When 100% isn't enough...Follow

Good to hear bani...

It wasn't Dynasty that I had the FF confusion with though. It was the other major NA HNM shell. But what you described is exactly what happened. One member of the shell said one thing, the leader said another, and stories got mixed up and kept changing. No ones fault, just frustrating.

One thing that realy confuses me is why some LS seem to be able to work together and some can't... WW and Dynasty seem to have agreed to "trade off" on FF every second week so as not to compete with each other. As you said, you have personally seen it die over 100 times. The rare/ex is out of the way for the most part and its just a good income source for your shell. It is now a mundane chore for a shell like yours.

So many smaller and medium sized shells are still very intimidated by the ground gods, sadly. And its not fear about the difficulty of the HNM fight. Its fear of botting and MPK and drama that comes from dealing with "the big league LS". And just comparing the players: SH +1 or full sets of uncursed gear, with 100 FF kills to their name, compared to the smaller rival group with mebers still wearing some Af pieces.

Their only hope would be to band together with each other to provide the big league people with decent competition. But so many LS are too proud for their own good... they dont want "help" on gods, nor do they want to deal with the post-kill drama where the alliance would immediately crumble as the drops were divided up.

So most players sit and sulk about how "HNM is for botters" and they just dont try. People are convinced they will waste 3 hours camping when in the end they never had a chance at winning the claim. But this is rarely true... SE is working hard at killing off all the dirty tricks. But the mindset is there, that there is no room for any new HNM shells. And the groups holding the HNM monopoly certainly arnt willing to budge.

Anyhow, as you can probably tell, HNM politics are probably my biggest pet peeve wih this game. I want to make the most out of my character but I can't do that without getting involved in the dirty HNM world. I just don't have the time to commit on that kind of daily competition.

So I am looking for new parts of the game that I would like to come back to. CoP stories are fantastic, and I am excited about the new expansion. I enjoy storyline missions and national rank missions far more then HNM camping any day, regardless of the rewards.

But I just want to re-iterate, FFXI did not burn me out. A very nasty and hectic year a a professional engineer is what did me in. Try spending your birthday or Christmas alone in a small town hotel room... Rewarding careers tend to have a very high cost on you, mentally and physically. FFXI is what I used to unwind at night. But the people and politics at "end game" started ruining any theraputic rewards I was getting from this game.

The people I was dealing with in game were starting to act like the contractors I deal with in real life. Contractors are a dirty bunch... The really successful ones lie, cheat, and steal to maintain their local monopoly. The ones with the most money and powerful friends always win, and they will trample the honest and hard working people around them if it leads to more personal gain. Kinda like the HNM community >.>

I want to see Fafnir! LoL