On The Road

Since Archeage never really lived my expectation (as a free player) I decided to step back for a while from the world of MMOs, I still played some of them that's generous enough to gave me free login time (WoW, Wildstar, FFXIV) or continue updating their free content (Rift, Guild Wars 2), or just plain shield bash everything in Diablo's Torment III. But mainly I just burned through my list of (unplayed) steam games, thankfully, it's getting thinner

But my collection also grew with some of the newer (old) JRPG release like Final Fantasy XIII and Valkyria Chronicle, It was thoughtful for Sega and Square Enix to port their older games to PC, as I never owned Playstation 3 and also craving for them JRPGS, and yes it's mostly nostalgia but still they're good ports, Final Fantasy XIII will also have it's sequels ported to PC so I think I'm good for a while, I really think other JRPGS should follow their steps. For the MMOs I also have several long term plans with Warlords of Draenor it'll have to wait until Black Friday sale started =))

Being Saleh: Second year in Tyria

Happy Second Birthday, Saleh Mistreaver: Mindbender mesmerizer, Pioneer of fashionable purplish outfit, self-proclaimed troll king of Thelemic, and wielder of wide range of sharp (and sometimes big) pointy things, apparently cake gun is all the hype now

Saichotick's story

Yesterday, a fellow WOW player Saichotick post about his "adventures" in World of Warcraft with his wife Cillie, and in a shocking turn of event Cillie was recently diagnosed a rare form of cancer and only got a year to live, the thread got +237 like, one of the most highest rated thread in general discussion forum nowadays, in this post Saichotick describe his thanks for the makers of WOW and the player, the post was so gut-wrenching...

He wrote:

Seeing as how we have millions of players in WoW, I'm fairly positive that like 99.999% of you have no clue who I am. And that's ok, because I don't want to talk about myself.

I wanted to take a little bit of time to thank Blizzard. My wife and I both play WoW, she more so than I do. We've enjoyed this game together since TBC started, and it's been our main hobby and form of entertainment as she has gotten through nursing school. She and I even decided to run our own guild and raid team since Firelands, and we've been really enjoying that aspect of the game together ever since that decision was made. Her toon name is Cillie.

We've had the worst thing in our lives happen just a few weeks ago. Just after graduating school, she was diagnosed with Cholangiacarcinoma, a rare-ish form of cancer, especially for someone in their thirties and in good health to get. It is aggressive, and the initial prognosis from our first doctor was that she would have up to a year to live. Naturally, we weren't satisfied with that result. We're looking into multiple second opinions all over the country.

But she and I have had WoW as the one thing that we share and love together. We raid together (we're just 11/14 heroic, but we're working on the rest of them as hard as we can!), we run the guild together (she does like 99.99% of the work). She has loved meeting everyone she has come across in game, and she's so outgoing and nice, and she's what has kept so many people still playing in our little guild. We've got 3 (maybe a 4th) raid teams, from super casual to our casual heroic team, but really we have a LOT of really great, really nice, really awesome people that can all log on, hop into mumble, guild chat, do stuff, play games together, and it's mainly because she has had this great vision of what a fun guild can be.

We even managed to secure Blizzcon tickets for this year. We danced like 8 year old kids when I was able to hit refresh and enter my credit card info and lock down two tickets. We'd never gone before, just got the virtual tickets, and we were so pumped. Of course now treatments and doctors take precedence over that, but we're still going to try to go.

I wanted to thank Blizzard for their creations. These games, WoW, Starcraft, D3, Hearthstone, HotS (I'm in the alpha, it's amazing!), mainly just WoW but she and I have played them all together from time to time, we love them. You have created these wonderful, fantastic, tantalizing games for us to enjoy together, for us to share our time doing things we really enjoy together. Our relationship has been so strong, so amazing, and a part of that belongs to you guys and gals at Blizzard.

Besides these great games, you've created ways for us to connect to so many people all over the world. We've had people from every part of the planet in our WoW guild at one point or another. We've had people in Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, and even Japan as guildies, and all of that was to play this game we all love and enjoy.

Some of our guildies are throwing a benefit/fundraiser on August 30th. I'm not asking for people to come donate, but if anyone would like to come hang out with us on Eldre'thalas, we'd love to have anyone show up. We're going to be doing flex runs, a level 1 race through Azeroth, and all sorts of silliness like that. You can contact Raidwiper, our host for this event if you need more information.

I can't thank you all enough for giving us so much fun for so long. I'm hoping and praying that she and I will get to enjoy many more years of everything Blizzard. She and I both love WoW immensely, and we're hoping to see each and every expansion together. Please keep up the great work making these fun, enjoyable games for us. We love them, and we love all of you!

Stay strong Saichotick and Cillie, stay strong, I'll be there for the events, probably won't participate, but I will be there

/cried

link to full post

if you want to donate for Cillie, here's the link 

Media coverage: on Venturebeat

Shingeki No Kyojin opening spoofs

Since the good people at Blizzard taking down WOW for their usual maintenance (after a suspicious ddos attack) I take my time on writing about Aldnoah Zero, apparently I was distracted by a youtube link sent to me, another spoof of Shingeki No Kyojin opening

Shingeki No Kyojin a.k.a Attack on Titan was the most hyped anime this year, when I read the source manga about two years ago I never imagined that it will be the most spoofed anime because the opening theme is so good it's stuck to your ear and eyes after watching it the first time, it's not only prove that an opening can become so influential that everyone wants to be on it (or make anything with it), it also proves that Link Horizon's song Guren No Yumiya (which is only sounds good when paired with the anime opening) is also a perfect fit for everything that exists in this universe =))

First of all let's watch the original version first

You might want to watch it several times if it didn't stuck on your mind the first time. Now LET THE MADNESS BEGINS!!

-  First of all, let's visit another anime :D

- Let's spice things up a bit with girls!!

 - Not a fan of anime? Oh ok let's bring up the games!!

- You wouldn't think this one will fly...
 

- But THEY DID, and this one is my favorite

- Let's step up a bit, whoa

- Okay, that was weird... STAY AWAY FROM ME KOJIMA!!

- Well... this one is a proof that it's going global

- ................................................

Well that's it, you can scrounge youtube for more

EDIT: I forgot this, it's so subtle that it can be another original opening

Review: The Labor Age

Let me tell you something about ArcheAge....

