When 100% isn't enough...Follow

I am completely spent and am taking some time off FFXI. To those that I offered help to in the near future, I am sorry but I am totally burned out.

Now the long rant. Skip this if you arnt interested ^^

I have been playing since the week the game launched in 03 and it took me about 18-20 months to get my beloved monk up to 75. I am a casual player, but I always strive for the best. Monk was my only job over 40 to this day.

My career can be brutal and unfriendly for FFXI. Weeks at a time out of town in other cities doing contract work, and earlier this year I was pretty much a zombie for 2 months while I had to deal with a massive lawsuit. (This lead to underlying problems I'll mention in a bit)

The last few months have had good weeks and bad weeks... Work calmed down, and I was home weeknights again. Could do paperwork while lfg ^^ There was a ton of stuff needing to be done at 70+ so it was kind of overwhelming at first, if I wanted to be proud of my monk I wanted the best.

Sadly the previous months stress from my real life caught up with me.. rampant insomnia, weight loss... slept for 4 days straight one week when I finally passed out... that kind of thing. Every day went by I almost gave up on my real life job, and in game I was way too moody. Lost some friends, grew distant to others. Lost all ambition in real life and in game. Clinical depression had set in rather severely.

In this past 6 weeks things had been turning around though. Nicely medicated now, and I had goals again ^^. Mostly RL stuff to improve my life. The only in game goal I had set was the blackbelt (surprise surprise, being a dedicated mnk and all).

I had the adamantoise egg for months, behemoth was my first huge ordeal. This was my first taste of the "end game" HNM mentality that I hadn't really dealt with much till now.

CatoLS owned behemoth and I went through the wringer trying to buy it off them. Each member I asked had a different story when i asked to buy it. "get it yourself", "Is your LS gimpy", or "I dont know. Cato is JP and we don't know because cato is weird" were my responses... Eventually found someone in their LS that confirmed it would be sold.

Cato had promised it to a 75 Blm JP, sadly, so I was out of luck and rather pissed. Luckily I heard Dynasty was doing KS99 and on their 4th or 5th run a behemoth tongue dropped... 1 mil gil happily spent. I didn't have to deal with Cato again ^^

This month was FF. Server resets kept bumping it to 4Am or 2Pm... Career plus FFXI = bad. Weekends were my only hope, and I happened to be home only a few days this month for the FF window. (I was out working on my RL goals or out of town).

I had made several efforts in the past for FF, but there was always a backlog of LS members needing the item, so there was no point in going. Last Sunday I got confirmation from an NA LS that owned FF that it would be for sale. I came for the fight but no drop.

This weekend a server reset was announced. It was my last chance before FF got bumped deep into JP time again. I turned down a trip to the lake to make sure I was online for FF/NH.

I asked the same LS again and was told if their LS member who was interested didn't show up I could buy it. The member wasn't online so I rushed over very excited.

When I got there, apparently a JP player was there first. I never knew it was a race so I was told he was first in line for the drop. But I was told if I outbid the JPs 1.5 mil offer I could still bump him. I cant afford 2 mil for a rare/ex quest item so I gave up.

A member in the shell told me that NA usually had priority if we were there first, and that they usually charge JP more for items "because JP are rich". So I made sure to log in the FF zone to be sure i was the first one there today (Sunday, before the update ^^)

I log in this morning and hang around till noon.. I send a tell to the sackholder letting him know I am there, ready, and interested. It turns out the JP from the day before still had priority... So it wasn't first come first serve, or a race.... It was "who will pay the most gets it". The story changed on me three times before that point was really made though.

"But if the JP or our member don't show up, its yours"... So I waited and waited.. their member wasn't on, and no JP showed up with the name he gave. Things were looking good again ^^

Turned out he gave me the wrong name of the JP... It was a JP rng who showed up a while later, and they welcomed him. This rng didn't have a mnk high enough to use the belt, didn't have all the other items.. he was here for a trophy. But its true.. JP are very rich. He spoke English fairly well but he wouldn't change his mind, and neither would the LS.

