Another fabulous FFXI patch

First of all, the Despot adjustment!

After SE changed Ulli to a forced pop NM, Ulli’s popularity fell as everyone farmed furiously for those Diorites.

As a result, Despot’s popularity soared.

I’ve seen like 3 LSes camp along the Despot corridor and the situation was as bad as Ullikummi’s room before the Ulli adjustment.

Now, I assume Despot is claimed by whoever kills the PH, which is like Steam Cleaner?

Then again, this may or may not fix the RMT problems as the RMTs on Odin have 5~6 BLMs standing by, a THF does a massive pull of Groundkeepers and then the BLMs all do a synchronized thundaga.

Oh well. Next item, grips!

A list of the new items are available for viewing here. I’ve already decided on the grips that I’m going to get for my DRK.

Platinum Grip: Acc+2, Additional effect: Stun. Probably for HNM, full ACC setup. Low priority.

Sword Strap: 2-hand weapon delay -3%.

Pole Strap: Double attack +2%.

Claymore grip: Critical Hit +3%, for use with my unlocked Subduer.

I’m also anxious to see how much damage my DRK will do to high level monsters now. And also to see what has been changed for Cross Reaper. Will it be as strong as Spinning Slash?

Chocobo Racing‘s up. I think it will be nice for us to watch while waiting for a PT invite. And I think it’s a good time to start raising a chocobo now that the whole chocobo raising fad has calmed down. I remember back during the first few weeks of chocobo raising, tokopekko grass is being sold at 100,000gil for each single piece!

Mog lockers accessible from Nomad Moogles. About time!

Shield Bash and Weapon Bash have been enhanced! :D :D :D

Oh, and I just heard this from Sireen and verified it. Each 1 STR now gives 1 Attack and each 1 DEX gives 1 accuracy for 2hand weapons only. Previously it was 2STR = 1Att, 2DEX = 1Acc. My attack total now exceeds 500 without food! Cross reaper now gives better damage. Or perhaps it’s giving better damage because of the STR/Attack adjustment?

Can’t wait to test DRK on Kirin. >:)
This is the only HNM that I have a chance to touch by the way. 

I guess that’s all for a list of updates that I really like. I hope DRKs will be more wanted in merit PTs now!

The 2007 Odex Fiasco

Alright. This is an overblogged topic but as a fan of anime myself, I want to put my thoughts out there.

Here’s what’s been happening in the anime scene in Singapore for the past few weeks. Everyday, there’s an article in the news regarding this incident.

Local anime distributor, Odex, has been sending out legal threats to many people for downloading anime. People who received those letters were shown a list of their downloads mostly, perhaps all of them, using the bittorrent protocol.

These people were asked to go down to the Odex office to sign an agreement which basically admits that they downloaded and promise not to do it again. However, from what I understand, the agreement allows them to further legally screw you whenever they feel like it. Downloaders also had to pay sums of $3000~$5000 ($2000~$3300 USD), which is a sum of money not to be taken lightly.

Odex claims these amount of money are used to cover their lawyer fees and the costs incurred to track down the downloaders. It’s in the news that they have the info of about 3000 IPs. Some may belong to the same person because local ISPs here give dynamic IP addresses.

So let’s assume 1500 people are going to be sued for an average of $4000. Odex acquires $6,000,000 in it’s lawsuit rampage.

Oh, the youngest offender so far is a 9 year old. He wasn’t given a chance.

The response, a majority of fans began discussing this legal threats on the forums. Someone managed to find some information on one of the directors of Odex, Stephen Sing, and his posts in another forum.

"Nope~ Me too busy sueing people~" and "Hahahaha! I double-6-ed so many downloaders~"

These 2 posts, obvious that it was about the recent legal threats Odex has been giving, further infuriated people which resulted in headline news:

When interviewed, he claimed it was taken out of context and he had forgotten about it because it was posted 2 months ago. However, it was actually 2 weeks…

Poor guy now has his address, Identification number, photoshopped pics of his photos all over the net now.


Some interviews with Peter Go, another of Odex’s directors, claim that they only want to stop piracy and help anime flourish in Singapore. But shooting out lawsuits is definitely not the way.

The majority of downloaders are casual fans and only want free stuff. You stop them from downloading, they’ll just move on to other sources of entertainment. They won’t buy VCDs or DVDs. Odex loses here.

The real fans who will fork out money to buy the DVDs of a series they like, may stop buying from Odex now. Most of them probably never bought from Odex in the first place, because of the poor translations.

Originally, the anime community in Singapore is small. Thanks to fansubs and the ease and speed of bittorrent, this community grew fast. Cosplay events became bigger and quality improved over the years. 4 years ago, I would feel embarrassed reading manga in public while dressed in my formal work attire. But not anymore now.

These lawsuits may discourage and kill alot of fans. There’s a good chance anime’s popularity in Singapore will fall thanks to Odex.

Many fans now live in fear everyday, fear of getting the Odex letter in their mailbox. Not all can easily fork out that sum of money.


Links to relevant articles:

Jan 9th 2007 – DarkMirage: An open letter to Odex

Aug 16th 2007 – CNet Asia: Kicking kids for profit

Aug 18th 2007 – Death threats against Odex

Aug 22nd 2007 – Riuva: Vision of Odex

Odex’s website


Note: I may still edit this entry further in future

PLD Relic AF Complete

Finally finished PLD Relic AF. I got the legs piece in our previous beaucedine run. Now I think I’ll start spending points on 100 pieces to work on my lolrelic shield.

 

My dynamis LS has taken a different approach to some things. We use only 1 PLD in sleepga PT now and 1 NIN tank as main. I get to go as DRK/NIN and sometimes help to tank a little, which keeps me awake. Seeing the BRD and BLM keeping all the mobs slept makes me sleepy. >_<

As to why I feel sleepy, the times of my dynamis runs are 12am and 4am, local time.

My NIN static is slowly approaching to an end. Just 2 more levelling sessions and I’m quitting it for good. Our last PT, a JP RDM disconnected a few minutes after levelling up and never came back. Instead of finding a replacement, we just continued on as 5 members (WHM BLM SMN MNK NIN). Even though we are only 5, we could chain #5 and get around 180~266exp per kill. :D

I begin to have interest in MNK and WHM. I’m playing WHM just to experience the different aspects of battle in FFXI; Tank(PLD,NIN), Damage-Dealer(MNK,DRK,WAR), Support(RDM,BRD), Healing(WHM). Is there any category that I left out? I’m playing MNK because a friend keeps telling me it’s the best DD job, thus I decided to try it out and see for myself. MNK also seems like a job that can solo stuff well.

The upcoming update looks very good for DDers who use 2-hand weapons. SE’s going to adjust the damage formula so we can deal more damage against high level monsters. Hopefully it applies to NMs too. They’re also going to introduce "grips" which is to be equipped in the sub-weapon slot.

Screenshots from POL site show an example of a grip that reduces delay by 3%. 2 good news for DRKs, SAMs and DRGs. :)

oh yea XD

My last 2 Haubergeon synth sessions, I broke and lost a damascus ingot each. Just when I got discouraged and about to give up…

2 HQs out of 6 synths! XD