About all the recent mini-events...

Just wanted to have a short blog about these events the flyff team has been creating every day. First of all, epic idea, and full support from me, even though I haven't been on to take advantage of many, it's still really cool to see GMs actively participating in the game like this. I was able to be the first one to the first mini-event (I'm in Aibatt), and enjoyed flying around taking screenshots of the Red Meteo and Clockworks before others started to trickle in. So, I'm going to turn this into a sort of photo-blog, just capturing some memories from the experience :)
Note: Click for (much) larger images :D

So, I finally go here, figured out the click on the mini-event pic trick after a bit (notice my fail shouts). Then came to find a bunch of extremely high-leveled monsters.

I decided to take some epic zoom screenies of some of the monsters, unfortunately I missed the Meteo, got too hard to coordinate my board and the camera haha. But yeah, this is one of the Clockworks

The second person to come! Cancel from Aspiration arrives on the scene and we chat for a bit, both of us too low level to actually take on anything haha.

Much to my amusement, a Giant Dumbbull decides to join the mass, I would have killed it, but I was afraid of getting one-shotted from afar :P

Finally a person who can actually fight! BladesRevenge arrives and after killing some lesser mobs begins to solo the Meteo. I came with my RM (Jashiatar), but couldn't buff him without getting killed sadly =/ But epic screenie!

Guilds and etc are called in, and people start taking down the Clockworks, sadly I had to go soon after this, but enjoyed a screenie of Clockwork ownage :D

Overall it was an awesome event, and I enjoyed chatting with people then watching the high levels of Aibatt own :) Very cool, hope to have more experiences like this in the future.

Current Stats: 

Zarain: Level 71 (80%!) 1v1 Blade in Aibatt

Jashiatar: Level 62 FS RM in Aibatt

More Contests, and Events/More :)

So, I have been busy. That's also kind of a weak excuse, so to add to it, I've also not felt like blogging. I've read many blogs lately, but haven't really felt like making another blog post, sorry =/ However, look, I'm making one!
School has been going on for almost 3 weeks now (for me at least), and tests and etc are starting to come up. I'm also getting into stuff that actually makes me think in Calculus. Because of this, and a hundred other things (not the least of which is my laziness), I probably won't be incredibly active, but I'll try and come up with a few blog posts in between cramming :)

In flyff-related topics, I've been really enjoying the recent event, and also entered the most recent screenshot contest. The recent event is a 14 day double-event celebration thing. It's rather hard to fit a title to it that describes it, so I'll simply explain. Every day, for 2 weeks, the Flyff team will have 2 events going on, different ones each day (or at least I think so, might have to repeat some). In addition to this, they've been randomly spawning a bunch of epic monsters every day in random areas throughout flyff. I have really enjoyed seeing what's going on, though I haven't got to play much. I played for about 2 hours in the box/cheer event day, but since I was training on monsters much higher level than me, I didn't get any boxes, though I did get a level :) (71 now).

Then a bit later, when the clock bike box event came on, I decided to try my luck. I went out and killed Hoppre's (about 4-5 levels above me), and after an hour got 3 boxes :D Guess what was in the third one? That's right, a Clock Bike ^.^ I literally bounced around a little in my seat, and proceeded to take numerous screenshots of me on it. A little back-history here: I wanted to buy one in the half-off sale they had quite a bit ago, I had made about 1k gpots in surveys, and so was going to spend a bit of birthday money and get a clock bike. Unfortunately, since I didn't know that gpotato required your account name to match the Credit Card holders name, it didn't go through and I missed the sale*. So this was a major joy for me, only problem is my clock bike is orange, and I really wanted white... so if anyone on Aibatt wants to trade... :D Feel free to hit me up.

Besides epic events, Flyff also started their most recent screenshot contest: A Silent Comic This is quite a unique contest in which the only text you're allowed to show is your title. I found it quite a challenge, and spent a few days thinking about it before I finally came up with an idea. There's always a lot of creativity to be found in these contests, so I hope my entry is creative enough to win some attention. Anyhow, I enjoyed making it, and feel free to check it out (my name on the forums is Jashiat as well, second page). I hope to someday win one of these contests, not only for the prize (which this time is quite epic), but for the feeling of accomplishment. That's why most of us play games isn't it? I mean, sure the definition might be fun, but it's really about the accomplishment. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point in grinding on monsters, there's not really too much fun in clicking repeatedly (take runescape for an example). Anyhow, philosophical discussions aside, I enjoyed this weeks screenshot contest.

Anyhow, I'm hoping to gain at least a level a week so I can finally get to 75 and attempt to find a guild (most have a lvl 75 requirement). I really miss the community I experienced as a staff member in a Runescape clan. I'm hoping to find something of the same sort on flyff, especially since the majority of players play it for the community more than anything. I mean, as Ping pointed out in the latest Roika topic, what other MMO has a fan video series like that? I would add to that: A weekly screenshot and maintenance contest, amusing GMs and GM events, etc. That's what keeps people playing it seems, and I want to experience that.

