Random thought(s) of the moment

[sushi]

My name's Harris and I'm a ChocChipElevenses-aholic. xD

[ausdoerrt]

Hey at least you CAN drive. Try living "in the middle of nowhere" for a few years, w/o a car OR a license.

What you be teaching? Is it a standard "teach kids Engrish" program, or something interesting I haven't heard of?


P.S. "Native Speaker" requirement for teaching abroad internships suck donkey balls. It should really be "native speaker level" instead. I mean, pfft, I can study liberal arts in US, but I couldn't POSSIBLY have enough mastery of the language to teach it to grade-schoolers.

[AllenSmithee]

When did you learn Japanese, Wyrdwad?

I've been learning to learn this year (and making great progress too) so maybe someday there's still hope for a second language!

[korzic]

Feb 4, 2010 16:46:51 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

Even though I didn't know what the hell I was doing a lot of the time (first job out of college, and no prior teaching experience), I actually feel like I accomplished more and left more of a legacy for myself doing that than in my six years working as a developer at an MMORPG company.

What MMORPG company was that, by the way? Not that it really matters to me one way or the other. I'm just curious, is all.

[korzic]

Can't say that I've heard of them (until now, of course =p). But then again, MMORPGs aren't really my thing. Still, that's cool that you got to work in a gaming company, although I'd imagine that it's not the most rewarding job for many such employees. I'd kind of like to do something in that field (most likely testing the products), but the problem for me would be working with material that I probably wouldn't enjoy a whole lot.

[ausdoerrt]

PvP is about the only fun thing MMOs have to offer, because PvE is usually dull as f*ck. However, most MMOs can't seem to get the PvP balance just right, forcing the player to grind and grind and grind for levels and equipment before they can even have fun in PvP. Sort of lame.

Also, yay, I just found someone to exemplify all that's wrong with MMOs. That'd be you, wyrd Even people who make them hate them

[schlagwerk]

Feb 4, 2010 20:14:06 GMT -5 ausdoerrt said:

PvP is about the only fun thing MMOs have to offer, because PvE is usually dull as f*ck. However, most MMOs can't seem to get the PvP balance just right, forcing the player to grind and grind and grind for levels and equipment before they can even have fun in PvP. Sort of lame.

In my book, only Dark Age of Camelot ever really got PvP right. #1: 3 factions balance themselves out far better than 2. #2: Well defined and repeatable PvP goals. #3: An equipment system that favors class customization and player-crafted items. #4: No target caps on CC and AoEs. Zerging still occurs, but you can at least make them think twice about bunching together nicely so you can blast them all at once. I could go on and on...
Though Age of Conan's return to a Free For All PvP system was pretty fun. See someone with a stupid name (and who doesn't in an MMO)? Wait just outside of town with a friend or two and then slaughter the idiot until satisfied. In other MMOs you rarely get that freedom of killing your faction mates no matter how much you want to.

[Varion]

Feb 4, 2010 20:14:06 GMT -5 ausdoerrt said:

Also, yay, I just found someone to exemplify all that's wrong with MMOs. That'd be you, wyrd Even people who make them hate them

Haha, so true.

I used to be fine with playing MMOs until I hit about 18 or something and was playing Phantasy Star Universe, and it occured to me that all I'd achieved in a whole DAY of playing was to gain one level. Why on earth am I doing this, I asked myself, this is such a waste of a day and time in general. So I stopped and haven't really played one since. With regular single player games at least I can feel I've made some progress in something - advanced further in the story, or got closer to a bunch of general goals rather than just levelled or farmed or whatever.

Still, my thought time this week has been devoted to apoplectic rage against UK customs and the disaster that is Parcelforce. When you pay extra money for a service with express explicitly in its name you should not have to wait over a WEEK for a regular parcel to clear customs, and it still doesn't seem to have left their hands.

Next time a webshop tells me they do EMS only, they can suck it. I am not paying for this crap ever again.

[AllenSmithee]

Heh, Justin sent me a thing and it is still coming in. And we're in the same country.

