Maybe I am being a bit harsh on the Burtgang, I dunno. I perceived it as the type of thing I wanted to hit hard right after I finished Excalibur (shooting for early/mid March), but reading some of the stuff pertaining to it was sort of a turn off. In essense though, I am not going to be looking for a damage-dealing sword since I’ll already have the best one available, but it would have been nice. Perhaps I should pursue it either way. The gil isn’t really an issue for me, and it would keep my Paladin complete and at the level where I’d want it to be in situations where I wouldn’t use the Excalibur, like Dynamis, and Dark Ixion/Sarameya perhaps.

Since Day 1 I told everyone who asked my opinion on it and, on paper, it looks like a glorified Hauteclaire with one unique piece of text on it. Is that one line going to provide a significant bonus though? Probably not. Does it matter? No, not really. So I guess what I am torn between is not just owning two swords that are great in the situations that call for them, but also the pursuit of a great quest to obtain 30k Alexandrites, which I think, and this is probably agreed upon among the vast majority of players, an absolutely absurd requirement when compared to all the others. Square Enix was smoking some serious buddah when they devised 50k and were feeling a bit more agreeable when they reduced it to 30k. Still, it can be accomplished as two others have already shown. That still doesn’t make it seem better to me though… lol

So is it really as big a disappointment as people say it is? Well, I still don’t know the answer for sure. The prestige that comes from owning something unique like that gives anyone that warm and fuzzy feeling. I’d do it for me and me only. It would be really cool to be able to drop all my other weapons and honestly, inventory space is more valuable than anything you can possible buy in this game, especially when you’re trying to play jobs at a high level. I could totally drop Hauteclaire and Macuahuitl+1 if I had a Burtgang… is one inventory space worth it…? So many questions, so few answers. Really, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this as I still have Excalibur waiting in the wings. Perhaps when I finish it I will know that sense of accomplishment I felt when I received my Aegis. That feeling was so great and since that day I have tried so hard to recreate it. The only thing that came close was my Defending Ring. In fact that was probably an even greater feeling, but it came and went.

Will nothing ever satisfy me in this game? I hope so, otherwise I might as well just stop playing. All the pointless arguments I’ve had with people on forums to justify some stance have been stupid. I just wanna have fun in this game to be quite honest. Leadership in my linkshell for three years has killed so much of that fun that every now and then, I need to win an item just to keep myself afloat. But the only things that ever made me happy were Aegis and Defending Ring. And a part of me feels that is sad because they’re just personal things really. I feel like what would make me most happy is helping someone else obtain something they perceive as great, and so I am in the process of deciding that instead of getting that Burtgang, maybe I’ll help someone else fund a Relic or Mythic weapon. Perhaps that will fill the void, or maybe that’s not what I need. I have never been so uncertain about anything like this in my entire life.

In the end it’s just a game, and we’re supposed to have fun with it. When you stop having fun, does that mean we turn to something else to fill the gap or change course within the game itself? I guess I’ll just have to do some soul-searching. Getting gear for myself just doesn’t do it for me anymore.