It's good and surprisingly enjoyable

Except for one thing: Labor Points, Labor Points is your other resource in Archeage beside your usual MMORPG coins and points, and since EVERY activity like crafting, building, gathering, farming, buliding (did I said that twice? I lost track since economic based things is plenty in this game) and also recover XP when you're dead requires labor points it's quickly becomes a ridiculous gate, for free player it replenish slowly, every 5 minutes the game gave you 5 of it, only if you logged in, if you logged out or disconnected the game gave you nothing, yes nothing, none, nada, ZERO LP baby!!

Wants more LP? Only $15 a month!!! You know other game with time-based-self-replenishing resource like this? No? Let me refresh your mind

This

Also this

I don't remember whether it has it but I'm just gonna leave it here anyway

Please stuff your argument about balancing the economy here, I know Trion needs to make money, but this?

Blow me

Alright now that I let it out from my system, onto the review

Archeage is a sandbox/themepark hybrid MMORPG created by Korean developer XLGAMES two years ago, they localised it on Russia a year later, and then Trion picked it up for North American publishing last year, it's already entered beta phase now, and since it's freemium I treated it as it is, just between hype and anti-hype (or something)

And... I'm quite enjoying it, if I can describe it: Archeage's PVE battle aspect surprisingly played quite like RIFT, I rolled an Occultism mage coupled with Auramancy and Songcraft, and it played surprisingly similar as my Warlock-Pyromancer-Dominator spirit on RIFT (before I got bored and killed everything up close and personal with my Harbinger-Archon-Domi), I have a vivid imagination that two years ago a Trion employee played this game and said to the management, "Hey look, it's looks like our game RIFT, let's bring it to the state", and then magic happened

Spawning a galley in the city is pure magic

I don't know about the main story quest but it kept me intigued and wanting to quickly unfold it, the quests on Archeage is a part of your leveling process where you learn to battle, craft, gather, trade, build, climb, glide, explore, even rowboating (just keep your eye on your Labor Points). It's also quick, in just under 12 hrs I reached level 25, the PVE quests stopped at 30 where the sandbox element begins and you level through those thing you've learned before until you reached the cap (level 55)

Beside those thing I realized that I barely scraped what Archeage has to offer, but I also don't really know how deep it is, it's a good game, and it's free so I can check it out anytime (at least until the community become toxic and PKer started killing newbies, Trion stopped replenishing f2p player's LP, and destroy the population altogether), one of the most memorable thing on Archeage is when I snatched people's crops and raised my larceny level, but hey it was unprotected, and no one's there, and the game allowed me to do that, so I grabbed it (and run), why did I do that? I don't know, I probably just liked potato very much.

My ticket to jail

Read more about Archeage and their sandpark features here

Phantasy Star Online 2: First Look

Apparently the space is not always a star ocean.... It's full of PHANTASY!!! (whatever it is)

The English Version of Phantasy Star Online 2 probably will never see the light on western hemisphere, although you can play the Japanese version with a third party english patch but grouping with random player probably can be a hassle, but anyway let me told you about my first few days on PSO 2 English Version (South East Asia only)

Before I played I never read any review, description, or anything about PSO2, not even a beta, so when I first zoomed in to the server I got quite stunned that it has Gameguard.... okay move along, PSO2 has only three basic class: Hunter (melee based), Ranger (ranged based), and Force (healer/magic type), they can 'evolve' on level 30 to become Fighter, Gunner, and Techer, also apparently there's a tech tree which you can mix and match with skill from another class (cross class skill) but I don't know how deep the system is, I'll keep it up in mind for my next post. So anyway PSO2 has three races, Human, Newman (elves), and Cast (androids). each race can be of any class, there's some basic and deep appearance customization for each race, for Cast however you can only change your body tipe and head, there's also several human head options that you can customize but it's kinda put me off because putting it on a robot body... it looks like a disembodied emotionless head being put in a robotic body. so I go with the ordinary robot head, and this is the 'final form'

now all that's left is to find a young boy to pilot me and we can go save the universe!!

Okay, let's go to gameplay, as a Hunter I sported a really big two-handed power sword which kinda encumbered my character, the battle in PSO2 occured in real time, you have two kind of attack, left mouse is your ordinary attack, you can combo it with another timed left mouse, if perfectly timed (indicated by orange aura around your character like Legend of Dragoon) you can stagger or even stun enemies (called perfect strike), enemy performance can't be interrupted with any other way... so here's the thing: looking at a big giant monkey raising and then throwing a big boulder while I spin around creating a cyclone of blade around him --while he is doing that without a single hint on his perturbed face that I caused big numbers by hitting him repeatedly -- is kinda... odd. Anyway my cyclone of death is called photon arts and it's my super attack initaited by right mouse button, it needs resource called PP so it's kinda have to be reserved, oh yeah you can also dash by double tapping your arrow button, and attack while you're jumping (now every new MMO has it!!!) :P

Not Pictured: I stumbled

Beside the big sword I also have a gunslash which literally is my ranged attack weapon, I can also press shift to change it's mode into a fast-attack one hand sword, if the Shift button is used while you're using the big sword you'll defend against an attack, you can also customize weapons to change it's combo and foton arts, a regular and foton arts combo usually initiated by two perfectly timed push of a button, sometimes photon blast occured, an environmental anomaly triggered by defeating enemies perfectly and enhancing your attribute, making you an unstoppable engine of death, not always though, and when you become unstoppable usually the enemy's already down before you know it, this can change on higher level though, probably. One more thing: I can also press 'Z' to change my view into those third party shooter mode like those like Mass Effect.or Gears of Wars

Just shoot it Shepard!!

