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I maintain that even though I wear earphones, I am not ruining my hearing any more than not wearing them, considering that I cannot hear any part of the music when walking past a large vehicle or some such.
I never realized how stupendously noisy my area is until I got this mp3 player.
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Games I'm considering:
DS:
Rhythm Heaven - Friend of mine let me play a bit of it. Seems fun, with moderate replay value, but not exactly pick-up-anytime. Suffers the Elite Beat Agents problem of not really playable on the bus or something, and having to stop in the middle of a session due to reaching the stop or something.
Devil Survivor - I loved Persona 3 and Persona 4. However, I'm not sure if Devil Survivor will have the parts I liked (comedy interludes), as opposed to the parts I hated (really really hard bosses).
PC:
Overlord II - Never managed to finish the original Overlord, due to being really bad at micromanaging. Nevertheless, I really like the style and narrative tone, even though I honestly could not bring myself to be a really evil Overlord. "More of the same" is probably good enough for me.
Evil Genius - Looks interesting, but only for a few minutes. Not sure how well it'll hold up.
One of the LucasArts offerings on Steam - They're fairly cheap now, and I don't dislike the genres.
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Thanks to a bizarre dream, I spent most of today with "hey hi ho diddle diddle-o lalilay" in my head.
I don't know, it's just some random tune.
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Occasionally something odd happens and I get this fully-formed plotbunny in my mind, along with complete representations of the characters involved. Well, some of the characters involved. The others just kind of show up as vague blurs, devoid of anything other than presence. They're more or less interactive props. Since it's a waste to ignore the plotbunny for this, though, I take substantial time and effort trying to polish up the characters and the setting. This happened a few weeks ago, which is why I have the faint beginnings of a story. However, I need to start learning how to think in prose again, rather than manga panels, which probably means that I need to start reading more books or some such. (Like I'm not already out of shelf space.) Since I am incapable of writing anything other than comedy, this is especially important: good humour needs good timing. So far I have one character more or less done (as in I don't need to worry about her character type or personality or backstory anymore), two more main-ish characters who need their details ironed out a little more, and a host of other archetypes I need to assign names and personalities to. The story itself is clearly wish-fulfilment. No doubt there's a whole treasure-trove of psychiatric problems evident in the premise, much less the details, but like all other plotbunnies, It Must Be Written. Still, my brain scares me with how fully-formed the one "complete" character turned up; insert the usual Athena-from-Zeus's-head analogy here if you wish. Trying to talk about the process of writing without sounding utterly weird to non-writers is pretty difficult. It always alternates between sounding pretentious and sounding really, really creepy. Tags: ramblings, writing
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I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to Firefox 3.5, entirely because apparently two of my current addons won't work with it: namely DragDropUpload and Deepest Sender. (Too lazy to link, sorry. DragDropUpload lets me drag-and-drop files from Windows Explorer to the "browse for file here" field in forms, while Deepest Sender posts to Livejournal.) Of all my addons, I think those two are among the top five I use, after FireGestures and Twitterfox. I've been feeling a little like Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh lately. Specifically, the bit about not wanting to be so Big and Intimidating. I'm pretty tall and relatively broad of shoulder (especially for an Asian), although I try not to take up too much space. I've been told that I don't smile enough, except sarcastically or sardonically. Which is a little depressing, because I've been trying not to be like that. And I'd like to be able to be all Happy Happy WaiWai FunFun in terms of enthusiasm, since that's usually what I feel like inside when I see something I like. Except that I don't really know how to express that correctly, with my build and height. Which is like Sakaki's lament: I like cute things, but I'd also like to be... well, maybe not "cuter" literally, but certainly less LOOM-worthy. Being intimidating is not any sort of asset when I can't keep it up for more than a couple of seconds before looking merely stupid and wimpy. Broad of shoulder, but not particularly strong of arm. Occasionally, especially when I'm not thinking too clearly, I also wish I were female. It'll solve a lot of problems, but then when my brain starts working again, I can recognize that it'll introduce a whole host of problems of its own. It has very little to do with sexual preference or orientation, but mostly gender roles and stereotypes in modern society. Maybe this is why I prefer writing female protagonists. All the New and Different gender viewpoints, with none of the actual drawbacks, like the monthly physiological one. Tags: ramblings, sad excuse for a life
