First of all, I've still not gotten a job yet, and am actively still seeking. I applied online to a place called "the Internet Company" ... it seemed promising at first, as it was a simple little job of inputting data that people were calling in about. Unfortunately it was a work-from-home thing ... well, only unfortunate as I don't have a quiet area to take the calls without interruption. Granted on Monday the two eldest children go to school again, I'd still have the littlest one to keep watch over and everything. Not to mention the two puppies that tend to stay inside, and like to wrestle and make lots of noise.
So, I've also been back in contact with an old high-school buddy (who was also my best man in my wedding). Apparently he's getting ready to be on a civilian contract to assist the army to change their financial systems ... over in Afganistan. He used to be in the Army himself, so he already knows what they're working with. They were looking for, not only the financial experts, but also IT people ... like myself. Seeing as I worked on the DOD networks already while I was in the Marines, I figured I might as well try my hand at possibly getting a job and getting on the same team as he was going to be. I called the girl that was the secretary for the recruiter that he got hired from, and she send me an e-mail with the info of what they were doing and looking for...and requested for me to send my resume along with. She had told me that the recruiter would get back with me that day, but it didn't happen ... I figured maybe the recruiter was busy or had a lot of applications to go through. I sent that in on Tuesday ... so, I'll probably e-mail her back today to find out what the deal is, perhaps the recruiter is looking for someone that really is interested in doing the job.
This same friend of mine also wanted to stay in contact just in case I didn't get the job. He figured the best way would be to get me into the same games that he's got... Of which, he plays World of Warcraft, and Starcraft 2. Seeing as I don't have the money to afford to get either one, and especially don't have the money to pay for the monthlies on WoW, he thought he'd be generous and get me Starcraft 2, on the stipulation that I re-activate my battle.net account that has my US WoW applied to it already. He said that if the job pays him well and everything goes great, he may pay for the addons for my WoW account and pay for the monthlies so that I could play on the same server as him.
This takes me to Starcraft 2. I played the original SC and had fun at it, but my main problem is that I'm not much of an RTS fanatic, especially online combat vs other players. I'm more of a scenario / use-map-settings type of player. Mainly because triggers are much easier to play against compared to a living being that knows how to micro-manage their troops to the best of their abilities. I mean, what I've seen some people able to do with 5 troops, takes me 15+ troops to do the same damage with the same loss percentage. As such, I usually play just the single player version and break the scenarios by overpowering completely. There were a few maps that had some time-constraint where I had to survive to the end, that I just went crazy on and annihilated the enemies on the map and their bases, the game would then tell me "the (race) are no match for us and have retreated", and then end the map in victory. Of course, some were funny that would end this way, and the ending scene was of the enemies still assaulting. The ending left me a little confused in that I didn't know how they'd be able to do one of the other race's storyline whenever they released it (not going to say which, just in case you're like me in the fact that you haven't gotten the game yet due to whatever reason).
Final Fantay XIV's NDA (non-disclosure agreement) has been lifted. So technically I'm allowed to talk about what's in game and release information ... Granted I've already done some of that LOL. As it stands, right now, even if I had the money to get the game, and money to pay to play it ... the only reason I'd have to get it would be the nice crew of people that I've met during beta. The constant crashes that have yet to be fixed, and the new crashes that have been popping up lately have made this beta version impossible to do much of anything. A patch went out just the other day that fixed the major exp gain that was caused by the opening of beta-3 phase. The exp gain in guildleves (the quest system in XIV) used to be major, but now it's back to normal. The system is till broken and highly favours the melee classes for exp/rank gain in a fight. Casters still get the shaft on multiple fronts. All classes don't get rank exp on every move, but with melee sitting there constantly attacking, they get more chances to get rank exp. All classes also only get exp while there is a fight going on. This means that casters, with their casting times, and the borked agro right now directed towards casters, don't get much chance for exp in a fight. Healing the melee after a fight before the next one also doesn't grant exp seeing as there's no fight going on. As casters also don't have passive-mode regeneration of MP, pretty much all casters are forced to take up the thaumaturge line at the very least to 16 for stigean spikes, which give MP to the caster for damage they take from melee strikes from mobs. Granted, with the current agro crap that's going on, casters definately will get hit in a fight if they decide to cast anything. Right now, the agro / threat system is messed up to the point of, when a caster STARTS casting a spell, not when they finish whatever spell, they get massive agro.
The party system is counter-intuitive to a point... you don't want a party more than 2 or 3 people, as fights will finish too fast for anyone to get good experience. Partying is only productive for doing guildleves. Partying for regular grinding? Not so much ... it's much better to just grind on your own. The surplus system that's in place is also completely stupid. If I want to grind my thaumaturge up to cap first, without touching any other classes, I should be allowed to. I shouldn't be forced to take up another class once I get my first class to 13.25 ... I mean, if the max level is going to be 90, I should be able to maybe grind to 50 before the need to switch classes comes up. Granted, there is the ability to mix class abilities, so it is good to level multiple classes, but I shouldn't be forced to, especially before 20. With only 2 caster classes, the current system basically forces casters to take up both caster classes, and with how fast it is to get any class to 13, the first class would still be in surplus...so the casters then have to take up craft skills and/or gathering skills. I myself was in surplus by a long shot, I took two days off and finally got out of surplus on my thaumaturge. This means that while it only took me two days to hit 19, and have a tonnage of surplus, it took two more days of not playing to get rid of the surplus. With the latest patch, the guildleve system is fucked up as well now, in the fact that now while going out there, you'll crash, and with the fact that if you crash / log out / whatever to loose connection, that guildleve will fail and you can't do anything about it for 2 days server side.
That's the other major problem with guildleves ... from the time that the server pops up, the guildleve system will start... the timer that is. You have 48 hours to complete the (up to) 8 guildleves before you can turn in what you've completed/failed and get more. This isn't 48 hours from the time you pick it up, or finish the quests, but on the server when you're able to turn them in. So, those two days I took off, I had some quests already checked out. I tried to get them done but with the new crash system that came up I wasn't able to test to see if I could have completed those quests and turned them in as I had gotten them before the turnover time. So yea, beta is now completely unplayable by many, and the server population has completely died down compared to what it was before this latest patch.
As for my relationship frontage, yea, still looking for someone. Perhaps if I get the job in Afganistan I'll meet someone while I'm there :).
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