Enedin on AlwaysFune boards wrote:Sup noobs and shemales! It's summer!
And a phenomenon is hitting all servers... People quitting. Satisfied people, mostly. Like my brother Vlacatocc. He started playing in 2004 and kept nagging so that I too, would play this game. In May 2005 I started playing, and although we both got carried away (as most of us did, sup LordsofHydra, LoHDynamis, LoHSky, LoHLimbus that all ended up as Valour?) neither of us regret ever starting this game. It's a game full of emotions, full of anger, satisfaction, 'drop rate depression', competition, joy and excitement.
Have you seen Vlac's MNK, BLM and PUP? There's nothing more the AH has to offer him. Aside from a few Ra/Ex items, Vlac's jobs are all perfect. And he's mastered all crafts (bone 100, all else 60), and even got fishing to 100 as well. He levelled a mule to 51, did countless gardening and in general, was pretty obsessed with the game, as I was for a year or two as well. People who have seen Vlac's MNK/drk on Dynamis Lord? With Haste, Soul Voice double march, minuet and madrigal, 3300 HP, Souleater and Hundred Fists? All he needed was a Chainspell Cure IV bot. The chatlog said that Bardon just cured Vlac for over 1000 HP, and he was in yellow again (which is like, 1700 HP down).
He's zerged, he's crafted, he's camped (1/47 moldy, OUCH!!), he's had FUNE (sup Adamantoise and Jailer of Faith ^^), he's helped a ton of people and left me a shitload of cash. The only things left for him to maybe accomplish were all either very time-consuming (sup HNMLS) or gil-consuming (sup KClub/relic). Vlac's quit for a reason, but he'll never forget the good days of Winter 2006: CoP. It took us 6 months with very good players (Lorddocster, Vlacatocc, Verrick, Enedin, Fullen, Dukenukem and some more jokers such as Cutedeafie, Darkchasm and Darkstoy, who were quickly replaced with Allysse) and countless runs to get it, but we made it. Almost immediately after, I got Sky access, and our first ever LoH drop went to me: Genbu's Shield. It was the first in a long line of Team Taliban madness, Haidates, Mitts, Crowns, Osodes and some Wlegs :p
After that, we took on one of the coolest operations in this game: get 15 people (of which 6 whms) to Sea. Man... I still see the screenshots (I'd post em if I was at home lol) - The Shrouded Maw with 15 people, all in level-capped gear (oh yeah, no level sync, exp LOSS and HARDER COP!!). We won all runs that day, one run with 2 WHMS, one spamming Banish on Diabolos. It worked nicely
During that time, we got better and better at Dynamis. Vlac was as crazy as he is now, but it started working. No more wipes in Windurst (our first win, on to NORTHLANDS!!) and a great mood in the LS. Everyone got items, sea access or other nice things: it was a great time for everyone. That summer, Vlac, me, Dragonheart and Fullen spent the week at Doc's place. What an experience! Pizza, beer, Singstar and wodka. Anyway...
Then came Valour. While a nice idea to pour all our endgame activities into one, it was too much for us. Deep inside of us, we were all still casual players, but the excitement and enthousiasm doc had, radiated onto us, and before we knew it, people like Boktai were camping Fafnir. It was a very, very cool fight (I remember it well, an army of BLAMs, and Lefneer PLD/NIN, me RDM, Blueeyedbeauty WHM, Fade BRD, Zerato PLD/NIN and Fey BRD). I remember our final activity: 2 omegas, where I got Homam Legs, and the 2nd dropped 2x lolhead.
After that, Doc vanished. Nobody knew what to do. We were afraid that the shell would fall apart (no new sacks available due to shellholder gone), so we contemplated the making of a new LS, and we got it. (screenshots, again, I'm not at home). In Ru'Lude gardens, together with lolfey, lolfade, Charlemagne (we love you!!), Ashke (team banishburn member!), Boktai (priestboy ftw), me and Vlac... AlwaysFune was born.
Our goal? To offer continuance to the members of the social LS LordsofHydra, but to increase the stupidness and idiocy, while still doing events to get people items. Because we had (and still have) a large amount of endgame experience in our LS. Not that we often use it, but it comes in handy (sup Jailer of Faith). Countless Sacrarium runs, a superb Shen evening, DM runs, Adamantoise (lol), Jailer of Faith, the raid of Cauldron and our BQ runs, and much more events later... This is AlwaysFune.
For 2 months though, we were Secretomana. For which I am very grateful still, to Bardon. We may not have had the most appropriate behaviour for his LS, he still let us in and never complained. The split was a good thing, mainly because both LSes took members of the other LS, meaning plenty of people found a new, better (for their values) home. I'm glad we did it, but integration takes time. Thanks again, Bardon
Oh and yeah... That episode where Doc returned, before running off with Fullen's KClub. Plenty has been said about that, no need to open that up again.
Personally, AlwaysFune has given me a LOT. Friendship with our beloved shell leader, and the best CoP experience ever. Croco's group was amazing (before level sync, after cop easierness). 1/1 on EVERYTHING, cept Ouryu (1/3). Those guys... Were amazing. The emotions I felt there reminded me of my own CoP experience. It was amazing... CoP owns, shemales. Prishe or gtfo!
Where are we now? FFXI has had its time. There's updates coming, but once FFXIV hits us, most of FFXI will be gone. As will I. I'm still playing, but very casually. Just the way we (rme and Vlac) want to play FF14. We'll be starting a casual group called AlwaysFune on FF14 again, and we hope many will join. We won't play as much as we played FF11, we won't be as pimp, but we'll have the same amoung of FUNE!
Vlac's quit. I'll quit when FF14 comes out. People are quitting... The game will die, the LS will die. But we've accomplished our goal with AlwaysFune: to create a FUNE environment in which everyone can enjoy the game at their pace, style and in their mood with other FUNE people, while doing casual events to help make our players better-geared.
It's been a great ride. FFXI will forever mark my life, mainly because of the great people in our LS. Now that Vlac's quit, my mentor has quit. I'm a big boy now though!! I like shemales!! I've got Vlac-a-bank (worth around 40M in total I'd say, but I'm keeping a lot of his expensive gear), with which I plan to buy some pop items for the LS to enjoy (starting with Sky madness), whenever we have time. I also want to MANABURN DIVINE MIGHT before I leave this game... We have the BLMs for it.
Thank you, AlwaysFune.
Enedin~
So yeah, Vlac quit officially now.