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I've forgotten the rest of the Prisoner quote. Will not be filed, stamped, briefed, debriefed... whatever. I've been neglecting most of my responsibilities in favour of wasting my time and feeling sorry for myself as my temperature fluctuates between Danger Zone 38.5 degrees Celsius and Hypochondria 37.7 degrees. I'm not sure if I want to visit a doctor right now. After the weekend probably, but not now, because I have something that absolutely needs to be done by Sunday night, and I don't want to spend that time with swab tests or whatnot. My fear is that it'll turn out to be H1N1 or something, and then I'll appear in the newspaper as the first locally-transmitted case in Singapore, and the forum pages will fill with vitriol about how irresponsible I am for not seeing a doctor immediately. If this were any other time, I'd go see the doctor anyway. In fact, I'm planning to see a doctor on Monday, after I've finished with that looming obligation. I really, really don't want to be home-quarantined. I don't have many strong feelings about the way Singapore is handling H1N1, but if pressed, I'd say that some of the measures are a little... bureaucratic, I suppose. The thought of having to handle all that administrivia feels unfair to someone who is, by definition, ill. Tags: sad excuse for a life
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I think I've made some small progress in learning the guitar. And by "small" I do mean small, tiny, miniscule, so on and so forth. The obvious impression of a Level 0 guitar player, a complete newbie, is someone who has to learn the fingerings. In which case, I am currently at Level Negative Two, since I haven't even gotten that far yet. After several weeks of half-hour practice every day, I can now play the G and C chords without my fingers cramping up. That's... kind of about it. Still, progress is progress. It's not like I have to be pro by Budoukan or something. On the Latin-learning front, I think I'd work better by revising stuff I've already gone through. I was at the B section of the dictionary (specifically "bisulcus" or bisulca/bisulcum/whatever, ie "forked, cloven-footed"), but I realized that I don't remember much of the A section. Vocabulary and grammar both elude me, although hopefully not forever. Tags: wannabe
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- As you gain more levels, your Persona options start getting more impressive wings. - Do not fuse Mara if anyone else is in the room, or you will be explaining why there is a flexing phallus portrayed large on your screen. - Armageddon (9999 unresistable damage ie instant-kill every enemy on the screen at the cost of all your SP) plus Victory Cry (full refill of all your HP and SP after each battle) equals game breaker. - Don't feel bad about using game-breakers. Consider, in the hands of the enemy, Hama and Mudo. Freaking Hama and Mudo. - P3F is possibly one of the very few games where "I need to reroll Satan, I don't like his skills" is a valid phrase. (If you'd like, replace "Satan" with "Metatron", "Lucifer", or "Messiah". All of whom, incidentally, were in my final lineup.) - Messiah is apparently so awesome that the game lagged considerably during the fusion process. I almost thought my PS2 died to bring us ye saviour. (Who, it should be noted, looks nothing like the popular depictions.) - Emo ending is emo. - Death comes in many guises. Some of them you use. Some of them you have to defeat. Some of them you stab in the face for 5 million yen. - That's no moon. Tags: persona 3
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- If you're facing eldritch abominations made of inky shadows, shoot yourself in the head. It actually helps. - Staying awake through the disjointed ramblings of eccentric teachers will inexplicably make you smarter, regardless of whether the ramblings have anything to do with the syllabus or sanity. - Despite her awesome physical attack and offensive magical power, Mitsuru will spam the stupidly-low-chance-to-succeed Marin Karin (ie Charm Monster) every opportunity she gets. Don't rely on her for anything else. - Going to the arcade every day, all day, from after school to midnight, is the best way to be smart, handsome, and brave. EDIT: Further things learned: - Remember to hang out with friends, until they call you their Best Friend Forever. (Or, in the case of the girls, you become their boyfriend.) At that point, you can ignore them completely. - Being a Genius-rank means never having to do any homework ever again. - A guide is required for this game, entirely because the spell names are completely unfamiliar. (There's an underlying system and logic; it's just nothing I've ever seen before.) - If an enemy has the skill "Hama" or "Mudo" or any word which contains those letter sequences, KILL IT NOW. - You will be upstaged by a dog. This is entirely normal. - Don't piss off the healer. For one thing, the majority of your own healing abilities are based on her Social Link. - Remember that there's always New Game Plus. - He's probably not actually gay. Tags: persona 3
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Mugi-chan in a maid- wait, I think I've used this joke before.
