ERR, NOW WHAT?

I must be trying to break or set a personal record. Three eroge finished in four weeks. Of course this means I haven't been able to write the closing chapter to my ambitious, doomed to failure multi-series crossover, and so I'm feeling a little bit guilty.

*******

I'm taking this rare opportunity to update - the house DSL connection is spotty and shaky at times. Sigh. And I'm paying 1200 bucks out of my salary for this? There is something broken with this situation, and I'm pretty sure it's not my network devices.

Nothing special going on, really. A couple of my coworkers have leveled up, so to speak, which puts pressure on the rest of the team. The lower-level peeps are reminded to take the same challenges, while we "older" next-level guys have to push up and reach for the next tier so we can prove our seniority. We're afraid that the shiny, sparkly newly promoted guys would make it seem so easy to reach the next level, and we're afraid of losing face and credibility to the guys and gals on the lowest rung. I think. I speak for myself. I guess.

*******

Aside from the eroge, I've also finished all 4 acts of the doujin game Battle Moon Wars. It's a mouse-driven turn based simulation rpg in the same vein as Super Robot Taisen, except that the characters and plot devices are drawn from Type-Moon's novels and games instead of various mecha series past and present. One advantage that BMW enjoys over SRT/Super Robot Wars is that there is a wonderful soul who has made it his labor of love to translate all of the game into English, allowing those of us who could not make sense of kanji and hiragana to enjoy the story and game play. Granted, Atlus has translated SRW OG and OG 2 for the GBA into English, which I enjoyed, but there's still something about BMW that grabs my heart and keeps it.

Maybe it's the level of detail / animation for the map sprites. The sprites march, saunter, wave their arms about when jumping, fall down on their knees when reaching critical HP, and in one case explode in a crying mushroom cloud. I kid you not.

Or maybe it's the fact that the game allows you to order about in heated fights characters from visual novels and eroge. Guh, why'd I end up talking about eroge again?

*******

The readout on my taskbar says that it's almost 12 noon. I yawn, and really should consider going to bed instead of thinking up lines to write.

Forgive me, my fanfic. I will attend to you soon - as soon as I get my teeth fixed up.

REBERU APU!
Or
You have earned a skill point!

As I write this, it's - what the heck, you can read the time stamp, right?

It's raining now. Half an hour ago, I came home via cab and was greeted by my older brother, who informed me of some interesting new sleeping and bed arrangements. I shrugged, and murmured my assent my family was sleeping soundly, and I had no wish to wake them up.

That was my intent.

Turns out that my Mom, and surprisingly Dad, was also awake at this unholy hour. Dad had a request for me - immediately my weird sensors started tingling. A favor, at just a few minutes around midnight?

I have always tried to be an obedient son. I know that my education levels leave a lot to be desired and I know that it's a constant source of angst - can sexagenarians still angst about anything? - and so I resolved that whatever his request may be, it can't be as hard as getting a thesis paper approved and published, so I'm going to do it.

My old man needed help catching hen that was roosting on one of the trees in front of the house.

I daresay that it was the most unexpected thing that my old man would need my help on, and it sure beats writing a thesis hands down. I did tell him one thing though: "I've never tried to catch livestock at night before, can't we do it at daybreak instead, or when there's light enough for me to see the bird?"

My dad looked at me like I had grown a second head on my shoulders. I belatedly realized that if I could see the bird on the tree's branches, it sure as heaven could see me. D'oh! I blame the hour for it.

Essentially, I was able to act out my Metal Gear / Snake-wannabe fantasies. After changing into my "Stealth Suit" AKA my usual sleepwear of sleeveless shirt and comfy trousers I hunted for a pair of rubber slippers - I am not about to go sneaking around in the darkness of our front yard without footwear - and tried to open the gate as quietly as I could. The gate, not having been oiled recently, groaned and shuddered like a haunted mansion prop.

For this operation Dad was acting as the spotter. He had a powerful flashlight with which he pointed out, well, maybe illuminated would be the better word, my objective. The hen was roosting on one of the branches of the bilimbi (Averrhoa bilimbi) - that's kamias for all the Tagalog-speakers and Filipinos out there - a bit more than six feet above the ground. Get some elevation, stay silent, and grab the sleeping bird. I'm a healthy, gout-free young man, so it should be a piece of cake, right?

