Monday, 11 July 2011
Rant 811 / Compressive Expansion
That is one angry man.
I know this is old but HOMM VI is going to be released soon, so I'm kinda excited.
Worries. One can never run out of them. That's probably one of the true constants in life.
Haven't bought anything since Killing Floor and Atom Zombie Smasher. Did consider X3 and Terraria but thought they weren't worth it.
X3 appeared like a great game but after looking at the screenshots of actual gameplay (not those of their ships which are so plentiful on Google) I found it a little too boring.
Terraria looks nice too but:
1) I probably won't play it for long.
2) It's now back to 50% discount from its initial 75% on Daily Deals. No idea why they reduced the discount after a few hours.
But I did spend money again. This time on books. I haven't been checking on my favourite authors for months so I went back to look again.
First, the Sword of Truth series is not ending, contrary to the author's claims when he finished the last book. The Omen Machine is a new plot involving the same characters. Still in hardcover, so I'm keeping an eye on it by leaving it in my wishlist on Opentrolley.
Second, the Runelords is still stuck at Chaobound. The final book will be out in a few years, and then I'll have to wait a few more years for the paperback edition.
Third, the Wheel of Time's final book, which was split into three after Robert Jordan's demise, is near completion. The first book is already out in hardcover and the second is available for pre-orders.
In the science fiction genre, I'm not too familiar with the best books. The Ilium/Olympos duology obviously wasn't going to get a third book in the same storyline seeing how everything was nicely tied up in the second book, but I went ahead to check anyway.
It's still merely confirmed for a film adaptation. No new news.
But zombies. I did find a couple of promising ones on Amazon. It seems to be quite a niche market so the various lists recommanded by zombie fans appear to be rearranged clones of each other.
Nevertheless I'm still going to try three of them.
The first that caught my eye was Ex-Heroes. It's interesting mainly for its blending of two genres - zombies and superheroes
I'm surprised a world with superheroes could have trouble with zombies. Therefore I just had to get it.
The other two books were from Joe McKinney, apparently a prolific writer of zombie fiction (and a few other genres), namely Dead City and Apocalypse of the Dead, both of which were set in the same world.
Finally I added a book on sewing. Got to learn the theory. There are just so many things I don't understand.
It's been so hot since yesterday. I don't know what the temperature is, but 2 hours ago I had a shower and now my bathroom is completely dry. It's only 1.30pm now.
...
Oh wow, cloudy for most of the afternoon but no heavy rain and no wind in the right direction :(
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Rant 810 / Apparently LOTS Of Singaporeans Bought Killing Floor Yesterday. Everytime I Say, "I'm New," Someone Always Says," Me Too."
No longer thinking about the THQ pack. Not worth it. I don't feel like replaying most of the games inside and there's no guarantee I will suddenly feel like playing it. It happens but it's too random and there are too many possible games.
My package from China has arrived. Now using the black silicone protective case, the screen guard and the more expensive stylus.
The silver hard casing was too gaudy and I don't think it's as good a shock absorber as the silicone one. But it's not hard to change the former.
The screen guards are identical as far as I can tell so far. I'm probably using the second cheapest because:
1) I haven't seen a single scratch yet.
2) The reviews for the cheapest said it was prone to scratches.
I also realized I suck at putting on the screen guard because now there are lots of very tiny bubbles underneath. I tried to use the sticky tape on those spots and then press it down with a card, but after some time I just decided it was too much work to clear the smallest ones.
Oh hey I didn't notice that one of the redeemable prizes on Steam is a playable game!
Alien Breed 2 is on the right lower corner of the menu and it's kinda like Alien Swarm as far as I can tell. Usual price is US$10 and current Summer Sale discounted price is $5.
Probably will redeem it near the end if I have to choose between this and the TF2 spectacles.
And it's free for anyone because 3 tickets can be collected easily without playing any games.
First ticket can be collected when you join the Summer Camp Official Group on Steam.
Second one is for linking your Steam account to your Facebook profile.
Third is for entering a comment on a friend's Steam profile page.
Fourth is for recommending a game that you have on Steam.
Fifth is for posting a screenshot by hitting F12 while playing a game via Steam.
Sixth is for playing a free demo on Steam.
Seventh is for downloading (must hit the Download button!) and watch a trailer on Steam. Don't have to watch the entire trailer.
There, seven tickets. Those that require a game, there are free games that can be used like Alien Swarm, TF2 or any of the free MMORPGs currently available via Steam.
