Then that day came. The day I dread fairly often. My boyfriend, my gaming and roleplay partner, the love of my life said words that cut to my heart....
"I'm thinking about going back to WoW."
In a instant panic attack full of visions of duo farming SM for that dagger I never got my 40 rogue and countless hours of mind less gulch farming and a world full of men with shovels for hands and barrens chat my mind raced for a way out. The first thing I thought to say was "I won't love you anymore if you make me go back to WoW!" but I deemed the situation not quite at that level yet. Taking a sharp turn to the right my brain scrambled for something, anything to divert him from that terrible idea. "Sex!" There was a good idea. "I'll do you if you don't go back to WoW." I felt this was probably a short term solution and I was not ready for dedication it would take to make it a long term one.
"We can play Warhammer Online!"
I said these words not a week after stating that Warhammer Online didn't interest me and that it seemed like a PvP centric gankfest. (Can you feel the carebear shining through there?) But faced with the threat of a return to the land of epic farming, faction farming and ... and ... Goldshire (!) I was desperate. Blessedly, he said that would work.
I bought a copy of WAR the next day while my boyfriend was at work. Just one single copy. You see, I still wasn't sold. I'd read a review that stated very clearly "If you are not a fan of PvP this game is not for you." I am in fact, not a fan of PvP, so I was pretty sure the game was in fact not for me.
By the time he got home a few hours later he had to nearly pry the mouse from my clutches and peel me away from the desk to get a chance to play. Even then I hovered over his shoulder, pointing out the Tome of Knowledge and how it was "a deed log on steroids" and shoving at him like an excited kid telling him to join a scenerio que and yammering about class combinations that would work well for us. Needless to say, a second copy was in my hands the next day.
- Mood:
cold
Though Warhammer has some slight bugs, mostly of the graphical and animation sort, as any new MMO will have I really apprieciate the rate at which Mythic is releasing bug fix patches. Nearly every game I've played previously has seemed to follow the pattern of 'Only fix things that are major instantly. Everything else can wait to be applied in a giant bug fix patch a week or so from now" Even when whole quests lines were broken and unfinishable they'd remain so until the devs got around to their next weekly or bi-weekly patch.... if then (Hello, Vangaurd.)
Neary every day I check the patch notes and find a small patch fixing a handful of bugs. And I wonder why more developers don't do that. It seems a vastly superior way of doing things. Heck, last Thursday there was a scheduled maintence that applied a rather large patch including some crafting reworks. Shortly after the patch there were issues with the login servers and realms came down again for a few hours. When the servers came back up they'd taken the downtime as a chance to apply EVEN MORE bugs that they'd apparently finished off between 10am and 3pm that work day. I love that.
(By the way, I can now read what my Kirochan avatar says. I love that.)
(By the way, I can now read what my Kirochan avatar says. I love that.)
- Mood:
devious
*sigh*
That's about all I really need to say. I never thought I'd be playing Warhammer Online, much less loving the hell out of it. I've never liked PvP ... but I'm having a ball with RvR. Not only that... I'm playing destruction! I'm beating up high elves and laughing maniacly. It's all the Dark Elf women's fault. Give me fantasy girls in skimpy clothing and I'm all over it. I was the same way with Dark Elves in Lineage 2. I'm a straight girl, I don't know what it is. But once I compaired Dark Elf outfits to High Elf outfits my side was chosen.
The roleplay is a bit lacking, though I largely blame Mythic for that. How the hell do you release a modern MMO without basics like /sit, /walk and social gathering spots? Even more mind boggling given that they have flagged RP servers with a pop up explaining the rule set and letting you know it will be enforced. I joined an RP guild, and Brit and I are of course roleplaying with each other constantly as usual.
I'm also suprised by how well I do in PvP. I sucked so hard at it in WoW and avoided it like the plague in EVE and Lineage 2. I'm usually top ranked in scenarios I do, second only to Brit who's also a Sorcerer and of course better than me at it.
Yeah. WAR. Rawr.
Sorry LoTRO.
- Mood:
grumpy
I think it's just a question of learning style. I expected Japanese class to go like my Spanish classes did. Give me run downs of sentence structure, teach me a handful of verbs, nouns, pronouns etc, teach me conjugation and allow me to ... you know, learn to form sentences. Instead I feel a bit like a parrot, spotting off lines who's use I know but who's meaning I do not. I know how to chat idly about the weather with someone but I have no idea what the individual words in the sentence mean. And without that knowledge, I'm not really learning Japanese am I? I think I was looking for something a bit more achedemic and a bit less hands on. Frankly, I feel I'm wasting my time and that since most of what I'm learning I learn by teaching myself I'm also wasting my money.
