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Updates stopped for this blog. Last post 20 August 2013.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Its been pretty long since I updated. Been rather busy with now being the preliminary examinations period. Anyway, I update my Twitter page almost everyday, even if its almost uninformative.
So far, the exams have been rather manageable, but it definitely didn't go as well as I hoped it would. I didn't manage to write a proper AQ for my GP comprehension, since I only had twenty minutes. Still, I managed to write two pages and a quarter of the third page. Chemistry paper 3 was horrible, and I realised I missed out a lot of things that I ought to know. Geography went a lot better than I expected, although the essay for Human Geography didn't go well at all. For some reason, I didn't have much to write about. It was very sketchy, a touch-and-go kind of answer. Math paper 2 today was horrible. Disastrous. Totally ruined my chance to get an A for math. I don't even know if a B is possible. High chance that I'll fail paper 2.
Anyway, enough of that crap. Lets go on to happier stuff, as well as more rants (I always rant. Its good). The Guild Wars 2 trailer got released yesterday, and its pretty cool. It put a lot of things into perspective, and it showed a lot of things that will be happening and featured in Guild Wars 2. I've had a lot of fun with Guild Wars 1, so I'll most likely be getting Guild Wars 2. The in-game footage in the trailer looks a lot like Guild Wars 1 graphics on maximum settings, and since my laptop can handle maximum graphics no problem, I should be fine. Still, I want to get a new computer next year or so.
There have also been a lot of rumours going around about World of Warcraft. Of course, these rumours are about the next possible expansion, Cataclysm. A lot of possible leaked information has been going around the web, and I'm not sure if its entirely true or not. Still, there are going to be a lot of changes happening in the Warcraft storyline. I wonder what's going to be the next big thing after Arthas. I have a feeling its got to do with the Emerald Dream. the Maelstrom, the Dragons, as well as Deathwing, back to wreck havoc on Azeroth after at least 10000 years of inactivity.
I've also been pretty annoyed by the Internet lately. I suspect its Singtel. There was one day that I loaded Facebook with the javascript stuff totally disabled, and there was no proper layout at all. It was like looking at a website purely using HTML. The bugged edit box that I'm typing in has been like this for a month already. Still not fixed huh?
I've also made the switch to a different private server. Scapegaming has been giving too much problems ever since it made the switch to Wrath of The Lich King, and my patience is wearing thin. I've had enough, and they took long enough. It isn't getting any better, so I've made the move to another server, which is actually owned and developed by an ex-developer for Scapegaming. They're the only server that I've actually seen above 1000 players after Scape, and to me, a high population is vital for having fun in WoW. The server is also optimised very well, with fast loading speed and no lag at all. Updates are frequent as well. It’s perfect, really.
Sigh, I'm really sick of studying. Haven't had a long and proper break for months already. Holidays are always spent doing work. Work, work, work.
Oh, I've also gone back to playing Voyage Century Online (VCO). Well, technically, I haven't really done much in there. I've sailed around, looked at the new features, did the new tutorial which really wasted my time because it wasn't fun at all, and its really basic. The rewards from the quests are good though. It brought my HP from 500 to 2000. I also went to try to look for materials to upgrade my ship, but for some reason, there didn't seem to be any players selling low-level materials. I remember the last time I played, such sellers were aplenty. There were so many, I can compare prices among shops and buy from the cheapest. Somehow, I have this feeling that VCO is dying. The population is dwindling, most likely because VCO really lacks the polish of a typical MMO you'd find today. I think the only thing that keeps people in VCO is the unique setting of the game, and the way you can have your own ship.
Did I ever mention that I'm watching Family Guy? Well, so far, I've watched finished season 6 and 7, and I'm halfway through season 5. Interestingly, it has the same pattern as South Park; it gets better when its older.
Sigh, I want to level up in WoW, but I don't feel like it. The lack of money is an additional turn-off. I have -100 gold now. Ah well.
posted @ 9:30 pm
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Saturday, August 08, 2009
I'm kind of feeling like crap now. I have prelims in about 9 days, and I'm seriously not prepared. I have no idea if I can finish what I need to finish in a week. It might be possible though. I finished the whole Physics syllabus in 2 days, so I guess Chemistry equations, reagents and conditions, Geography case studies and Mathematical formulas can be memorised in a week. Anyway, I'm currently on a full study mode now. I don't think I'll be launching a game at all for the next 2 or 3 weeks. After the prelims, I might give myself a one week break. Its not going to be one whole week of non-stop playing though, but it'll definitely be much more relaxed than what I'm going through now.