仙剑奇侠传5! Whoa! That's probably the most successful Chinese RPG series ever.
Looks like they really didn't change the game much other than improving the graphics. Exactly what I like in sequels. It's a sequel, I don't want an entirely different game.
Nothing that interests me in today's Daily Deals. Universe Sandbox looked good at first but I just somehow don't want to buy anything that doesn't have at least a 75% discount.
And now that I have enough games to last a while, I feel even less compelled to buy new ones.
My package from China has arrived. Now using the black silicone protective case, the screen guard and the more expensive stylus.
The silver hard casing was too gaudy and I don't think it's as good a shock absorber as the silicone one. But it's not hard to change the former.
The screen guards are identical as far as I can tell so far. I'm probably using the second cheapest because:
1) I haven't seen a single scratch yet.
2) The reviews for the cheapest said it was prone to scratches.
I also realized I suck at putting on the screen guard because now there are lots of very tiny bubbles underneath. I tried to use the sticky tape on those spots and then press it down with a card, but after some time I just decided it was too much work to clear the smallest ones.
Oh hey I didn't notice that one of the redeemable prizes on Steam is a playable game!
Alien Breed 2 is on the right lower corner of the menu and it's kinda like Alien Swarm as far as I can tell. Usual price is US$10 and current Summer Sale discounted price is $5.
Probably will redeem it near the end if I have to choose between this and the TF2 spectacles.
And it's free for anyone because 3 tickets can be collected easily without playing any games.
First ticket can be collected when you join the Summer Camp Official Group on Steam.
Second one is for linking your Steam account to your Facebook profile.
Third is for entering a comment on a friend's Steam profile page.
Fourth is for recommending a game that you have on Steam.
Fifth is for posting a screenshot by hitting F12 while playing a game via Steam.
Sixth is for playing a free demo on Steam.
Seventh is for downloading (must hit the Download button!) and watch a trailer on Steam. Don't have to watch the entire trailer.
There, seven tickets. Those that require a game, there are free games that can be used like Alien Swarm, TF2 or any of the free MMORPGs currently available via Steam.
仙剑奇侠传5! Whoa! That's probably the most successful Chinese RPG series ever.
Looks like they really didn't change the game much other than improving the graphics. Exactly what I like in sequels. It's a sequel, I don't want an entirely different game.
Nothing that interests me in today's Daily Deals. Universe Sandbox looked good at first but I just somehow don't want to buy anything that doesn't have at least a 75% discount.
And now that I have enough games to last a while, I feel even less compelled to buy new ones.
Friday, 8 July 2011
Rant 809 / Considering FD At Sing Investments & Finance
Holy cow! I didn't know such people still exist today!
Apparently there's this couple in Hubei, China who didn't know how to have sex!
The guy's got a PhD, the girl's got a Masters degree.
For three years they've been trying to conceive by lying next to each other overnight.
Bought Atom Zombie Smasher and most of the Killing Floor Bundle except for the Steampunk DLC because I'm redeeming it with the tickets for free. The whole bundle would have cost me about a dollar more despite the displayed calculation saying I'd save about a dollar just because of that DLC.
Also received 2 Guest Passes for Killing Floor and I sent it to CZY and Ed because I'm sure they are interested in FPS games but do not have this game. Guest Passes lets them play the full game but only for a limited time.
Doesn't matter if they don't try it since they didn't cost me money.
Anyway the DLCs for Killing Floor are only for new playable characters. No new abilities or whatever, just different skins.
...
Tried both games. Killing Floor is definitely fun. A totally different game when playing with others.
At first I wanted to get a hang of the game by playing solo, but it was no different from a horror game. The maps were mostly quite eerie and silent, while the monsters were all grotesque in appearance. It's like playing Resident Evil, the original scary ones not the newer crappy ones, on first-person view.
Multiplayer is not scary at all. Exciting due to the invisible creatures and the fast moving ones, and that they can come from anywhere. What makes it not scary is that you can always stick together and someone will always be there to watch your back.
But I don't think sticking together is the right strategy for hardcore veterans. I've seen more experienced players play on certain streams and what I noticed is that they instead divide the map and then each person would cover one strategic spot where they only have to watch up to three different sides. This way, they can kill them while they're still split up.
So far I've only really played as a Commando. This class, out of the six or seven, is the best at submachine guns like AK47 and SCAR. That means it's good at midrange and large groups of weak creatures. I can snipe with the SCAR but it's not that great.