The hen of course had to awaken at the sound of the gate and got distressed at the sound of impending capture. It didn't help that my Dad, with unerring accuracy, managed to get the bird right in the eye every single time with his flashlight beams - a holdover no doubt from his more active days, when he and his Forest Management Bureau colleagues teamed up with the then Presidential Anti-Crime Commission to raid illegal logging operations and sawmills.

The bird did the smart thing and moved to a higher branch.

I was having none of it, however. I wanted to rest, I was starting to get hunger pangs - seriously, I have this weird fast metabolism - and so I asked Dad to keep illuminating the target, and not to flash beams at it - while I circled the base of the tree and looked for a way up. Thank goodness the bird wasn't looking down, so I was able to get underneath it and nab one of its legs. A few seconds of avian struggle and it was over.

"Target acquired," I joked to my dad, trying to sound as mechanical as possible. "Mission Accomplished."

During the Intermission, I handed the bird over to Mom while Dad fished around for a length of string to tie hen with. I asked, "Why didn't you tie it up in the first place?"

"We did tie it up. Unfortunately, your cousin's son untied it..."

"The kid was under no supervision? Then they should have tethered him," I wanted to say, in hindsight.

My folks are asleep again, and I'm still hungry time for another pancake. Excuse me.

I decided to go against pancakes and horked the bottle of sweetened pili nuts instead. Sweet!!

Now for some RPG-related claptrap:

You learn a new feat: Improved Nocturnal Grapple (Animal)
Prerequisites
Dex 13, Improved Unarmed Strike.

Benefit
You do not provoke an attack of opportunity (or an escape attempt) when you make a touch attack to start a grapple against an animal smaller than you in low-lighting conditions. You also gain a +4 bonus on all grapple checks vs. animals smaller than you in low-lighting conditions, regardless of whether you started the grapple.

Normal
Without this feat, you provoke an attack of opportunity (or an escape attempt) from the animal when you make a touch attack to start a grapple. Going over to pet it, heck even thinking of touching the little critter will make your intentions known and want it to be not where you could see it.

Special
This feat does not allow you to grapple animals in total darkness unless you have the Blind Fighting feat.

Note that humans are animals, and even an centimeter over your target will allow you to use this feat against him/her.

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I almost thought it would reject me. I find myself asking at times why I bothered creating a blog in the first place, when I feel that I don't have stuff that are worth making an update to my online journal every so often.

Now what?

I might as well stay true to form and stick to my tried and tested time-walk through the past week, talking about games and the world as it revolves around me.

I pause as a certain conversation with someone runs through my head as I write, a conversation about what you type out on your blog for the world to see.

My blog is not meant to be a tour guide through my thought processes. By reading this blog, you are looking at the inner workings of a geek who's proud of it, one who will tell you to look it up on Wikipedia or Google if you ask for a detailed explanation of things he doesn't feel like explaining himself. If it seems abrasive to you, I apologize, but given the alignment of stars and planets on my hour of birth, this is me straight from the can.

This blog will not be a pretty show and tell site, with illustrations accompanying the text paragraphs. I find it too much of upkeep and effort to do so, and I'm not running for hits anyway. Just because I'm a geek doesn't mean I can't be lazy in some aspects.

Wanna know a secret? I just made a blog so that (assuming the Internet does not get destroyed in the near future) my descendants can take a look at it, read it perhaps, and say to themselves, "The old man was whacked, but at least he left behind a bit of himself."

If you're scared of a sea of words which may contain unfathomable, incomprehensible ideas and big, high-falutin' words, turn back now. There are other pages out there. This is your last warning.

THE WEEK THAT WAS...

• Eventide Pre-Release

Right after my graveyard shift, with no sleep at all, I headed for a certain mall to fall in line and get my spot confirmed. I was in the second pod of players, and I was so sleepy that the guys on the table I was sitting at had to point out to me that my ticket was for pod Bravo, not Alpha. Whoa. This is a bad portent.

