ENG vs SWE; Assault; & Beseiged

Last night was interesting for 3 things.

1) England Vs Sweden

After dominating the first half despite a nasty-looking injury to Michael Owen in the first couple of minutes of the game, England were again in atrocious form in the second half. Our defence was shocking, and it was only thanks to some brilliant plays by Rooney, Jo Cole and Gerrard that we were able to even score. As is typical of England though, as soon as we score, we somehow let the opposition equalise.

Sure, we're still at the top of the group with a 2-2 draw, but it could have been so much better!!

2) Assault

I logged onto FFXI last night after the game, hoping to get a party on BLU. No joy there. So instead I went to join Oddy from Ansible who was soloing stuff in Wajaom Woodlands. We got several hundred xp there, and then the other Ansible members logged in, and we decided that they'd guide me through my first ever Assault mission, which I already had orders for.

So we used the Chamber of Passage to get out to Caedevra Mire and we barrelled into the Worms assault mission.... Leujeum Cleansing. The team was:

Dema: DRK71
Charless: BRD75
Odrade: WAR75(?... seventy something anyways)
Obsidion: RDM75
Tiggeress: SAM75
Paulee: RNG75

Needless to say, we ripped the worms apart. Oddy died once cos he got hit by a nasty Gastric Bomb. I almost died from a rather nasty Stonega III that hit me for close to 700 damage. But at the end of the day, we triumphed and I had fun, which is what matters!

3) Beseiged

Also known as the Al Zahbi Lagfest, the Beseiged event is interesting. Basically, several hundred players collect in Al Zahbi and fight whatever monsters are attacking the city. After a brief cutscene showing which particular group of enemies (Mamool Ja, Trolls or Undead) are attacking, you are back in the city and are faced with many many impossible to gauge mobs charging at you. Fortunately, there are no restraints on who can fight what, so several alliances can quite happily beat on the same mob that some other guy is fighting solo. We did 2 Beseiged events: the first one against the undead swarm which was rock hard. We spend the entire event fighting one Draugar skeleton, who kept Blood Sabering everyone in the vicinity and getting all its HP back. Very unfair, especially since there was so much lag than no one could see what it was using so it could be stunned. After that, we pottered around Wajaom killing random stuff until the Mamool Ja attacked. That was much easier. We took on several Mamool Ja, a cockatrice and a couple of raptors. They died relatively easy with so many people beating on them. Got 700xp from the first event, 500xp from the second. Easy easy XP for very little personal danger. Good stuff.

Pictures coming soon...

~Dema