Ordered the CE myself...

I'm thinking that the $3 is to discourage mules from being made, since they should be unneeded with the retainer system... But that's just a wild guess.

Congratulations!
I've only gotten MNK and DRG to 76 so far, but now I'm going to focus on BST for a while, then possibly RDM

Make sure to play around with your video settings a bit. The default settings on the PC look horrific :/

Oh, it's the POL settings! I'm sorry, I misunderstood...
I thought about it a little, maybe you can get a hub and do some sort of network sharing with your PC, while the PC is dialed up? I'm not sure that would even work, though... and buying the PC version of the game would be cheaper

Gah... you're going to have to re-do all your macros and stuff, and you'll have lost all of your map markers and even stuff like the sort order on the AH and your chat filters and chat colors   Sorry, Areya

Hmm... doesn't the modem come with a setup disk? Can't you run it again?
Does it store the information on a memory card? Maybe (kind of as a last resort) you could delete it and force it to start over?

I never really used the dial up on the PS2, I can't really remember how it works, sorry :/

Ah, I missed that somehow! 
May end up being a good place to merit/skill/level past 75, though.

Also... dare I hope that they bump up all the monsters to 75+, including those lovely Blubber Eyes, but they leave the Swift-Belt monsters as-is?

BST would OWN swift belt fights! 

Hey, all! Just saw this on the FFXI site... they're planning on removing the level caps from the following areas:

Pso'Xja / Promyvion - Holla / Promyvion - Dem / Promyvion - Mea / Promyvion - Vahzl / Phomiuna Aqueducts / Sacrarium / Riverne - Site #B01 / Riverne - Site #A01

Nifty

Now, assuming they don't just bump everything there up to 75 all of a sudden... I'm gonna go get me a Swift belt

Nobody else was on Saturday morning... so I just gave him a pearl

Where are you guys?! 

Heh, should we pick a night, or just whenever enough people are on?

I know, I should stop leveling Monk... but it's just so fun! 

Ooh, and at lower (subjob) levels, I can have Noogies power-level us!

I'm a little torn on the issue of raising the level cap. For years, they've said that 75 was it, no higher. Then all of a sudden, boom, level cap 99!
I think the pros outweigh the cons, though. The primary con is the leveling needed, not only for main jobs but for subs... I mean, we may as well get them to 50 instead of 49 (for BCNM battles, 50-cap stuff, and for those that want to get AF just to store it) which can be a lot of work in and of itself... I know I need to get my subs up!

The main pro for me is that, obviously, FFXI is NOT going to be abandoned any time soon... they've just added years worth of activity for everyone. Hopefully, after this year, they go back into a regular pattern of expansions. There's more to Vana'diel that I want to explore!

Anyway, back on track...  I'll probably be partying with WAR, SAM, WHM, BLM, and eventually SCH, just so I don't run around with underleveled subjobs. I'll also party with RDM at least, since that's my most commonly used party job. BST I'm going to solo to 99, of course, and Dragoon most likely as well. THF and NIN... I could go either way with those, it depends on how quickly those jobs might be needed by any groups I work with

I suppose I should stop leveling Monk soon, and concentrate on my already-75 jobs and subjobs So, if I'm on and it's not late or I'm not in the middle of something else I can't stop (like Salvage), I'll be happy to gear up and join a linkshell party at any level

The Lalafell are almost unbearably cute, but they run even funnier than the Tarutaru in FFXI 
Oh, Chocobo!
Oh, Hamburger!

Welcome back! Call beast changes will be lovely 

Stack to 99 AND increase the yields!

