metakun

So I recently read this article.

Granted my biased stance against copyrights, I feel like every time I read about copyrights, it's always petty issues like this.

Before it was Square-Enix with their cease and desist letter over a fan-made sequel to Chrono Trigger. They just had to wait till the fan made sequel was 2 days from completion and release to send this letter. A dick move from Square-Enix who hasn't produced any game I've been interested in playing since the SNES/PS1 days. And a move that will ultimately shoot down the Chrono Trigger fan base and cause a huge loss of respect for their company.

And now this. This kind of incident is one of the most ridiculous things about the American legal system. I understand why copyrights are important and see how they have their place in our society. However, there is a limit to how far you can take these things. The things people argue are so trivial it's ridiculous. And for what? To make an extra dollar for someone else playing with your toy? Or just to give them a hassle for playing with a toy that's YOURS? Give me a break. I don't want to waste my tax dollars on a legal system that has u-tube suing youtube over losing customers or old ladies that can't hold a cup of McDonald's Coffee. Judges should be able to call out shit as it is and tell the idiots who hold these trivial cases to f-off and stop wasting our time and tax dollars.

So I just recently watched Wall-E. I had put off watching it based off my sister's poor evaluation of the movie. So I got the movie from my brother this past weekend, but didn't really take the time off to watch it until yesterday.

Oh man, I thought Wall-E was an awesome movie! I don't know why, but recently I've been into more post-apocalyptic themes. Of course, meta being meta, I'm also a sucker for romance as well. Wall-E was a packaged bundle with the both of them. :D

I thought how they portrayed the future sends a strong message across; as the captain puts it, "You just needed someone to take care of you, that's all". I really do wonder if the future of the planet will see huge corporations overtly running the show, since they're already running our politicians behind the scenes anyway. Although I don't actively practice it (call me a hypocrite), but I'm really a pro environment kind of guy. I don't like how people are oblivious to the environment. In some ways, I hate how consumer culture has us burning all our resources into frivolous goods we hardly even use, but I digress. Wall-E does us good by delivering at least some awareness to what may be our future if we don't take care of the planet.

I thought their choice in music was amazing. The 50s-60s style tracks that the played touched me. It's not often you get to hear music like this anymore. Classic.

Though having the engineering mind that I have, I have to question what aspects of the movie are realistic (robot sentience aside). Here are a few questions I thought of after watching the movie:

Based on the fact that earth's atmosphere has become uninhabitable, how could it sustain any sort of life after 700 years? What is the atmosphere like with no inhabitants... mainly CO2? mainly O2? Well I guess there has to be some O2, otherwise the rocket's combustion to fly out wouldn't work. And how do the landing humans survive with the remaining air?

How is it that Wall-E survives 700 years? I would imagine once his engine or what not fails after wear and tear, there is no way he can move to fix himself up... a back up engine maybe?

How is the technology between Wall-E and the Axiom/Eve so different? Both Wall-E and the Axiom were created in the same year, but the Axiom is clearly superior in technology, while Wall-E looks like he dates back to the 80s with his cassette player. But if all the people on the ship are lazing around on this cruise vacations, who's advancing the technology? (I suppose, the sentient robots?)

Given the way humans end up, where do babies come from? (Test tube babies?!)

After generations in space, and how the computer shows the new skeletal structure of humans, they would die after landing on earth, if not turn into a pile of goo. In all seriousness, their hearts would not have the strength to pump blood to the brain on earth due to the strength of gravity. Unless of course, they had equivalent gravity on the ship, and the reason they got fat was because of sitting around all day. They had some sort of gravity on the ship, otherwise they wouldn't be sliding on the floor at the end; but is it really enough?

Yea, those are a few of the questions that popped into my mind; other than that, the movie was great!