The focus of this episode is the introduction (but not yet the personality) of Azusa Nakano, the new first-year member of the light music club. This means that the band has been together for about a year after eight episodes, which is a fairly brisk episode-to-time ratio. In all this time, it appears that the band's talents appear only during live performances, since their demonstrations sound rather sloppy (like an actual high school light music club, I'd think). I believe Azusa even remarks as much later in the story, if I remember the manga correctly.
This time, we remain in the auditorium while the band plays. I half expect complaints to arise that watching a band play on stage is boring and they should have segued into a music video or something, thus proving once again that it is impossible to please everyone.
What intrigues me most about this episode is that we hear two songs (well, one song and the tail end of another just before that) which are, thus far, not yet released. It is safe to assume that another single will be forthcoming. If you're wondering, the songs listed on the piece of paper Mio gave Ritsu are, roughly translated and in order: "Fuwa Fuwa Time" (which we've heard back at the school festival episode and which we've gotten a single of), "The Rice Under the Curry" (I think), "My Love is Hotchkiss" ("HOCCHIKISU", whatever that means apparently it means "stapler"; it's the song we hear the majority of in this episode), and 'Calligraphy Pen Ball(point) Pen". Of these, only "Fuwa Fuwa Time" has gotten a single; admittedly, we also have "Please Give Me Wings" ("Tsubasa wo Kudasai", if you want the Japanese) as the B-side for that, as well as "Happy! Sorry!!" and "Sweet Bitter Beauty Song" as the B-sides for the opening and ending themes respectively.
I did expect an anime about a musical club to have lots of soundtrack albums and singles released. I am impressed at the band's expanding repertoire, although I'd like to see something written by someone other than Mio. Not that I dislike Mio's lyrical sense, but I do think it would be fascinating to see what Yui or Tsumugi would come up with.
Another thing which struck me as a little (not a lot, just a little) odd was Ui's clapping during the concert. Apart from being slightly off-time, I didn't expect that sort of song to be a clapping sort, like "Fuwa Fuwa Time" was. Admittedly, I'm not sure what sort of appreciative action the audience could have done to that song; probably clapping to the beat anyway, but only on the second and fourth beats rather than 4/4 time. Singing along, maybe? It's also not really the sort of song one would wave lighters (or cellphones or whatever point source of light one might have handy) to.
I wonder which rock concert movement number that would be.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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Yes, I know. Trust me, with Card Captor Sakura, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Discworld, just assume that the news turns up quite punctually in my brain on the dot by some form of MAGIC.
MoHS is an odd fandom to talk about. For one thing, it’s quite difficult to spoil the show, or rather discuss the show without spoiling it. Quite apart from the now-famous revelation about Haruhi’s powers, the way both anime and light novels skip around in the timeline (in the latter case, bringing a sense of reminiscence on Kyon’s part) means that anyone seeking an explanation of some confusing minutiae would likely end up knowing the events of episodes yet to be aired or even created. It has all gone a bit quantum, really.
Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody was everything I expected, which made me happy. I am still basking in what a less prudish (and probably much more experienced) blogger would label the afterglow, but which I have no real term for. Everything is as it should be: god’s in her heaven, all’s right with the world.
It is probably a lost cause for me to glean any sort of coherent reaction from this, so I’m not going to try.
The reaction on the fandom has been intriguing to watch. I would even say that it was fun to watch the outpourings of positive emotions on various forums and channels in realtime, as the episode aired. I’ve always been happier being around other happy people, rather than the usual Internet pastime of complaining about more or less everything.
I’ve kind of fallen out of the whole TVTropes thing, mainly because while reading the articles on that wiki has not exactly lost its charm, I really don’t want to deal with the whole rename wars anymore, and I’m reminded of it every time I see a trope page which is obviously named for humour value rather than clarity. Nevertheless, I have read complaints that KyoAni/Kadokawa/whoever is actually responsible is airing the episodes in chronological order without regard to which season they belong in, and this is very confusing or some such. Being that at least some of these people complained back in 2006 that the non-chronological order sucked for being confusing, I think I am justified in linking to this page, just this once.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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Perhaps late to the much-vaunted party, but I have been very slowly working my way through Persona 3 FES. I didn’t exactly plan on it (I still have Freespace 2 to work on, courtesy of Good Old Games), but after spending a fruitless span of time attempting to articulate my thoughts on Spice and Wolf, I popped the disc into my PS2 for a break.
As the story usually goes, it became rather more than a break.
