A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.

– John Updike

Sometimes I wonder if people that log into MMO chat rooms are unable to read the the stuff they type/say.  Like there’s some sort of strange polarized glass that they hang over their monitors that prevents them from actually being able to read what they’ve just typed.

One of the most irksome things that happens all to often is someone logs in and immediately declares “I’m bored!”

Although it’s been said more eloquently by others, Harvey Danger said it most succinctly in their song Where have all the merry makers gone? “If you’re bored then your boring.”

Closely following the “I’m bored” is the person who decides to log into the game to explain that because they’ve played for multiple years (usually longer than the game has actually been out) they’re the expert to explain why the game sucks so much.  I mean, I guess the only response to these people is “Let me guess.  You’re bored?”

The news of FFXIV made me re-activate Suquamish on Bahamut, and I’m currently working to finish off my Paladin and maybe Bard while I wait for FFXIV to hit the shelves.

During some non-game time I came across this: http://sob.informe.com/forum/ via the FFXIV wika.  A fair number of people seem to be doing exactly what I did [re-activating because of the FFXIV announcement], and in the process want to create a ready-to-go community once FFXIV hits the shelves while providing a positive FFXI experience.

It appears the parent shell is on Asura, and I’m toying with the idea of transfering to that server just to be in on the fun.

The frontal lobe reaches full maturity around age 25, marking the cognitive maturity associated with adulthood…The executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events.

– Wikipedia article

This is the flip side to my previous post.  As I said in that post, most everyone in my Linkshell is some flavor of awesome, and I love them to bits.   Then there are a few of the others that make me cringe.  It’s clear they have something to prove, but no idea what that something is.

My ability to pick out males under 20, particularly Americans, is a skill that I’ve acquired and honed to high precision inside FFXI.  As a older player (fogey?) with fully functioning frontal lobes, it’s a necessary skill to have, to avoid unnecessary drama.

The skill is something akin Name that Tune for me.   I can, with a high degree of accuracy, pick out American males that are under 20, in 7 words or less.

The last night in my Linkshell was puncuated by a plethora of sub-20 American males.  Although I can usually keep telling myself “they’re just young,” in order to avoid saying something that will create future consequences, last night was particularly odious.  I wanted desperately to reach through the game, grab some of these people by the throat and shout “‘Please, for once in your life, try to use your frontal lobes!” But then I remembered, they don’t have any, and just unequipped my Linkshell.

“We never know the worth of water ’til the well is dry.”
–English Proverb

The proverb is the root of “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” and perfectly defines my return to FFXI after a short absence.

A couple weeks ago, my internet connection went down (locally I had connectivity, but a construction crew had taken out the cable the links small town I reside in with the Intertubes). Then The Great Pumkin hit me with a full body tackle for Thanksgiving keeping me out of the game for awhile.

To boot, real life (mostly work) has been extraordinarily busy.  Not to mention it’s started being a real struggle with not going medieval on the plethora of people that seem hell bent on pissing me off.  Finally, to complete a perfectly good whine, the holidays have got me down — I’m not ready to call it the holiday depression people talk about, but suffice it to say I’ve been in a funk.

So, last night things took an odd turn.

I was not tired enough for bed by 10PM, and oddly enough nothing else required my attention.  So I logged into FFXI; albeit with some clouds of melancholy hovering over me.

FFXI had gone through a big update that introduced new mechanics.  My linkshell, Paradigm was transferring shell owners (the leader had been on extended absence, and wants to start a new character to boot).  I’ve been part of a few linkshells in my FFXI career, and these transfers sometimes go swimmingly, but mostly not.  So while things were mostly the same, my absence and small changes also provided me with feeling slightly unbalanced.

Not long after logging in I started getting /tells from linkshell mates.  Not just “come get a new pearl,” but ernest messages of being missed and wanting to know how I had been.  As I was making the trek to pick-up my new pearl, the conversations continued on a variety of topics, and my mood lifted as these conversations, from light hearted to heartfelt, flowed.

I picked Thankfully the Linkshell swap was going just fine.

I hadn’t planned on staying in the game for long, but I was asked to sub inside of a level-synch’ed Linkshell party in the Valkurm dunes.  This was a great way for me to hang out with the LS mates that had spread some cheer my way, and get back into the groove of things as Paladin (see my previous post on level sync’ed parties).  The party went well (as expected), and after a few levels were gained, we decided to call it quits as sleep was over taking a few of us.

In courtesy, I expressed my gratitude to everyone for the good party and typed /shutdown. Suquamish knelt as the game counted down the number of seconds left before it exited, and at that moment I was struck with a feeling of being thankful.

I wasn’t thankful for something shallow, like gaining experience points in a game.  By the time I had logged out I had managed to gather up a honest feeling of being welcomed, and picked up the warm afterglow of being among friendly people.

…must come to an end.

The linkshell known as lolCats is dead.  It had a good run, and although I’ll miss it, I can’t be sad that it’s ending.

Essentially most of the core members vaporized.  It was sudden.  It was unexpected.  It wasn’t for any terrible reason.

Simply put, most of the leadership quit FFXI.  Of those there were a couple unfortunate circumstances (accounts getting hacked, PC’s bursting into flames.), but most left the game to pursue exciting real life things (like school, foreign countries, relationships). And when those members left, many of them took their real life partners with them.

A few, like myself, simply got too busy to play the game regularly.

An even smaller number joined shells that required most of their in-game time.

If your linkshell is going to fail, having it be because most of leaders think “Real Life > FFXI” is EXACTLY what you want.

It’s damn near impossible for a shell to survive without anyone in a leadership position (including the pearl holder), and a significant chunk (lets say 50%) of the population suddenly gone.  So I made the call to end it, and made arrangements with another linkshell leader to adopt the lolCats who wanted a shell to relocate to.

So it’s the end of the lolCats, but I’ve got some fond memories.   In particular the shell pulling together for Rank runs and AF fights.  The Promyvions were the best learning experience I’ve had.

The blog continues, however.