Still, I'm happy that I'm going to be getting it Thanks Justin, if you read this!
(I know I've said it, but hey, I'm one to say it again)

[Ashurei]

I'm in the same boat as Varion on the MMO side of things. Took my computer breaking and my subsequent pitiful state of being at a loss for how to spend my time for me to realize what I was doing, though. 10 days without a PC = OMG I (somehow, thankfully, still) have friends I can hang out with! Lived a normal life since then, can't say I ever want to go back to MMOs. I'm just thankful I was born with the perspicacity to see the flaw, despite the event it took to make me realize it. I know there are plenty of people who would have gotten their PC back and jumped right back into things. Change is good~



I also think this is worth mentioning:
Umineko no Naku Koro ni may very well be one of the greatest soundtracks to anything ever.

p.s. fuck academic prose still.

[ausdoerrt]

Feb 4, 2010 20:45:28 GMT -5 schlagwerk said:

In my book, only Dark Age of Camelot ever really got PvP right. #1: 3 factions balance themselves out far better than 2. #2: Well defined and repeatable PvP goals. #3: An equipment system that favors class customization and player-crafted items. #4: No target caps on CC and AoEs. Zerging still occurs, but you can at least make them think twice about bunching together nicely so you can blast them all at once. I could go on and on...

Sounds almost exactly the way RF Online did its PvP (except killing members of your race - iirc you need a cash-shop item for that). The problem for me is, though, that it takes hours of grinding to actually participate in anything fun. Sure, the race wars are open starting level 20, but I'd like to see anyone who could hold their own at their level for more than 10 seconds. I'm nearing lvl30 atm, and still am an extremely easy target. And crafting sucks, because if the item is destroyed, you pretty much just lost a few days of grinding. Lame. The 3-race system is a bit more interesting then 2, but most of the time leads to shifting alliances between 2 races against 1.



Aaaaanyhow, random though of the day is, I discovered that full recordings of Touhou M-1 are available on Nico. I feel like a fool for not finding out earlier. Watching season2.

[Incog Neato]

Ya know, I'd seriously care more about Felghana if it were a game I remember more of. :P I can't explain it but I seriously do not remember it very much.

This and Mask of the Sun (even though I wrote a freakin' walkthrough for it).

Heck, I even recall the very little I've played of Ys V and The Dawn of Ys more than these two games. WTF?

SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS MADNESS TO ME.

[ausdoerrt]

I dunno. It seems to be a forgettable game. I always confuse OiF with AoN, since I remember the Ark a lot better Maybe you didn't play it enough? I know I only ran through it once and didn't come back to it. Origin, on the other hand, beaten at least 3 times for all the different characters...

[Incog Neato]

I only played Napishtim once (before replaying it with the English patch) and Felghana once and I definitely recall VI more.

I ... completely forgot about the Felghana stabbity scene until I watch the trailer today. ^^;

THIS IS HOW BAD MY MEMORY IS.

[AllenSmithee]

Feb 4, 2010 17:21:36 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I took Japanese for four years in college (and spent five weeks in Japan as part of a summer study program during my junior year), lived there for two years, played a crapton of import games, watched a crapton of anime, and worked as a Japanese-language in-game customer support rep for the MMORPG "Dark Age of Camelot" for about 2 years. All of those things contributed to me learning the language, and I'm still learning through games, anime, and the inevitable deep research that accompanies translation projects.

-Tom

This gives me hope. To me, it means that I may wait until later, but that learning the language (or any language) will still always be a possibiltiy.

[sushi]

That was pretty good Japanese handwriting. And Sack of Corpses was my favourite.

[Incog Neato]

A random wonder!

Why do people end sentences with ellipses? I mean, it's more work to type 2 - 4 periods than the one! What's up with that!? I guess they figure that with ellipses abuse, they don't need to capitalize the first letter of a following sentence???

Bizarre!!! I understand not~!

[ausdoerrt]

Ellipses exist to make your post seem more thoughtful than it actually is. I also lets the reader use their imagination. For example: Ellipses are awesome........

[schlagwerk]

I use ellipses for noteworthy silence, pauses/delays/trailing off in how I would normally speak, or when impersonating Solid Snake. In that last example "..." is pronounced "hrmpf", "...!" is pronounced "hrmpf!", and "...?" is pronounced "hrmpf?" ...at least it was back in the PSX MGS1 days.


I was dozing off at work so I decided to try a caffeine energy mint.. and proceeded to go back to dozing off.
So much for that! And people wonder why I don't drink soda or coffee to stay awake.

[AllenSmithee]

The only reason soda and coffee keep me awake is because I need to piss if I drink a lot of it.