PSO2 is instance based, meaning like Guild Wars you have one central hub, you can meet anyone in this city hub (or in case in PSO2: Mothership), everytime you entered a mission (quest) instance you'll be assigned a 'room', you can name this room and recruit people for it, the number is varied on each missions, you can also solo it or bring an NPC party member that you'll recruit as the main story progress, don't want to wait? Just find and open room with people on it and join the fray (just like Diablo 3), before the mission begins there's also a 'preparation' room for you to strategize and buy/sell buffs and items, when you're in an instance your HP/PP/MP won't be replenished unless you found a replenishments (contained in destroyable objects) or a healing station (on instance intermissions), consumables like HP potions are a kind of big point in here, (just like Diablo 3/Path Of Exile all over again) so make sure you're prepared to bring a bunch of instant health potion before you go dive into a mission

In the mothership there's a lot you can do, first there's the main story, yes it's kinda just slapped there with a sprinkle of dramatic moments here and there, some fancy magic scenes, some pony summoning... (yes, they exists). Apparently some bug creature called D-arkers are destroying planets and it's up to us to prevent it... and so on.  There are daily quests, and some special missions which provides tutorial, mailbox, crafting, there are furnitures, one thing I like about PSO2 is that like guild wars 2 I'm free to deposit my item wherever, unfortunately my storage is limited on slots, and like all free to play titles I can expand it for a little cash. Playpark is kind enough to give me a bonus of points every time I did consecutive day logging.

Pictured: A representative  from a p2w game

The thing I dislike very much about PSO2 is how BLAND the interface is, all the good thing came in from combat, but that interface, my God, always a white courier font text on blue background, yes I know it's in space, but come on!!

It killed your soul, quickly

 also, when you're disconnected your instance will be reset... noooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Well, despite the tedious combat, PSO2 has something... shiny, apparently for me it's just too boring to go on and the shiny thing died inside, but since it's free to play it's a perfect place to spent times shooting, hacking and slashing with friends, there's probably a better game for that, but hey at least they have ponies...

Wanna be friends?

Being Saleh: (Not) One Left

My MMO shortlist only has one name left: Phantasy Star Online 2 which will have their english version-south east asia only beta on the end of the month, sure there will be Archeage on upcoming month, I also (mildly) interested in Elite: Dangerous but since one of them is a sandbox (open PVP) and the other is a space sim, I'll probably will be there just to try things out. Also PSO 2 is developed for console so probably  it'll be more action oriented like DCUO, the free to play is the perfect bait though.

With two MMOs crossed off my list is a real relieve. My latest encounter with ESO didn't really working, to be honest as i played the last beta months ago I can't seemed to understand the game, I can't even write a decent, coherent post about it, some of the player said that now the game has matured a bit despite all the fuss (especially about the free month fiasco), but still it didn't even piqued my interest yet. With Wildstar however I found a short-timed joy, before it got into the phase where internet connection become your biggest problem and I quit tanking, oh and also healing, how people can heal through those messed up telegraph amidst those jumping and dodging is still amazed me, I probably just sucked though

With only a week left in my sub on FFXIV I once again contemplating about my stand on MMORPGs, I burned out once three months ago because of all the things i must try at least once, including my steam games, and until now I still haven't finished any of it yet, I guess maybe MMOs has evolved into the next best thing and I'm just too lazy to keep up, or probably just too lazy to play

Update: I accidentally renewed my FFXIV sub, damn you auto payment

Now the smirk seems haunting...

Being Saleh: Trading Places with Patch 2.2

Patch 2.2 won't be news again when I publish this, but it's still worth mentioning, beside making everything worthy again by implementing challenge log, patch 2.2 is a turning point where everything becomes less chore and more fun

FUN??!! BLASHPEMY!!! Well okay, enough of jokes, you know what? What's the point of leveling my chocobo to level 50? Nothing, but with challenge log everytime you defeat a foe with him/her (i'm not picky) it'll be counted towards your progress of the challenge log, and if you complete that challenge you'll be granted significant amount of xp and money. And yeah, what about grinding those rep for the new sahagin faction? Boring! Well ok how about if it also counted towards your progress on this challenge log? Well ok, two bird in a stone I guess.

Challenge Log is a series of work order that can be completed which rewards titles, money, and xp. It lessened but not eliminated a series of 'useless grinding' chores on Final Fantasy XIV like running hests and leveling your crafting, they resets once a week so you can complete your five hests run on five days or less, oh yeah there's a challenge for dungeon too, that way you get your xp, mytho, soldiery tome, and much more money, all in one run, can i have an instant gratification, please?

Well for altholic challenge log is a blessing since it gave major boost to leveling process, for casual dungeoneers it gave more reason to run multiple dungeon a day, for gatherer and crafter it gives you money for each and every challenge completed for rare and plain items, and you do know that gil is everything a crafter can dream of, so yeah challenge log is for everyone, except maybe coil-dwelling hardcores. They have five more turn of no-ability-lag-dramafest implemented in this patch

Also i decided to move on from being a tank, the patch has created more group content benefits that the dps on duty finder only got several minutes of queue times, convenient. Also leviathan has interesting mechanic and it was more fun to dps than to tank

Amazing Spiderman 2: Reviewed

Since my previous review, life's been good to Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), finishing both high school and armed street thugs, it's probably one of his golden days of youth, beside his on-off relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) there's seemed nothing that can stop his pretty beautiful days.from go on.

Of course there is always a but, while life's been good with both Spidey and Peter, it's not really had it going on with Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), he's practically invisible, his boss stole his credit for his work, his colleauges doesn't even know about him, he's a nobody and he accepted that while at the same time harboring the growing need to be seen by the world, a really really unhealthy need. so it begins: The Amazing Spiderman 2

Being a sequel sucks, you must make sure you overshadow the first and deliver things that makes the audience said: "it's not a rehash of the first one", being a remake is even more sucks because you also have to make sure it's better in ALL things than the predecessors. So in this remake we've already knew that Spidey is a delinquent that enjoys spouting funny and catchy lines to the bad guys, and in this movie he also liked being in the spotlight and thrilled at every negative stigma of vigilantes labeled at him, Spidey made fun of the world while saving it, and that's cool, this movie is extremely optimistic and melancholic at the same time, Peter and Gwen has their share of optimistic love story, they're young, they're in love, and yes they can do anything....

Meanwhile: Max Dillon got into accident partially caused by the ignorance of his colleagues, while previously he has his issues with his obsession of Spiderman (after he got saved by Peter) when he finally returned as Electro he carried this unhealthy dose of his complex, so if you're bullied by almost everyone you met for God knows how long, what will you first do when you finally obtained a nearly unlimited power? revenge? unfortunately it's just a small prize, he's aiming beyond revenge, he developed a new obsession, obsession for his own power, and for that Spiderman must die since he's the only thing stand between him and his ultimate goal.