It’s certainly one of the more anime-related games I’ve seen; now I understand the excitement among other, more timely anime bloggers, when the sequel anime was announced. (I don’t remember what their reactions were after it aired; I need to start keeping track of that sort of thing, I think.) Even apart from the art style, there’s plenty of anime-familiar dialogue choices, which would probably not make much sense to anyone who has never heard the “-tan” suffix before.
All the names are also in Japanese, and when faced with the Enter Name Here screen, I felt compelled to follow suit. So far, “Akira Hirazawa” (I wanted “Hiiragizawa” ie Eriol for various poorly-thought-out reasons, but the first and last names can only allow eight characters each; I hear his unofficial official name is “Minato Arisato”) has struck me as the sort of laconic asocial JRPG player character (see: Neku Sakuraba) who probably has a snarky running commentary in his head on the various absurdities occuring around him. Since the game does not provide this, I’ve supplied my own.
The game is broken into two simultaneous phases, where the player party has to deal with school in the daytime, and fighting evil eldritch abominations in the night. Cram things together too much, and you get tired and sick, which interferes with both phases to a severe degree. Along the way, the player must deal with incredibly clingy friends, of whom one (of the females) will end up being the player character’s girlfriend. Keeping everyone pleased will take up most of your time, and you’ll end up actually grinding levels maybe once every two weeks in-game time or something.
Did I mention that you only have one year total to save the world?
Normally, I try to collect everything I can in a game, since I’d rather not have to find out three hours to the end that I missed a certain crucial item or procedure five minutes after the start. With P3F, though, I welcomed the news of a New Game Plus option which carries over at least all my non-combat stats, since grinding those have proven to be the most tedious part of the game. I would probably not mind as much if my goal were to live an everyday school life, or defeat the shadows and save the world. Both at the same time is a bit much, and my fellow NPC allies join me in bemoaning precisely that. I’m currently concentrating on Academics (for exams and such) and Charm (for a certain requirement), in that order; Courage can wait until the next playthrough.
And then there’s the romantic entanglement aspect of the game. I kind of know how the main character in a harem comedy anime feels now; all (well, almost all) the girls are in some way desirable, in the sense that if they were actually in a harem comedy anime that I’m watching, I’d be switching loyalties pretty often. As it is, I’m probably going to stick with Yukari Takeba (the first girl you meet at the dorms and designated battle healz0r) this playthrough, if I can meet the minimum requirements; otherwise, Chihiro Fushimi (the shy bespectacled student council treasurer) seems like a choice I’d stereotypically make. I get the feeling that being greedy will likely result in what is generally known among certain anime fandoms as an ending worthy of a pleasant sea-going vessel.
The story itself is very… well, anime-serious is about the best I can put it. There’s a great deal of introspective dialogue about the nature of self as we relate to others, as well as how Making Friends and Connecting With Each Other is the answer to all your stat-grinding needs, which strikes me as sort of a common theme among anime which purport to be “deep” and “complex”. Maybe they’re trying to tell us to stop playing games so much and go out into the world or something.
Of course, this kind of veers into surreality when the primary method of evoking one’s Persona is to shoot yourself in the head. Repeatedly.
Being that I’m only a short way into the game, I have to admit that I’m enjoying it so far, but I’m well aware of the tendency of such games to turn out to be grindfests near the final boss. This is like stopping the plot just before the final episode, and inserting a 156-episode filler tournament arc. You’ll eventually finish the story, but the payoff never seems worth it.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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Background: This whole thing is part of the what-if scenario of gender flipping the characters of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. A chance remark on the relevant Animesuki thread made me write a short scenario on the matter. Recently, a group of fans have begun to make audio dramas of various works on this, and my scenario is one of them. It's a really weird feeling to hear my stories being spoken aloud, not by myself. Tags: fandom, fic, haruhi, random ramblings
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For the past several days I have been trying to obtain the Fallout 3 DLC for The Pitt. My version of Fallout 3 is from Steam, and the DLC is exclusive to Games For Windows Live. Okay, fine. I fire up the GFWL client, and follow the instructions on the site: go to Marketplace, then Add-ons, then The Pitt. Except that I'm stuck at the second step, because when I click "Add-ons", I am faced with a blank screen. Well, not completely blank, in that I apparently have the option of rearranging this great nothingness by release date or alphabetically. Clicking on the Flash banner for The Pitt gives me an error page, to "please try again later". I can't even call this "why are you making it so hard to give you my money?" Due to the whole Microsoft Points system, they already have my money, and now I cannot redeem it in the way I want. I am annoyed. Tags: rant
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A bit later than the curve would suggest, but I’ve started on Spice and Wolf. Note that I said started, as in “watched about five minutes of the first episode before I had to go”. I have heard tell that this anime concerns itself with being informative and educational rather than entertainment, which I admit would probably not have lured me in if there hadn’t been the much-fanarted Horo. I learn better when a cute anime girl is involved; I am a simple man.