As always, I end up with a pile of cards with very few playable rares. I tell myself it's ok, I'm only in it for the Pre-Release foil card, a hybrid blue-green monster called the Overbeing of Myth, which in my opinion should have been called Overbeing of Hype. It's a */* creature where * is the number of cards in your hand, and to make sure it can swing big it has you draw an extra card per turn. It doesn't fly, so with the draw ability it's technically an upgrade of the old and lovable Maro from the Mirage block. Essentially a dud when it's the only card in your hand, unless you've got a permanent that boosts the toughness of your blue and/or green creatures, it's awesome when you have a full hand or close to it.

If you're wondering about my deck, I unfortunately disassembled it before I could document it. It was a red-white concoction, focusing on playing my usable rares, Windbrisk Raptor from Shadowmoor and Nobilis of War from Eventide. I also had a mini-combo in the form of Power of Fire and a couple of Kithkin that could untap themselves. The deck, which in my opinion was the best my card pool could produce, did have some great moments.

There was one game where a Powered Patrol Signaler was able to clear my opponent's board, including a Kulrath Knight, and kept it clear, while generating a Kithkin token army. My opponent thought he still had a long clock (Magic jargon for the number of turns you might still have to be able to pull of a win) - until the Nobilis of War came down, turning each token into 3/1 creatures when attacking. My war-crazed tokens were willing to tussle with the enemy defenders, knowing that there would be more to follow once the flame-throwing Patrol Signaler finishes off the blocking creature.

If you still didn't get it, Power of Fire allows you to tap your creature to and have it deal 1 damage to any target. Patrol Signaler can untap himself for 2 mana and net you a 1/1 Kithkin token as well. Combined, my board can actually deal 4 points of damage to any target - at the point I was able to complete the combo I had 5 lands, three of which were Plains, and was able to draw a fourth.

Then there was the game where I was able to play Windbrisk Raptor (a whopping 7 mana investment) and was able to enchant it with Scourge of the Nobilis. The Scourge is part of a set of 2-color enchantments that provide a certain bonus to a creature if it's one of two colors. If a creature is both the colors, these enchantments provide 2 power-ups to the creature - a strong incentive to play 2 colors. Anyway, the Scourge gives +1/+1 to red and white creatures, grants the ability to increase damage output with mana to red creatures and lifelink (AKA damage = life gain) to white creatures. Putting it on the Raptor turned it into a 6/8 flying beast that grants attackers lifelink - including itself. Now, according to the rules, each instance of lifelink triggers separately. Which meant whatever the Raptor hits (for 6) I gain 12 life, a blessing considering that I was on the ropes then. After confirming with a judge that this was the way double lifelink works the game quickly grew out of hand and my opponent conceded.

Another cute cycle in the Eventide block were the hatchlings. These were 6/6 creatures for 4 mana, which came into play with 4 -1/-1 counters each. Each hatchling had a special ability, and each would shake off a -1/-1 counter whenever its controller plays a spell that belongs to one of its two colors. If the spell was both colors, (say a Scourge of the Nobilis) the hatchling shakes off 2 counters. It happened in my next game, where my opponent was stuck with 2 lands and I had a lot of lands and no creatures until turn 4, the red-white Belligerent Hatchling. So I tapped 4, played it, and when my opponent discarded another card to end his turn, I tried to contain my glee as I dropped a fifth land and played my other creature I was holding since Turn 1: Nobilis of War. Suddenly my Hatchling was taking a 6-point chunk of my opponent's 20 life. Still my opponent's deck refused to cooperate and it was over on my turn when I drew Scourge of the Nobilis and enchanted the Hatchling with it, turning it into an 8/8 first strike creature with lifelink and the capacity to do more damage. My opponent was staring down at a maximum of 17 damage in one attack - he extended his hand and shook mine, commenting that "Suddenly, my three color fast attack deck seems SO SLOW right now."

"Mana screw, dude. It could happen to anybody," I replied.

Of course, I lost the next two games after that, I mean I was utterly defeated, 0-2 for the next duels. It sucked, really. I lost, and I lost quickly each game, and I can only curse the Fates - the blonde Testarosa one not included, of course.

I modded the deck as soon as I got home with the prize packs, which yielded another Scourge of the Nobilis and 2 perfect candidates to bestow it to: a pair of first-striking hobgoblin knights mounted on cicadas that could bear their weight. The 1/2 fliers suddenly turn into flying, life-sucking bringers of DOOM that can engage any opponent and kill it if there was enough red or white mana available - yes, you read that right.

That's the dream, at least. Only in 40-card constructed.