Spiderman and Electro are antithesis, it's the other theme of this movie, Spidey reject the statement of "the strong wins" while Electro accepted that, Spidey's aim is to protect while Electro is to rule, it's just like when the goblin said to Raimi's spiderman on the first movie: "they will hate you no matter what you do" Electro is that Spiderman if he accepted the offer to rule, and we can't really blamed him since Max was a broken man for far too long as the result of those who are strong, one more thing: the description of him in this movie never made the audience sympathizes with him, it's a perfect balance to split Max and Electro, when Electro lives Max is no more, while on the other hand just like the first movie we can't really split Spidey with Peter, with or without mask.

I know there are two other villain in this movie, The Goblin/Harry Osborn (Dan DeHaan) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti) but their appearance here is only a prelude for what is coming on the next sequel, and to be honest I'm afraid that it won't deliver, Amazing Spiderman 2 is a decent sequel and deliver a progress of both on Peter and Spiderman's life, it prepared him to face the next level with these baddies (and others) but I really don't think next level can be described in two hours length of movie because it can only focus so much on some character, Avangers did it with six heroes but each of them has their own prequel movie, what about six villain? I know there wll be spin off about them, but it will come after Amazing Spiderman 3, so what will spidey do on the third? Another Venom thing? I really hope it won't become another Venom-Carnage comic relief like in the cartoon series where only one of them is the villain and the other is just stand there to deliver Strascream's-minion-like cheesy monologue.

For this sequel, despite the review I'm gonna give it an eight since it's optimistic and light-hearted

Being Saleh: It's Not On Patch 2.2

The Sahagins has succeeded on summoning Leviathan as the next (hard) loot pinata, and so begins the lord of the whorl's saga (beside another plot twist). Patch 2.2 hits Eorzea a week ago and by my judgement (after playing it for twenty hours or so) it's.... enjoyable but I'm not here to talk about the things I enjoy, today I want to talk about everything not in this patch

Everything else vs mount
I dislike dismounting from my mount to talk to a vendor or quest NPC, or to teleport, or just to do anything, yes it's only a click away and give immersions in RPer's POV, and I agree not letting mounts inside capital cities, but really? every single time? they should make an auto-dismount option when they do anything, just an option so people can choose whether they want to manually dismounted or just automatically did it, I have heard reason that it was deemed exploitable but honestly that is up to SE to think a way out of this.

Cross-Server Duty Finder
My Free Company is a casual one, meaning we didn't even finish everything that patch 2.1 has to offer, and since we're small (like in a miniscule sense of view) and never not always online together so I spend my new nights searching for another clueless people on duty finder, but here's the thing: I played on a japanese server since their ping is more stable and below 200-ish, and I'm a tank so it's usually an insta-que IF I select all the language available, but Leviathan encounter needs clueless people to TALK to each other and guess what? I don't speak japanese and won't pretend that I do so I'm left with my 120 mins (and counting) DF queue, why? there's no cross server Duty Finder, it only search people from a cluster of Japanese Data Center server who queued with English as language selected

it's not mine!!

Oh yeah I'm sure I can watch youtube to learn the encounter and pretend I spoke japanese and after several wipe we could finally beaten it with the newly implemented Echo system (like those WoW fail buffs :P), but really? Moogle King was my evidence

Challenge Log
Oh wait it's in the patch, and I love it, I'll talk about it another time :D

image courtesy of: www.explosion.com

Reviewing Berandal: The Raid 2

Minor Spoiler about the Ending of The Raid 1 below, you can view my past review here

I tried to make this a The Raid 1 spoiler-free review but unfortunately I can't since the story is a continuation, so anyway Gareth Evans is back with a sequel of the highly acclaimed The Raid, it's called Berandal: The Raid 2, here's the story so far: on the last movie we saw Rama (Iko Uwais) left the villain-infested apartment with his found-corrupt-superior, long story short he's been reassigned to capture the bigger fish of the crime network, this time it was a shady businessman Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo) and a passive aggressive mild-mannered bohemian called Bejo (Alex Abbad), to get through them Rama's gone incognito to get close to Bangun's son: Uco (Arifin Putra) which his bratty tantrum landed in jail, and after that things gone haywire, fight breaks, bodies dropped and blood flows

Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me, because...

They Put A Story on an Action Flix

In the Raid 1 there's almost zero long dialogue, the longest dialogue is probably Tama's explaining how the network works at the end of the movie, however in the Raid 2 there is a story, there's characters, there's long dialogues, and they're so... awful, the dialogues seemed sporadic and disconnected one after another and there's a LOT of unnecessary story scenes and talks which makes my adrenaline have a significant down time, I seriously don't give a crap about all that conspiracy stories, it's a FIGHTING MOVIE, I want to see people brutally mutilate one another again and if I want a drama I'll watch Xenosaga (the FMV version) , you know what makes the Raid 1 so good? it because the story doesn't need a long dialogue, instead they replaced it with....

Not you Al, you're dead in #1

Oh S*it moment 

I called this necessary, in the Raid 1 the first Oh S*it moment is when they encounter a kid in the one of apartment's hallway, this kid is a 'screamer', a living alarm that will alert everyone that there's cops abound, so he ran to tell them, and the cops go after him, what will they do? will they shoot the kid? will they captured him? will there will be another conclusion? even his status as an underage child makes every decision feels wrong, there's only bad and worse end here, what will they do? what will they do? Oh S*it. It's the first scene that get me into The Raid, the do or die, the wrong and horribly wrong case that can blows up everything in their face, also who will forgot those Easterners scene?

DAMMIT AL!!

In the Raid 2 there's nothing, no suspense, we already know Rama (or his incognito persona: Yudha) will gone through every scene until he find those bastards, you see... Iko Uwais mostly going solo in this sequel, so there's no scene risking his friend/companion/random passing people that he wants to protect, maybe that's why...

