Monday, June 4, 2007

Rant about a FFXI player

His name is Phillipio aka Phi. He plays a Tarutaru and his highest level jobs are Ninja and Black Mage. Just recently he asked the LS to help him out with getting a drop off Byakko, an HNM in Al'tieu aka Sky.

For you WoW players, there are some basic things you need to know: First off, HNMs are "Highly/Hard Notorious Monsters". Basically they are named mobs that drop very good loot, much akin to Doom Lord Kazzak or Doomwalker, they are outdoor bosses that can be fought by anyone. Next bit of info is that LSs are changeable on the fly. They can be equipped just normal gear, so you can be in multiple LSs on a single character, just change them out as needed. This leads to some LSs made to be social LSs, some made to take on HNMs, some to take on specific events like Dynamis (akin to an instance).

So he asked for help fighting Byakko to get a specific drop off it. Problem with this is it would get my LS, which is definitely a social LS, mixed in with all the HNMLS drama, along with many other things.

Some people are using justifications for not helping Phi, my reasons are a bit more longstanding. While I'm all for helping people, I remember about a year back there was some big drama concerning Phi and another group of players inside the LS who were doing Tenemos, a facet of FFXI's endgame. Phi wanted to do one specific portion of Tenemos while everyone else wanted to do something else. He gave his reasons and others countered it. The problem isn't what he said, but the terms he used.

Phi considers himself to be the hero of his game. This is not particularly noteworthy, especially since FFXI's cutscenes (CSs) only show your character even if it's a group endeavor. But the terms he used in his LiveJournal was "our hero, Phi" and described those who didn't agree with him as enemies, as if he's the only one that matters. Now, if Phi was someone who mostly stuck to solo or single party content this mentality would be fine, but he's not. No, he's not. I know he takes part of at least 2 (of 5) aspects of endgame content possibly more, and those events take a minimum of 12 people, and in some cases upwards of 60-75 people. In situations like that you just can't think like that.

So every time I see him suggesting something, even if he says stuff like "I just want X, and anyone else who wants something other than X can have it." my mind again runs back to the phase "our here, Phi" and I just can't stand it. Now, I'm not claiming I'm a saint and always helping out folks who need it, but in the end I consider myself part of a team, even if I'm leading it. It's not "Me and them" but "Us". With Phi I can't help but think he views it as "Me and them" when he's hosting an event with the intent of getting something out of it.

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