As for Atom Zombie Smasher, I think I can call it a RTS game. The objective is to evacuate civilians from rectangular maps. You set up an evacuation point and you blare your horn when you arrive to alert all the wandering civilians to get there.
Zombies would spawn from certain ends of the maps, then from all ends of the map when night falls. Upon contact, civilians would turn into zombies. No deus ex machina that saves the last guy who then hides in some basement with hoards of food and supplies.
Zombies follow the survivors, and the survivors follow your horn.
To save more people, that's where the tactics come in. As the game progresses, you get to hire mercenary groups. Since they're mercenaries and not your army, they aren't always there for you, so you won't get to use all of them every mission.
Hence the brainwork. You need to make do with what you have. Fortunately you're given unlimited time before each mission to plan the whole thing and place your mercenaries.
All mercenaries are static defenses. Some can move while some can turn, but they all do these very slowly. For example, the snipers can only turn their view while the infantry can move very slowly. Another is the mines that only detonate when in contact with zombies. They blow up once, kill all the zombies and civilians in a small radius, and that's it.
The only really mobile thing you have is your evacuation point, since all it consists of is your evacuation chopper. No fences and troops and MGs. If any zombie gets into the point, the chopper lifts off immediately and leaves all civilians outside behind. You can set the evacuation point elsewhere if there are any civilians left to be rescued.
To make it more challenging, the game also has a Victory Track.
You have a race against the zombies.
Each survivor you save gives you points, depending on the difficulty of the mission. On the other hand, the zombies get one point for every civilian killed and more points per zone they occupy after each mission. In addition, they occupy additional zones every time you're done evacuating a city.
Obviously the zombies have an easier time since they invade new zones faster than you can evacuate them. To beat the odds, you have to play the tougher missions where there are more zombie spawn points.
As a RTS game, of course it has upgrades. Each scientist you rescue gives you a Research point. Upgrades cost at least 15. Cities generally have at least one for the level 1 missions, about 5 in the level 2 missions and a lot more on the level 3 ones.
But you can't focus on them because they're randomly placed among the civilians. The overall strategy shouldn't be compromised too much for the sake of these points, lest you fail to save enough civilians to win the mission, not to mention the fact that you need more points for the Victory Track.
Wat the heck?
Was thinking about buying CitiesXL 2011 on Steam but...
5 machine activation limit? I've been having lots of PC troubles in recent years, so no thanks.
Apparently there's this couple in Hubei, China who didn't know how to have sex!
A highly educated couple, in their 30s from Hubei, China, thought that the wife would get pregnant by sleeping on the same bed.
The guy's got a PhD, the girl's got a Masters degree.
For three years they've been trying to conceive by lying next to each other overnight.
Bought Atom Zombie Smasher and most of the Killing Floor Bundle except for the Steampunk DLC because I'm redeeming it with the tickets for free. The whole bundle would have cost me about a dollar more despite the displayed calculation saying I'd save about a dollar just because of that DLC.
Also received 2 Guest Passes for Killing Floor and I sent it to CZY and Ed because I'm sure they are interested in FPS games but do not have this game. Guest Passes lets them play the full game but only for a limited time.
Doesn't matter if they don't try it since they didn't cost me money.
Anyway the DLCs for Killing Floor are only for new playable characters. No new abilities or whatever, just different skins.
...
Tried both games. Killing Floor is definitely fun. A totally different game when playing with others.
At first I wanted to get a hang of the game by playing solo, but it was no different from a horror game. The maps were mostly quite eerie and silent, while the monsters were all grotesque in appearance. It's like playing Resident Evil, the original scary ones not the newer crappy ones, on first-person view.
Multiplayer is not scary at all. Exciting due to the invisible creatures and the fast moving ones, and that they can come from anywhere. What makes it not scary is that you can always stick together and someone will always be there to watch your back.
But I don't think sticking together is the right strategy for hardcore veterans. I've seen more experienced players play on certain streams and what I noticed is that they instead divide the map and then each person would cover one strategic spot where they only have to watch up to three different sides. This way, they can kill them while they're still split up.
So far I've only really played as a Commando. This class, out of the six or seven, is the best at submachine guns like AK47 and SCAR. That means it's good at midrange and large groups of weak creatures. I can snipe with the SCAR but it's not that great.
As for Atom Zombie Smasher, I think I can call it a RTS game. The objective is to evacuate civilians from rectangular maps. You set up an evacuation point and you blare your horn when you arrive to alert all the wandering civilians to get there.
