Blue Mage begins...

Starting Blue Mage was very exciting as the jobs play style is completely unique! You master abilities used exclusively by enemies and use them as your own. However, unlike every other job available, leveling is not as quick or as linear because as well as leveling you need to collect the skills from enemies from right around the world. On top of this you must ensure your Blue Magic skill is always capped otherwise the chance of acquiring spells is drastically reduced to almost nil!It has definitely been a long week and it has taken me 6 days to just get the first 20 levels of spells! But I have enjoyed every bit. I have a good felling that this may end up being another job to 75 for me if all things go well.

Stay tuned!

FINAL FANTASY XI 5th Anniversary Fan Event

Do you remember...?

Do you remember the first time you stepped into the world of Vana'diel?
The never-ending sky opening up before you?
The sense of pride and accomplishment after completing your very first mission?
The wind whipping through your hair as you rode across vast plains and scorching deserts?
And the companions with whom you shared those memories?

How many tales have been woven?
How many destinies fulfilled?
How many memories etched into the annals of history, like stars, ever lighting the heavens?

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On May 16th, 2007, FINAL FANTASY XI enters its fifth year of service.

This year the rewards were perhaps the best ever with the addition of the highly awaited Anniversary Ring which has amazing exp stats. that provies an additional 30k exp all up providing me the perfect opportunity to start leveling a brand new job.

Since I decided to rejoin Final fantasy XI I decided that jumping straight back into endgame activities was only going to aggravate the situation. So instead I decided that semi-retiring Samurai Astara to focus on leveling Blue Mage would be a good idea to revisit the parts of the game that I had always enjoyed the most -- mastering new jobs and skills.

Below is a screenie of my adventuring details to date which I found quite interesting! Over 500 deaths! all that wasted exp.../shudder!

• Chat Frequency: 124758 (Sooo...I speak alot, eh?)
  
• Conversations With NPCs: 19934
  
• Parties Joined: 863
  
• Alliances Joined: 73 (Severely highlighting my lack of endgame participation)
  
• Battles Fought: 18981
  
• Number of Times KO'd: 502
  
• Enemies Defeated: 8522
  
• GM Calls Made: 2 (Guess I'm not such a big whiner after all >.>)
  

Astara's retirement -- DENIED!

Well as you will be aware, recently I decided to leave Final Fantasy XI to pursue a job that is supposed to lead me into a career. I sold off all my mule gear that I had acquired over the past 2 years and even prepped Astara for a sale on Ebay.

However, last week while sitting around with my partner Chris I realised no matter how busy I can get with RL stuff, there is always time to chill out and log in and catch up with Vana'Diel and the inhabitants that I have grown to love!

Playing Final Fantasy has always been an escape. A way to ignore the stresses of everyday life, close the blinds, close my bedroom door, and immerse myself completely in this other reality. But the realization I had was that FFXI is not so much another reality, because it is in fact simply an extension of this one, and there is no reason to feel ashamed for the time I put into it.

So with that-- I'm back -- Astara is back. So I will start with taking it slow. I plan on stock-piling some gil for when I fully return. I have also found passion in starting to level Blue Mage. I may consider joining a HNMLS again soon, but only if events are undertaken in JP prime.

Thanks for reading guys, you are all very special too me.

== Astara