At this point I just lost it. I had set an unrealistic goal for myself. I wasn't a member of the most powerful LS on our server, nor did I have the millions of gil a 3 year JP veteran has. They kill FF day in day out, its just a chore for them and they take it for granted. But for me it was the first time I had been motivated in game in ages, and it really meant a lot to me so this really hurt.

So it may seem silly that this put me over the edge... it just proved me me that putting in 100% of my free time on it still wouldn't get me anywhere. I had set one goal, and now it is out of reach again. Tonight the sever resets it to 4am and I'm another month behind.

When its finally back in my time slot there will be a new JP looking for the item with very deep pockets, or maybe another ls member has a 41 mnk that wants "to get the blackbelt out of the way".

I know its just an item, and far from necessary. But for me it had a lot of significance... it was the first and only goal I set after getting my life back on track. And all it did was convince me that I just cant compete at this level of the game. I gave 100% and got a "better luck next time". It cemented the notion that whoever has the most gil and the most high level friends win, and I hate myself for thinking this way.

But what really set me off was that I foolishly gave up two afternoons in one of the last summer weekends to sit and wait for "the right to buy a quest item" and watch another LS farm. I turned down some RL stuff this weekend as well a a family gathering, and for that I am very ashamed of myself.

So to summarize, a hectic career, anti-depressants, unrealistic expectations, and FFXI do not mix. I am not quitting yet but I need to take time off to find out what I want out of this game from now on. Trying to make the most out of my monk just isn't rewarding (or possible) anymore. When I come back I will hopefully find something more enjoyable to do in game.

<edit SP>

Edited, Sun Aug 28 17:30:17 2005 by Thornn

Edited, Sun Aug 28 17:31:02 2005 by Thornn

Edited, Sun Aug 28 17:32:39 2005 by Thornn

/comfort Thornn

Edited, Sun Aug 28 18:23:05 2005 by Citrine

We have only stolen 2 mobs.
Both from people that has held them for longer then an hour.
So you are just shouting out sourceless crap.
My LS are the ones that gets stolen from. And no i have to say we get MPK's to? You werent in the Aery a few months ago.

And Btw, Rear = Dynamis. We tell the NA's what times our events are, and if you cant come to our events you cant get any items from those events. Still people leaves us saying they dont get any items, when they are only logging in at 5est, when even the EU members are at sleep. So its their fault, not ours, they knew this is a JP ls.

I tried to be friendly with you after what you said on the other thread. You seemed to get it, but apperently you didnt.

We have a bad reputation, because the bad linkshells(NA linkshells) gets to a wider crowd and can say whatever they want and get away with it.
We gave people a video when WW botten behemoth, it was no mistake, they did bot it. 2 people(1 afk btw) warped infront of our eyes straight to behemoth and voked him.
Still, you people accused our LS for botting and didnt care for WW.



And its nice to see that people from WW/YF/PM/HP/Dynasty are reading this forum too, i can feel the ratedowns again.

WW: Mostly Dragons Aery Stuff. Stealing from us, Mpk. And Holding it into NA time since Feb/May. And ofcourse, the botting.

YF: Holding Adamantoise. A single RDM fighting it, with about a full alliance around looking and pulling mobs from the ohter side of the map = Holding. We stole that one and offered the drops wich they didnt want. They later stole Aspi from us, wich we did steal back.

They also Stole our KB twice. First it was no casualties, but second time 2 PLD's died. They did it purely for the MPK.

PM: Teaming up with WW with the Stealing and Holding of Fafnir/Nidhogg. Plus the bootting, the bots wich they probably got from WW. They have also MPK us there, pulling spiders and blaming it on us. -_-

KoN/Dynasty: Holding Fafnir/Nidhogg since before i even got into the HNM things, and that was in November last year. They stopped holding it in Feb/May because they were fed up with WW botting.

They have stolen our KB a few times. Once they called for help on it, but they kicked that person.

They held Adamantoise for almost 2 hours. With a single nin Tanking it with a Earth Staff. We stole it and offered them the drops, wich they didnt want. They have also stolen and Mpk us at Dragons Aery.