Current stack of games that I've played relatively recently and would like to pop off the stack:

(Bottom)
Pokemon Leafgreen (Gameboy Advance)
Final Fantasy III (Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo 64)
Starcraft: Brood Wars (Computer)
Dynasty Warriors 3 (Playstation 2)
Samurai Warriors (Playstation 2)
Final Fantasy Tactics (Playstation)
Secret of Mana (Super Nintendo / Wii Virtual Console)
Call of Duty 3 (Playstation 2)
Jak II (Playstation 2)
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (Playstation 2)
Orochi Warriors 2 (Playstation 2)
(Top)

That's too many unfinished games D:

Just a short post, since I haven't posted in a while. Weird dream last night. Dreamed that I was walking with some girl (I no longer remember the appearance or name of her) in some random... museum looking building with white walls, white columns, and white drapes with gold trimmings for the windows. Irrelevant, but outside was a huge lot/garden with green grass and a fountain.

Anyway I hear someone playing Johann Sebastian Bach's French Suite No. 3 in B-Minor (the Tetris C-Type song) on the piano. I turn from the window and walk to the source of the music and find that it's Kat playing it on the piano. She stands up and suggests me to play something. As soon as she's out of my vision, she's also out of my dream as well.

So I'm at the piano... I don't remember if I play anything, but my brother comes out of nowhere and states that I'm drunk with a disappointed look on his face. When he points this out, I suddenly notice that I feel as if I've had more than enough beers. Of course I deny it, and do my best to stand up with out tripping myself up. For some reason though I couldn't get my neck to work right so my head is tilted to the side, somehow proving that my brother's call on inebriation was correct. After some severe words from my brother, I wake to find that I am going to be late for work xD;;

Weird dream huh? Anyway, since it's been a while since I remember a dream, I figured that I'd write it down.

So I spent part of this morning browsing through game lists:

Top 26 RPGs of all time
Top 25 RPGs for the SNES
25 Games for SNES that are NOT RPGs

After reading through the lists, I usually browse through the comments to see if anyone else mentions any praiseworthy titles. Although some comments were indeed thoughts on what other games should have been on the list, there were a few comments of hate for some less popular titles of a popular franchise.

Sometimes I wonder why these black sheep titles get all the hate. Sure, the games generally break free from the formula of success when it comes to the rest of the series, but does being different really make a title all that bad? Don't get me wrong, if they changed it for worse, then it's still a bad game. However, I really wonder if games get a bad rep just for being different; perhaps people just can't handle that kind of change.

In all honesty, I tend to play the more popular games. If I really did like a game though, I have the tendency to want to play all games if not other than to see the history and evolution of the series.

In the case that I read this morning, the target game receiving bad rep was Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. This bothers me as I consider this a really cool game. Sure, it's a bit different from your typical Zelda games, but I found the whole concept rather fascinating. What other Zelda games give you a time limit to save the world in? (Albeit you can restart that time limit as much as needed.)

Anyway, all in all, I think these games should at least be given a shot before thrown in the trash. Best situation, no outside bias on how bad this is supposed to be or no expectations built from the other "better" game in the series. That's asking for too much now, isn't it. :)

That's all for my spiel. As to what I've been up to lately:

- My laptop hard disk seems to have some bad sectors in it, and now my Windows XP or Windows Vista partitions won't boot. So I've been using Ubuntu 9.04 to try to back up my hard drive before running any sort of fix. Still trying to figure out how to extract the raw data from my hard disk using GNU ddrescue.

- Been playing Dragon Quest 8 for around the last 2 weeks. It is a very typical RPG so far; nothing particular that stands out.

Not much other than that. Anyhwo, it's about time I got back to work. Until next time! :)

I've never really stopped to appreciate the integral role the internet plays in out lives these days. I really wonder what I would be doing if there was no internet. Probably be playing console games, but I digress.

For the subject at hand, I happened to using the web to research random topics, as random thoughts constantly pass through my mind. Today I was thinking of how to use / if there was any difference between "moshi yokattara" and "moshi yokereba". Googling, I see a result with "Moshi yokattara dareka setsumei shite kuremasen ka". Thinking I could learn something I click on the site *clicky clicky*

I unfortunately find that the people that used that line were new to Japanese and must have copied it from somewhere. After asking how to say "I love you" in Japanese and getting a response, they were now asking for an explanation for the differences between suki, daisuki, and aishiteru.