I'd say that it's worth it to have a native speaker to teach you pronounciation and such but I have two advantages on that. 1) Brit has taken years of Japanese classes and is quite good at it so I have an in home tutor. 2) I watch a CRAP LOAD of sub titled anime and don't have any problem understanding how sylabyls are pronounced.
I think I've learned more Japanese memorizing the lists of useful phrases most players in Final Fantasy XI learned. Knowing how to chat about the weather is going to be as useful to my goals of understanding Japanese media as knowing how to say "You can pull another. I have enough MP" would be.
I feel lost in the class very often. But it's an odd sort of lost, I'm a good student and a natural achedemic. I'm not use to not knowing what's going on. But apparently giving me a stream of sentences who's meaning isn't solid in my mind other than "This is how you say "Thank you for last week. Here is the book you loaned me. Thank you." and then asking me to interact with a random stranger as if it were they who loaned me a book is a recipe for me feeling like I haven't learned a damned thing. Also, my level of learning seems directionally proportional to my interest in the subject matter. I am very interested in learning to understand Japanese. But with the teaching style and the direction of the class I end up throwing my hands in the air and feeling like "Who cares?". Which isn't condusive to learning. I'm going to come out of this only knowing hiragana, which I will have mostly taught myself because as said any time spent on them in class is rapid introduction and review of what you were apparently suppose to have taught yourself over the weekend.
Maybe I'd feel a bit less bitter if going to a 4pm -6:30pm class didn't involve leaving home at 1:45 and getting home at 8:30 ; ;
- Mood:
aggravated
$450 for books for ONE class. That's in addition to the tuition cost and an extra $50 in unexplained "fees" for said class. What kind of crack is this industry on?
Nearly $600 for books for three classes this quarter. And that's just for one of us, Brit and I are going to be forced to share whatever materials we can because FA isn't going to be in until long after classes start and that has to somehow come out of our pocket.
Is there a tree shortage somewhere? Do the teachers get some kind of commisions for forcing $170 a piece books at you? Would it really be concidered wrong if beat the snot out of the teacher who requires us to buy three $100+ books for one online class? Who would blame me.
- Mood: aggravated
Ugh! It took me so long to get my hands on this volume of Kitchen Princess. I read most my manga from the library. Seattle's public library actually has a really vast amount of manga so it feeds my habbit much farther than my wallet would take it. And I avoid the crazy weeaboos who live in the manga isle at Border's so bonus! The downside is how long I have to wait sometimes for books, especially if it's a popular series. For example, I'm number 27 or 34 people waiting for the 18 copies of Kitchen Princess Vol. 7 in the city. That'll be a while.
Anyway! After the cliff hanger at the end of volume 5 I was a little disappointed with how this one went. The whole series can be a bit vapid but dealing with the death of a major character in such a breezy way didn't sit right with me. And the reaction of the other students didn't wring true either. Daisuke's sudden change of priorities and immediate loss of distain for whatever it was he hated his parents for was also less than stellar. Throwing in yet another plot twist and cliff hanger at the end made me toss the book into the air with a "Feh!" and curse my interest in soap opera shoujo like this. But I'm still going to read the next volume ... for the some reason that I've watched Clueless dozens of times. I have a weird attraction to mindless candy. I'd probably enjoy Kitchen Princess more if I weren't reading Fruits Basket at the same time. Reading a stellar shoujo while reading an average one makes the latter feel worse than it really is.
It's been a crazy busy few days with little time for gaming or anime. I'm finally, after SEVEN years of being out of high school, getting back into school seriously. The problem is I only decided this about two weeks ago and classes start next week so I've been going a bit nuts flying around getting financial aid in order and leaping through all the loops that colleges like to throw at you before they let you attend. However, as of today I am done with everything and free to start classes next Thursday with my first Japanese class. I couldn't be more excited.
Anyway! After the cliff hanger at the end of volume 5 I was a little disappointed with how this one went. The whole series can be a bit vapid but dealing with the death of a major character in such a breezy way didn't sit right with me. And the reaction of the other students didn't wring true either. Daisuke's sudden change of priorities and immediate loss of distain for whatever it was he hated his parents for was also less than stellar. Throwing in yet another plot twist and cliff hanger at the end made me toss the book into the air with a "Feh!" and curse my interest in soap opera shoujo like this. But I'm still going to read the next volume ... for the some reason that I've watched Clueless dozens of times. I have a weird attraction to mindless candy. I'd probably enjoy Kitchen Princess more if I weren't reading Fruits Basket at the same time. Reading a stellar shoujo while reading an average one makes the latter feel worse than it really is.