Now lets see what we(Cato LS) has done wrong:
One person mpk Kon at Valley of sorrows in Feb(Smiegal), he was kicked from the LS when that happened, a little late say some. But i wasnt in the LS when this happened.
Stealing 2 Adamantoises wich were being held.

Going to Fafnir with a less then superb force, so that sometimes the fight lasts longer then one hour. And people sometimes fall asleep due to that Fafnir is being held into NA time, wich is 4-5AM JP, JPs wich are still the majority in the LS.

I also heard that someone stole a KB, but we let that person die so that claim went back to orginal claimers.


By this you should see that we are the most human of the Linkshells, but still, we get treated like hellspawn.
Wich is unfair.

This thread didnt look like a farewell thread.
More like a My Job and FFxi take away all my life.
I dont have the guts to tell anyone i cant take anymore of this.
And then i'll throw out some **** on Cato LS, and be all nice on some other LS doing the same thing.


In dont "blow them clearly out of proportion".
We got Stolen from/Mpk about every time we went to Fafnir.
But how would you know? You werent there.
You can only hear it from the NA linkshells.
And you dont bother looking for the other side of the story.

And you say that we should call a GM.
If you didnt know, GM's take 2 hours to answer your call, and then the mob has already entered NA time again.
And the times we did get one in time, they said it was a tactic to hold the HNMs.

And i like it when we got one when Kon were holding Adamantoise(Not the time we stole), Nin were fighting unarmed, we caled GM. Then told the nin to start doing damage, he changed to Earth Staff.
And that was ok with the GM.

Some HNM's go white no matter what you do, because you cant hit it all the time.
KB: Its being Kited.
Aspi: Dont attack when the shell is up. This is where the ones who want to hold him attack. All damage done = Regened HP.
Fafnir: Sleep it to regain Tank/Mage MP. Or to raise someone.

In all those cases it can go white. It doesnt take much to Throw a Shadownbind on Fafnir to kill everyone.
Mobs dont go White if you cant kill them fast enough.

And they can do **** against MPK. They have to be there to vitness the MPK. Wich they will never be.
And as i have told you, we have stolen 3 HNM's(" of wich even sint classed like hnm's) and thats the truth. Still, you think we steal all our HNM's.
This is what i mean we get treated wrong. You dont even bother looking for the truth, but when you hear it you call it one sided.


I have called so many GM's against these people it should be in Guinnes book. Still, only 10% came when they were still holding, 99.98 of them didnt do anything.

Wait, wait, wait.



First, learn how to type.

Secondly. You just proved Thornn's point with that statement. It doesn't matter HOW MANY HNMs your LS has stolen.

It matters that you HAVE stolen them.

And last time I checked, they still taught in kindergarten that stealing is NOT okay, no matter what it is.

So don't you go playing the victim while you have blood on your hands.

Understood, Leet. You've always been a reasonable man with a good head on your shoulders.

So, I shall amend what I said earlier.

If your first language is not English, then I rescind the part about watching your spelling. I understand firsthand how it's not always easy to perfectly spell everything when you are speaking in another language.

But if it's not, then the point stands.

:-b

To Thornn. Not sure that this will make you feel better necessarily (LoL) but I'm closing in on 70 also and have 0 items and no dedicated HNMLS to get the items. :-/ I'm also a broke monk that will be doing everything I can just to get the gil for a Hakutaku Eye Cluster so buying the 3 items just isn't going to happen. *sigh*

One thing that frustrates me to no end is people getting these items that don't level the job. I had a LS mate offer to pay me to come and kill Rampaging Ram (he was on a lower job and saw the NM) because he's going for Brown Belt (obviously have to do the purple belt first, hence the Ram). I refused even though he's an LS mate because I know the crap I went through trying to get that friggin quest done. I'd help my LS mates in a heart beat on something for their job, but I refuse to help a non-monk get a brown belt to sell.

I can't even begin to imagine how bad it is when you add the political BS from HNMLSes. I guess I'll soon find out. >.>

It is a semi-farewell thread. Look at the first sentence of the first post.

