgotten days. Anyone who has spent large amounts of time in the world of vana'diel knows the irresistible allure that comes every so often. Like some horrible drug addict you're drawn back to that which had once taken you to a magical place. And like a drug addict your scramble desperately to fulfill that feeling that you had the first couple of times you hit the hard stuff, but nothing ever seems to measure up to the first time you got that high.  Anyway, it's happening again for whatever reason. Perhaps it's just about that time. The time that my resistance for this drug has expired, and it's time to indulge. Better yet, it's likely our last hurrah into this game, and the lure which draws us in is none other than the new expansion pack: Seekers of adoulin. That's right, like some horrible necromancer, SE is attempting to breath a little bit of fresh life into the rotten corpse of FFXI. As the foul stench of death and decay permeates the air, those of us originally driven off by the foul odor are drawn in by the scent of fresh life which cuts through the mired air like some kind of stinky angel. 

Seekers of Adoulin promises the same empty bullshit that I eat up every single time: new zones, new classes, more fun. The thing that interests me the most is actually the new areas. While it is interesting to try out new classes, the exploration aspect of the game has always been very interesting to me. Maybe this was because while you were exploring you were subject to SE's idea of humor: an unending army of monsters which could peer through the most powerful of invisibility spells, monster who could rip you to shreds but who were also a lower level than you (to add insult to injury), and generally anything else that you can think of that's terrible in the world. So it was exciting to be out there on the field checking out these new areas and possibly die a lot. And I mean a lot. That game was just generally about dying a whole fucking lot.

It's interesting, but all joking aside the expansion pack looks like it might actually be worth playing. That is to say, the nostalgia factor aside it looks passable. The continent of Ulbuka seems to be rather large, and the new zones are going to be a welcome respite from the abyssea zones (yay why is everything red). The story is as follows: An empire had basically locked itself away from the rest of the world for some unmentioned amount of years, and only now that the king has died (I think) will the empire be opened to the rest of the world (thanks to san'doria). So now there will be a big ass town and huge ass motherfucking forest to explore and shit! Awwww yeah, who didn't like yhutung-oh....wait....

The plan is as follows: Haud, Caboose and I (Echdah) are resubbing in February. The goal here is to get to the cap, and finish off all the old content that we didn't have the time or patience for. This way we will be well prepared for when SoA (Seekers of Adoulin) comes out. The question is: who will join us on this magical journey into the depths of FFXI? I hope a lot of people come and join us again, who knows....This might be the last time we get to play this awful fucking game, or just MMOs in general. You know, it's not even that bad anymore...You level up pretty damn quick. They let you at that content post haste now-a-days. No more waiting like, 3 days to get a party. Also it's not even that hard to install the game anymore. Back in the day we had a general rule for life: Never uninstall FFXI because you will be back. This rule held basically true, but in those days it was fairly impossible to find a FFXI player who had not basically dedicated their life to the game as it was, so quitting was not an option. Fortunately, with things like steam, we basically don't have to worry about the horrible reinstall period that existed back then. A reinstall time that took not hours, but days...Literally, like 2 fucking days. Now if you're downloading the main game at 5mb/s the update process is only a few hours.

I don't think I've made myself clear, this shit is going to be so fucking badass that they did something that NO ONE ever thought was possible:

New fucking Crab.

Balancing school and games

Every time a new semester starts I feel like I'm going to have a fucking aneurysm. It's not even like the new material is particularly hard, or that I'm struggling to understand things, it's just a matter of change. Whenever things change suddenly, it's hard to make a clean adjustment, and this spring semester is no different.

Since we started producing videos of us playing video games back in god knows when (I sure as hell don't), it's been an interesting mix between maintaining an upload schedule, and keeping up with work and school.
For instance, if we record about 2 hours of video, I might spend half that time sifting through and cutting out about 5-10 minutes per hour of the video. From that 5 to 10 minutes I cut together a (hopefully) hilarious video of dick jokes, and throw that bitch up on youtube. We don't have many people following us regularly, but it's not really about getting people's attention, it's about having fun with our friends and sharing the resulting hilarity. So the bottom line is that this newest project of ours, the "let's record ourselves being idiots while playing games" project is simply an extension of what we've been doing for the past decade...we're just sharing it now.

Producing has been both incredibly different/difficult for me, as well as being incredibly fun. There are a huge amount of things that need to come together in order to get a video out, let alone getting stuff out regularly. Fortunately we're not actively working on anything like let's plays, which require even more effort. The clip show format has worked amazingly well, and basically allowed me to keep working/schooling while maintaining some sort of presence. With the addition of our regular streams, we've also been able to keep some video content flowing out there without the huge amount of production effort that go into the regular videos.

Creating the twitch.tv end of the entire thing has been incredibly fun, creating an environment where you can instantly respond and react to anyone who has questions, or who just basically wants to talk about the game you're playing is insanely useful. Instead of a horrible disconnect between when we play a game, record it, and post the highlights, we can field questions and establish friends and followers ad hoc. This also makes my screen look like a fucking command center when I'm recording. Between video recording software, audio recording software, and the streaming software I'm amazed if I have any screen space left.

Also we're apparently going to be playing Final Fantasy XI again in feb, so prepare your fucking anus.