Zombies would spawn from certain ends of the maps, then from all ends of the map when night falls. Upon contact, civilians would turn into zombies. No deus ex machina that saves the last guy who then hides in some basement with hoards of food and supplies.
Zombies follow the survivors, and the survivors follow your horn.
To save more people, that's where the tactics come in. As the game progresses, you get to hire mercenary groups. Since they're mercenaries and not your army, they aren't always there for you, so you won't get to use all of them every mission.
Hence the brainwork. You need to make do with what you have. Fortunately you're given unlimited time before each mission to plan the whole thing and place your mercenaries.
All mercenaries are static defenses. Some can move while some can turn, but they all do these very slowly. For example, the snipers can only turn their view while the infantry can move very slowly. Another is the mines that only detonate when in contact with zombies. They blow up once, kill all the zombies and civilians in a small radius, and that's it.
The only really mobile thing you have is your evacuation point, since all it consists of is your evacuation chopper. No fences and troops and MGs. If any zombie gets into the point, the chopper lifts off immediately and leaves all civilians outside behind. You can set the evacuation point elsewhere if there are any civilians left to be rescued.
To make it more challenging, the game also has a Victory Track.
You have a race against the zombies.
Each survivor you save gives you points, depending on the difficulty of the mission. On the other hand, the zombies get one point for every civilian killed and more points per zone they occupy after each mission. In addition, they occupy additional zones every time you're done evacuating a city.
Obviously the zombies have an easier time since they invade new zones faster than you can evacuate them. To beat the odds, you have to play the tougher missions where there are more zombie spawn points.
As a RTS game, of course it has upgrades. Each scientist you rescue gives you a Research point. Upgrades cost at least 15. Cities generally have at least one for the level 1 missions, about 5 in the level 2 missions and a lot more on the level 3 ones.
But you can't focus on them because they're randomly placed among the civilians. The overall strategy shouldn't be compromised too much for the sake of these points, lest you fail to save enough civilians to win the mission, not to mention the fact that you need more points for the Victory Track.
Wat the heck?
Was thinking about buying CitiesXL 2011 on Steam but...
5 machine activation limit? I've been having lots of PC troubles in recent years, so no thanks.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Rant 808 / 老王卖瓜
Tried AI Wars: Fleet Command.
It's a pretty hardcore RTS game. Good for RTS fans who really love the genre, I guess.
As a sci-fi RTS game, it's simpler than the scale may imply. Even though it's usually about huge maps with over 20 planets, the smallest you can go is at the planetary level, as in you can place turrets and docks in the space close to a planet.
Since there's not much tactics involved (no need for micro here), it's just kinda like playing chess.
Attacking an enemy AI planet is easy. Build a giant fleet of unmanned spacecrafts, fly them through the right wormholes, and bang bang bang, they do the rest.
The catch is that each time you attack them, the collective AI enemy grows more wary of you. The more attention you attract, the stronger its attacks against you. If that's not bad enough, the AI fleet also vastly outnumbers yours even if you max out your limits.
Each type and upgraded level of spacecrafts has a limit that you cannot exceed. Capturing planets will increase this limit IIRC.
On the other hand, if you destroy the heavily guarded Data Centers near some of their planets, you could somewhat lower the threat level they categorize you in.
Hence the strategy.
Expand or keep a low profile?
And to make it even more complicated, you have to manage 4 resources: metal, crystal, energy and knowledge.
All 4 has an increase rate and can be accumulated just like the resources in Supreme Commander, except for energy which cannot be stored.
The first 3 has the same purposes as the resources in Warcraft 3 and other RTS games. Knowledge is research points which unlocks upgrades of your choosing, and only 3k of these points can be found on each planet for each player.
Upgrades cost at least 1k.
Unmanned crafts, starships, turrets and upgrades come in large varieties in this game, which does nothing to make it simpler.
That's why I said it's good for RTS fans. There really are plenty of strategies possible in the game, and not tactics that most RTS games are really about.
If you have to micro, that's tactics. Minimal micro is necessary in this game. It's mainly about what you attack, what you attack it with and how you exploit your resources, ie strategy.
Too hardcore for my taste.
Yes! Finally found a jacket that's actually good. Cannot reveal much here. Trade secrets. But it's special!
Over the weeks I'd found several items that I thought were pretty interesting and new, like fingerless gloves with an attached pocket that covers the fingers and form mittens. Those weren't really new; it's just that I haven't seen them before.
Yea I'm not familiar with winter fashion enough, so I'm learning now.