It's been a crazy busy few days with little time for gaming or anime. I'm finally, after SEVEN years of being out of high school, getting back into school seriously. The problem is I only decided this about two weeks ago and classes start next week so I've been going a bit nuts flying around getting financial aid in order and leaping through all the loops that colleges like to throw at you before they let you attend. However, as of today I am done with everything and free to start classes next Thursday with my first Japanese class. I couldn't be more excited.
- Mood:
anxious
If my list of must play games gets any longer I'm going to have to live on ramen for a month to afford them all. Fall is such a wonderful and terrible time to a be a gamer, wonderful in that "Holy crap look at all the awesome" way and terrible in that there is only one of me and my wallet is only so big.
I've got games currently owned to play: Lost Odyssey, Atelier Iris 2, La Pucelle Tactics, Puzzle Quest not to mention LoTRO and Alba18. Games just released to buy: Spore, Tales of Vesperia, Star Wars: Force Unleashed, Too Human, Infinate Undiscovery.Games coming out soon: Fallout 3, Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria and I'm sure all those lists have things I'm forgetting.
My question for the gaming industry is, why do they do this every single fall? My sanity and my budget beg you all to spread things out! Ten months of nothing new and two months of feeling like I'm drowning in games is just too much roller coaster.
On a blog note, I removed the "bento" from my tag line until I can afford to cook good food again. Felt a bit like false advertising.
I've been on a slice-of-life kick lately, it's like I'm allergic to plot all of a sudden. The newest I've added to my long currently watching list is Aria the Animation. The first thing that caught me was the color pallete. I know, odd right? As an ex-fine art major I'm very into color theory and I know which shades appeal to me personally. Lucky Star does, Sketchbook ~fullcolor'S~ does, and so does Aria. It's also a bit of fun color theory that all three of those series share an easy going slice of life theme as well.
The setting is certainly unique. Hundreds of year in the future a girl chases her dream of being a gondolier ... on Mars. It took me two episiodes to get that Aqua = Mars, which I think is delightful. Any sort of typical sci-fi esque voice over explaining where mankind currently stands wouldn't fit with the mood. And mood is one thing Aria has. It starts with the color pallete of soft almost sun faded colors throught out and extends to many wide panning shots of water and city scape of the sort that you'd expect in a French indy film rather than an anime. The animation is top notch. The show is just down right -pretty-. There's an almost fantasy like theme throughout, the combination of sci-fi and fantasy that the Japanese excel at and which sadly there is not nearly enough of, with different professions in Aqua taking on mythological names. The gondoliers go by the term Undine with the three best being known as the Water Faeries to the Sylph who deliver mail via airbike.
It's much less character driven than other slice of lifes like Lucky Star or Azumanga, unless you count the abundance of adorable scenes centered around the cat President Aria. The characters are much more low key than most anime and very believable. Humor is present, I've gotten plenty of giggles thus far, but it's less slap stick and usually contained in odd facial expressions or the adventures of Aria-sato.
If you don't like the slice of life genre chances are pretty good that you won't like Aria the Animation. If you do, or if you've previously enjoyed artsy foreign films, you'll probably like it. I'm very quickly becoming a fan.
(Originally posted September 7th 2008 on soramimikeki.blogspot.com)
I admit it... I have a problem.
I admit it... I have a problem.
Name a free to play Asian MMO, especially a cute anime based one, and chances are I've played it. I can't stop downloading the darn things! Most can't hold my attention for more than a few days but it's like an addiction, downloading and trying them. I don't know if I just like seeing new games or if I'm actually hoping to find one that I can play for longer than a week or two.
Current obsesesion, Albatross18 (Pangya everywhere else, and a much better name in my opinion)
I first came upon the game when I was playing Trickster Online, an addictive little game that I played for a few months made by the same company. In Trickster two of the characters of Pangya, Arin and Kooh, are little pets that follow you around. I though Kooh was adorably hot ... then I found out that she's eleven. This doesn't stop people from lusting after her and clothing her in skimpy outfits and that disturbs me. What disturbs me more is that... she's still hot! Gah!
Anyway, I tried it probably a year ago but didn't play much because frankly I suck at sports games. Giving it a try again and I'm sucking a bit less and having more fun. It's pure eyecandy, and without the graphics and characters I doubt I'd play. There is something really satisfying about hearing that "Paang-YA!" though. The game is plagued by the same idiots as any other free game but it's a great distraction. I'm trying to save up to buy Arin but at the rate that I seem to be making pang it'll take a month to earn that much. ; ;
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