There's almost no creativity in the fight

A lot of people will kill me for saying this but the first fight scene made me questioning: Is this The Raid? it's so... plain... the second one is a mass fight, something new and it's good, but wait... where's the finishers? the movie's first half fighting scene made me yawn because almost all of it is unfinished and too many OFF SCREEN FINISHING!! fortunately the second half is better, there's at least five distinct fighters in this movie. First is Rama which has fast punch and kicks, Prakoso (Yayan Ruhyan) which has powerful hand to hand attacks, Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) and Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) a couple who use their respected tools in fights, and the last is The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman) which has similar style with Rama but also using carok (spiked knuckles).

The fighters deliver better that the fight on the first half seems to be just a filler or appetizer for the movie's second half, it's stylish, it's new, but it's NOT satisfying, when every single Raid 1 fight scene has their own unpredictable finisher (which trigger audience's applause at the end of almost every scene) The Raid 2 seems to forgot all about it, the fights on Raid 2 are fatally choreographed and bloodied to the teeth but none (except one) deliver an unpredictable finishing blow, every fights are powerful and efficient but unfortunately not intense enough, I want the finishers to be more unpredictable than the Raid 1, more fatal, bloodier and destructive enough that we'll sure the dead stay dead, I guess it was my really high expectation talking

Endgame

There's one single moment which express my disappointment and disapproval of the movie, but since it will be a spoiler I can't talk about it.  Until this time I can't still pinpoint the good about The Raid 2 because it seems scattered everywhere in the movie, I like some of the drama scene, the camera works are awesome, I like most of the fighting scene, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE FINAL BATTLE SCENE!! But despite everything I rant about above -- I will recommend it to everyone, it's a good movie, but it was nowhere near my expectation, whether I should lower it a bit or this movie needs a Director's Cut edition for people like me =))

EXTREMELY HARDCORE, HIDEOUSLY FUN, SUPER AWESOME ROLLER COASTER WILDSTAR PREVIEW!!!!

Take a look at this Youtube video:

This is a trailer for Wildstar, it came in 2011, this is a side dish for NC's big launch of Guild Wars 2, Wildstar is not overlooked at that time but they haven't give any promises yet, just a funny trailer.

Three years later, it blow the f*&^% out my mind, with this

and this

also this:

s***, right?

Never before i saw so much snarky and snazzy trailers on MMOs, so how about gameplay? trailers will go so far as to make you play them, but in-game gameplay is everything right? well fortunately I secured three chances to play in beta weekends, so let me just summarized everything:

The Beta Client Fiasco

Before I used my mind/guns/swords/claws/weaponized defibrillator to destroy everything in my path, first I'll have use my wits, guts, patience, and little chit chat to install the client right? And it turns to the first post I wrote at wildstar forum is that I can't install the client, Wildstar has the WORST beta client ever in my history with MMOs and betas, I tried everything suggested on dev's posts and everything else the player said, NOTHING WORKS WHATSOEVER, that my best efforts is to tried the -retries command which makes my client continuously tried to search for internet connection for downloading the client, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, it's a roulette anyway, still beta, whatever, I hate your client, Carbine.

Yes!!

 After the dust from my rage settles down, the client is finished downloading and I'm ready to play, and... it runs smoothly, surprise, well okay, time to select a class... since I had totally zero knowledge on Wildstar Class (yes i've seen trailers and gameplays but that's not the same) I consulted a friend and ultimately selecting a medic, it looks awesome anyway with those Resonator, Mordesh is my first choice, who didn't like space zombies anyway?

Ah yeah, here's the story: Nexus is a recently found lost planet, it house the ancient civilization of Eldan, the most advanced beings on the universe and it will be a battleground for two faction: The Dominion is an alliance of interstellar creature which claimed Nexus as their birthright since their ancestors handpicked by the Eldan themeselves (before they disappear, why the hell is a ridiculuously advanced life-shaping ancient civilization have to disappear anyway?) to govern the universe. On the other side we have The Exiles: A band of labeled enemies of the Dominion (apparently you can't rule the universe without making a few enemies) so up their go in their respective spaceships, blow away each other in the planet's atmosphere and crash landing their refugees a.k.a us

The Fights and Paths

Did you just tired of auto attacks? well, Wildstar doesn't have that, for most parts Wildstar plays like Guild Wars 2 and some part: The Secret World, you've only got one type of weapon and your action bar has limited slot, it's up to you to mix and match your combo from your learned skills, Wildstar doesn't have global cooldowns and unless you've got CCed you're free to throw everything at the mobs, oh yeah and ALL your skills are AOE, you won't find auto target here, if a mob rolls out of your AOE field (a.k.a telegraphs, funny, some GW2 people are starting to use this word too) before you shoot them then you'll miss, and he/she/it can counter with devastating attacks, and they're smart, see that red area? get the f*** of it immediately!!! You can roll, dodge, blink, or sprint yourself out of it, and watch that you didn't run into another red, think there's only one type of telegraph? think again, think AGAIN!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!! Combat in Wildstar is so fresh, dynamic and satisfying I have a hard time holding myself back to not engage some big a** elite mob alone

Mob also came in packs and after level 10 the fights can be exhausting, I got to tried engineer and esper too and IMO Espers is so so underpowered on solo PVE, it came close on playing warlocks on WOW cata age that I have to push probably every button available just to survive, I died a hundred times too and since Wildstar is unusual in every way the game TAUNTS me everytime I died with some snarky comments like "Somebody just doesn't know when to stay dead" or something like that, it can be frustrating sometimes, but I understand the path of the game will go the distance to, anyway everyone can ress you, just like Guild Wars 2, just hope that they will put some dead icon on the map since it's so hard to distinguish dead people from dead mobs

Speaking of paths you will be selecting your character Path on the creation screen, there are four: The Settler, Scientist, Explorer, and Soldier. What is path? well since I only tried scientist, soldier and settler I can tell you this: Path is the best thing that happens in MMO today, and I'm not exaggerating, Path enriches your experience (literally and figuratively) in the gaming world, with a soldier path you can start a holdout in some place, holdout means there will be swarms of big mother(&*^^*% trying to eat you alive, all you have to do is kill them all, sometimes the holdout contains NPC that must be defended and/or they contain experimental weapons with neat killing effects that you got to try, free EXp, free loot, free killing spree!!! OK, enough, let's talk about the scientist, they have numerous probe that can scan things to provide effects, buffs, lore, exp, and loots, remember the soldier? ok, there are some scan site near the holdout points, when a soldier started a holdout the scientist can scan the thing and it can provide buff to the holdout, exp, hp regen, might, damage, everything, and everyone can participate on the holdout, again, exp, reputation, lore, loot, and path EXP