After searching through the online stores of multiple countries, I've also finally found the right country from which their winter fashion sells better in Singapore.
It's not easy to search through their stuff because I don't know the language well. Fortunately I'm used searching through websites of unknown languages from my younger days when I searched for JAV without knowing there are English websites dedicated to this type of film.
Although I can figure out what category I've been clicking on, the fact that I can't read the descriptions prevents me from learning certain details about what I've been looking at.
Oh well.
I'll probably be able to reveal what jacket it is once there are confirmed orders for it, which will take some months because it can sometimes take several months just to get the sample from the factory. However I don't think I'll post a photo here because it will become too easy to find out who I am.
Nothing about the copyright or anything. We'll be making significant changes to the design to make sure nobody complains.
Because of the uniqueness of the jacket, it won't be cheap. A ballpark figure would be S$200. No certainty here, just a rough guess judging by the workmanship and material required for it versus that of what we usually sell.
And it's female. Definitely female.
Now I shall create the order document.
YES!!!! Killing Floor Bundle AND Atom Zombie Smasher on Daily Deals!
Woot!
Wait.
Must wait overnight.
It's a pretty hardcore RTS game. Good for RTS fans who really love the genre, I guess.
As a sci-fi RTS game, it's simpler than the scale may imply. Even though it's usually about huge maps with over 20 planets, the smallest you can go is at the planetary level, as in you can place turrets and docks in the space close to a planet.
Since there's not much tactics involved (no need for micro here), it's just kinda like playing chess.
Attacking an enemy AI planet is easy. Build a giant fleet of unmanned spacecrafts, fly them through the right wormholes, and bang bang bang, they do the rest.
The catch is that each time you attack them, the collective AI enemy grows more wary of you. The more attention you attract, the stronger its attacks against you. If that's not bad enough, the AI fleet also vastly outnumbers yours even if you max out your limits.
Each type and upgraded level of spacecrafts has a limit that you cannot exceed. Capturing planets will increase this limit IIRC.
On the other hand, if you destroy the heavily guarded Data Centers near some of their planets, you could somewhat lower the threat level they categorize you in.
Hence the strategy.
Expand or keep a low profile?
And to make it even more complicated, you have to manage 4 resources: metal, crystal, energy and knowledge.
All 4 has an increase rate and can be accumulated just like the resources in Supreme Commander, except for energy which cannot be stored.
The first 3 has the same purposes as the resources in Warcraft 3 and other RTS games. Knowledge is research points which unlocks upgrades of your choosing, and only 3k of these points can be found on each planet for each player.
Upgrades cost at least 1k.
Unmanned crafts, starships, turrets and upgrades come in large varieties in this game, which does nothing to make it simpler.
That's why I said it's good for RTS fans. There really are plenty of strategies possible in the game, and not tactics that most RTS games are really about.
If you have to micro, that's tactics. Minimal micro is necessary in this game. It's mainly about what you attack, what you attack it with and how you exploit your resources, ie strategy.
Too hardcore for my taste.
Yes! Finally found a jacket that's actually good. Cannot reveal much here. Trade secrets. But it's special!
Over the weeks I'd found several items that I thought were pretty interesting and new, like fingerless gloves with an attached pocket that covers the fingers and form mittens. Those weren't really new; it's just that I haven't seen them before.
Yea I'm not familiar with winter fashion enough, so I'm learning now.
After searching through the online stores of multiple countries, I've also finally found the right country from which their winter fashion sells better in Singapore.
It's not easy to search through their stuff because I don't know the language well. Fortunately I'm used searching through websites of unknown languages from my younger days when I searched for JAV without knowing there are English websites dedicated to this type of film.
Although I can figure out what category I've been clicking on, the fact that I can't read the descriptions prevents me from learning certain details about what I've been looking at.
Oh well.
I'll probably be able to reveal what jacket it is once there are confirmed orders for it, which will take some months because it can sometimes take several months just to get the sample from the factory. However I don't think I'll post a photo here because it will become too easy to find out who I am.
Nothing about the copyright or anything. We'll be making significant changes to the design to make sure nobody complains.
Because of the uniqueness of the jacket, it won't be cheap. A ballpark figure would be S$200. No certainty here, just a rough guess judging by the workmanship and material required for it versus that of what we usually sell.
And it's female. Definitely female.
Now I shall create the order document.
YES!!!! Killing Floor Bundle AND Atom Zombie Smasher on Daily Deals!
Woot!
Wait.
Must wait overnight.
