Christmas is coming!

Please remember to buy your gifts early (especially the ones for ME), and remember to enjoy this festive season. Enough crapping, I just wanted to post this :

Webcomics that I love

You can say you’re a gamer if something like this happens to you

From amazing super powers webcomic

Amazing super powers (http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/) is one of my fav webcomics. Among my favourite are :

- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
http://www.smbc-comics.com/
(check the red button for an extra kick, there’s a similar secret comic on Amazing Super Powers, if you’re lazy to find it you can ask me)

- The Perry Bible Fellowship
http://pbfcomics.com/

- Cyanide and Happiness
http://www.explosm.net/comics/

other notable webcomics that I find amusing yet don’t amuse me as much as the above yet still worth checking out, (google the links yourself):

-sinfest
-xkcd

Gaming related webcomics
-vgcats (actually I should list this as one that I still love, I used to love the other 2 below this until they became more “serialized”)
-ctrl alt del
-penny arcade

APPLE worshippers
- Joy of Tech

Castle Age, my favourite FB game

Warning! Boring content for people who don’t game nor play FB games.

In CA (CastleAge) players are heroes of some sort. It has an RPG element where players need to gain XP (experience) to level up and improve their stats. Not only do they have stats, they can own equipment and soldiers as well as own lands.

Initially the were 2 things that a player could do, which is to perform quests for rewards, or battle another player for fame and fortune.

There are many similar games to CA on FB, who copied who is no longer a matter, people just play them regardless. One thing that sets CA apart from other similar games is the battle system. Battling other players reward them with battle points if they win. Battle points can increase a player’s battle rank which gives them bonus equipment/stats/units/etc depending on the rank attained. This gives the player a reason to battle others. In most other similar games, the player only gains extra xp and gold regardless of killing a gazillion players. It is rarely rewarding to battle people in other. CA is unlike those games. Battling and killing a gazillion other players gives benefits that players who do not battle are not able to obtain.

Furthermore, in all other games battling was imbalanced, players with a large army (more friends playing the same game) would have a great number advantage over a player who has none/small army. A person with one army could never hope to defeat a person with 500. Except in CA. In CA you have 2 choices for battling other players, the first would be to “invade”. Invade is the traditional battle style used in other games where army numbers count. The second option is what makes CA unique from the rest. It is called “duel”. Dueling would pitch players’ single best equipment/general as well as their stats against each other. With this method, it is possible for a player with a measly 1 army to defeat a player with 501.

The quests are similar to other similar games. Frankly I was getting bored of CA and was about to quit until CA introduced boss battles. Starting with dragons.

Initially players were allowed to send some crappy spell/equipment/soldier to their friends. After sometime they replaced it with dragon eggs/spell scrolls and artifacts. Even later, it was revealed that players could then summon dragons. Dragons were to be fought by the player as well as his/her friends. Defeating a dragon by one’s ownself would be nearly impossible (without being super high leveled with tonnes of stamina/attack). It felt epic attacking a dragon with friends, as well as a sense of urgency. Dragons are to be defeated within a certain time period (roughly 3 days), if they are not defeated within the set time period, it would flee and the attackers would not get extra reward for killing it (attacking the dragon gives xp and gold).

Dragons served the template for future bosses. Bosses (as well as dragons) have a unique appeal. Upon death they sometimes drop unique drops which can be combined into a unique object (unique being you can’t buy the item and it takes a lot of effort to make). Besides that, it allows passive (players who don’t attack others) to use up their stamina by attacking the bosses.

CA arguably has the best artwork for a FB game. I have a lot of good things to say about CA yet I quit.

Why did I quit?

1 When fighting bosses, it is possible for an attack to miss. A player loses nothing when an attack misses but requires the player to re click the “attack” button. How retarded is that. They don’t have an “attack till you’re out of stamina button”. Yes I’m lazy, but my laziness is warranted. I have roughly 270 stamina in CA. If I use power attack (consumes 5 stamina per shot) i would have to keep clicking “power attack” near 50 times to deplete my stamina reserves. To make things worse, CA loves to make my attacks miss. It gets very frustrating as I click attack, wait for the page to load, and find out my effort has been wasted – countless times. Attacking dragons is not without repercussions too. The dragon/boss will retaliate each attack, which will deplete the player’s health. The player can opt to pay gold to heal the health but to do so, the player has to navigate to a different page, heal, then navigate back to the page with the dragon/boss. The only easy remedy players currently have is opening the 2 pages in different tabs/windows. Frustrating it is.

