dA Update 002

okay three new ones (the last one I did a few hours ago XD):

Reprojection Of The Id by ~Jyonenshi on deviantART

Arethusa Revamped by ~Jyonenshi on deviantART

My Distorted Hand by ~Jyonenshi on deviantART

check my dA page for bits and pieces of info about them (it'd be tedious, or stupid, if I'd always put what I typed there in here XD)

The Ever-Present Procrastination

*sigh* I'm bored shitless right now. I'm not playing any MMOs since I quit Granado Espada, though I've been considering going back to GrandChase. The propect of new dungeons, new jobs and a new character may sound nice but its kinda boring to play without someone to regularly talk to or have a friendly match in-game.

Console-wise, I've finished Persona 4 and it was amazing, though I think I need to take a breather before doing it all over again (new game +). So I played Tomb Raider Legend but the DVD's worth shit and it stops working by the end of the motorcycle scenario on the 2nd stage (Peru). So I went to the next best thing and played Tomb Raider Underworld. This one was nice but I can't help but feel disappointed at how short and easy it was compared to Tomb Raider II and III :( Anyway there are a lot of other PS2 games that haven't been played through yet, so I don't know what I'll be gunning for next XD

Deviation-wise, well I've revamped two old ones and posted them on dA. I made a list of what I should do next, but as always, procrastination kicked in. I have a lot of options yet I can't pick a single one lol.

I could continue writing my chronicles but I need that certain spark to get my thoughts straight XD So instead I'm here blogging about what's going on in my head right now. Oh yeah did I say that I'm bored shitless? Maybe I should look for pr0n LOL XD

dA Update 001

Time for a deviantART update :D

First, is a wordle of the names of the MMOs and the characters I've played in them. Thanks to http://www.wordle.net and this website of course, where I discovered this wonderful word cloud generator.

Jyonenshi Wordle by ~Jyonenshi on deviantART

Next is a long due submission. A supposed entry for a christmas-themed contest held over three years ago XD Procrastination among other things held me back from finishing this but hopefully, after adding and changing some elements I was able to push through XD

The Christmas That Never Was by ~Jyonenshi on deviantART

Reliving Asceticism

Everything was set for this new journey except for the equipment. It wasn't really that much of a problem though. I only needed equipment that either boost INT or VIT or reduced damage from certain type of monsters, but even then those kinds were hot items in the market especially that there has been a boom in the population of Priests. Nevertheless it would be acquired as time passed by. The skill build prioritized support skills, ignoring most of the exorcism skills or only going through them as prerequisites to other skills. And so it has started.

I breezed through the acolyte job change quest and as early as lvl 16 I hitched a ride to Glast Heim. This time I didn't arrive at the church that was at the lower part of the city. Instead I found myself outside of what looked like an old and abandoned castle that was situated on the northern part of the area. There were lots of people, meaning that this must be a good leveling spot.

outside the castle of the Glast Heim Ruins

But the real reason people are here instead of the church down south is the new patch. This patch reshuffled some of the monsters in most of Rune-Midgard, and the graveyard / abbey was part of it. It turns out that there were now more Hunter Flies in that area and that the boss monster has Dark Lord emerged there. Good thing is that this newly discovered area has a lot of strong and slow-moving undead monsters too. So in we go.

The main halls of the castle's first floor weren't the leveling area mentioned. Just like before, I followed a group of people that were going to the place, and just like before there were dangers along the way. Sometimes these monsters called Rideword, that looked like the monster book of monsters from Harry Potter, appear out of nowhere and take a nice chunk of your HP or kill you in one bite if you're a lowbie. There were other dangerous monsters lurking around the castle, like the Joker which well, looks like a Joker card only the Joker itself sticks out from the card, the undead knight Khalitzburg, and other ghastlies XD With luck and perseverance I was able to enter my destination. I wished warp points can be created inside dungeons but its only applicable to fields or towns XD

Anyway the area that was below the castle was a dungeon. Sprites of bones lying inside opened cells were everywhere and there were even torture devices on some parts of the map. The place was huge. Good thing it was big enough to house the hundreds of people playing in this area. In fact this particular map was so populated most of the time that the lag was severe. Well I guess the mindset back then was "level up now, explore later" XD

There weren't any Evil Druids or Wraiths (big floating cloaked skeletons with a huge mouth filled with sharp teeth as a torso) here, only your typical undead prisoners. Skeleton Prisoners and Zombie Prisoners to be specific. There was the occasional ghost called Whisper, whose card (cards by the way are items that give bonus stats / abilities and are put on equipment that have slots) was sought by many. When this monster appears everyone locks on it right away then mobs on it as soon as it dies, hoping for the card to drop and for them to be the one to get it. There were also demi-human monsters here such as Injustice, a naked guy that attacks like an assassin lol.

