Time to go Home

My time on Phoenix is coming to an end either Today or tomorrow depending on when SE starts the 90 day clock. So I thought I would reflect on my time here.

So I transferred for almost the sole reason of getting to fight HNM's. Well that didn't really happen. I spend a total of 5 days in an HNM shell before their childish antics got to me. Turns out this LS actually broke a few weeks ago so my leaving was probably just the start of their defections. A few people were leaving for another server and even asked me to come join them. I was mildly surprised at this since I barely knew them and they had asked me about 2 months after I left the shell. I refused of course not wanting to possibly revisit the same mess even if those that had asked were among the better members and whom I did trust. In the end I killed a total of I think 6 HNM's. Still that was knew to me and since I may never get to fight them again I found it a worthwhile endeavor.

After that first 5 days I've kind of wondered from shell to shell trying to find a place that fits. I never really succeeded with that. Skill range and experience were all over the place form one shell to the other. Much more so than I would have thought. Some shells I was the most pimped out member they had and some had several well geared players. I was an integral member of a few shells and even given a Sac to a few of them. In fact i'm actually a officer in an endgame shell right now that I head up salvage runs for. Problem with this shell is they are so far behind where I want to be. I've done some of these things so much its hard to have to wait for others to get up to speed. Like doing a salvage run a not hitting all the NM's I want cause people don't understand some things or aren't engaging fast enough things of that nature. I need a more advanced shell to keep me going but those are sometimes harder to come by or just have odd schedules that didn't work for me.

As for the server I have nothing too bad to say really. I think the HNM scene is ripe for a take over if some major shell were to transfer here. Whitegate shouting is no worse or better as far as spam is concerned. I have noticed phoenix has a ton of /shout for LS's as compared to what I am use to seeing. However, there is very little shouting for things like assault. I see a hell of a lot of Matt's caps here but very little in the way of salvage gear, possibly a result of banned accounts(salvage dupe) buying high job accounts and moving them here. There is no well respected top shell here like what you would see on Leviathan. On levi the dominant shell is radiance, but for the most part no one really hates them. They are well like and respected by the vast majority of players. Others may be jealous of their success but no real malice towards them. On Phoenix though most the BIG endgame shells all have their share of hatred thrown their way.

In the end though I think this move showed me something very valuable. It showed me that if it wasn't for the friends I have made playing this game, I wouldn't have played nearly this long. There just isn't as much substance to what you can do without friends to do it with. FFXI, for all the events and things you can do, is really rather bland and monotonous. Too many repeated events and doing the same things over and over should bore us all to death. But instead the adventures and many misadventures we have is where the true fun is had. The triumphs of our friends after long suffering brings us all a bit of happiness. I need my old LS mates back for this. SO I leave for Leviathan to go back to the game I left behind.