Most of my knowledge about the history of currency is from Neal Stephenson’s unwieldy Baroque Cycle. For those who have never read it before (and believe me, if you’ve read it you’d know, considering its possible usage as a 1d6 bludgeoning weapon), it deals with the political and cultural upheavals of the late 17th and early 18th century, with an immense focus, as only Stephenson can do and still get published under Fiction, on modern finance and banking. I am hoping, with the sort of desperate optimism a college student the day before his finals may possess while looking for Cliff’s Notes in the bookstore, that Spice and Wolf may provide a less depressing context for the history lesson.
(And while I like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, Making Money isn’t really all that informative. Entertaining, but not informative.)
The idea of economics is pretty fascinating, although I should mention that I’d rather not do all the heavy lifting of actually studying the subject. The basic principles, from the concept of barter, is simple: I have A Thing which you want. You may have Another Thing which I want. We then trade our Things as far as we see the transaction to be viable. Except that the Real World doesn’t work that neatly, and so lots of complications arise, and lots more complications arise from the attempted solutions to these complications, a state of affairs familiar to experienced gamers.
Along the way someone came up with the idea of representing, say, a given amount of apples or spices or cow with a shaped bulk sample of precious metals, and then someone else thought of keeping the general shape but reducing the amount of precious metal in that sample, and then we have things Written Down which promised to Pay The Bearer One Dollar I Say One Dollar Upon Presentation Of This Note. The piece of paper alone is worth about as much as a regular piece of paper plus some ink, but the information recorded on that paper, and the reputation of the person or organization encoding that information, made it worth as much as a given amount of precious metals, or a given amount of cow, if it comes to that. The jump to that information without the paper seems trivial in comparison.
Along the way, the world became more and more connected, and lines of communications became more and more secure, and very intelligent people thought up of ways to use this to their advantage, or their nation’s advantage, or their culture’s advantage. Or politics, which is never very far behind. (I include religious beliefs of that time inside politics, since that’s what it boiled down to anyway.) Thus, given that it is fairly safe to assume that a message sent to someone will reach that person, these intelligent people are able to shuffle around money that they have, or don’t have, or will possibly have in the future provided various things come to pass, or other people’s money which they are keeping in yet other people’s pockets, and still settle accounts, through some sort of financial voodoo.
We have come from trading Things, to what is essentially Magic. And the essential part of magic is in knowing just that bit more than everyone else.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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In the City of Heroes Mission Architect search window, a story arc's length is determined basically by how many missions are in it, as well as how much a custom critter group is used. How long it actually takes to finish is not listed, mainly because it'll be impossible to display accurately, with the sheer number of factors in play. So my current sole arc is a five-mission thing, which I can usually finish in about 45 minutes to an hour, faster than the usual (I specifically tried to make it as non-annoying as possible) but still not something that can be done in, say, half an hour (unless you already know where everything is, in which case it's possible to stealth-speedrun through it in fifteen minutes). It's listed as Very Long, though, which implies a substantial amount of time set aside. (Well, it needs an hour, so it is true.) The problem is that the ideas I come up with can't really be told in less than five missions, at least not without making one of them a chained objective and thus doubling the length of the mission, which kind of misses the point. For example, "Corvus" currently follows this story progression: Mission 1: Introduction ("Strange man!") Mission 2: Exposition and Revelation ("Who was that?") Mission 3: False Climax and Denouement ("Is this the end?") Mission 4: True Revelation ("Oh, there's your problem.") Mission 5: Finale ("It's all over now.") And I can't think of anything I can remove without destroying the pacing of the story. Although I've been trying, of course. I'm not too happy with how this arc turned out, but I did learn a lot about how to make stories in MA (mainly what I can and cannot do), so the next one should go faster once I've hammered out the specifics. The next arc I'm thinking of doing is, sadly, also five missions long: Mission 1: Introduction and Exposition ("Here is what we do.") Mission 2: Complication ("Oops.") Mission 3: Explanation ("So that's how we fix it.") Mission 4: Climax ("Stop bad stuff from happening!") Mission 5: Solution and Denouement ("Clean up the bad stuff.") I can shuffle it around a bit, but my insistence on not using Elite Bosses for the big build up at the end means that I have to come up with another way to make the ending satisfying, and losing the last bits would make me feel like I've been cheated out of a story. Then again, I can try removing one of the earlier missions, and see if that makes it better, or merely more incoherent. At least this one is less emo than the first one. And from my notes, it looks like it's going to be a Villainous-alignment arc. Tags: coh ma
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Don’t expect this to be a regular feature. If nothing else, I’ll lose interest quite quickly.