So until I got to Job Lvl 50 this was where I trained. Sometimes I partied with my friends  outside Glast Heim and helped them level up at the same time. It was an arduous and difficult road. As their was a lot of people inside the Underprison, it was difficult to avoid not getting kill-stealed or kill-stealing for that matter. Though at critical moments that same kill-stealing will save you from death XD

Another difficulty while training in there is maintaining SP. Even for INT build Acolytes, they had to sit a lot to quickly regenerate SP. As the monsters there were not intended for low lvl characters, they don't die from a single spell cast by lowbies. Good thing Priests have this skill called Magnificat that increases the SP regeneration rate of everyone in the party. So what people do is party up with these priests and ask to cast this skill. These parties are called magni parties XD Most of the time they help in kind but it has become a business opportunity as time passed. Priests would only invite people into their party if they pay a certain amount of zenny, mostly reasonable and affordable. To hell with those who overprice, they should be merchants and not priests lol.

The grinding was tough that a lot of times I was tempted to not reach Job Lvl 50 and just go change into a Priest. But luckily I prevailed XD So after a lot of hours (and random memorable moments forgotten because I lost a good amount of my screenshots DX) I reached Job Lvl 50. I was around lvl 67 by then. Wow only 3 lvls left then I'd be able to wear those Elven Ears, I thought. The Elven Ears, or EE was also a fad back then, as it was like a status symbol of being a high-leveled character.

Anyway I made my way back to Prontera to take the Priest job change quest. And boy was I happy to make it to Job Lvl 50, since that enabled me to skip a part of the quest (which involved looking for NPCs similar to the Acolyte quest). The next phase was a mission to defeat some undead monsters to be able to move on. Nothing special. During the third phase, I was sent to a map wherein there were this monsters that urged the player to quit the quest to become a Priest through items or character modifications (character class change and what not).

the little Deviruchi tempting me with the coveted Mistress Card! LOL (this was the Jyonenshi on the Fenrir server, which you'll learn about later on)

Of course you'd be an idiot if you'll believe any of that XD The final demon will get angry and summon a bunch of strong undead monsters that you could kill but if I remember there was a time limit, and you could easily just run away to the exit to finish the quest. Which is just what I did. After that I talked to the head honcho of the church to finally change into a Priest. He even gave me a Bible as a bonus! XD I didn't use it as books aren't really useful for Full Support builds, mainly because it has less card slots than the ordinary Rod, which has the maximum of 4, and cards were very crucial back then.

Priest Jyonenshi :D

Finally the light at the end of the dark tunnel! But it was only a respite for what was to come. The real challenge begins!

Going Full Circle: The Birth of Jyonenshi

Assassins are self-sufficient characters. They don't need to rely on other people to level up or to hunt for items. With the right equipment and skills they could even stand up to boss-type monsters where other character classes normally could not. But I found it sort of boring to just point and click my way to the level cap.

Maybe that's why I gave the Acolyte-Priest class a second try. Don't get me wrong, though. I ain't anywhere near 'saintly' in real life. I just found this character to be cool and challenging. I could say the same for Wizards too, but they're too fragile as I see it. Maybe I just like to let other people do the dirty work of slaying monsters lol.

But before they suggested that I go and do them the favor of being the healer I tried out something that I've heard was a good character build. A Battle Priest. It had high STR and AGI, stats that an orthodox Priest will never make any good use of (except for the additional inventory capacity that STR gives) and the skill build was sufficient enough for the caster himself. It had the best of both worlds.

So I made one and trained it like any melee character, going through the same leveling path as what my assassin Yoichi went through. But as I leveled up my Battle Priest Zenebatos (from The Law City Zenebatos, of The Legend of Dragoon PS1 RPG) it dawned on me that it wasn't a far cry from that first character I made in the Chaos server back then. Sure it was nice to be self-sufficient and cost-effective (Heal skill = virtually no healing potions needed of course), but to be truly effective in battle this build must have a varied arsenal of weapons and even armor, so as to much the strengths and weaknesses of the monsters of Rune-Midgard. To me it was a luxury I cannot afford. Thus I abandoned this prospect and proceeded to what I never would've thought the archetype of my online gaming life: supporting.

They say the third time's a charm. True, this would be the third time I create an Acolyte but it would only be the second time I play a Priest. So I went ahead and planned for the skill build. I even downloaded a skill tree chart to guide me.