2 Bossdrops
- As I said earlier, players could combine items from bossdrops (acquired once a boss is defeated). My main problem with this is amongst a group of friends, I manage to outdamage most of them. I deal the most damage to bosses/dragons, yet my friends manage to get items that I lack and in turn combine items. It is frustrating to be the top damager yet getting duplicate/crappy drops.

3 Stupid Droprate concept
- Strongly related to the last point, one unique equipment is called “Dragon helm”. To get it, the player needs unique drops from 4 different dragons. All players can summon dragons provided they have the ingredients required. What dragon summoned is determined by the summoner’s level range. for example low level players would summon emerald dragons while high level players would summon ancient red dragons. The catch to making this dragon helm is you need people from 4 different level ranges to summon dragons to get the 4 different items required for the helm.
- I find this concept horribly retarded as it would mean asking a friend to stop becoming stronger by leveling up but instead remain stagnant while others kill his dragons in hope of getting the item they need.

RETARDED?
RETARDED IT IS!

Frankly CA is the best FB game that I like, but seeing how retarded it is, I decided to quit. Something like. You see a line of cars from one company, and they present the best one to you. However their best car has some retarded concepts. FUCK THAT!

Goodbye CA.

No More Polls

My polls are kind of a big failure, due to the fact that I rarely get over a handful of votes.

I would like to thank the small number of people who actually voted (even if it was just for fun and didn’t take much effort).

It is appreciated, but polls are meaningless if the demographic is too small. So I’ve decided to simply not make any polls in the future. Not to forget, the number of people who actually know/visit my blog is not that many.

Why I quit Facebook games

In the post preceding this, I have mentioned my positive opinions on Facebook games. The games are casual, cost no money and can be accessed from any device with a browser and internet access. However there I decided to withdraw myself from these endeavors.

Why? First of all, let us see what type of games are available on FB. Heck, I’ll even explain what’s wrong with them.

1. FLASH GAME linked to FB
- These games are made using FLASH and can be full fledged games that are fun to play. They’re seriously capable of being fun games which you would want to play on your handphone or PC offline.
- So what’s the problem? Slow internet speed/Slow computer can kill the game. Heck, if you really enjoyed the game, you could probably just save the flash game on to your PC and NOT play it on FB. HECK just google “free flash games” and you’ll stumble upon countless flash games which have the potential to be MUCH BETTER than the FB flash games.

2. Waiting game
-Do stuff then wait before being able to do more stuff.
- Games require you to wait, such as farming or cooking games. You plant seeds, wait then come back after a certain amount of time then harvest the fruit of your labours. Another similar type are “war”/”fantasy” games, where you do quests by expending energy or fight other players using stamina, both of which will regenerate as time passes by.
- The problem? If you haven’t noticed the problem yet, then let me tell you what the problem is. YOU HAVE TO WAIT. Imagine you’re on a rollercoaster (or whatever you like to have fun), you’re having a blast when all of a sudden the rollercoaster stops and the attendant goes to you and tells you, “ok, times up, come back after 3 years.”
Boy oh boy isn’t that fun?

3. Add people game
- Let’s use “war games” as an example, typically a “waiting game”, where players battle other players to prove that they rock or have bigger balls or whatever.
- These sort of games give the player a sense of triumph IF they win a battle, due to defeating another player, another real life person.
- What’s the problem? Typically, FB games depend on players spending real life money to survive, so they need to publicize their games. One method is by getting players to get their friends to join them in the game that they are playing. So what is the motivation? When a player has a friend playing, their “army” size increases, which directly contributes to the players combat abilities. In the end it becomes a retarded game of “Who has a bigger army” AKA “I have more friends playing this game than you (and I’m gonna thrash you up with my number advantage)”.
- The above statement shows how lame it is by default, but it does not stop there. The game becomes pesky and almost always tries to post things on your wall to promote itself. I have friends requesting me to join them in game, many in fact. Many friends from many games, initially I declined. I guess, it’s because of the incessant invites I probably decided to “help my friends out” and descend the path of FB games. I don’t blame them for requesting my assistance as I am guilty of the same.

4. “Premium” content.
- As I have stated earlier, games depend on revenue to survive. One method of getting the player to spend money is to buy “premium” content using real life money.
- It’s actually a good business model, only thing is, it is hard to make sure the items are worth the money yet do not give too much of a significant advantage over a none paying player. Many games fail to balance it out, making the game a “Who spent more money will win” type of game.

5. Repeat repeat and repeat.
- Some games are so repetitive that it becomes superbably ridiculous.
- Let’s take a farm game for an example, the player has to till the land, plant seeds, water their plants, then later reap their harvest. Seems simple enough, lets just throw in a small plot of land, 10 x 10 grid. The player can probably grow 100 items on that piece of land. 100 items = 100 clicks. Still OK, still acceptable. It get’s mind boggling when players upgrade the size of their farms, to let’s say 24 x 24 grid? That’s 576 things to grow, and certain “objects” such as animals and trees are small enough that you can fit 4 into each of the 574 slots. It becomes more “work” than “fun” to me. FUCK THAT.