K-On has garnered the usual amount of attention from anime bloggers, with Mio appearing to be the fan favourite. Whether this is intentional on the part of the creators is beyond me; I’m just here for the cute girls, man. Specifically Tsumugi, or Mugi-chan as her recently-attained nickname goes. People who were in my gaming group will be aware of the reason for my low amusement.
The comparisons to other series have tapered off, although I admit to some surprise that I haven’t seen anything about resemblances to Manabi Straight. Or not, as the case may be, since an argument could be made either way; the opening animation at least seemed Manabi-ish, if also rather Beatles-ish, but I’m always prepared for the usual “how could you think such a thing? There is no such comparison to be made!” arguments. It is a diverse Internet out there.
In this episode, Yui gets a guitar, which people have been calling a “Les Paul Fender” or some arcane title along those lines. Having never delved, even shallowly, into the world of Real Guitars, I am lost, adrift; I mean, I can play a G chord, a C chord, and I think an F-sharp chord, but that’s about the limit of my knowledge on the matter. Presumably I can try to learn, but I share Mio’s apprehension at the starring role a guitarist would be placed in. I would be interested in learning the bass, though, especially since I like how it sounds, so maybe that might swing me over to Mio’s side more than Tsumugi, although I doubt it.
(The only musical instrument I can claim to some competence with is the saxophone. Not exactly rock band material, and I lack the improvisational imagination necessary for jazz.)
It is hard to fully pin down Tsumugi’s entire personality, since so little has been noted about who she is, rather than what she is. She’s a rich girl who’s not entirely experienced in the ways of the common people, of the nice, cheerful, polite, pleasant personality type, with occasional flights of fancy into the realms of the bizarre. Like a more naive Tomoyo Daidouji from Card Captor Sakura, which is probably why I’m drawn to her.
One thing I’ve never been able to understand about how some other bloggers think is that sometimes they go from “OMG WORST ANIME EVER” to “OMG BEST ANIME EVER” within the space of one episode. Now, in a medium with more than one work in it that can be objectively judged for quality, the two are mutually exclusive.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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The sad thing is that most of the feedback I got is good (as in useful-type, rather than positive-type), and I thoroughly appreciate it, but I can't do anything about them. As a sampling (paraphrased, since I forgot to record it): "The first mission completed as soon as we entered the mission" - Bug that I can't control. You're supposed to rescue an ally and click a glowie; I can only assume that neither spawned correctly. I've never encountered this bug before in my own arc, but I have in others', so I can only shrug and leave it in the hands of the devs. "First mission too short and easy" - Intentional. I wanted it to be short, non-annoying, definitely not too much challenge for a lowbie solo character. "Custom group too boring" - I may have overused them; three missions out of five, of which two are Large maps. It was either them or more Circle of Thorns, though, and I tried to make them less annoying than CoT, especially below 40. "No challenge" - Intentional. As mentioned, I'm going for soloability above challenge. "Pointless and unfun" - Unfortunately nothing I can do about that, short of rewriting the thing. (Incidentally, that was the whole feedback.) Which is, of course, an option, just not now. The arc says it's at four stars with three raters (yes, I know I mysteriously got more feedback than ratings), which could mean anything from 3.5 to 4.4. I'm inclined to believe the lower end, since it's not that good. I see it as a learning experience, and I do think that my future story arcs will be better for it. It's just that sometimes I wish fixing stuff was a lot easier. Tags: coh, coh ma
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Up until now, my only experience with Mahjong has been with the version known occasionally as Shanghai, as befits my preference to solo in MMORPGs. I’ve always been meaning to learn, however, partly because learning new things is invariably useful, and partly because people keep talking about it and I feel a little left out.