Because a Full-Support Priest needs to have a lot of skills, it is best that they go past Job Lvl 40, the prerequisite level for the 2nd job change quest, and go all the way up to the limit, which is Job Lvl 50. This would give the much needed skill points to unlock and strengthen the skills needed for supporting. As for stat point allocation it was simple, most builds focused only on VIT (Vitality) and INT (Intelligence). VIT increases HP and reduces damage to a certain extent, and a good FS Priest does not die before the ones they support. INT boosts SP for skill usage. Perfect for spamming Heal during tight situations. I didn't really worry about equipment yet because I was focused on getting the 'Acolyte' part of this task right.

I think my mind was kind of set back then that I would be using this character for a long time, or that I will definitely stop character class hopping, that's why I spent some time looking and figuring out a name for this new character. During this time I was watching the Hunter x Hunter Greed Island OVA and saw this one guy that seemed to be a very important character (at least his abilities are as far as the story goes). His name was jyonenshi. From what I recall jyonenshi means nen-remover or something. This guy was important because he was needed by the bad guy (I forgot his name lol)  to remove some sort of deadly curse technique that was put on him and he was the only one that could remove it.

His ability was sure that only of his in the entire world, and his name (or what he was called) was quite unique among the sea of japanese names used in MMOs XD. So from then on I went by the name of Jyonenshi and began a new journey in the kingdom of Rune-Midgard. And it stuck with me on other MMOs since then XD

The Two Themes

ou may have already heard of this, but there's been a buzz pertaining to Final Fantasy XIII. Sure everyone's excited about the game, but the current rage is regarding the theme song.

You see, for the NA and Europe release of FF XIII, Square-Enix chose Leona Lewis's "My Hands" from her album "Echo" as the theme song. The Japanese theme song is entitled "Kimi Ga Iru Kara" and sung by Sayuri Sugawara. Now people are split regarding this decision. Here are the two songs (that I saw on youtube) and hear for yourself.

"Kimi Ga Iru Kara" sung by Sayuri Sugawara:

"My Hands" sung by Leona Lewis:

As for me? To be honest "My Hands" is a very good song, but for me it kinda doesn't fit. Unless they actually use an orchestral version instead of this one then I'd have no qualms about it. The tune of "Kimi Ga Iru Kara" kinda grew on me since I've heard it repeatedly while watching the trailers. I hope they use both or at least make an english version of this one. They were able to pull it off with FF X-2's 1000 Words so I don't see a reason why they shouldn't do it again ._.

Ascetic Turned Assailant

By the time the new server, Iris (named after the damsel in distress from the manwah) was announced to be launched as a second server to accommodate more players, I was getting tired of leveling up the hybrid acolyte. It was too late to try to reverse the mistakes of allocating points to every stat, making it mediocre for support and solo leveling.

So I did some research on the other job classes and like everyone else, I had my sights on the thief job class. After all, who wouldn't want to try a character that attacks swiftly while dodging most hits from the enemy, with an ability to steal money and items to boot? But the real reason people go for this class is its 2nd job, the assassin. This was one of the most populated job class during the early days as it really was cool with its very quick attacks and high critical hit rate.

And as the servers opened I created a new character on the new server, naming it Yoichi (from the Yoichi Bow weapon of Final Fantasy fame and other RPGs lol) with typical purple long bad-ass hair XD I swept through the tutorial but I made sure the answers to the questions by the end of the tutorial would lead me into the NPC suggesting that I'd be a thief (following the suggestions nets you a few useful items and a trip directly to the town for the job change quest). By the time I was finished from the tutorial I was a level or two away from being eligible to take the thief job change quest.

The town for thieves was apparently Morroc, southwest of the main city Prontera and had a middle-eastern feel, it was in a desert after all XD. The actual thieves' guild was to the northwest of the town, inside a pyramid. The inside of the pyramid was like a labyrinth, and to get to the thieves' guild you'd need to find you way to the center. But there were some monsters that were too strong for novices that wanted to take the quest, so what we did was we'd run in groups trying to avoid them (hoping one of us would be the bait LOL) or use this item called a fly wing that would teleport us to a random location of the map. I made more than one attempt to get there lol.

The Desert Town Morroc

Eventually I made it and moments later I found myself outside the pyramid doing the quest. I looked for an NPC that would take me to a map wherein I'd collect the quest items I needed. It was tedious and boring but worth it. After about an hour or two I finished the quest and was now starting the life of a thief XD The double attack skill was its best ability as it enables to do double damage to a target for up to 50% of the time. But that wouldn't be enough to even make a dent to the monsters of Glast Heim, so I looked for another place to level up.