And then I come across some internet shorthand that looks like this:

so far i noe.."aishiteru" is quite strong,mnz i luv u
"sukidaiyo" or "daisuki" is like..i lyk u n i reli lyk u

oh yeh, i found anothr way 2 say "i miz u" in slang jpnz book .."aitakatta" oso mnz i miz u..myb :-3

gt diz guy sed, "anata ga natsukashii sabishii desu" oso mnz "i miz u"
i duno if he's ryt.. coz tink literally trnsl8 mnz lyk u mke me lonely dearly,wtever..haha,im stil learning tho
correct me f im wrong,dun b 2 harsh k

Putting aside my scoffing some direct translations of "watashi ai kimi", does anyone feel like some of this internet shorthand is getting quite... out of hand? Seriously, after reading something like that, it makes me feel like the writer is some idiot that doesn't know how to spell. Well, either that, or just a kid that's been playing too many MMOs. How can you be lazy enough even when it comes to typing 'you' and 'are'? I know I used to use shorthand myself, but this is just absolutely ridiculous.

I can understand shorthanding when it comes to more difficult devices, like a cellphone, but typing has become so commonplace it shouldn't be particularly hard to correctly and fully spell out words.

So continuing on fandom, not necessarily blind but sometimes I feel it can get ridiculous when taken to an extreme extent. I read that google's mobile OS, Android, was going to hit laptops. Having never seen it, I checked it out on youtube. Upon finishing the video, I read a comment that goes on about how it looks nowhere as impressive as the iPhone. Needless to say the comment was given a -6 rating. Anyway, after reading this it totally reminded me of Joey, the super Apple fan (though I must say he is not as over-zealous about it these days).

I don't know why being over-zealous about things bothers me so much. I wonder if it's because nothing has caused me to feel that way for a long time and perhaps I am jealous of that. I don't really know, as I don't really even feel the need to be zealous about something. Maybe I'm leaning towards the fact that people are big fans of Apple purely for aesthetic reasons. Yet that's not really the reason that they give when explaining why it's better. They tote on about other feature that perhaps they don't really have the knowledge about. I can't really call them out on this, as I have no real experience with Apple products (aside from my iPod) myself. Like I really wonder, if Mac had all the features it has now except that all the visuals were the ones used in OS9, how it would be like. I have my money on many people dropping from the Apple bandwagon.

I have no real hate towards Apple's products. I like the clean minimalistic, if trendy, design they have. I can't really say I know much about the OS, but I know it does have it's own nifty features. I know that Mac OS and its software was specifically made for use in developing media. I use iTunes myself. (Actually, at first I used Winamp over it as it was memory hog. I do find the listing and sorting features very convenient though. With so much memory these days, memory really isn't an issue anymore.)

Really though, when I was shopping for a laptop, all I ever heard from a number of people was to "go get an iMac". Constant reminders of it too. It was already out of consideration a long time ago. I wanted to get the best bang for my buck, and sorry Apple, you just fall way too short there. Getting an Apple version of a similar PC would end up almost double in the cost. Moreover, Apple didn't really suit my needs, as most of the software I had wanted to run was solely for Windows. Spreading your love for Apple is ok, but please leave the fandom at home. (And for those curious, Joey doesn't own any Apple hardware at all aside from his iPod mini.)

Anyway, enough about that. Not much has been happening lately in Bryan land. Still same old stuff: work, tennis, and games. Like I mentioned before, I've been playing Fallout 3. I just finished the Galaxy News radio signal quest. At level 13 at the moment (the cap is 20 I believe). I've been reading more Skip Beat lately. On volume 11. That may slow down though as I've just passed a climax in there story, and things might start dragging on again.

That's all for now though. Until next time.

I think I remember what I wanted to post about before regarding blind fandom. It was regarding voting Obama as our president. I could be wrong as I could care less for politics, but I somehow got an impression that a number people voted for Obama just for the sake that Obama was black, and therefore we're "making history" by voting in a black president in. Just thinking about that kind of thing really irks me. If you're going to show your support, please don't show it in this meaningless way.