On Wednesday I got a letter from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF). I have no idea if they choose particular people to send it to, send it to random people, or send it to everyone. Anyway, they were inviting me to do the COMPASS test. Its some five hour test. After that there's an interview and then a medical examination. I don't think I'll going to do anything about it. I'll just ignore everything and hope I become a clerk. Lol. No but really, I don't want to do anything backbreaking, though being in the air force should be relatively easier than being in other vocations.
Anyway, after the National Day celebrations on Friday, a small group of the class (including me) went to Swensens in Holland Village. Since we reached there at about 10:30am, only the breakfast menu was available. Kind of crappy though. First, my order was missed, then it took a long time to arrive after we ordered again. Then, ice cream took a long time to arrive. Then, I put the teabag in my mouth and got seen doing it. Then I saw two teachers at the hawker centre drinking beer.
By the way, I put a Twitter widget on the left sidebar now. I'm starting to feel that my blog is becoming very cluttered and rather heavy to load. But it isn't much really, if you compare it to other websites. Anyway, I'm thinking of splitting my sidebar into two, so that there'll be two columns of it on the side instead of just one. However, I need to find a way to do this such that I don't increase the size of the layout. I think most of my visitors are still using 1024x768, and my blog is already not very friendly to that resolution, since they'll have to scroll right to view the body in its entirety. But then again, most of my visitors visit my blog because if you Google "VCO map", "voyage century map", or "voyage century online map", I'm the first result for image search. These people make up about 30 daily visitors.
I'm rambling, I'm sleepy. Happy National Day. Yeah right.
posted @ 11:48 pm
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Sunday, August 02, 2009
Prinny - Can I Really Be The Hero? Yeah, you definitely can.
Its been a long time since I felt such a great sense of satisfaction and and achievement from a game. If my memory serves me correctly, the last time I ever felt so good from completing a game was in November 2006; that was the time I completed Company of Heroes.
Prinny has 10 stages. Lets see what it took.
Number of lives used: 493
Time Taken: 8 hours 23 minutes 9 seconds
If you've been following me on Twitter, you would have known that I used 126 lives for the last stage alone, and it took 93 minutes to complete. What made me decide to get Prinny is the fact that everyone seems to say its a very hard game. The fact that you're given 1000 lives seems to back it up. I've been bobbing about in the video games world with no real sense of mission for the past few years, completing game after game. The 2300+ gameplay hours I've clocked on Xfire can attest to this. But each time I played a game, or each time I completed a game, it just gave me a "meh" kind of feeling. Yeah, it was good, it was interesting, but it didn't really have that "damn that was great" kind of feeling. I completed Guild Wars a year ago, and that was the best after Company of Heroes. But that best didn't feel good. Maybe because it was an MMORPG game completed with only 10% of the time interacting with players. That might have killed the overall experience for me.
Anyway, you get the point. Basically I'm just saying that satisfying (not just good) games come like once every 5 years, as if its some sort of magnitude 9 earthquake. So... enough with this melodramatic post.
Ever get that situation when the enemy boss's health bar is almost to the end, and the countdown timer is on its last five seconds? Yeah, that happened to me. I had never in my life pressed a button to quickly. My heart was beating like hell, and the adrenaline was pumping like hell. Like damn dude. Adrenaline never ever flows when I take my tests during PE, but it pumps now. Anyway, I didn't make it to complete that stage that time. I had to stare at the screen for like, 30 seconds. Wait for my hands to stop trembling, just needed to calm down.
I tried a few more times. When I was going to kill the boss, in this case, Sir Sweet's second form, that ping sound, that flash of white, that slow-mo, it all played in my mind. And then it happened. If I could, I would have screamed "wooooooooooooo", but I didn't because I was at a birthday party (yeah, its anti-social behaviour playing a PSP at a party). Damn dude. If you want to see what the game is like, search for Prinny on Youtube. However, the people that make is a lot easier than it really is. Too much easier.
I need more of such games. To me, games nowadays are just played for the story. I don't even give a damn about playing it properly anymore. If its an RTS, there's no point building up my base then attacking the enemy, after all,
1. There's no real challenge doing it
2. Its just a matter of time before I do it
3. So why not speed it up? I cheat.
If its an MMO, more specifically, WoW,
1. There's not much point playing level 1-79, unless you're a twink
2. There's very few people to play with at those levels
3. I just get ganked all day long at these levels
4. So why bother, hop on a private server and speed things up.
I want games that require effort to complete. I know developers have to cater to the casual market, but there should always be varying difficulties in a game. From what I've seen, the different difficulties aren't very different at all. Sigh. _l_ you EA. _l_ you Nintendo. _l_ you Wii.
posted @ 7:37 pm
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