Other words.

Hell, FB games are indeed “OK” to play, however, people forget that there are so many other “proper” games that they can play. A few things that define “real” games include:

1- Having more friends can make it fun but is totally unnecessary
2- In regards to waiting games, proper games also require some amount of waiting, but unlike FB games, these sort of games usually come with “pause/unpause time”, “slow down time”, as well as the much appreciated “fast forward time”.

Somehow I don’t think I can end this post without recommending some games for the “casual FB gamer”.

1 Theme hospital.
- It’s a freaking old game, most laptops/netbooks are good enough to play this game without lag.
- I would recommend the Sims but I chose to recommend this instead as it’s PC hardware requirements are low, and unlike the Sims, the player has a sense of objective.
- Just go and get it. Alt+tab is your friend.

2. Harvest moon (SNES emulator)
- Forget all the farming games you play on FB, those games make you lazy and whatever you accomplish is hollow when you compare them to Harvest moon.
- The player spends 2 and a half years (30 days per season, 4 season per year), to develop his ranch. Players can go mining, planting crops, raring livestock, making friends with the town folk, as well as marrying and having 2 kids.
- There are many different versions of Harvest moon, but in my opinion, this is the best.
- My dad actually plays this game and is much better at it than I am, he played multiple times challenging himself to get more money than he previously did on other play troughs – not forgetting to mention he married every single person who could be married in the game.

3 Anarchy Online
- It’s a heavy game to download, but it’s free to play. It’s a 7 year old game yet there are many people who choose to subscribe to this game. Many of the paid subscribers have played WoW and yet they chose AO over it.
- This game is really complex and can be a great time waster, however the player has to suffer 7 year old graphics.
- Normally I wouldn’t recommend MMORPGs, as they require focus and dedication, however in AO, certain classes allow the player to attack an enemy, Alt+Tab, do stuff, then Alt+Tab to loot the enemy remains. Further more it is FREE to play (as long as you don’t play it’s expansions).
- Before anyone asks why I didn’t recommend games like EVE, Maple or Draconica, let me say that those games are either Pay to Play, requires a good PC to run or require the player to keep focus in game.

Ironically, after I quit FB games, my company blocked FB.

Last words:

GET THEME HOSPITAL!

Why Facebook games are good

I initially stayed clear away from FB (Facebook) for a long period of time. I was preoccupied with Friendster to bother with FB. After a very long period of time, I was kind of annoyed by the constant messages sent by FB “on behalf of my friends”. Thus, I reluctantly signed up, for the sake of stopping these invites.

My initial findings on FB was that it was CLEAN. I liked the interface/layout. It was much more better than Friendster. Friendster was fucking ugly, as it allowed it’s users to customize their profile layout/design. SERIOUSLY, Friendster is FUGLY. It’s like the developers copied MySpace, which used to be the ugliest social networking site. I guess Friendster wanted to keep MySpace company or rival it for the FUGLIEST social networking site on the web award.

It still took me some time before I actually quit Friendster. I was quite adamant on not using FB “Apps” or games. That changed during lunchbreaks at work, where I had free time but had nothing to do. Normally I would bring my PSP to play during those times, but as time passed by, I felt that it was a hassle and I did not enjoy playing my PSP during that time (There’s a time limit which is the end of lunchbreak, which spoils the mood). Finally, I caved in. I started using FB Apps and games.

FB games really does kill time. Despite all the “hate” I have for FB games, I will admit FB games are a good thing. Why do I say that? The basic reasons would be, it allows people to spend their time gaming, anywhere and anytime, provided they have internet connection. It gives people something to do and it can possibly stimulate their mind.

However, the real reason why I applaud FB games, is not on how it directly affects me. It is how it directly affects others. In the past, I have been scrutinized as well as scorned for being a gamer. People would assume I’m kiddish and that I waste my time playing childish games. People would generally look down on gamers. Thanks to FB, more people start to game. Even though some FB games aren’t really worthy of being labelled a “game”, there were many casual games that appealed to many.

Many people start to game. Many people become gamers albeit a casual one instead of a hardcore gamer.

People are not so harsh on gamers, as they themselves have turned in to one….