That's when I heard from my friends about this place called Byalan Island. Apparently it was a great place for melee characters. It was located east of Prontera and required to ride a ferry. When I got to the island (that looked like a skull on the mini-map) indeed there was a lot of people, be it waiting for others, regenerating, asking for party members or selling healing items. I entered the cave on the center of the island, and as expected, the monsters were marine creatures, well most of them are XD

Marina

Thara Frog

Penomena

Marc

Just some of the "marine" life you'd see inside Byalan Island XD

The cave was sort of half-submerged in sea water that's why there are even squids and err... mermaids. The lower levels are even crazier as it turns out that the cave leads into a sort of Atlantis (with underwater bubble effects to boot!) that amazingly, enables the characters to breathe and move with ease XD But the monsters there are tough so I stayed on the upper levels. And true to everyone's word, leveling there was fast and easy.

Eventually the EXP and Job EXP acquired became too low to make it productive leveling down there, so I looked for other places to level up. I remember going to places like the Payon Cave, Orc Dungeon, Goblin Forest and even the sandy eastern desert of Morroc, where the island that was home to the assassins' guild was located.

Before the Comodo patch arrived there were no 2nd job quests so I had it easy when I changed jobs into an assassin. As soon as I left the assassin guild building I was eager to try out the skills. Sonic Blow was first on the list, and it was amazing, hitting the enemy with several slashes at lightning speed. Their cloaking skill was very useful too as it enables the assassin to move while remaining unseen, though back then you had to stick to within 2 tiles of the edge of the terrain (walls/cliffs etc.) or else the skill will deactivate.

Male Assassin Artwork

Assassin Yoichi, my first second job character XD

Anyways, I decided to go deeper into the Payon Cave to gain some levels and hunt the elusive Sakkat (as far as I can remember it was there that I found one). The Sakkat is a headgear that looks like a straw hat worn by rice farmers and it adds 1 AGI when equipped. Back then this headgear was the craze, I tell you, so when I got one I was so excited XD.

So there I was, inside the deepest parts of the Payon Cave, wondering why there is a town underground (I even made a fanfic regarding the place and the boss monster there - a half-girl/half-cat named Moonlight weilding a giant bell attached to a stick). The monsters there were typical darkness fare - skeletons, chinese (or korean) zombies called Munak and Bongun (the Munak Hat headgear was a fad too back then) will-o-wisps called Horong, even ghostly maidens called Sohee.

A fighting game-ish screenshot thingy I made with my Priest Jyonenshi and the boss monster Moonlight in Ragnarok Battle Offline style XD

I think I got to lvl 70 while hunting in there when the withdrawal syndrome kicked in. Maybe it was because I had no good equipment to move to tougher places to level up faster. I don't really remember how in the world I wanted to become a support character again, but I think it was because we (me and my friends of course) lack support characters, most were melee characters. So I guess that was the sign to throw in the towel and go back to asceticism XD

Farewell to the New World, among other things

*sigh* It'd be only natural for anyone to get tired and bored of something once they reach a roadblock. In my case, the appeal of Granado Espada has been lost for several reasons:

1. I got addicted (and still am) to Persona 4 lol.

2. I don't have enough money to buy the items I need so that I could pass the lvl 100 barrier and continue leveling up and questing with my three main characters.

3. Seeing as this game is really expensive (well all games are but this one's really way up there) if you want to maximize your enjoyment out of it, I think I'll be staying clear from it for now.

4. My PC specs are actually crappy for this game, so I'd probably go back when I've upgraded :D

I just want to say thank you to Summerscent from the Rembrandt server who was really kind enough to help me transfer stuff from my cash cow account (that is now dry XD) to my main account. Without him/her I wouldn't have had the chance to acquire Irawan, Catherine, and Claire :D

On other news, FF XIII will be available on Dec. 17! Wish I could understand japanese though; That and a cool (albeit girly) Lightning Edition PS3 8D I've read somewhere that the english version will be out around may next year.

This game looks to be promising what with the amazing graphics and the new battle system. Though there would probably be a lot of naysayers regarding the transforming summons, which is by the way, over-the-top coolness IMO XD Plotwise, it looks like its not a disappointment like that of FF XII. I just hope that it won't be an emo-fest since there was a lot of drama on the trailers I saw. If you haven't checked them out yet, here's a link to the japanese website:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/fabula/ff13/

And now I leave you with an image of the first (and hopefully not the last) twelve members of the Tenebroso family :D