Author: CrashWire « Page 5

Poof!

I’m sure many of you either heard or actually experienced the blackout that hit Singapore just now.

During my usual round of “kaypoh”ing about which areas were affected and which were not, I encountered some interesting stories about people who were playing games when suddenly everything went black. They would then curse at the power supply. What would be even funnier would be people who decided to go on marathon sessions (hence ignoring save points and all) only to have all their progress destroyed by the blackout. Don’t we all feel for them?

Then again, since the blackout didn’t happen to me, I feel rather tempted to take a “not in my backyard” mentality. So let us all just remember that saving games is rather important, even with the autosave functions that many games build in nowadays. If you don’t want to save games, get an uninterruptible power supply. But you’ll have to save anyhow since it only supplies power for a short while.

Wow, Stagnancy…

Addiction withdrawal is easy. I don’t know why, but I’ve been playing a lot less Final Fantasy XI lately. I guess my hots for that game are drawing to an end, with the ending of my vacation soon. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m plain broke in game. (If anyone reading this is in Seraph and somewhat well-off in gils, please donate to Kurashiire. Thanks!)

Anyway, I’ve been sorting out lots and lots of thoughts about pirated games lately. The pirated games market exists as people refuse to pay $60 for an original game when they can pay $3 for a pirated one. Even when top-notch games devalue in a few months, they would still pay $3 for a pirated one than $20 for a repackaged or 2nd hand version. And then companies, seeing the rampant piracy, source technology from companies such as Securom to protect their “intellectual property”. Which doesn’t work considering that pirates are real good at cracking such technology.

But hey, there just isn’t any point in collecting Amaray cases with nicely printed covers, a 20 page manual that doesn’t even teach you the slightest thing about game mechanics and um, the game disc itself.

At least put in a cloth map or something, sheesh. Heck, a nice “limited edition” model of one of the game’s protagonists would be good too.

Well, the companies can continue on their raids and everyday copying prevention. Consumers can continue buying their pirated software. I’ll just happily play whatever game I like. Ignorance is bliss.

Of Gaming And Healthy Living

Recently, I’ve been doing 12 hour or so gaming marathons. Hardcore? Maybe. Crazy? Yes. And so I stopped my marathons just to deliver a message to everyone. It might seem short, it might seem rather obvious, but you do have to admit that I’m right.

Play Healthy, Live Healthy.

Ensure that you have at least 7 real world hours of sleep everyday. Eat a nice breakfast of real world food. Engage in real world activities.

Gaming may nourish your mind, but it wouldn’t nourish your body. Unless you’re doing 12 hours of non-stop Dance Dance Revolution on a dancepad. But that’s beyond crazy.

And of course, have fun. Gaming is not supposed to give you undue stress. It’s supposed to be a past time. To relieve stress. Undue stress will affect your health. So don’t get so worked up about being unable to complete a level of your favourite game.

Peace. I’m off to Vana’diel.

It’s A Small World

I went to the Xbox Live Launch last Friday not to check out Xbox Live, but to meet with friends. Free cotton candy and beer was a bonus, definitely.

Anyway, kudos to Microsoft for trying to make gaming appeal to the general public. DJs for emcees, entertainment for the “in” crowd and entrance queues to rival that of clubs during peak periods. Not to forget another two queues, one to purchase the Xbox Live kit and another to redeem the free memory card that comes with it. Ah well, this is Singapore anyway, land of the queues. There was also a rather impressive show of pyrotechnics, which made the entire place seem on fire for a bit.

But that’s not what the main focus of this post is. It’s rather strange, yet somewhat common to meet fellow Singaporeans in an online game. What’s even startling is how you can play with a fellow Singaporean for ages and only know that he also hails from Singapore when you examine him and see a Singapore linkshell (Final Fantasy XI term for IRC chatroom) or when the entire party reveals their places of origin. Of course, when us pioneers pretty much arranged for most Singaporeans to congregate on either the Ragnarok or Seraph server, I guess it would be rather common. If either Snag or Squishy from Seraph are reading this, Kurashiire said hi.

But when you play a game with a rather small international community such as Chron X, you tend to not expect to meet Singaporeans much if at all. After all, such games have very limited appeal. But in my 6 years of playing (wow, that’s an awfully long time, isn’t it?), I’ve met um… two Singaporeans. Yeah, two. I wonder if those people will read this very post.

Keep a look out for Singaporeans in any online game you play. Organize communities and maybe even meet up once in a while in real life. Who knows what the outcome of such an outing would be?

Cycles

I need my level 30 in Final Fantasy XI. That’s after wasting so much money on months unplayed and having the misconception that cancelling my content ID would lead to the deletion of my character.

Ok, that’s as far as I will go. And it’s come to my attention that a lot of roleplaying games rely on this monotonous cycle to provide for “hours and hours of gameplay”. Final Fantasy, Zelda, Dragon Quest. What most games do to break out of the cycle is by providing high quality animations that would make graphic whores wet themselves and storylines that beat the number of cultural references in The Matrix hands down. And they are still one of the most popular genres today for the supposedly “thinking” crowd.