I was reading some article about Obama wanting to encourage these "universal" values of democracy, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech and what not. While I do support these kind of values, I do get the feeling that they won't work everywhere. I wonder if other countries feel like kicking us off our high horses for deeming these American values as being universal. Curious.

So I restored a saved draft on a livejournal post and all I get is this:

"I'm going to sound like a total hypocrite for this, but one thing that really irks me about over hyping things up blind fandom..."

This is a terrible note to leave for myself, as I have no idea what I was referring to when I wrote that sentence. I don't think it's about the NBA playoffs, despite the huge Laker fandom surrounding me. It may have been over-hype about a particular movie. Most likely, I think it probably has to do with something my cousin Joey says; he tends to play strong favorites with things like Apple and "learning to play piano by ear" (i.e. not the classical sheet music method). When those topics come up, I tend to play devil's advocate. I want to say it had to do with this Love Story/Viva la Vida arrangement although it doesn't seem to follow a hyping/blind fandom context well. What had happened is that I misread when he stated that they probably played the songs by ear, thinking he said they learned by ear. I get the impression that he feels learning by ear far superior as he states classical learning turns you into a mechanical player with no feeling put in your music. Being taught classically for a year myself, I feel that this is an insult to the vast majority of us that learn this way.

Anyway, I digress.

I've been playing Fallout 3 recently. So far I think it's a really good game. I would definitely recommend at least trying it out. After I reading IGN's review on the game, the first comment I saw goes something like:

"It gets boring after a while as all you do is walk in Fallout 3. CoD 5 is way better as you get down with the action quickly."

This comment reminds me of the current music industry; hit songs with crappy lyrics. It works similarly in the game industry. People are wanting quick fix only, going straight to the grenades and explosions. They don't take the time to appreciate the quality of the game.

Just wanted to share something that I thought was interesting. It's kind of sad that I would have to agree with this. People are always looking for the fastest route to pleasure, especially those influenced by American culture. I know I'm not exempt from this.

Meh, I had more to say on this but lunch and a meeting broke my train of thought so I'll just leave it at this. Until next time.

So I decided Fiesta got too grind-like and I got bored just as my cleric finally got the level 47 HP/MP buff skill. I tried 2 other MMOs afterwards: Perfect World and Ether Saga, but both of them looked like it was too much work to even figure out how to play the game. So I stopped before even finishing through the beginners area.

Seeing as that I have decided most MMOs to be boring, for the moment I have uninstalled all but 2 MMOs: Pangya (which will be uninstalled if my account is not transferred) and WoW (which I doubt will be reactivated any time soon).

So in the mean time I've taken more to single player computer games and kicking it back old school with console games.

I suppose the most recent games I've played is Orochi Musou 2 (mindless leveling when I need a break) and going on a Megaman run. As of last night I have completed Megamans 1 - 7. I started 8 and 9 within the past year, but I am considering restarting them.

Other than work and games, I can't say much has been happening. Looking forward to memorial day break this coming weekend.

Now I don't really follow fan made modifications for games, but here's something that caught my attention.

When I was checking out fan made game translation news, as I do on occasion, there was an article that a modified, fan made Chrono Trigger game, Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, had received a cease and desist letter. The last 2 lines of the site are as follows:

"We thank those fans who followed the game's development, and also those who poured countless hours into the vision of a fun, new Chrono game, made by fans for fans without copyright claim or intent to make profit.

We understand the frustration. I sincerely hope this action is a sign that Square Enix cares about the franchise and intends to produce future titles, and not merely a shortsighted legal exercise that will further alienate a tired, neglected fan-base."

I can't help but to share the sentiments of the creators of Crimson Echoes. If you were a big fan of the game, and could express your love by creating a fan made follow up, would you not do it? The authors did not intend to make any profit from the game. I don't understand why anyone would order a cease and desist for any other reason than that. What makes this so different from creating fan fiction or fan art? I feel that fan creations like this really inspire the revival of older games, and that sabotaging such projects will just shrink this fan base. In fact, I feel that I just lost a bit of respect for Square Enix because of this.

