I’ve been dinged in comments for not having experienced the PvE game after level 30 and misleading everyone about ArcheAge. While the game might be rosey for people under level 30, they say, the “real” game begins at 30, and after that milestone, they say, then the game turns into a PvP gankfest. Well as of this post I’m level 40, and I’ve spent many hours questing in Cinderstone Moor and Halcyona, and sailing around on the ocean. Naturally, I don’t think to take screenshots while I’m in a PvP situation, so I have nothing to illustrate this post. (953 words.)

Previously on Calleil Diary: First Five Days, Next Four Days. Calleil Day 10, Tuesday After I got home from work, I built my Harpoon Clipper ship! It took about 1700 Labor in total, by the way, which was just about everything I had at the time. Oh also I believe it cost 10 gold just to set up the dry dock, which was an unexpected cost. The order of packs you need to use is Lumber, Iron, then Fabric. And then for some reason there are three steps of simply spending 25 Labor Points each. (1677 words.)

Continuing my diary of ArcheAge on Calleil, the newest, emptiest North American server. To make a long story short, it looks like most of the land in safe zones was gone about a week after the new server came up. So if they start a new server and you want some good land, get ready to sprint for it. (The really prime spots.. those cool lone houses up on hills.. are probably gone within 24 hours. A really dedicated player can probably collect the 15 Gilda Stars from the main questline to buy a house design in under 2 hours.) (1862 words.)

(Updated with the rest of the screenshots I meant to include.) If memory serves, Trion brought up the NA Calleil server on Sunday afternoon (Eastern time). Since the queues on Naima were horrible at the time, and there was little or no chance that I would ever find a place for a house or farm there anyway, I decided that I would make a character on Calleil to see how fast property disappeared. (1070 words.)

ArcheAge continues to top the list of most popular posts and search terms on my blog for some reason, so I feel like I should say something about the head start. Suddenly player collision doesn't seem like such a great idea. Make way! Coming through! I played a bit over the weekend, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, I kept getting disconnected due to the persistent server issues, and for another, I didn’t particularly want to spend all of my time staring at a queue screen. (Eventually I figured out I could leave ArcheAge on the queue screen and fire up FFXIV at the same time.) (511 words.)

A while back I decided to cancel my Audible.com subscription, because my income was decreasing. I had somewhere around eight credits saved up that I had to use before I could cancel, so I picked up a bunch of random audiobooks. One of them was Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King. I pretty much like anything that Stephen King writes, so it’s no surprise that I liked it. But it was the first time I had ever listened to Stephen King read as an audiobook. (Actually that’s not true, but it was the first time I’d listened to a full-length King novel as an audiobook.) (236 words.)

I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game. Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do. (By which I mean it would be impossible for me to max them all out without spending the rest of my life in the game.) (706 words.)

I should have known. There were no explanations. No resolutions. No whys or wherefores. No way to tell if my theory was correct or not. The story just reached a convenient stopping place (sort of) and the season ended, all questions left up in the air. The only thing that we found out was what the Guilty Remnant had been up to. It occurred to me that by leaving out an explanation for why the people disappeared, we the audience are left in the same position as the characters in the show. After all, they don’t know why the people disappeared either. Although I would swear that at some point (or points) during the season I was convinced that there was an explanation that someone knew. Maybe not someone in town, but somebody somewhere. (425 words.)

I noticed that I never reported the results of trying to un-learn the use of Invert Mouse. After about two weeks, I was no longer fighting my muscle memory and could play MMOs unhindered. After about a month, I felt like I could aim pretty well again in shooters where precision is important. It’s now been nearly six months, and I feel like I’ve never played any other way. So it is possible to switch, even if you’ve played with Invert Mouse all your life. I have not attempted to play any flight simulators since switching though. I suspect I would crash and die instantly if I did. (108 words.)

Is something I know very little about. I re-downloaded the game and eagerly logged in. Combat was here! Finally something to do besides dig up ore! My claim was long since gone, which was fine because it had nothing on it except some crafting tables. I ran to the crystal hub thingy in the middle of the map-an object that I still don’t know what to call-and found the right table to craft a weapon. I made a sword. I equipped it. (499 words.)