Thankfully there are platformers, first person shooters and strategy games to break the cycle. Oh wait, platformers involve you jumping on monsters or robots to slay them. First person shooters make you kill and kill. Same for strategy games.

Perhaps that’s why the better games try to break out of the cycle in different ways, and break out they sometimes do. Give me something that requires my brain to think everytime. Bah, it’s just too tempting to refer to the numerous FAQs up on the Internet.

Oh well, back to the endless levelling that is Vana’diel.

On a side note, if anyone wants to meet a couple of us for the Xbox Live Launch, do post in the topic. Hope to see some blog readers there!

I’m Addicted

If you have never touched a MMORPG (that’s Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game for you ~~acronym-haters~~ people not too well versed with acronyms) before and are considering investing in one, be prepared to spend time on it. Why?

You probably pay for the MMORPG. At least, for playing in it. So make every hour count. If you aren’t paying for it, then your character is probably going to be reset after the (rather long) beta anyway, so why bother?
You probably have nothing better to do with your life (except studying if you’re a student) if you’re playing a MMORPG anyway.
MMORPGs are addictive. They force you to go through this endless cycle of gaining levels, buying new items and gaining more levels. So naturally the testosterone-pumped many will aim to compete with their friends in how fast they gain levels and cool items.
You might be ~~running away from reality~~ practising the form of art named escapism. MMORPGs allow you to lord over puny monsters and slap dragons silly. Of course it’s better than the game called Life, which by the way is not a MMORPG to me. It’s life.
Your friends might have been the ones influencing you to buy the MMORPG in the first place. And thus you are pretty much forced to keep up with them to keep within the social circle of ~~no-lifers~~ fellow MMORPGeans.
You can make new friends in MMORPGs. People who you won’t meet anywhere else online. People who you won’t meet anywhere else offline. Japanese friends. Now that’s expanding your social circle.
Final Fantasy XI rocks! ‘Nuff said.

Some of the above points might make no sense. Of course, it’s almost 3am right now and I’ve just been through a ten hour FFXI marathon. Off to the place called dreamland… might even see a couple of pink ~~monsters~~ balloons there.

The Friends I Have

This is more a post about myself than anything else concerning gaming. No, gaming does not revolves around me (or you guys will be kissing my feet by now) but I feel that a significant part of my life has been invested in gaming.

Gaming bonds people. For some of you loners out there who play Solitaire *raises hand*, you might not be included. However, if you’re a quiet, introvert sort of person in real life but happen to be an extrovert in your favourite dungeon crawler, then you might not realize that you have made lots of acquaintances and a few friends who play the same dungeon crawler as you.

But I guess I was pretty much an online personality (you could only see how I look like, not that you’re that interested, during deals) until my first foray into gamer gatherings. And I can tell you (solitaire playing guy) that online does not bond people like offline does! It certainly helps to meet people for dinner, chat with them about the latest gaming news, share your first gaming experience and then head to the arcade for a little battle of nervous control.

After my first offline experience (sounds like sex, doesn’t it?), stuff seemed to progress at a faster rate than before. I became “known” to the people who used to know me as an online personality. We forged somewhat closer bonds. Quite a number of gatherings were organized to bring people together. Barbeques, chalets, karaokes, movies, outings.

The sgGamers forums were set up by three friends who wanted to make more friends. A community where we actually do more web quizzes than discuss about gaming. In the end though, we’re all gamers who enjoy a game of Mario Party 5 together when the occasion comes for yet another gathering.

A recent incident on other forums showed me how friends are willing to jump to my defense when the need arises. Others may accuse me of committing a felony, but my friends were skeptical of whether it was indeed my doing. When I admitted and apologized to the community in question for the trouble I caused, it led to forgiveness. Now, even if these people aren’t really friends, they are definitely acquaintances worth knowing and online contacts worth treasuring.

On the IRC channels I frequent, we talk about things other than gaming. (Do note that these channels are frequented only by gamers.) Computer hardware, music, anime, relationships, school, work, anything under the sun. Once in a while, we gather for impromptu, unorganized dinners or suppers. My Trillian contact list is filled with the contacts of gamers with whom I often chat daily with.

Even this blog was formed by friends, who then invited other friends in to write. Through our ramblings and rantings we allow ourselves to know each other better, for emotions can be read through words should one develop a skill for it. We allow our readers to know us better, for we’re always on the lookout for more people who share the same interests as us.

In any case, I felt that this is a nice day to appreciate the friendships I’ve forged. The Singapore community as a whole still views gaming as a waste of time. What they do not know is that gaming, like soccer, like shopping, allows for friendships to be formed. Such friendships may start out either weak or strong online, but should they translate offline, they often become stronger.

And in any case, this is another shameless plug for any of you online personalities out there. Hide, a member of the sgGamers community, is organizing a gaming session at his house, with potential turnouts that already exceed thirty. If you would like to know us better, be sure to add your name to the attendance list!