SeraphPDH: Paladin Man!: "...But I don't WANT to be a pirate!"

Sunday, April 23, 2006

"...But I don't WANT to be a pirate!"

...and so, the day of deliverence is upon us:



Treasures of Aht Urhgan is officially online, and yes, that is my own personal copy.

Details of the expansion update (there are a lot of them...) can be found here:

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/update/ff11us/2006041883vPh1/detail.html



I picked up my copy the day after is "officially" hit the store shelves. Took about forty-five minutes to install and update. After that, I got to fire it up and start the initial quest to get to the new expansion "near east" areas.

The initial ToAU quest if fairly straight forward, you need to bring a Tenshido NPC either a specific coffer key, a testimony (a la Maat fight), or a set of subjob quest items. I went with the route of the Quicksands Coffer Key, since it's a common drop, and I can solo the Ants as a PLD72. This amazingly is also the first time I had played since they "fixed" the Paladin job. Paladins now recieve Auto-Refresh at level 35, and the "Shield Mastery" Trait at level 25. Essentially, this causes shield blocks to give the PLD around 4-5 TP instead of the usual 2 TP. Not a huge boost, but nice anyway. Auto-Refresh has proven to be awesome, and now I know why Summoners love it. In addition to the PLD changes, there were some shield changes in general. Shields now block more often, and block more damage per block. Paladins, Red Mages, Blue Mages, and Beastmasters of the world rejoice! Needless to say, I was pleased with this expansion before I even set foot in the new areas.

One coffer key later, and a 15 minute boat ride later from Mhura, I was in the Aht Urhgan Whitegate zone, essentially half of the new city. To be honest, this city finally presents a real rival to Jeuno. The Tavnazian Safehold was cute, but is put to shame by Al Zahbi (the official capital of the new empire). The entire area has a arabic feel to it, instead of the overused asian theme all too common to FFXI recently. Once inside the city, I spent about two hours looking around. My first thought after this was to explore outside, and I quickly discovered that even the easiest monsters were a challenge to defeat even as a PLD72. Clearly, endgame players just got some hot new zones. They look beautiful and are filled with cool (and dangerous) mobs.

After seeing the sights, I decided to try to unlock the new jobs. It took me a little exploring, and a quick quest to grab a map, but after two evenings of running around I unlocked Blue Mage, Corsair, and Puppetmaster. To put it simply, Blue Mages learn enemy skills, Puppetmasters are like Beastmasters but with a new modifiable pet, and Corsairs are a combination of Rangers and Bards with a huge luck factor involved. Honestly, Blue Mage is the only one that really spikes my interest. People seem to be complaining that learning enemy skills (blue magic) is too hard and time consuming, but I think the process would be fun and involved. It seems like a serious possibility for a second job to 75 for me (after Paladin of course).

The Missions and quests so far in the expansion are quite good. I am currently done with all of the current missions (there are eight so far) and I am really looking forward to doing more. A friendly face also makes himself known in the new plotline:

I won't spoil everything, but let's just say you have probably seen him before...

The new quests are also fun. I have probably spent a good 250K in sneak oils and prism powders, but I think it's worth it for the new items and adventure. I currently have some eastern currency, a teleport ring to transport me to the woods outside the new city (similiar to the Tavnazian Ring: one teleport each twenty hours), and a:

Quite a nice Paladin item from levels 60-70, and it is just one of many new awesome items waiting to be had...

However, all this questing using oils and powders just makes it all the more urgent for me to get RDM to 37 so I can go out adventuring as a PLD/RDM and have Inviz. and Sneak spells at my disposal, instead of having to pop items when I want to go anywhere new. Realistically, my new prioroties are PLD73, BLM10, WHM20, RDM37, and even BLU75?. We shall see how long my resolve to follow the path of the mage lasts though, since I generally don't like being a mage, I am more of a melee/knight kinda guy.

To sum it all up quickly, Treasures of Aht Urhgan is definately worth the $32.09 I spent on it. This is just the first of three huge content updates, and I feel as if I am already getting my money's worth. Three new jobs, eight new missions, Assult, new zones, new monsters, new city, and the list goes on and on.

It seems as if there is a very good blend of new (red) and old (blue) in this update, missions and all. (If you don't get the item references, pick up the expansion and complete the San d'Oria line of missions...) I just hope that even after the "new toy" factor wears off of the expansion for most people, the content still stays enjoyable to everyone...

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