I actually spent a couple of hours in the #AnimeBlogger IRC channel spectating a couple of matches between four of the channel denizens. Lupus took out a hefty chunk of that time to teach me the basics of Mahjong, Hong Kong rules style. It apparently bears a faint resemblance to the basics of poker, except in groups of three (or four): if I remember correctly, a “chow” is a three-straight, a “pung” is a three-of-a-kind, and a “kong” is four-of-a-kind. In play, someone draws a tile from the “wall”, which apparently serves the same purpose as the common deck of cards, and discards another tile (whether the one just drawn or otherwise) from their hand, which is the row of tiles directly in front of them. Someone else can pick up that discard as their draw, or not; if the discarded tile is left alone, it is arranged neatly at the centre of the table, presumably to let everyone see what tiles have been played. Presumably there is no special tile that lets you summon something from the graveyard at the cost of all your mana.
The first episode of Saki confirmed my belief that I still have a long, long way to go. What are these people talking about? Where is the glossary for all this terminology? Have I somehow switched to watching the more jargon-filled scenes of Asura Cryin? When my friend told me that I needed to at least have a handle on the vocabulary of Mahjong, he meant every word.
But it’s all right; I’m here for the cute girls. Nodoka’s insistence on Saki joining the club and her reputation of being the champion makes me think that there’s some Angst in store for her, either in the backstory or plot, but she does seem to be designed to attract attention anyway, what with her pink hair and huge tracts of land talent bounce. Yuuki is perky comic relief, and Saki herself is… well, I suppose she’ll display some more personality in future episodes.
The intense background music and arcs of lightning that appear whenever the characters dramatically draw and discard tiles is… well, if I were less experienced in anime, I’d say that it’s overdone, but after Yakitate Japan I don’t think that’s really possible anymore. I half expect that along with the electronic scoring system, each Mahjong tile is actually intended to give off dramatic sparks and gusts of wind, individually powered by tiny nuclear reactors.
Best not to slam those tiles down.
A strange thing is that I’ve generally figured Mahjong to be a social game, like Bridge. While playing competitively, everything is all Serious Business, but among friends, I’d anticipate at least some chatter. The Mahjong Club in Saki doesn’t exactly play in silence, but there’s still a lot less conversation than I expected.
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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Contrary to what it may look like, I'm not disappointed that nobody's played my Mission Architect story arc yet. It's been less than a week. I'm actually seeing how long it'll take before someone takes notice of it, in much the same way when I posted my Card Captor Sakura fanfic to Fanfiction.net. That one took three months before anyone else (other than myself) read it, much less reviewed it. The emotional progression is mostly "I'm so excited, I wonder what everyone will think!" to "Nobody's biting. Well, it's still early" to "Still nobody. Maybe I need to advertise better" to " Still nobody. I wonder what's up" to "Wow, it's been a while, and still nobody. I wonder how long this can last?" to "This is awesome, I think I'm setting some kind of record!" I am a strange person. Tags: coh, ramblings
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- Grab several non-Dev Choice, non-Hall of Fame arcs, and play until I get 1,000 tickets (technically 820 tickets). This will likely take two or three five-mission arcs to get. - Unlock the necessary content for my own arc. - Publish my arc. Hope someone can tell me if the enemies are overpowered; I have the sneaking suspicion that they are, but cannot prove it. - Work on the next arc. Make it funnier, dammit. Not very imaginative, I admit. - I should probably come up with a set of guidelines for star ratings that I give out. Zero: Did not finish, for whatever reason. Lost interest, no time, too difficult, whatever. 1: Waste of time as published. Unsalvageable without major rewriting and rebalancing. 2: Needs major work, the sort that requires several pages that list every single fault. 3: Okay-ish. My time is cheap, so it's not that big of a deal, but would not bother with it again. 4: Might play again if the mood strikes me. Most canon story arcs fall under this rank, which is the guideline I use to determine if a player-created arc is worthy: if it seems like something already in the game (and this is not a terribly difficult thing to accomplish), it gets four stars. 