I see it this way:
Level 75 jobs are good for all the content that's released right now. It's not like raising the cap is going to suddenly make a level 75 job useless. Also, I'm sure that there will be events capped at level 75, so having all those jobs will still be useful

One thing I'm looking forward to, being able to run through Kuftal tunnel without getting aggro from those darned crabs

Maybe we can make some static parties, not only to raise level 75 jobs to 99, but to raise any needed subjobs to 49

Oooh, neat effect! *steals Rey's wavy flashback generator*

It all started in the beta test for me, for the NA PC release. I can't really describe the feeling, it was like, we knew NOTHING about the game, plus we all knew we couldn't keep our characters (turns out that they changed that decision about a year later, which is why I have Beta-Zeri on Asura  ). So, it was all grand experimentation and fun! I remember the first time I ever saw a skillchain in a party (this was valkurm) everyone was like "What was that?!!" and we all freaked out trying to repeat it 

That was also when I first discovered that you can fish up a monster if you go fishing outside of a city. I was fishing between pulls, and during resting, just for fun when, you guessed it, I yanked up a mad-as-hell pugil that proceeded to wipe the floor with my party. We broke for Selbina as fast as we could, with the pugil in tow. Maybe two of us made it (I was one of them). And then... our pugil started killing everyone at the Selbina gates. It took about 20 of us all working together to kill that fish from hades, and our black mage died... a second time

Needless to say, that put me off fishing for a while 

Anyway, in beta, I created a full compliment of 16 characters, with different races and genders. The one I liked playing the most was Zerila (same name, same model that I have now) which is why I re-created her for the PC release. Originally, I was a Mithran MNK/WHM from San d'Oria (I know, I know  )

When the time came for the PC release, I knew a lot more about how the game worked, so I chose a lot more rationally. I started out as a Red Mage, because I thought, with a Red Mage, I could gain skills in many different magics and weapons (theoretically true, if your party doesn't mind you whipping out a club or a dagger mid-fight )

My first linkshell was the Ancients, led by Ryza (I think his name was). It was a fun group, and I really enjoyed being a part of it. However, Ryza wanted the group to be more focused, and tried laying down some rules regarding attendance, participation in events, and saying things like "You should only have one linkshell". I liked him, but I think he forgot the basic rule of linkshells: Once you start sharing out the pearls, it's not really "yours" anymore, even if you have the ultimate power to kick people at will. He basically wanted an HNMLs-style ruleset for the shell, but most of us were in our 20's-30's, and I don't think any of us was over 40. Since we started out social, we wanted to stay social. We had many group meetings about it, made some compromises, tried to work things out, but it only worked for a short while before things started breaking down again.

Eventually, the Ancients imploded, and I was shell-less for a while (This was also my first grand experiment in soloing, as a RDM... it was SLOW  ) After a month or so of that, someone from the Ancients (I believe it was Evanesce) invited me to a new shell he was a part of, that had many of the Ancients in it, called the Whitehawks. It was great being a part of a shell again, but eventually attendance dropped to the point that nobody was ever on it, and I ended up effectively shell-less again for a while, until once again someone I knew (Eva again, maybe?) invited me to Lucky. And here I've been ever since

Ok, so who's next? I'll let you "borrow" Rey's wavy flashback machine! 

Dangit, I'mma bring this thread BACK! 

Anyway, I just got done re-reading the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik. They're really good! It's written during the Napoleonic wars, only with the added element of DRAGONS! (Dragons make everything better!  ) The dragons have crews like ships, (including riflemen and bombers) and they fight in the war along with humans. I urge anyone who finds that even remotely interesting to pick them up. They're very very good!

Also, I just picked up Brave Story, by Miyuki Miyabe. It's interesting, but it doesn't feel like it's gotten to the main story yet, even though a lot has happened so far (also, it's over 800 pages long  ) That's something I noticed about other Japanese writers that I've read... the pacing just seems a little off to me. It may just be a cultural thing, or maybe the person translating it does something weird, who knows?

So, anyway, what are other Lucky folks reading?

Did anyone win anything good? I got a whole slew of rank 5's, including three on a single character and one on a character that's too low to use the memoirs I took (Rapscallion ).

Oh, and I got a rank 3 prize from Minjiji I'm thinking of picking up a star sapphire, but the price on those is pummeting like a rock

er... no pun intended 

I'll be there, too, of course!

I think we're planning a run for this tomorrow (the 12th) but if someone can't make it, I'd be glad to help at a later date, too. I just want to wrap the darned thing up, finally! 

Hi, Liquidfire!
Please ignore all the questions that Ryu asked, except the one about your dessert preferences