Rant 807 / Blueberry Waffles
Some day, public washrooms are going to serve the additional purpose of water dispensers. You pee and you get drinkable water. If demand is strong enough, miniaturization is going to make reverse osmosis possible right in the cubicles.
So I didn't buy both FNV and Trine. Trine had appeared in "Indie Packs" that cost as low as a dollar (US). No reason it won't happen again.
Fallout New Vegas still has more DLCs coming, or rather, at least one more. Obviously when they're done making DLCs they're going to give us the "complete" version of the game at an even lower discount.
Christmas Sale.
So yea, that's it. I'm still going to save for Christmas Sale.
But the THQ Complete Pack is still under consideration, mainly for Company of Heroes.
The Japanese reconstruction minister quits, making the PM even less popular than he already is.
Actually I'm not too concerned about the latter since he's already promised to quit "soon".
What I find important in this is that too many of the Japanese ministers have been quitting. Just look at their Prime Ministers - they're literally having a new PM every year!
Obviously all these frequent changes aren't going to be good for Japan. A country needs long term plans to prosper; a long term plan requires long term care; long term care requires ministers who serve more than 2-3 years.
If a society can easily tolerate a change of leadership annually, PMs and Presidents wouldn't need to serve terms of 4-5 years. All democratic countries could have an annual vote and things would be really cool.
It's not impossible. With the Internet, it can't be too hard to have annual votes. I mean, is the secrecy of your vote more important than the secrecy of your credit card number?
Hellgate can't be played by anyone in SE Asia. This sucks. SE Asia has Japan and Korean servers but they're only for Japanese and Korean IPs respectively. The rest of us in the region can't touch the game.
And I was so looking forward to trying the game. :(
Oh well, it's not like it's that fun anyway, after looking at the forums.
Apparently the high level content must be bought with money, so it's just a better version of the demo now offered for WoW, which allows players to play up to level 20 and have very limited features for everything.
So I'm not missing much.
Item to consider among today's Deals is AI War: Fleet Command. Downloading demo. Will try tomorrow.
So far everything I've read about it is good. I'll probably buy the entire set for $4.49 if I buy it at all. It's an independently made game developed by a single guy, which is another reason to support it.
I'm also considering to buy Killing Floor now. If it ever appears among the daily Deals, I'll snap it up right away. The current 50% discount isn't enough.
If I buy it, I'll spend my 3 tickets on the Killing Floor prize which adds new playable steampunk characters to the game. Otherwise, I'll spend the tickets on the TF2 prize which is a pair of glasses.
Both are free and pretty much useless, but freebies are freebies.
What I redeem all depends on what I buy by the 10th of July.
So I didn't buy both FNV and Trine. Trine had appeared in "Indie Packs" that cost as low as a dollar (US). No reason it won't happen again.
Fallout New Vegas still has more DLCs coming, or rather, at least one more. Obviously when they're done making DLCs they're going to give us the "complete" version of the game at an even lower discount.
Christmas Sale.
So yea, that's it. I'm still going to save for Christmas Sale.
But the THQ Complete Pack is still under consideration, mainly for Company of Heroes.
The Japanese reconstruction minister quits, making the PM even less popular than he already is.
Actually I'm not too concerned about the latter since he's already promised to quit "soon".
What I find important in this is that too many of the Japanese ministers have been quitting. Just look at their Prime Ministers - they're literally having a new PM every year!
Obviously all these frequent changes aren't going to be good for Japan. A country needs long term plans to prosper; a long term plan requires long term care; long term care requires ministers who serve more than 2-3 years.
If a society can easily tolerate a change of leadership annually, PMs and Presidents wouldn't need to serve terms of 4-5 years. All democratic countries could have an annual vote and things would be really cool.
It's not impossible. With the Internet, it can't be too hard to have annual votes. I mean, is the secrecy of your vote more important than the secrecy of your credit card number?
Hellgate can't be played by anyone in SE Asia. This sucks. SE Asia has Japan and Korean servers but they're only for Japanese and Korean IPs respectively. The rest of us in the region can't touch the game.
And I was so looking forward to trying the game. :(
Oh well, it's not like it's that fun anyway, after looking at the forums.
Apparently the high level content must be bought with money, so it's just a better version of the demo now offered for WoW, which allows players to play up to level 20 and have very limited features for everything.
So I'm not missing much.
Item to consider among today's Deals is AI War: Fleet Command. Downloading demo. Will try tomorrow.
So far everything I've read about it is good. I'll probably buy the entire set for $4.49 if I buy it at all. It's an independently made game developed by a single guy, which is another reason to support it.