• Finished Hellgate:London At Last

Possible Spoiler Warning

I step into St. Paul's Hellgate after realizing that the enemy just continuously re-spawns like mad. While it was probably good for racking up experience points, dinner was about to be served, and I wanted to see with my girlfriend what the final battle would be like.

The witch lady I've been traveling with seems to be a heavenly avatar of some sort and instructs me to finish off 5 demon generals while she keeps the big guy distracted. It appears to me that her method of distracting the final boss is to play telepathic mind games with him while hovering after me for protection, or perhaps a lack of sense of direction.

So, onto hunting the mini-bosses. I had to constantly re-build my conjurer's army of elementals and make sure that the tanking Carnagor didn't fall. The mini-bosses were essentially re-colors and re-sizes of some enemies I've faced before, with the exception of the Reaper mini-boss - I don't think I've ever encountered a Reaper enemy before, if memory serves me right. What made the Reaper mini-boss slightly annoying was that it was in close proximity to a flying ethereal type mini-boss. The combination almost spelled death for my Carnagor, but timely use of my blood (read:HP) in exchange for my pet's and ordering it to execute its Meat Shield special ability both kept it alive and drew the stupid flying boss down closer to the ground. At this point I was thankful that I took some points in and Storm Elemental, Toxin Elemental, and Elemental Nova. I was able to strip its shields quickly, prevent it from healing by afflicting it with poison, and land Fire Damage Over Time and Defense Down de-buffs on it while stunning it every so often - that's what an entire family of elementals that just went Nova could do. The Elemental Nova doubles the chance of my little glowing pets adding special effects to their attacks, and boy, what a demonstration.

Truth be told, Sydonai, the final Boss, was a let down. Compared to fighting the titular enemy in Diablo 2 or any of his brothers, Sydonai bombed. He never got to me, always going after my elementals, and finally was unable to break away from my loyal Carnagor, at which point we buried him under a ton of fireballs, lighting bolts, poison spit (eww), warp blasts, brute force, and electric eels. I kid you not, that's what the rifle was called, an Electric Eel Launcher, and aside from not missing once the target is in 20 meters, I added power-ups to it that made it deal fire damage, cause the Ignite status effect, and increase the chance of the Shock status effect to prevent skill and spell use.

After all that work, what do you get? Nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing. A little cinematic is shown where it's revealed that Murmur who was thought to have been eaten by Sydonai is still alive despite all the massive damage on his human body, and thanks you for knocking this particular obstacle out of his way. He pays you back by sending you through a rift, then brings out a book which might have been important to his plans. The joke's on him though, as the pages turn into cinders, leaving him with a look of disbelief on his face. Cue crappy ending credit sequence here.

Perhaps there would be more on the second time you finish the game, you might say? Perhaps. I'm in no mood to challenge it again anytime soon though. I want to get back into writing, and I have a little loose end I want to tie up.

Until next time, may your saving of the world, your prevention of the apocalypse, and heroic efforts be met with the fanfare you deserve. Remember, tempt not the Fates, especially the blonde Testarosa one - she has some kick-ass friends, notably one Demon Cannon Girl.

So Much For Regularity

A backward account of recent events follows.

I finished watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and the A's season this morning. Sweet. You watch it expecting Card Captor Sakura, you end up feeling like you've sat through Super Robot Wars Original Generation or some other mecha series. It's a magical girl show that boys shouldn't feel ashamed to watch.

I changed my phone bling from Bleach's Grimmjow to Konata of Lucky Star Fame. I felt like a poseur, toting a character on my phone who I didn't no squat about, so I felt no remorse replacing the Arrancar with the blue haired 17-year old otaku.

I joined the Shadowmoor pre-release. I went 2-2, which was better than my Lorwyn and Morningtide finishes. Highlights if the day were my first Automatic Game Loss for suspected cheating and taking a foreign player to Philippine pre-release rule school. Remember kids, when using sleeves and sideboarding cards, don't make the same mistake I did of being lazy and placing the sideboard cards over the replaced ones. That will net you an AGL (see above), even if it's a casual environment like a pre-release. Also note that in a Philippine pre-release, the remaining cards you did not register as your main deck is your sideboard, and if you're lucky enough to be able to assemble a functional deck with the remnants, you are allowed to use that second deck during Games 2 and 3.