The Settler can build everything all over the place, most of them are buff stations on some town and hubs for exp and reputation, hey, remember the scientist and the soldier? well okay, let's imagine a settler, a scientist, and a soldier stumbled upon a big holdout points, which means bigger monsters, there are build site all around it and a scan site, the soldier started the holdout, scientist provide buffs, and the setllers will build a nasty laser cannon to provide support, after that it's FUN TIME, settlers also can repair some ancient Eldan structures littered all over Nexus which the scientist and explorer can activate to provide loots, ancient mining droid is one of them they provide resources for settlers and path EXP for scientists. What is path EXPs? it's a separated exp that leveled up your path, at some point it provide you with special skills, Settler for example: can build a bonfire that will provide HP regen buff for everyone who used it and since battle in Wildstar is exhausted it's nice to relax and gained some buff from it

The Lore and Conclusion

I mostly love Wildstar for their free-spirited attitude and funny (although some of it are dark humour) moments, the Dominion are ruthless psychopats and the Exiles are backstabbing bastards, but some of Exiles early campaigns hit my soft side since it was so bittersweet and makes me want to kill every Dominion in front of me, including a big mecha that vomits laser on me, Dominion campaigns have an interesting side (in a very sychopantic POV) where you escort a noble-celebrities for her quest of glory on nexus, including massacred a whole village of natives. The whole idea of Nexus settlement project is pictured so perfect all over the place and if you made a settler you'll get the gist of it as if you really helped the settlement project

I probably will preorder Wildstar if it's not because of a fatal flaw on my country's internet connection, Wildstar is so dynamic where in a battle you must dodge and sprint that a slight lag will kill you and hinder your role, I'm sure Carbine can fix bad FPS spike, client issues, nametag bugs, disappearing NPCs, and bugged events but when it's on your side (unlike FF ability lag which is a server side issue) I have nothing to say, it's a grat game, it's fun, it's guild wars 2 where you don't lose senses of role since tanking, healing, and DPSing like mad still exists, it could be greater than Guild Wars 2 if not many people getting put off by Wildstar cartoony-superdeformed design,I'll probably  will played some Open Beta to see whether this issue continues to be a hindrance or not

Being Saleh: The Winner

Two months ago Square Enix made a Free Company/Guild video recruitment contest, so we submitted our entry, it's just us having fun in a dungeon and Linsa Lominsa together.... and we WIN!!!!

Thanks to everyone participated, it won't happen without you all!! , we delivered some cheesy lines though :D

Dual Wield: The things that are not on line

The thing on the right picture is a patch of begonia sp, if you're not familiar with begonia you might want to look at your sixth grade biology textbook, it's one of the most complex flower family, also a common one (and yes, a nightmarish version of them exist on all fantasy media, like those man-eater plants). this flowershrub on the picture have nautilus style, pretty slick and awesome IMO. So anyway what's a picture of flower doing in my blog?

Let me get back a bit, a few weeks ago I stared at my Steam folder and found out that I have like ten unplayable games, and a quick look at my folder reminds me that I just bought The Secret World and have no time to play it alongside Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV, I have a project on SWTOR to ensure whether their f2p style is a trap or just a plain hindrance, apparently I only racked three days worth of my game time to it to reach level 30, (I finished it yesterday), not to mention I also have to sacrifice FFXIV for it, long story short: what happened? PS: I just remembered that I also had Defiance and only played it for like 5 hours

I guess I was burnt out, more likely I was burnt out not because of the games, but of my activity around it, like hunting news, beta testing, give some feedback to devs, forum trolling, blogging, and so on, I have done this since three years ago with occasional game-jumping and sub-continuing (on WOW), I took a break on WOW and other games for a year due to real life situation, but this one is different since i have so many things to do, so many games to play and review that I don't even know where to start, or ends, or whatever. Also i noticed that I can only stay awake for two hour at nght, probably from work or I'm just not that fit anymore.

So as we continue, last week I met a friend, I don't usually make new one since my job and all gaming stuff prevent me from meeting people (which doen't have anything to do with work) and I was asked: "When was the last time you go out?", I hopelessly tried to rack my brain to find that information, I know that I must go out at a time, and embarrasingly: the only thing that I can remember is that a year ago, our Guild Wars 2 guild met offline (an annual event), after that everything was like work-related or something similar, family affairs and such.

I'm embarrased to say that I'm a complete shut in

Playing all MMORPGs was my very goal, it won't matter if I like it or not, just play them all, review them all, see them all, follow them all, it gives me something to do beside work which I also have several similar set of goals, MMORPGs is a life that I discovered and build from scratch when I was still a lone beach wanderer on Anarchy Online six years ago. Building a gaming community is also a nice touch, although it will be constantly changing by trends, some people stay, some people go, I still believe a good gaming community transcends the game itself but what happens when the game itself wear you out? I'm not expecting this, I though the constant stream of MMORPGs can prevent something trivial like boredom, but what happened wasn't boredom, it was "too much of a good thing".

So, the flower picture was sent for me, per request, The other picture is a photo I took on my trip to Bali several years ago (see? I did go out) I think it's time to take a break from gaming, I don't know what I'll do though, before I met MMORPGs I have nothing to talk about except works, and probably hobbies I never did anymore but I think I found that the outside's getting more and more interesting...You know, I met a lot of nice people online, I also a witness of how anonymity can bring the worst of mankind, ingame it's nice to see guildies pulling their weight for you. It was just like someone offgame that barely knows you, spent five hours on each and every day going to and from work, and still found some time to meet you, it was wonderful act and deserves your outmost gratitude, why? Because they're good people, that's all.

Valvrave The Liberator: The Review

courtesy: Wikipedia

If you're not familiar with Gundam franchise you should know that it's a long running anime series about mass-murdering adolescents who piloted giant robots, every installment of Gundam deals with war and their effects to the people involved in them, at least until a failed effort called Gundam Age failed to deliver these things and make the show a joke. There's an HD OVA (mini series) called Gundam Unicorn (out on bi-three-monthly schedule) which still retain the premise. But unfortunately it's not enough, so former Gundam series creator and developers created a new series called Valvrave which embodies all past Gundam's niche.