I'm also considering to buy Killing Floor now. If it ever appears among the daily Deals, I'll snap it up right away. The current 50% discount isn't enough.
If I buy it, I'll spend my 3 tickets on the Killing Floor prize which adds new playable steampunk characters to the game. Otherwise, I'll spend the tickets on the TF2 prize which is a pair of glasses.
Both are free and pretty much useless, but freebies are freebies.
What I redeem all depends on what I buy by the 10th of July.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Rant 806 / Sleeping On Many Things
I don't really agree with this list. Crocodile soup, mud cakes and sea lamprey don't belong in this list IMO. But the rest, I wouldn't dare to try.
Also, where's balut?
Things that one should not google for: "2girls1cup", "tubgirl", "blue waffle" and "meatspin".
Hellgate is out. Has been since the beginning of this month. Forgot about it while I was busy on Dungeon Siege and Cities XL 2011. Download's pretty fast on torrent (433kb/s atm).
As for Cities XL 2011, I just learnt I can't get the best city by just building one lone metropolis.
The main reason is that the higher level stuff require low air pollution but the foundation of the economy, the heavy industries, must pollute the air. The best solution is to build the heavy industries in a different city altogether and trade with the clean city.
Which is pretty much like real life.
I learnt about this when I noticed that my business hotels were dying off one after another. Business hotels rely on offices - the more offices I have, the more business hotels I need. The problem is that although I have allocated large tracts of land for office towers, they weren't being developed.
So I looked at the info menu of random offices that were built and saw that the Quality of Life factor was red, ie bad. This, in turn, is mainly influenced by pollution, both air and noise, the only kinds of pollution in the game.
Noise pollution was minimal in my city, which only gets it from the 10-15 wind turbines in my industrial zone. Didn't invest too much into it because it was too much money for too little power.
Air pollution, in contrast, was represented by a significantly sized red patch above my heavy industrial zones and manufactoring district. Even the farms were making losses nearby despite only being in the yellowish green slightly polluted area (now I know not to put my industrial zones near the fertile land).
I feel like forking out the US$50 for the THQ Complete Pack. Since it is a significant sum of money, I'm going to sleep on it. Postponing my decisions overnight helps prevent me from making rash ones. For example, last night I wanted to buy Defense Grid (US$2.49 plus 3 map packs at US$0.24 each) but today I decided it is unlikely I will play it for long.
THQ Complete Pack, on the other hand, has Company of Heroes with expansion (which I haven't tried), Metro2033 (which I've long decided I'd buy some day just to support the developers), and the complete set of Dawn of War 2. The rest are unnecessary bonuses that I may try.
$50 for the above games I've named is a pretty good deal since they normally cost about $100. Then there are 7 games and 1 expansion that I treat as freebies, only one of which I'm absolutely not going to bother to try - AX vs ATV Reflex.
Good deal? Good deal I think, at the moment.
Like I said, I'm going to sleep on it and decided near the end of the sale which is on the 10th. Six more days to consider.
Who knows? I may find all the games I want among the next few Daily Deals and pay even less, albeit for no freebies. But a lack of freebies isn't a major concern.
Meanwhile, Steam is down for some reason. It was fine earlier today but now at 6.30pm, I can't load TF2.
And I spent money on TF2. US$0.99 spent on a Medic melee weapon mainly for the premium status.
Not planning to spend more although I still have US$4.01 in my Steam Wallet.
Anyway, nice sales trick there, the Steam Wallet. By only allowing customers to add in increments of $5 at least, it makes us spend more than necessary and raise the possibility than we might have some loose change left that makes us spend even more. Chances are, we would have to add more money into the Steam Wallet to buy what we want.
Evidence: many of the games are priced at $XX.99, $X.19, $X.49.
Obviously many people are going to have some spare change remaining after buying what they want. If you don't buy more, they win. If you spend them, it's very possible the remaining cents won't be enough even for an indie game on discount, hence making you spend again, and they still win.
Like in my case, I have $4.01 remaining.
How am I supposed to spend exactly $4.01 and still get only what I want?
I can't. The smallest multiple of 9 that has 1 as the last digit is 81.
This is kinda insulting yet hilarious.
When I googled the term "bangla worker", the first image I got was not something I expected.
This is a screenshot of the results:
For non-Singaporeans, that's our President. I'm not sure what Google is trying to tell me...
OMG It's Fallout New Vegas for $15!!!