Sims 3

Recently I got my hands on a game called The Sims 3. I’ve played the Sims 1 and 2 before and I know how the game plays out. For those who don’t know what this game is about, it is practically about living simulated lives in game. The game allows you to create avatars/characters and personalize them down with great detail. The player has control over what they do during their “life”, from simple acts of brushing teeth to building up a career or even starting a family and even buying furniture as well as design your own house from scratch. Initially, in the first Sims, there were not many things one could do. Well, ok- there are many things to do however there was no real objective. The Sims 3 gives a sense of purpose as the Sims/avatars would have aspirations/wishes. If they are granted, they will be given bonus points which can be used to buy special abilities.

Regardless, I would still say that the Sims is just a waste of time. No, let me correct that. It can be a great time consumer, as the game progresses as fast as the player wants it to. Even though I love RPG games and many other game genres I will admit, that the Sims can waste your time away. The player does not need to feel committed, the game pace can be very relaxing. Speaking of relaxing games…

I’ve come to realize that many people play facebook games, such as farmville, yoville and such. The premise being “do some stuff, then come back after some time has passed (can take up to 2-3 days). The concept is applied in the Sims. I would say most facebook games are just a poorman’s version of the Sims. I strongly suggest the people who enjoy facebook games to do themselves a favour by getting the Sims 3 and delete off their facebook games.

On a different note… HERE COMES THAR PICTARS!!!

http://xcvx.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/sptraitssim3.jpg

Pei Wun stated something like “the picture looks disturbingly like you” (with you I mean me, not you the reader), I picked traits based on what people commented on my behaviour.

http://xcvx.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/sptummy.jpg

I tried to recreate my body shape… I…. NEED….. DIET………..

Hanging up my guitar

Many years ago, probably back in 2000, I was a fresh student studying in Ikram College. Back then the hostels did not have internet connection nor any computer network. When students were not studying, they relied on what they had in hand to entertain themselves, for me it was my PC, my friends, going out or Magic the Gathering (it’s a card game). One day, one of my hostel friend brought his guitar over and lent it to my room mate (or my neighbour who’s also my friend, I don’t really remember where the guitar ended up with). The guitar had only 3 strings as the rest had snapped. It was a derelict ancient and abandoned guitar (I’m being absolutely unnecessarily redundant here), but it was adequate enough to produce “music”. My friend taught us a few simple samples from some Nirvana song.

Try, try, try, try and try. I got it right. I managed to play that part of the song. It was easy. It was poison. Deep was this poison that it lead me to buy a guitar. I bought a Hofma guitar (subsidiary of Yamaha) worth RM170. Was it a good deal? I don’t know. There is a saying, “your first guitar is always a rip off, but you’ll still love it”. The statement makes sense considering a person wants to learn how to play a guitar wouldn’t necessarily know how to differentiate a good guitar from a bad one or even know if the guitar is priced inexpensively. Regardless I loved my guitar.

There’s a saying that guys would learn how to play a guitar for 2 main reasons. The first being interest, the second being girls. My interest waned through the years. I found myself not touching my guitar for months. I do not remember the last time I played my guitar properly. Heck, the only time I remember touching my guitar was to move it to a different place. I do not know how to play many songs. The song I could probably play to completion would be “Best I ever had / Grey Sky Morning” by Vertical Horizon. It’s a sad song which I like. At one point I knew how to play “Tears in heaven”. Crap…. Usually what I do is learn a song, get to a difficult part, then lose interest. It always has been that way and I know myself well enough that I don’t really have such enthusiasm anymore.

No interest? What about girls? Guys can woo girls with their skill in guitar. I tried my hand at it. I wrote a song, played and sang it. I gave a girl the recording. The song was actually stuck in hiatus. The growing feelings I had for the girl was the push of motivation that I needed to complete the song (can be found in my blog if one digs deep enough). I gave it the recording to her as a valentine’s day gift. We got together soon after.

Love is a fickle thing. Being a pessimist that I am, I did not put her name into the song lyrics. One reason was to make it general, so it could be sung to anyone. Another reason is that the song would lose it’s meaning if the relationship with the girl did not work out. Did not work out indeed. I am single at the time of writing this post. Suffice to say I have no interest and I have no “girl”.

So what happens now? I’m thinking of keeping my guitar in the store room, I could probably sell it off or even donate it somewhere.

Guitar performances? Count me out, I do not practice regularly enough to play the guitar well anymore nor do I have the passion.

Writing this makes me feel I have lost something. The decision has been made, but I think I would truly feel the loss once my guitar is no longer with me….

Stuff

Recently I went to mines on my own, for the purpose of buying a pair of Hawaiian pants. I needed the pants as it was required for a performance that I am involved in. The shop that I found selling Hawaiian pants was none other than The Reject Shop. Thinking about it many of my purchases randomly come from this shop.