If I was not there, help me out by posting pictures. Otherwise, you do not have the right to use my absence against me. I can depend on you to distort stories regarding situations that I have seen, which is why I take your stories with a large grain of salt, but I have less confidence that you can doctor a picture.

Sabotendar, we could really overlook most of your stories and descriptions and red herrings because they are truly irrelevent to your project on the majority of your "defend-CatoLS" threads, and they are equally frivolous here. You obviously have experience with the mechanics of getting official help in FFXI and you make it plain that you and CatoLS consider GMs inadequate to responsing to your calls. Your LS, however, makes the unique move into taking the law of FFXI into their own hands with borderline MPK attempts and stealing NMs. When your LS makes these habits consistent, regardless of whether you can make a case for that practice or not at each juncture, your LS loses credibility and gains the reputation for being a dishonest linkshell. After that, your examples painting CatoLS as faultless are gone.

The reputation of your linkshell is what I think you are primarily worried about. However, the rest of the HNM community believes that a LS can never justify the pratices that CatoLS subscribes to. Until your people can achieve a balance between the interests of your LS and the unwritten standards of fairness that float around decent linkshells, your LS will always be referred by other people, to use your words, as "hellspawn."

Edited, Mon Aug 29 16:52:52 2005 by Kanodin

Funny... I see only one person on this entire thread that should quit. And it's you, Sabotendar. The garbage you spew forth here and on other forums is atrocious.

I wonder how you actually find time to play FFXI since, judging from the sheer number of your posts, you spend a good bit of time trying to defend your contemptible linkshell.

Does it not make you wonder, even just a little, why CatoLS is hated so? Not quite as bad as the gilseller LSs, but almost. The "Oh my poor LS. We're so misunderstood. Everyone hates us. /cry /cry /cry" deal is getting old.

You are only slightly above gilsellers in most of Cerberus's eyes. Why don't you do us all a favor - Go {Away} {Long Time}

Edited, Mon Aug 29 18:22:40 2005 by cribaby

Edited, Mon Aug 29 18:24:23 2005 by cribaby

If you see me online in the next litle while, it's probably not the real "me".

A RL friend that quit this game quite a while back is taking this chance to mess around on my account a bit. Maybe it will rekindle his interest in the game.

As far as I know he'll keep LS off, and make sure to identify hes not the real me ^^ and he knows better then to throw away any rare/ex stuff (I hope >.> )

I think he mainly wanted to explore CoP areas and maybe mess around with some of my undeveloped low level jobs.

well, i'm sure i'll get karma nuked for this, oh well

PM never held FF, we always want FF dead fast so we could get drops and move on to something else

PM did have an alliance with WW for FF, because WW owned FF and they didn't need many of the R/E drops, and PM didn't need the money drops, and last i heard... there's nothing wrong with LS's teaming up...

PM did steal mobs when they went white, why? because GM's said that was part of the game, however, PM never purposely MPK'd another LS that was fighting FF. there was that incident with the spiders, but someone actually recorded a movie clip of what happened and posted it on KI, and if i remember correctly, a pld lost sneak at the cliff edge entering FF's bowl, and there was a spider in agro range

Yeah Banigaru said it pretty plainly and honestly, and we should take this as a virtue in the HNM scheme of things. I rarely hear it like that.

It's similar to what Fowler told me the other day. We have to remember that despite our best efforts, we cannot play the game 24/7. Therefore, when we log in to play the game, there are thousands of people that have been playing before us. When we log off, there will be thousands that play after we go to sleep. People form their own networks of relationships--we can try to get people to tell stories to reveal what their network looks like, but the best way is to simply watch a person perform. If we play the game to exceed everyone else simultaneously and bend other people's relationships to our own ends, we ultimately fail--uusually in many aspects. The purpose of the game is to have fun, not pwn everyone or pwn some other linkshell. Anything else motivating game play is purely vicious.

So if you have fun playing, play... If not, then don't play--just remember that the servers could all vanish tomorrow and we would be left with nothing but screenshots, memories, and people to share stories with. If you lack any of these things, you better check yourself.