I do understand such modification of games violates copyright, but I fail to see how this move will benefit Square Enix in any way.

What do you think about this whole situation? Can anyone shed some light into exactly what Square Enix is thinking when doing this?

On a side note, even reading about this post, I want to play Chrono Trigger again.

The most bad ass Mega Man 2 video ever.

On a side note, after watching this, I've replayed and beaten Mega Man 2. Randomly, I've also played and beaten Mega Man 7.

I beat Red Alert 3. Didn't have the chance to feel the full graphics options of the game though as my laptop would run at like 10 fps on max settings.

I've probably mentioned this before in previous posts, but the thought occurred to me again this morning. Just to let you know in case the topic discussed is a re-post. In fact, I'm 99% certain it is a re-post, the 1% of doubt being that I'm too lazy to go over old posts and check. This is probably an expansion to earlier thoughts. Anyway, without further ado...

I believe somewhere in a past post I mentioned not viewing other people as humans. I don't know if it's just me that does it. It came to me, that the more likely victims of this are authoritative figures. If a person is above me and has authority over me (for example, an instructor, a police officer, a manager, etc.), I tend to pigeonhole them into a role. This has the unfortunate effect of dehumanizing them. If something occurs that does not fit the role, it feels strange to me. It would be like your dad trying to be your friend; although he is very close, there's something different about the relationship that would make it weird to share "friends only" things with him. Well, for me anyway.

I think in the post before I mentioned hearing my kung fu instructor talking about going to the gym and seeing some guy that was really buff. For some reason, him talking with students about something that ordinary friends would talk about really threw me off. Of course, I knew he is human just like me, and thinks about those kind of things just like me, but because of my mindset, I shrunk him into the sole role of an instructor and ignored every other aspect. It's weird, but just hearing him talk about normal things made me aware of what I was doing.

It's kind of sad, but I notice I do things with my parents and other elder generation relatives. Sometimes I don't see my mom as a person who does her own things and find her own unique amusements. It's even worse with my dad. He doesn't seem to show as much emotion (my guess is from cultural expectations of being a male) and so the only time I've seen him come close to crying, it really threw me off.

I want to try to break free of this thinking. It really is a shame to limit a person to their expected roles when there are so many more things about them you can learn.

On a side note, I've noticed that work has blocked off my 2 favorite sites that I visit when I need a break from working, fanfiction and onemanga. I'm fairly certain that I am the sole reader of these sites here at work, so maybe they're keeping tabs on me haha. OK, so maybe I abused the sites a bit too much, but some days can run by so slowly if the work coming in is slow. I hope that LJ won't be blocked; this is also one of my once a day sites to visit. Maybe I'll just stick to productive sites for taking a break. Those tend to have fewer hits than fanfiction (hit per chapter) and onemanga (hit per page?!) since the tutorials generally take a while to get through. In any case, I guess I'll try stay low for a bit and be a good boy. I'm thinking way too much about this and feeling somehow down about it. :p Over thinking! Just move on!

That's all for now I guess. Until next time.

For some reason I wanted to compile a list of MMO games I've tried out or played. So yea, here they are as well as random comments on them:

Non-RPG MMOs

Albatross 18 / Pangya - As of March, OGPlanet shut down it's services to the game, but I believe Ntreev is picking it up sometime in the future. I somehow highly doubt characters will be transferred. Anyway, if you know Super Swing Golf for Wii, this golf MMO was the original game. Fun to play if you have friends that play. As with a lot of other golf games, this one is about timing sliding power / spin bars to hit the golf ball. You can buy different characters and outfits for your character in game (you get stat ups for equips). There's no real level, but you do have ranks in the game; ranks affect what things you can buy. It can get repetitive if you're grinding for money in the game. Overall, it's a pretty fun game I think is worth checking out (and playing only sparingly).

Browser Based Games

Dofus - A browser game introduced to my from my friend Alex. This was kind of like... a turn base strategy MMO? I don't remember if you could party with others when you fight monsters. I didn't get very far in the game; I was rather disappointed they limited the game severely if you didn't have a premium account.