A few weeks back, I finished Rozen Maiden and its second season Traumend. For those not in the know, the show is about 7 living dolls who are actually Weapons of Mass Destruction fighting each other in a brawl called the Alice Game, with the last doll standing becoming Alice, dollmaker Rozen's ideal of the perfect girl. Somebody should point out to all the characters concerned that perfection is an illusion, or perhaps a delusion. The first season could be descrined as Hikikomori Rescue 101. The next season makes grown men cry when dolls are killed.

My gashapon collection really needs shelf space of their own. To date, I've got 8 SD Mobile Suits, an SD Eternal; 4 Capcom fighting females: Lilith and Morrigan (from Darkstalkers), Ingrid (from a Capcom title I'm sure I didn't play), and Claire (from Plasma Sword 2); and 6 more figures from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2 Nagato Yuki in red and black bunny girl garb, Mikuru Asahina in Gothic Loli wear, Haruhi Suzumiya in beach wear, taking her top off, and 2 versions of Itsuki Koizumi, one holding a fireball in his hand, and the other one not).

Gaming Update: I'm pretty sure I'm at the last act of Hellgate London. The wonder of Dawn of War: Soulstorm has worn off for me, and it's now become a grind to acquire all the wargear for all 9 commanders. That's a lot of grinding. What I've recently picked up is the first three acts of Battle Moon Wars, and it was worth my time investment acquiring them. I can't read the Japanese conversations to get all the plot, but what I can decipher has be busting my gut laughing. A game that makes you fight a ninja cosplaying as a Gundam ZZ, who is actually the fusion of two psychotic killers with super powers? I didn't see this coming when I signed up for this, but it sure as hell was enjoyable.

That's all for now. I'd love to get back to work on my fanfiction - there's so much material to work with now.

Update! Update!

It's amazing that I'm posting again after almost a month since my last post. A sign of regularity, of things to come perhaps? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

So what have I been up to?

I'm trying to finish a bunch of games I've recently installed on my spanking new hard disk. It started with Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, trying to see all the endings. I've seen the Space Marines' ending, as well as those of the Orks, the Tau, the Imperial Guard, and the Necrons. The Tau ending was courtesy of my brother's perseverance. So far, I've yet to make sizable progress with Chaos and the Eldar campaigns, and then the other games struck.

Next up was an oldie but goodie - Age of Mythology. I've played the game before, but was disappointed when the campaign module of my brother's copy was corrupted - it wouldn't even let us finish the Greek campaign. Oddly enough, the multiplayer and skirmish modes were intact. Thanks to my girlfriend, I'm now able to enjoy it in all its glory - the impetus to finishing it is the fact that my girlfriend also has a copy of the AoM: Titans expansion.

The DoW: Soulstorm expansion is ready to spring upon avid War Hammer 40,000 gamers/players, which bodes well for financially strapped fans like myself. I've downloaded the demo, which allows you to play the Dark Eldar vs the Blood Ravens Space Marine chapter. It looks good - my only gripe is that small vehicle limit and caps don't make for exciting dogfights with the brand-new air units. From what I've seen, the game will be built on the Dark Crusade meta-engine, which is in turn a nod to old Westwood classics where you get to choose which enemy territory to attack. I'm excited to play with the Sisters of Battle, AKA Nuns With Guns. Yes, take that comment as you will.

Next up is Hellgate London, a contemporary dungeon crawl. You know it's good times when you're shooting demons up with your elemental rocket launchers, slicing them up close with power weapons, and they respond in kind. Hellgate offers dual-wielding of weapons even at the earliest levels of the game for some character classes, and with all the black armor going around, you can pretend you're playing a hellish version of The Matrix or Gunz: The Duel. No wall walk though, and melee combat is restricted to just two fighter classes, both of which can wield a pistol in their off hand. Come on people, is it so hard to kick or curb stomp a weakened enemy?

Then there's World in Conflict. It dubs itself as a real-time tactics game, or RTT. As far as I can tell, the only difference it has from RTS titles is that you don't build units in a RTT, you just click whatever troops you want deployed and they parachute or get airdropped to a designated point within 20 seconds. WiC also features the ability to recover the points you spent on destroyed units, which means eventually you'll be able to re-field that tank which died early on in your game to save your hide from being bum-rushed. I don't know if this is going to be a standard feature of RTTs, though.