*Just a little fyi, if you wish to purchase gpotatoes (which you should, supporting the game is always good :) ) there is an easy workaround for having a different name on your credit card. Simply make a brand new paypal account with the name the same as what you have on your flyff account (I think mine was Tav Rac or something). Then assign your credit card to that paypal account, then simply use the paypal pay option, not only does it work perfectly and quickly, you also get bonus gpotatoes that way if you buy in bulk :)

Current Character stats:
Zarain: Level 71 Blade (66 dex, 35 sta, XX str (it's a V.7 build)
Jashiatar: Level 61 Ringmaster (Full INT)

School and Contests

So school started for me today, taking dual credit courses (Calculus, Comp, and Listening to Music) as well as the honors course Great Books, so I'm probably going to have a lot on my plate haha, my blogging might suffer. However with school coming also means that I'm laying down a schedule for myself, who knows, I may end up blogging even more frequently :)

Anyhow, the flyffish thing I wanted to talk about in this entry is the contests in flyff. Flyff is the only mmorpg I've played that has multiple weekly contests with very nice prizes. I think this mostly stems from the tight-knit community that makes up flyff, but I certainly like it. Ever since I learned about these contests (not that long ago), I've been entering to see if I could win something as well (no I haven't been successful yet). It constantly amazes me how creative the many people that enter really are. Take for example the latest maintenance contest (a contest that runs usually 10pm-1am PST on Tuesdays). The goal was to make a model flying machine for your flyff character, and one entry that particularly impressed me was a spaceship. It was made entirely out of a Pepsi can and box, but that wasn't the impressive thing. The impressive thing was that it looked crisp and professional. I honestly thought it was a professionally made toy until I saw the Pepsi symbols and the person's comment. Not to mention the insane ideas people come up with for the screenshot contests. It can be really amusing and also kind of inspiring looking at all the entries and seeing what people have come up with.

That's one of the main reasons I'm playing flyff actually. Though I'm not an incredibly active forumer, the times I do get on are a joy for me, and I find myself simply surfing the forums when I have free time (though my flyff character's level has suffered). The community is unique and very entertaining, enabling many to simply use flyff as a chatroom (as GM Sloth commented long ago in an interview) with the option of leveling if you get bored. I know as I start to level a bit higher, I tend to use it as such, logging on simply to see if a friend is on or check some shops before logging off again. But this also helps many players who would otherwise quit to stay on the game. If you get tired of the grind, you can just go hang out and chat with some people at the arena or simply browse the local darken shops. It makes it a joy instead of a job to play, which makes sense, a game isn't supposed to be work, or at least not in my definition.

A (not very) brief history

So, like many other players of the game flyff (Fly for Fun for those of you who don't know), I have been motivated to create a blog based on my flyff experiences by the recent Blog for Rewards event (can be found here). I've been thinking of creating a flyff blog for some time now, as I enjoyed creating a runescape blog, but I didn't really have any motivation until now (I had like 2 readers on my RS blog haha). But current events aside, I decided to start out with a little history of my flyffing experience.

I started out playing flyff in version 5-6, when I was introduced to it by some friends at school. I first created a character in the Lawolf server (motivated by it sounding cool), but then found out my friend had created a character in Aibatt, so I switched over. This being many years ago, the graphics were quite decent for an mmorpg. I, as a 13 year old gamer familiar only with runescape graphics, was quite impressed. I began playing quite a bit, and found it great fun to level with my friends, enjoying killing the many monsters in flyff as I chatted with them. By this time I was starting to get familiar with the game, and was quite proud of the fact that I learned by myself that I could save my skill points until 15 and therefore be able to save my skill reset, something that has enabled me since to not have to start over on my character.

I had learned from a brief period playing maplestory that builds in many mmorpgs were of primary importance, so I researched builds on the forums and began to level my character up as a semi-high dex blade (66 dex, 35 sta, xx str build). I enjoyed it, but then my friends began to quit, and I left the game with them for a while. This was around april, 2007 (judging by my forum posts).

I got back into the game a few months later, and this time I began to grind my way solo to 60. Around level 40 I finally began to learn the amazing benefits of partners and advanced parties, which enabled me to speed my leveling process. I began to enjoy the game again, but sadly didn't play enough to keep up with the friends I made, having to constantly make new ones as the assists and other people I had helped to level far surpassed me in a rapid amount of time. However, I kept grinding, and slowly worked my way to my ultimate goal of level 60. Finally reaching it, I quickly did my job quest (with many epic pictures that are now lost on a crashed computer) and gained my goal, dual weapons! The last few levels had been torture for me however, leveling mostly without any companionship had made them incredibly slow, so after killing a few cranes I quit the game for a very long time. (Quit around January 2008)

Two and a half years later, June of 2010, I decided to see how flyff was doing. My clan on Runescape (which I still enjoy playing occasionally) was starting to fall apart, and I was losing interest in playing many of the games I have recently played. Knowing that I usually rotated through many games in my gamer life, flyff entered my mind and I began to get my best friend interested in it again. This time I had a plan to forever abolish the days of shouting for a partner, I decided to make an FS assist so I could run it on my laptop while running my main character on my desktop. My friend was only around level 30, so I quickly (with the advantage of the new buff pang) leveled my assist to 15 and got my friend to powerlevel me. With the advantage of some other friends and a ventrilo channel to keep in touch, we decided, with another friend, to keep playing the game and make a guild in the game. This turned out to be a successful plan, as eventually all of our characters leveled to 60, and I began playing on my blade again, power-leveling my assist as I trained.

This pretty much brings us to the present, where I have a level 70 blade (Zarain) and a level 60 FS RM (Jashiatar) in the aibatt server, where I enjoy occasionally leveling them. So ends the *cough* brief *cough* history of my flyffing experience, and hopefully the next blog post will be a bit less boring (come to think of it I  probably should have just put this in my profile). Anyhow, happy flyffing :)