Dynamis Lounge
by Vlacatocc of Garuda
About Me
Vlacatocc of Garuda
Vlacatocc is a large black-haired balding Galka who decided to become an adventurer back in the cold December days of 2003. He has never been shy of any challenge; he even decided to take the Black Mage career route. A lot of people used to made fun of the poor Galka but slowly but surely, he started to earn the respect he deserved. As a resident of mighty and peaceful Windurst, Vlacatocc chose to try out one of the native crafts... Bonecrafting! And he saw that it was good!
So began Vlacatocc's journey in Vana'Diel. Everyday was a new experience and each day, he came closer to become the Galka he is today. On a day in Uleguerand Range, in the summer of 2005, Vlac's BLM reached level 75. About a year later, MNK was his second job up to the end-game levels. The next goal, to get Bonecrafting up to 100, was achieved during the Autumn of 2006. A few weeks later, Vlacatocc had been able to finish the CoP storyline, which had been one of the hardest projects to deal with (this was the only time Vlacatocc had ever been in a static).
In 2007, Vlacatocc's focus changed to end-game stuff... Sky, Sea, HNMs, etc. There have been unregrettable moments, there have been very sad moments and I'm glad I was able to share this with some people that I consider my friends. But lately, Vlacatocc has had quite enough of all the commitments that take the man away from real life stuff. Since the end of 2007, Vlacatocc has become a very relaxed player who plays when he wants, with a very fun linkshell with good old friends whom he can have lots of fun with. Vlacatocc made himself some new goals, which he can achieve without any commitments and that's exactly the way he enjoys the game: PUP is nearly 75, SMN and WHM will be next, he's getting all subcrafts to 60, ... but there's no rush.
There's only one aspect of the end-game stuff that Vlacatocc still participates in on a bi-weekly basis: Dynamis. I wouldn't have made this site if I didn't like Dynamis. It's the one aspect of end-game that I still enjoy like it was my first time. I'm trying to get better every time I do it, I'm trying to find new stuff to make my linkshell perform better as a group... Well, it's just awesomely fun!
Linkshell history
Back when Vlacatocc started out as an adventurer, he noticed all those nice and shiny pearls next to player's names and he had no clue what it was. But soon he understood and one day, after a party for Windurst mission -1, he was invited into a linkshell of players who were all relatively new to the game (this was shortly after the US release of the game). The linkshell had a white-greyish color and was called Mako; leader of Mako was Minako, who later became the first level 75 in the LS with her WHM. Mako reformed a few times and even the color of the linkshell was changed to green. Unfortunately, the LS didn't survive the time but I will always remember the good times I had with Mako. Some of the people I remember from the days: Rhealana, Kupotaru, Craven, Perrin, Kera, and many others.
When Mako broke down, Kera tried to get the old people together in a new LS called CookieEaters. This was basically the continuation of Mako, but I had very little playtime during those months so I didn't get to enjoy it the way I should have. My next big linkshell was FamilyAndFriends, lead by the Castmstr family. We had players of all levels, one of the most notorious ones being JimmyOakes. We did some fun events and I was eventually promoted to one of the leaders but when the Castmstrs left the game, the LS crippled down But all in all, I still had good times cause it was during that time that my younger brother took up the game and we had a lot of fun playing FFXI together.
I was left without a major LS until the game was launched on the XBOX. A group of European players who started out on the Hydra beta server had formed up and decided to move to the Garuda server. It was my brother Enedin who found out about the new LS, LordsOfHydra, when he did his RDM AF Hat quest with a nice guy named Lorddocster, who happened to be the leader of LordsOfHydra. We both promptly joined the new LS and that would turn out to be the start of my biggest adventure on the game.
Originally, we only had a bunch of level 75 players in the LS, myself, Lorddocster (who levels extremely fast) and Verrick (a Hawaiian Tarutaru WHM). Slowly but surely, more members got their levels up and we got more and more members joining us everyday. In the summer of 2006, me and Lorddocster decided to start our own Dynamis LS (LordsOfHydraDynamis). We had to start from scratch as I was the only one who had an idea what Dynamis was like, but with a lot of trial and error and with the influx of more experienced people, we managed to do a damn good job. It was during that time that we took our CoP static through the missions (Enedin, Lorddocster, Fullen, Verrick, Dukenukem, Blueeyedbeauty, Kniko, Vallis, Torrin, myself and a few others who joined on the way).
Once we finished up CoP, it was time for a new challenge. We decided to expand the LordsOfHydra brand to Sky. Lorddocster made a new LS named LordsOfHydraHNM, whis has been very succesfull. Along the way, we started up LordsOfHydraLimbus, which fared well too. There have been other less succesfull experiments, like LordsOfHydraGarrison, due to lack of interest. But most of the time things went well.