The most recent addition is Company of Heroes. I call it Dawn of World War II. It's also a Relic release, and unsurprisingly features concepts familiar to DoW players: capturing strategic points, reinforcing squads that have lost a few good men, and most of the units come with special abilities. There are bits of realism though, and these are what make the game stand out from just playing DoW with the Imperial Guard: You can only reinforce infantry near an APC or HQ buildings/Barracks, captured points require that you have uncontested control over map sections leading from the point to other territory you control, and infantry making use of cover like walls and fortifiable buildings. Heck, even tank facing comes into play - you don't want your tank to take a hit to your rear or flanks, even by infantry.

Finally, an otaku update. My gashapon figure collection is growing again, after gifting some of them to people I know. I'm left with 3 SD super robots (The Big O, Godmars, and Shin Getter-1), Misato's apartment (which means Shinji, Asuka, and Pen-Pen) with a Rei add-on, and Kyon's harem of un-ordinary girls (Haruhi, Yuki, and Mikuru). Don't ask me when I'm going to buy another 1/144 or 1/100 mecha sprue kit - my Alteisen traumatized me with its loose joints. Besides, with all the games I have, as well as Shakugan no Shana Second and Rental Magica, do you think I'd have time?

Ja ne!

So What Else Is New?

This is my first post for the year 2008, which coincides with Magic: The Gathering's Morningtide pre-release event. This is just a few days after the weekend of said event.

I had pre-registered, and with the help of a good friend, I got into Pod A of the tournament, which meant I was among the first few people in the Philippines to open, see, touch, and play with Morningtide cards in a Wizards Of The Coast-sanctioned event. Yay!

While we were seated and waiting for the cards to be passed out, a lady came up on the stage and made an important announcement: we would not be receiving 1 Lorwyn tournament pack and 3 Morningtide boosters as we expected. Instead, we were to create our 40-card minimum decks with 6 Morningtide boosters! As one can imagine, this proclamation was greeted with mixed reactions. There were scattered cheers because it meant more cards from the newest set to be had, but when realization settled in, dismayed groans could be heard. I was one of those groaning when I realized that there wouldn't be a chance to get planeswalkers from the random card pool. Sigh.

Being part of the first pod meant that there was no deck swap. This meant that if you opened your packs and got a lot of mediocre, unexciting, or downright crappy cards you were stuck with them. If you had some nifty ones, you were golden. Unfortunately, not only did I draw no powerhouses, my selection of usable spells and creatures per color was disheartening to say the least. Worse still, I drafted a colors that, shall we say got beaten black and blue literally all throughout the day. I used a Red/Green/ Warrior deck, splashing white for some creature control.

Here is the decklist. I'm not going to break things down piece by piece like I did with my previous, M:TG-themed post, because every time I see the list I cringe. Look the cards up using Gatherer, an online card database, and if you don't know where Gatherer is, Google it.

Main Deck:

3 Brighthearth Banneret
1 Bramble Paragon
1 Fertilid
2 Lys Alana Bowmaster
2 Seething Pathblazer
3 Winnower Patrol
1 Changeling Sentinel
2 Game-Trail Changeling
1 Lunk Errant
1 Shard Volley
1 Obsidian Battle-Axe
3 Weight of Conscience
1 Roar of the Crowd
1 Hunting Triad
1 Reins of the Vinesteed

12 Forests, 5 Mountains, 3 Plains

Sideboard: 1 Pyroclast Consul

The funny thing is, the day after the event I went to my girlfriend's house to show her the new cards. While there, I asked if I could borrow some basic lands from her, Islands and Swamps, and tried to make a working deck out of the black and blue cards I didn't use, after which I gave her the deck and told her to play with it. Now, neither of us is a cardshark, world-level player in terms of skill, and she has just gotten around to being sneaky with instants (she can now play combat tricks and take me by surprise), but the newly-constructed Prowl deck I gave her, made up of Morningtide-only cards was monstrous against my temperamental Warrior deck. I never won a single game with her using my poor Warriors.

Do you realize what this means? It means that during the next pre-release I attend, after I make an initial deck, I take the cards left on the bench and force a deck out of that. Life is funny that way.