Valvrave opened with familiar setting, fancy schoolboys and girls hangong out in their school, then war shoved in front of them in form of an invasion, giant robot appears and they have no choice to pilot it or their loved ones die, in this one Tokishima Haruto takes the helm of a suddenly appeared giant robot called Valvrave, unfortunately (formerly) unknown to him that it has dire consequences for him (and become more dire as the series progressed), the situation get more complicated when a genius calculative invader called L-Elf Karlstein suddenly switches side and join his forces. The story revolves around the survival attempt and consequences Haruto and his cohorts did to keep their independence.

There are a lot of going on in Valvrave as it borrows many elements from hit series, the cold and calculative L-elf can be related to Lelouch from another sunrise series: Code Geass or L of Death Note, Haruto is the narrow-minded straight good guy with little development but realistic, Haruto's schoolmates (lots of them) are supportive characters with their own reason to fight and support. There's also elements of mystic/supranatural as a balance of this story . But the one thing about Valvrave is that every elements of this series plays right, there's almost zero anticlimactic feeling after each episode, also there's always something going on with these kids and it's not here by itself or suddenly appeared, but surfaced as a result of their own doing in the past. As the series progressed more Valvrave are discovered and these kids despite knowing the consequences decided to pilot it, the thing is that it keeps the audience guessing who's the next pilot as a part of the series' appeal, and when it finally revealed it's not from a single scene of private episodic heroism but a clever chain of events from past epsiodes which it's plot twist can be shocking and unpredictable up to the borderline of controversy, it's not really subtle but it works.

Love story exist in Valvrave as a support plot, it takes form of impossible ones, nothing from these stories can be considered 'worked out' due to another elements of the plot: Lies/Truth and Indifferences, it can be considered harsh at some points, it's not a main dish of the main plot but it served as a foundation of expanding it. Indifference also plays major part in the global conflict as the little struggle of survival becomes international incident and ignite all out war between nations, and it was executed nicely without have to shove the audience an episode of just a laser battle between Gundams... i mean Valvraves

Element of Strategy plays a pivotal role of Valvrave since it's not only the Valvrave fighting out there, the transition of the naive schoolkids into battle-hardened veterans going on smoothly without making their original personality disappear, L-elf as the mysterious genius plays battle of wits on almost episode not only with the enemy but with his allies, and for each battle more of his personality begins to open up without leaving his original cold calculating self gone.

Valvrave is Gundam, I can give you that but it has it's own story, it's own design, it's own twisted imperfect sense of justice, turmoil is the Valvrave series main engine even when there's episode of peace, there's many plot in this series that has the potential of becoming a sequel even when it has been resolved, it's only a story about several schoolkids which the world altered between rejecting and accepting them, back and forth regarding of a global situation. Valvrave made everything logical, as it's slogan: "The system that unveils the world", exposing the truth can be harsh, sometimes people can't accept it, but acknowledging that people is different than you doesn't mean they held a gunpoint to your head, but when fear of differences has gripped you... you'll see guns everywhere and you'll shoot first.

Final Fantasy XIV: ARR Crystal Tower: Labyrinth Of The Ancients Guide

Undoubtedly, Crystal Tower has been a major excitement for me for the past three weeks, It's one of the encounter of FFXIV that keeps my head from banging my keyboard, IMO it's perfectly balanced but hey even the easiest encounter is easily trolled right? So here's the breakdown of almost everything about Crytstal Tower

1. The Precursors
Before you can enter this 24-man raid instance, you must first open it's precursor quest, available at level 50 after finishing the main storyline quests, talk to NPC Outlandish Man (X21, Y28) in Mor Dhona, after that you'll have to do three fates and fetch-give typical quests until you unlocked it, pretty straightforward.

2. Trash Mobs (Pool)
Welcome to the first raid wing of Crystal Tower, The Labyrinth of The Ancients. When you first entered here with the other 23 clueless people you will see that you'll be divided in teams A, B and C, also you will be greeted by three pack of trash mobs. Pack one has two Valefors and lots of elementals, Team B should grab all the elementals and tank them in the middle paltform, Team A and C should grab these valefors and their tanks should tank them so their tail whip (AOE Cone from behind) and their front AOE cone doesn't hit anyone except the tanks, also make sure you're standing in one of the heightened platform because during the fights the entire area will be flooded with purple substance that will deal you about 200 damage per second, only the platform is safe. Pack 2 has greater Demon that will knockback the tanks and Valar that will slow everyone with their blizzard attacks. Pack 3 has two Diras that has AOE stun and Cursed Eyes that has petrify front AOE cone, just make sure their AOE didn't hit most of the party and healer shouldn't be petrified and you'll be fine, after that it's time for the first boss

3. Bone Dragon

This will be an easy fight if most people knows what to do, if not then it can be a nightmare, Bone Dragon is waiting at a center platform of the pool and should be tanked there away from the party, around the pools are heightened platforms which will play the role in later phase, as usual the pools will be flooded and drained some times, Team B tank should grab bone dragon and immediately tank it away from everyone (a.k.a turned it around) sine Bone Dragon has devastating front AOE cone that will inflict disease, when he reach about 50% he will summon platinals on his platform, these skeletons must be pulled away to the furthest platform from the boss and killed there, also makes sure that you only have one platinal on each platform, DPS should turn to platinals whenever they spawns, but hold DPS until tanks pulled them to the far platforms, after platinals died turn to Bone Dragon and continue DPS it until it died

When Bone Dragon died the platinals will be revived on their death platforms, here's some things that might happened
a. There's a platinal alive when the Bone Dragon died, when this happened it will RUN back to the boss and sacrificed itself, creating a massive AOE wide room that will nearly halved every non tank players, it can't be slowed, it can't be stunned so your only option is to have to kill it quickly
b. Two or more platinal died in the same platform, when they're revived they will RUN back to the boss, AOE things, etc etc, bad
c. The right one: only one platinal died in a platform, as this happens when they're revived they will WALK back to the boss, giving you time to kill them
After all platinal died for good the Bone Dragon will be revived and the cycle continues