Kingdom of Loathing - Text/MSPaint graphics RPG. The graphics might suck, but it had all sorts of amusing references, puns, ridiculous random nonsense, and what not in there. Eventually defeated the Naughty Sorceress with my Disco Bandit. I ascended to a Seal Clubber, but I didn't get very far before I quit. Interesting game, at least worth checking out if you have a bit of free time.

Ikarium - A Civilization like game that I tried out. Building and researching is in real time and can sometimes take days before completion. Expanding got ridiculous for me, so it's around there where I quit.

Not Enough Info

Final Fantasy XI - Actually, I had bought this game to play with Jess, and I got to around level 5 or so. You get slammed pretty hard on exp loss if you die, which was really demotivating. I wanted to give it another shot, but I lost my POL ID and from what I hear, it's ass trying to get it back. So it sits there collecting dust until I can remember to call square >_>.

Gunbound - I actually did get an account and install this game, but for some reason I never played it. Guess it just didn't appeal to me.

First MMOs

These are the MMOs I played during my golden age of patience. It was a new type of game for me, and I could withstand the horrors of grinding in those days.

Ragnarok Online - Most of you already know about this game, so I won't say much about it, other than the fact that there were practically no quests. It was the ultimate grindfest... with cute characters, hats, and emotes of course. This was the 2nd MMO game I've played, brought to me by fellow #anime_daisuki member kagetsu. This was probably the MMO I've spent the most time on, playing it on and off from 2001 until today. (I have played on the free iRO server, Valkyrie, for a few days within the past year, but it gets really old.)

Redmoon - This was the first MMO I've played and I don't remember much about it, other than the fact that I had a level 105 Azlar (Magician like char). I don't remember what the level cap was... maybe 500? This was before I knew anything about MMO ethics and I KSed everything on the map, haha. I think zhen69 from #anime_daisuki got me into this game... my character name was metaknight and he was metagirl hahahahahaha. At a later point, I was interested in the back story behind the game, and actually bought some of the original manhwa. Yea, back in these days, it was all grindfest.

Come to think of it, this is not unlike console RPGs in the earlier days, the first Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy felt like ultimate grind quest to me, slaying monsters to level and get better weapons so you can travel further in the world.

Current MMOs

Fiesta - Well, I mention this enough in the last few posts, so you should know how it is. It was good at the beginning, but even the quests are seeming like grind around 25+ in level. For now though, it seems to progress faster than other games, which combine grind and 1% exp per hour syndrome.

Best MMO

Despite that fact the Ragnarok had taken most of my time when it comes to MMOs and had an awesome community (at the time), World of Warcraft has to take the number 1 spot. This MMO has just the right balance of everything, including the rate people level at. They put in so many features to keep your interest in the game.

Some of the high points I found about the game:

The quests to hide the fact that you're grinding. Since I'm typically interested in the lore of gaming worlds, I feel immersed into the world, as if I were the one actually performing the tasks. I know it sounds cheesy but I make sure to read the story behind every quest I do.

The environment in the game is spectacular. The scenery and the music in the game is nothing short of Blizzard quality. Along with the quests, the music and backdrop bring you into the world in a way no other game I've played has done. Those that know Blizzard from the Diablo 1 / Warcraft 2 days know that Blizzard creates top of the line games. Period.

PVP Events. I'm not a PVP competitive sort of person, but I really like Alterac Valley. AV is actually what attracted me to DotA in the first place. I thought it was like a mini version of AV.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was burned out of MMOs by the time this game was released. I didn't have the patience to solo grind my way through, or the passion to join guilds and "make friends". I WoW for 3 months, as well as the burning crusade for 3 months, both times with Jess during the summer when I was school free. When she left, I really had nothing for me going to play anymore. Thus, I never really understood the whole addication to WoW.

Grindy MMOs

As for the rest, these are all MMORPGs that I've played for a short while, but then found them to be too grindy for my liking.

Flyff
Maple Story
Mu Online
Rappelz
Rose Online
Trickster Online

Thus ends my list of MMOs. If you know of any that I played and forgot to list here, let me know!

Until next time!