One day, I think we became too greedy and we wanted to merge all LordsOfHydra end-game LSs into a single LS named Valour. I was behind the idea but the consequences were disastrous. It meant the end of LordsOfHydra and some of the leaders actually decided to move to another server, including Lorddocster.
Left without the LS leader, we decided to keep the social shell alive, but we had to reform it. We voted Boktai as our new leader of the AlwaysFune LS (fune was originally a typo made by Verrick (he meant to say fun), it's kind of an inside joke for old LordsOfHydra members). This LS is purely social, but sometimes we try to organize fune events... and I must say, it's always been great fune! Our memberbase is very active and there are people online everytime of day. Meanwhile, Lorddocster has had enough of all the end-game drama and decided to come back to his old love. He should be joining us back sometime this month (April 2008) and I'm sure everyone will welcome him with open arms.
Since Valour broke up I've been accepted into Oceanids, some kind of an all-round end-game LS lead by Aesica (who used to be a member of LordsOfHydraDynamis). Oceanids was originally a CoP linkshell but it expanded into other activities. Today Oceanids covers nearly every end-game aspect of FFXI. I am not personally involved in any end-game activities anymore, except Dynamis, but I do like to help out now and then. Today, I can play when I want, without any type of pressure, and that's the way it's supposed to be.
Dynamis history
My first Dynamis experience was with a LS which I can't remember the name off. I was a level 68 BLM at the time and my main job was to sleep incoming mobs. I must admit it wasn't love at first sight and after a few runs, I decided I would try to get my BLM up to 75 first before attempting another Dynamis. My second Dynamis LS was called Partisan and that's where I really fell in love with Dynamis. I wouldn't say we were very succesful, but it was back then that I started looking up all the information I wanted to know and that I really began to understand the dynamics of Dynamis. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last because the LS was US based and their runs started at 1 AM my time. I decided to give up on Dynamis until I could find a European LS doing it.
That European LS turned out to be LordsOfHydraDynamis, which was in fact my personal baby, although Lorddocster was the owner of the linkshell. I started out by shouting for members in Whitegate and Jeuno and it seemed that there was a high potential for a EU based Dynamis linkshell as many people showed interest. We really had to start everything from scratch as none of us really had any experience in leading such a big event, let alone manage a point and drop system. So I began doing some research to find good ways to deal with everything, but eventually, it all comes down to your own experience. If I look back now, I can see how many mistakes and how many wrong decisions I've made. It would be much easier to start out today with the experience I have now. Anyway, we had a difficult start, but slowly, we began to get the wins we needed, more members joined... at some time, we had 280+ active members. I made it a case of honour that attendance would not be mandatory, as I absolutely hate any mandatory events in a game that should be played for fun. This required us to have a lot of members, but we managed to pull through. During our top period, we had 62 players on a Dynamis - San d'Oria run.
But as I've mentioned before, it wasn't meant to last. The merging of all LordsOfHydra LSs into Valour was the beginning of the end. Eventually, I made the difficult decision to leave Valour because it was going the wrong way. That was the day I joined Oceanids. They had recently started up their own Dynamis section under the name Olympids and as far as I know, they were very happy with me joining them cause I was able to bring in the experience I had built up during the previous year. Over the following weeks, a lot of old LordsOfHydraDynamis members joined up with Olympids (later renamed to OceanidsDyna). To name a few: Zetsuei (our resident caller), Acreana (our all-round multiple job mithra), Bardon (the reference in keeping tanks alive), Tsybil (the cutest Mithrrra) and many many others. Recently, we've become much more efficient at most Dynamis runs and we're learning new things every time. With our current leader quartet: Wooooodum, Pastor, Zetsuei and myself, we are literally owning most Dynamis zones. We're not up to the levels of some of the best Dynamis LSs in the game yet, but I'm confident we'll get there one day or the other.
The real life Vlacatocc
What can I say... My real name is Tom De Bruyn. I'm a nice guy who lives in Belgium. I was born in 1981 and I'm the oldest of 3 brothers. I have a Master's degree in Geography and a Graduate Degree in Information Technology. I have quite a lot of hobbies, ranging from playing the piano to watching formula 1, I like to go out for dinner, to go on vacation... and of course, I like to play games. Have any more questions about me? Just ask my brother Enedin ;).
Quick links to Dynamis Zones
Hover the cursor over the different regions in the circle above; click in a region to jump to that Dynamis zone.