After two phase of resurrection the Bone Dragon will not summon platinals, it will instead summon cursed eyes that should be ignored, it's a healer and DPS burn phase as the terror eyes cast AOE petrify, just keep pummeling the dragon until it bites the dust for good

TLDR:
Team A = Pummel Dragon, keep eye for platinals and pulled them to platforms at West and North West,
Team B = One of the Tank grab the dragon and tank it for the entire encounter, the rest should pulled platinals on platform South and South East
Team C = Pummel Dragon, keep eye for platinals and pulled them to platforms at East and North east,  

4. Atomos

Atomos is an interesting mini boss, there will be three of them in separated paths, which means Team A, B, and C has their own boss (and their own drama :P), in the room you'll see Atomos floating on a platform across the room and there is  another platform in the middle of the room, healers and at least two DPS should stand on this platform As soon as the raid entered their rooms, otherwise it will spawn Iron Giant that will insta-kill the team (9999 damage FTW!!), if one team got wiped everyone failed so it's bad. You will need FOUR people on the platform which means two healers and two DPS which can be a bit problematic if you have all melee DPSer, you can tried to switch with other team or just go ahead with it and have the other free DPS take down Atomos

Atomos doesn't need a tank, it doesn't even attack, but the catch is he'll spawn Valefors, Diras, and Greater Demons throughout the fight, and they should be tanked between platforms by the tanks so DPS standing at the platform can kill them without leaving it, if there's only melee DPS on platform tank should be tanking it near the middle platform so they can hit it, careful with their AOE though.

TLDR: Healers and two dps stand in the middle platform, tank grab adds, platform DPS kill adds, free DPS kill Atomos

5. Thanatos

Thanatos fight is a chaos and will put everyone (especially healers) on their toes, there are three magic pot that can be healed and buffed with stoneskin around the room, your job is to keep them alive, Thanatos can only be damaged if you have the 'Astral Alignment' buff granted by the magic pots, Team A should grab Thanatos first and tanked it in a corner of the room, their magic pot will surely give them the buff, after that it will be a random.
Throughout the fight there will be two type of adds: Sandman and Nemesis, Sandman will move slowly (can't be slowed, stunned, or provoked) to the pots and cast bravery on them, leading them to Thanatos (which will destroy it), Nemesis will spawn in great numbers, throwing AOE indiscriminately (also dangerous for the pots), non-buffed people should prioritize sandman and gain attention of the nemesis, leading them away from the pots, buffed people should burn Thanatos, healers must switch between pots and players which can be chaotic

TLDR: Tanks immediately grab Thanatos when buffed, careful when switching target when the buff wears off since the next buffed tank should grab aggro first, DPS when buffed = Thanatos, non buffed = Sandman > Nemesis, Healers = heal everything including the pots

6. Allagan Bomb

There are three Vassagos guarding The Allagan Bomb, The Allagan Bomb itself is invulnerable as long as the Vassago's alive, each team should grab their own vassago and tank it away from the team, throghout the fight there will be Allagan Bombs and Napalms, DPS should kill these immediately as they float slowly to the Allagan Bomb at the center and will explode inflicting room-wide AOE, Vassagos has strong cone physical attacks and they will occasionally cast desolation a randomly targeted AOE Line, they will occasionally filled a part of the platform with lava that force the tank to move and tanked him in a different position, avoid these three and you're done, when Vassagos died turn your attention to Allagan Bomb, kill it before it explodes and wipe you

7. King Behemoth

Meet the PUGbreaker, this is the hardest fight on CT, There are several mechanics that should be paid attention, otherwise, it'll be a wipe

a. There are towers around the outside Arena, throghout the fight you will be hit by constant DOT of electricity, when a tower glow red it adds several damage to your debuff, you can turn this off by simply clicking them, but this will deal you damage, so preferrably tanks should do this
b. Behemoth only needs one tank but there are several random hard-hitting AOE that comes from him, avoid these, the tank is usually is from team B

So when team B grabbed the behemoth and tank it on the corner, facing outside,  team A should be on the center since there will be two of an annoying adds called Puroboros, they spawned in the center and move slowly towards towers, if they arrived they will explode, damaging the tower and put you another stack of debuff, Team C should grab another add called the Iron Giant, tank it and kill it ASAP as it will destroy your only mean of survival, the comet

The comets will fall from the sky, indicated by green icon above a player head, wherever he/she is that's where the comet will be so tread carefully since you don't want it falls near the iron giant that will destroy it, sometimes during the fight the King will shout GGRRAAAAAGHH!!! (or something) as he cast ecliptic meteor (9999 damage again!), this your cue to HIDE BEHIND THE COMET, just put the comet between the behemoth and you, effectively cutting it's line of sight, when the Meteor hits it will destroy the comets and you're back to phase one, mind you at this hiding phase Puroboros will still spawn, and at about 25% there will be several tornadoes on the side of the room that will kill you and destroy the comet if you got near them

TLDR:
Team A = grab Puroboros, kill it before it reach the towers, deactivate red towers
Team B = tank and DPS behemoth
Team C = tank and DPS iron giant, help kills puroboros, deactivate red towers

8. Acheron

Acheron is the last boss and also a disappointment since he's the easiest boss in CT, but although his mechanic are so easy it also can be wiped. At first as usual Tank B should grab it and face it away, he has several line, cornered, and cone AOE, nothing unavoidable, their damage is also can be shrugged off if your healer's good, throghout the fight he'll summon Iron Claws that will grab one of your team member (usually healer or ranged DPS), drained their HPs and stunned them, this must be killed ASAP

After some damage Acheron will walk into the center of the arena and cast Ancient Flare, another insta-kill move, there are three patforms on the East, West and South corner of the arena, Team A should grab West, B = South, and C = East, when at least one person in the platform it will put up a shield that contains the Ancient Flare, after that an iron giant and occasionally an Iron Claw will spawn on the platforms, kill them ASAP as you need to move back to the arena and the platform will be drowned in lava

After that it's practically rinse and repeat, there are several unavoidable skill on last phase like Demi that will cut everyone's health in half and quake that will deal heavy earth damage but nothing that will taxed your healer, just burn him and enjoy the cutscene

Congratulations, you've beaten the Crystal Tower....well....not, it's only one area =))

Image courtesy of: USGamer
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