5: Will play again. No glaring problems that I can see. This does mean that the majority of arcs I'll play will get four stars. I have given out five-star rankings to various arcs on Test, though; these are often not to the people you'd expect. A lot of the Dev Choice OMG AWESOME arcs that get a lot of publicity I ranked at four stars; one of them at three. I think the mechanics of Dev Choice ranking have changed since then, though, so I may not be able to do that now. For those who don't play CoH: "Developer's Choice" means an arc that a developer, or rather a developer who has the privilege of doing so, has played, and thought "hm, I like this". It's already generated several flame-filled threads on the forums about the subjectivity and bias. Personally I don't really care; if I'm aiming for an accolade, it'll be Hall Of Fame, which is if a lot of players really like the arc. - I'm not sure if it's because it's on the Test server (and thus already self-selecting in terms of player population), but the quality of player-created arcs is not bad. It's not the cesspool that people have been expecting; it's not uniformly great, but I've been four-starring the vast majority of what I play. Time will tell if this will also apply to the Live servers. Tags: coh, notes to self
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Arc Number: 20568 Title: Corvus Published by: @Bdaly Spleled (my Thugs/Poison MM. Yeah, I love that name.) Level: 5-54 Length: Five missions. Took me about forty-five minutes on a fast-solo character. Map sizes are Small, Large, Small, Small, Large. Enemy Groups: Circle of Thorns, Custom (Those Deep Within) Morality: Heroic (ie anyone can play, but it assumes you're a hero) Difficulty: Ah, here's the rub. I intend for this to be soloable, above all. No Elite Bosses or Archvillains; the last mission has three bosses to take down, but I included a boss-rank ally as well. Please give me lots of feedback: I'm aiming, above all, for soloability, by any build that can solo a regular newspaper/radio mission. I'd like to challenge those, which means that the IO-ed out builds, or teams, will likely steamroll over the opposition. This is perfectly okay. One thing I'm worried about is that for the Circle of Thorns to be at the full level range, I had to put the boss-type as "Random". I don't know if this means "random boss-rank critter", or "random any CoT critter, including Archvillains". Story: I came up with it in ten minutes. It's not Shakespeare. My concern, right now, is game balance, but I'm willing to listen to advice for the plot for the second pass. It's a very OMG SERIOUS story; I could barely keep a straight face through it. It is built on cliches, at least as I saw them. And yes, the last bit is pure railroading. Trivia: I spent about two hours typing up all the text. I spent two days coming up with suitable costumes for the custom group. In the end, I made one design, and then spammed it for every critter. I suck at design. Going to have to make a note of which bits are unlockables. I know the wings are, and I think one of the maps is; not sure about the others. Will copy-and-paste to the CoH boards. Tags: coh
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Kurogane compared the main characters of K-On to those of Lucky Star, which does rather fit, but to be honest the first comparison I thought of was Hidamari Sketch:
- Yui - Yuno
- Ritsu - Miyako
- Mio - Sae
- Tsumugi - Hiro
To be fair, the interactions don’t exactly break down exactly as compared: Ritsu hangs out with Mio instead of Yui, Mio is a lot more honest to herself than Sae was, and Tsumugi is a bit more out-there compared to Hiro (in fact, she probably fits the least closely). I wouldn’t say air-headed, but perhaps naive is a better word. (Or not.) “Inexperienced with the ways of the world” would probably be more accurate if it weren’t too unwieldy a phrase, and if my brain ever emigrated from the gutter.
It’s also telling that Tsumugi is invariably the last name mentioned in the listing of the four girls. We have Main Character Yui, and the boke-and-tsukkomi routine of Ritsu and Mio, which all leap to mind more readily than the Rich Talented Girl that is Tsumugi, whom one can’t really feel jealous of, since she’s so amazingly nice. (Of course, with my luck, she’ll turn out to have some hidden nasty side or something. So it goes.)
It’s also also telling that I’ve latched onto Tsumugi as my Favourite Character So Far, just as I did for Miyuki in Lucky Star. There Is Something Wrong With Me.
As for the actual episode itself, there is little to say. It does take an oddly long time for Yui to join the Light Music Club; I say “oddly” because I could be biased by knowing what the series is supposed to be about. We know that Yui’s going to join up, and taking most of the episode for her to do so just feels like teasing the audience. Still, I enjoyed it, which is all I ask for in my entertainment.
Finally, I have been accused of being a KyoAni fanboy. This is like accusing a beer-lover of being a Guinness fanboy; from an extremely stretched definition it is true, but it fails to address the main point: I am a moe fanboy, and it doesn’t matter who draws the cute girls, as long as the cute girls are present. Thus, it is more proper to say that I am also a lolicon a KyoAni fanboy.
Also on my to-watch list, which is by no means the same as my to-follow list, are Asura Cryin (ghost in the mecha, or some strange bizarreness in that general direction), as well as the much-mocked Queen’s Blade (containing copious amounts of breasts bosoms melons milk factories busts funbags knockers boobies jugs jubblies stonking great tits).
Originally published at Moe Check!. You can comment here or there.
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