I found 2 pants that had a design that I liked. I was a bit particular in choosing them out of the others, as I rarely wore any clothing that had floral patterns/motifs. These two had a good balance of simplicity and flower motifs. They were the only ones of their design left in stock so I hurriedly took them to the dressing room. Once I had my trousers hung on the wall then at that very moment I remembered there was such a thing called “size”. The 2 pants I had took were not my size, they were M while I needed a minimum of XL. Damn. The only option left was to ask the attendants if they had any other in stock. Finding an attendant proved an unnecessary waste of time. One of them was squatting down resting his back on a clothes rack, I quickly turned a blind eye as I did not want to “disturb” his leisure time. Oh my…. This Reject shop is quite peculiar. A shop run by rejects? After scouring the shop for an attendant (I did not bother the cashier as she was busy with other customers), I finally spotted an attendant. She was standing near a rack of clothes. Ooops, let me correct that. She was standing BEHINDD a rack of clothes instead of in front of it, obscuring my vision and blending in the background. As I approached her, she pointed to me to where the counter was. Wow! Not only is she a reject ninja, she’s a reject ninja psychic too! I quickly told her what I wanted, she disappeared and came back to me in a while telling me that those designs were out of stock.

Fine. I went back to the rack of Hawaiian pants with a different objective. “Find pants with floral patterns that suited me”. This proved a hassle as all the pants were put on hangers which had clips clipping 2 ends of each pant. Each pant had no size measurement on the price tag, which was no big deal as I could just reach in the back of each pant to see the measurement there. The plan was flawless except for the fact that each pant was clipped at the front and BACK. I had to unclip the back side before I could see the measurement of each pants. I was getting so desperate (because I did not want to make a 2nd trip to find Hawaiian pants) that I even went through Hawaiian pants that had PINK in their design. Thankfully I found 2 pants that were XL. Tried them on, they fit. I proceeded to pay. Done!

Blog “update” – “MSN”

My last post was about “Myself”, this post (as suggested by Yan Leng) is about “MSN”.

It’s a lazy post. It’s just a chat log with KeYao. I saw someone on my msn contact list whose nick were in chinese characters. I proceeded to ask her who she was and this is the conversation that followed:

keyao says (10:05 PM):
lol
i change back d
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:06 PM):
-.-
if i see ur nick change again i ll put it as “Noob Keyao”
hahahaha
keyao says (10:06 PM):
lol
are u like seriously dunno who is it
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:07 PM):
yeash
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:08 PM):
seriously dunno
soome more ur pic ddidnt load
hahahah
keyao says (10:09 PM):
lol
are u asking anyone when u dunno them
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:09 PM):
yeah
if theyre on my list
i ll ask
coz normally
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:10 PM):
if their nick keep changing
or i cannot identify them by seeing their nick at a glance
i will rename them
*Noob + Anyname i like*
so if its u itll be “noob keyao”
hahahaha
keyao says (10:11 PM):
ahaaha
lol
funny ar
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:13 PM):
i got alot ofppl on my list lo
hahahah
the Noob list
hahaha
keyao says (10:15 PM):
u damn ba la
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:23 PM):
ba?
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:24 PM):
ba ba black sheep
keyao says (10:24 PM):
bad
lol
haaahahahah
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:25 PM):
so now i m a bad guy la
ppl go n change their nick
make me waste my time figuring who it is
and when i finally figure out who it is
they change their nick in one days time
i rename ppl
now i m bad?
keyao says (10:26 PM):
hahahaha
wow wow
responsiblee
lol
keyao says (10:27 PM):
aiyar..
u just put it at the same group lar
is the same ppl ma
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:28 PM):
same group?
but i still dunno who they are right?
then when they message me
i will scratch my head
who is this?
keyao says (10:28 PM):
ask loo
looo
lolo
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:29 PM):
u want me to ask 100 ppl 100 times?
keyao says (10:29 PM):
wahh
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:29 PM):
rename 1 time much easier
keyao says (10:29 PM):
so many pl talk to u?
lol
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:29 PM):
nolaa
not many ppl talk to me
but its just an example
keyao says (10:29 PM):
ahhaha
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:29 PM):
which one easier
rename one time
keyao says (10:29 PM):
kay lar
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:29 PM):
or ask 100 time?
hahahaha
keyao says (10:29 PM):
i have no idea
keyao says (10:30 PM):
cause i just leave them there
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:30 PM):
lol
good for u
since u cant even figure out which one is easier
keyao says (10:30 PM):
yea
lol
SP – ??? – ExSea – ٩(●̮̮•)۶ says (10:30 PM):
i m posting this on my blog