And Trine for $2!
I'm so tempted...
I'm going to sleep on these too.
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Rant 805 / Transit Office Of Exchange
Forgot to log on in Die2Nite and my guy died. 25 days again. What a waste.
I know I haven't been blogging. My page views now have dropped to what I consider my "initial" rate of below 100.
Most likely because I'm only blogging once or twice per week and I don't bother putting in new videos.
That's because I haven't found any.
I haven't been staying long at places I used to frequent.
In mainland China, whores are cheap. Here's one who's willing to exchange her virginity for an iPhone 4. Oh that's not the worst part. That distinction goes to the fact that they're about to start making iPhone 5 next month.
Girls will be girls.
The PRC government needs to hire people with more expertise at using Photoshop.
Apparently they got some dude to photoshop 3 officials into a picture of a road to be published in a report that described their inspection of the new road.
Except they have no shadow and the view encircled by the arm of the guy on the left looks rather out of place.
So now other mainlanders are making spoofs of this picture.
Some of them are actually better than the government-made original.
Completed Dungeon Siege 3. It was as long as I expected (for a current gen RPG).
I have little idea why people think it's bad; I thought it was a pretty damn good game.
The ending was totally not what I expected though.
What I thought I'd see was the usual ending in most RPGs, but what I got was the sort of mishmash ending more commonly seen in the Fallout series.
All the major decisions made and certain quests completed in the game will be reflected in the end.
As for the final boss, it was very hard. Although Reinhart has crazy AoE spells, they weren't epic enough to defeat the final boss at one go.
And AoE spells were vital to the final battle. The Geometry of Annihilation was particularly useful since at one point, the monsters spawned mainly from one corner of the field. Unfortunately, some of the monsters also leech mana, so it takes more than brute force to win the fight.
Anyway nice game.
Now I'm confirmed for coffee addiction. Yesterday I decided to go without coffee and drank tea instead. I was yawning so much at 12pm even before I had lunch.
I was considering putting a stop to my morning coffees because they stained my teeth.
It's not that bad. I'm not completely zombified without coffee but I just keep yawning. I should probably stop after I finish the bag.
Since the 27th of June, the status of my package from DealExtreme has been:
I thought it meant it has arrived in Singapore and "Location" meant "origin". Apparently, I was wrong. This really means that it's still sitting in Guangzhou waiting to be flown here.
:(
I know I haven't been blogging. My page views now have dropped to what I consider my "initial" rate of below 100.
Most likely because I'm only blogging once or twice per week and I don't bother putting in new videos.
That's because I haven't found any.
I haven't been staying long at places I used to frequent.
In mainland China, whores are cheap. Here's one who's willing to exchange her virginity for an iPhone 4. Oh that's not the worst part. That distinction goes to the fact that they're about to start making iPhone 5 next month.
Girls will be girls.
The PRC government needs to hire people with more expertise at using Photoshop.
Apparently they got some dude to photoshop 3 officials into a picture of a road to be published in a report that described their inspection of the new road.
Except they have no shadow and the view encircled by the arm of the guy on the left looks rather out of place.
So now other mainlanders are making spoofs of this picture.
Some of them are actually better than the government-made original.
Completed Dungeon Siege 3. It was as long as I expected (for a current gen RPG).
I have little idea why people think it's bad; I thought it was a pretty damn good game.
The ending was totally not what I expected though.
What I thought I'd see was the usual ending in most RPGs, but what I got was the sort of mishmash ending more commonly seen in the Fallout series.
All the major decisions made and certain quests completed in the game will be reflected in the end.
As for the final boss, it was very hard. Although Reinhart has crazy AoE spells, they weren't epic enough to defeat the final boss at one go.
And AoE spells were vital to the final battle. The Geometry of Annihilation was particularly useful since at one point, the monsters spawned mainly from one corner of the field. Unfortunately, some of the monsters also leech mana, so it takes more than brute force to win the fight.
Anyway nice game.
Now I'm confirmed for coffee addiction. Yesterday I decided to go without coffee and drank tea instead. I was yawning so much at 12pm even before I had lunch.
I was considering putting a stop to my morning coffees because they stained my teeth.
It's not that bad. I'm not completely zombified without coffee but I just keep yawning. I should probably stop after I finish the bag.
Since the 27th of June, the status of my package from DealExtreme has been:
I thought it meant it has arrived in Singapore and "Location" meant "origin". Apparently, I was wrong. This really means that it's still sitting in Guangzhou waiting to be flown here.
:(
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