Vana'diel Bestiary: Spook  

This post is intended for everyone in this thread who has seen fit to complain about people "stealing" their mobs.

All the nonsense anti/pro JP aside, I'd like to submit some of my own experience to this conversation. (JP=Japanese Player, the prefered term for our overseas counterparts...if you don't believe me, let a JP hear you complaining about "****" and see how long your Playonline account remains active).

I was in King Ranperre's Tomb today doing the tomb water exchange quest, and after exchanging the water at the tomb, the lvl 11 WAR that came with me told me that the Spook spawned in that same area and asked me to stay and help him kill it.

I'm a lvl 30 RNG, and it was literally in the area of 19:40 at the time. I had no idea exactly when the spook would spawn, only that it would spawn at night. There was a lvl 23 MNK in the same area waiting for the spawn as well.

Here's the part where those of you who are concerned about higher lvl chars "stealing" your NM spawns should pay close attention.

The Spook spawned at almost exactly 20:00 hours, almost right on top of the tombstone (slightly to the right, as I recall). I HAD MY BACK TURNED AT THE TIME (and no, I wasn't using widescan). I turned around and saw the spook, along with a few skeleton warriors standing VERY close to my lvl 11 companion. I started pressing tab to target the spook (I use keyboard exclusively)...I tabbed through the MNK, the WAR, and 3 skeletons TWICE because I pressed tab once too many times and went right past the spook. Finally targeted the spook, took a couple of steps, PAUSED to ensure lag wouldn't cause an interuption to aiming of bow, and drew my bow. I use a Great Bow +1. It has a 3-4 second delay from the time you draw it until the time it fires. About halfway through that process, the MNK FINALLY moves towards the spook...he was literally a few steps away...my arrow hit the spook just as the MNK was drawing his weapons.

2 arrows...spook falls down...no drop.

Are ya with me so far?

The MNK was the one there who was supposedly "camping" the spook. I came by a few minutes before it spawned, attended to my business, and decided to wait just a few minutes and see what happened.

The MNK was supposed to be paying attention. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A SMALL AREA IN WHICH YOU CAN FIND A MOB ON SUCH A REGULAR BASIS THAT DROPS AN ITEM WORTH SO MUCH. It's not like he had to run a long ways to get to it, as is often the case with Leaping Lizzy. It's not like he had to repeatedly and painstakingly clear the area of a particular kind of monster to cause the spook to spawn. All he had to do was be there at a certain time and pay attention. He didn't, and despite taking me at least 6-8 seconds from the time I saw the spook to the time I landed my first arrow, I STILL GOT IT.

Does that make me an evil person? How could I be criticized when this individual had AMPLE opportunity to get first aggro on the spook?

How do I know this fellow isn't complaining to all his friends/ls members (maybe even posting in this forum as I type this) about the jerk of a "high lvl" who walked in and a few minutes later "stole" the mob he was "camping"?

It's not stealing. It's not survival of the fitest. It's not even a matter of courtesy. First hit, first claim. The developers of FFXI took a long, hard look at what worked and what didn't in all the other MMORPGs that came before and made sure the "kill stealing" simply wasn't possible.

There's no such thing as a "newb" NM. There are NMs that you can successfully fight and win against, and there are NMs that will slaughter you. Just because the NM doesn't pose a challenge to someone doesn't mean it's off limits to them. In fact, most characters under lvl 20 have far less need of an item drop worth 20k than those above (I went through over 3.5k worth of arrows in the 90 minutes I was in Ranperre's Tomb). All told, when I head out to lvl/quest with my Ranger, I have over 80-100k gil worth of equipment, 20-40k worth of arrows, and 12-24k worth of food and Shihei (I sub Ninja for blink, and I pride myself on having the best equipment and using the best arrows and food available to me). Add it all up, and that's 32-64k gil worth of items that will be used up in fairly short order, and will have to be replaced.

Would you, now having an understanding of the costs involved, even consider for a second passing up an opportunity to take a big chunk out of your upcoming expenses, just because there happened to be someone else in the same area as you waiting for the same chance?

You're entitled to your opinion on the subject, but one thing holds true: While you're sitting there typing your post to this forum blaming everyone else for why you didn't get what you wanted, others were busy figuring out how to improve their job/playing skills to have a better chance next time. It could be something as simple as paying closer attention.

I got the Mantle on my first try today, and have to say I'm quite pleased. The mantle seems to be a more common drop than Leaping Boots for instance. Bearing in mind the Spook spawns twice, you could get two mantles within 20 minutes of each other. Mine sold at the jueno ah for 18k within 30 minutes of me putting up for sale. Not bad at all; a potential 36k profit for something that requires minimal time and effort.

I've camped Lizzy for the past two days, killed it 5 times in total and received no boots. I'll definitely be coming back to the Tomb.

Edited, Tue Mar 2 18:14:34 2004

All that talk on Spook being stolen because **** get the info faster and are able to see it sooner is not true at all... I camped Spook for a long time and I can beat nearly everyone who tries to take it from me dosen't matter who; JP or ENG it just takes practice & patience.

i agree with the previous poster. its nm hunting its survival of the fittest. sure it does suck when it gets stolen but thats what you have to expect when hunting them. just practice your provokes and then it doesnt matter whether your goin up against a high lv. but yall better get used to it being stolen.

I agree that with some huge level discrepancy high level players shouldnt be able to get nm drops... Its BS and it makes me angry to the point of making the game not fun. I camped a certain nm for 5 hours for an item i really wanted and got beat to it by some high level mf who just wanted it to make a buck.
Like, I'm sure the creators of the game never intended for leaping boots to be some high-prestige 200k item to be passed between the elite...

I heard that things will appear in the game faster for a person playing in Japan than for a person playing in America because the information doesn't have to travel as far. That would explain why Japanese players always seem to get the NMs.

at the auction house in sandy on lakshmi this goes for 3k-4k. doesnt seem high gil to me.