The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

On a complete whim, I joined Twilight Heroes’s PvP system a couple nights ago by paying a few chips at the Unbranded Arena. I’m still not completely clear why I did this. I mean, I’m a Hearty-Diamond. Beating other people is about the farthest thing from my goal in these games. I’d rather buff them to high heaven. But there were a bunch of PvP items in there and I wanted to see what those items were, so before I knew it, I’d joined. After realizing it drains my in-game time and thus my Sidekick time, I went about using up the rest of my Mafia informant action and then I gave it a go.
It’s actually pretty fun.
The main reason I don’t like PvP is because it’s almost inherently picking on people in games like this. I have to go and find a target and then keep on attacking just them because, well, it would be a pain in the butt to find another target, wouldn’t it? Ryme fixed that well by having a little box of “hey, while you’re in the arena, here’s a list of 10 heroes of a similar PvP rank to you who are PvP active.” So you just click “Duel” on one of those and away you go. The game takes you out of that PvP active list if you haven’t attacked someone in a week, I think? So I know everyone on that list wants me to attempt to punch them in the face. Plus, I can only beat them up twice a day, so I couldn’t even pick on them if I wanted to. Basically, I feel like that list makes random aggression acceptable in my eyes. Perhaps that’s weird.
The other main reason I don’t PvP is because I’m not competitive. I never try to have the best and most powerful in a game or optimize the shit out of myself. I’m just in it to have fun. TH’s PvP is like an entirely different game, with a very small selection of equipment you can pick which you set aside in a locker and don’t actually have to equip. It’s just changed magically the moment a duel starts. The mechanics, too, of trying to outsmart how your opponent has set the Rock-Paper-Scissors generator is also a fun little mind-game. But basically, it’s so removed from the main game, it doesn’t have to disrupt what I’m doing over there. I don’t have to adjust my equipment every time I decide to have some PvP matches. If I lose, it’s just ruining my PvP ranking and keeping me from getting more Lambda Tokens to buy more PvP gear or just to put in my Memuseum to brag. It’s set up to be a game lifestyle choice, hopefully, eventually, but it’s also in a nice little side box so that I can go in when I’d like, and get out and get back to normal when I prefer. Compare that to something like WoW or whatnot, where you’re either completely removed from PvP or you could be attacked at any time. I like this better.
Did any of that make sense? I mean, I’ve been needing something new to do in game besides farm chips, so this is filling that role nicely as well. I think I’ll keep up the PvP at least long enough to get the PvP equipment I want, and then do an attack or two every couple of days so I can keep defending against attacks after that.
Yep. That’s my PvP ramble.

What? November IoTM Impressions? Don’t mind if I do.

Twilight Heroes has the Judo Kid Gloves on tap this month. They are… well, they look fairly unappealing at first glance. I was underwhelmed but assumed they would be fun. I was mostly right about the fun, but still, it’s very situational. Obviously, these only work if you have a steady supply of sidekickness, which is actually kind of rare for some classes who can’t summon their own in the game. You almost need the Plaid Couch to make it worthwhile. Luckily, I have 2, so I’m making good use of it. The +50% effectiveness comboed with the Mafia Informant it putting my chip drops through the roof. I’m wearing less +chip gear and getting more chips than before. It’s wonderful. The extra PP and Damage are also always appreciated. The extra PP effect can actually trigger during non-combats, too, which is just weird but neat.
Basically, though, it doesn’t do a lot. It just improves what was already good. It’ll get used if you get one, but, well, this might be an IoTM you can safely skip.

Now the Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Sticker Tome was an IoTM I was SERIOUSLY looking forward to. I’ve enjoyed all my other magic books, and I figured filling up that last slot on my Mystical Bookshelf would be really great. Not to mention the idea of a customizable weapon was just an awesome one.
I was quite disappointed.
I mean, the item is powerful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s completely just a series of buffs held back by the need to equip a weapon. That’s fine, I suppose, but it… well, I can’t seem to find many times when it would be worthwhile to load up a Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Sword with stickers and use the benefits. I mean, okay, it often would be worth it. But it’s never worth it enough for my stingy ass to use up the items. It doesn’t help it that some of the best uses for it, getting stats, are rather eclipsed by my Naughty Fortune Teller.
I mean, I suppose the real benefit of this is not in softcore, but in hardcore. There the extra stats from the Apple Stickers would be very useful, and getting a good sword with neat effects early would be more significant, since I can’t just pull my Haiku Katana or whatever. If you’re in hardcore, I’m sure it’s a great help. But for someone all softcore like me… it just feels like it doesn’t do quite enough. It disappoints me.
Maybe if I’d just get over myself and use my items, though, I wouldn’t have that problem. Hm. Either way, though, “Accepts Bedazzlement” is a great-sounding enchantment, isn’t it?

Hey, first off, if you’re seeing this? Neat! The timed post feature worked! I’m testing it out because, well, I wanted to keep rambling but it didn’t feel appropriate to put it in the post about how awesome my co-workers are. Because it needs to stand alone. Because they’re awesome. So we’ll give this a go. Go back to yesterday and read it, if you haven’t. If this works, I may try to parcel out all my posts into their own individual things to have a bigger stream of content, especially since I now have an archive where you could find such content. Anyway…

So, even though I’ve got way, way too much shit to do, doing homework and classes and interning and working, I’ve basically come up with two projects which I hope to finish up. One shouldn’t be TOO much of a problem to complete, the other moreso, but eh.

First of all, my stupid brain keeps telling me “Hey, this would make a good poem title” as I listen to these awesome songs over and over again, and this is basically lead me to working on a poem sequence based on the songs from These Are The Good Times, People by The Presidents of the United States of America. I’ve already got poems I like for 4 of the 14 tracks so far, and I’m going to keep scribbling in between classes until I have them all. After I get them done, though? Hell, I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. Chapbook? I mean, I don’t even know who would publish a sequence like that. But eh, it’s fun. And the poems aren’t completely bound to the songs, either, so they could work outside of it. Anyway, I’m working, poetically, on that.

The other project that I really need to do, and that I’m probably going to wait until after finals to start on, is putting together physical volumes of my blog posts, especially from the old site. Why would I do this? Well, this is my history. I can dream that, at some point, I’ll be gone, and I’ll have children or grandchildren who would be interested in how my life was. I have completely faith in the cloud to be around then, but not faith for it to be in this form. I already lost a year or so of blogging to me losing my old OpenDiary account because I never went there anymore. I’m not going to lose that history again. So I’m going to use my newfound publishing skills to put together a physical volume of my old blog posts and have it printed. I’m thinking with Lulu? I don’t know if they work like that? But yeah, I’m going to make that shit happen because it’ll feel good having all that on a shelf, looking all everything I’ve written and thought, and then it will be safe if I lose this data and whatnot. A big volume of years or blogging, and I’ll write an introduction and… yeah.
I doubt anyone else would want a copy of it, though. It would just be for me. But this feels like an important project. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve got to do it.

Anyway, those are some things I’m going to be working on. Try to keep me honest, eh? I’d appreciate it.

So last night, it came to light that Cindy is leaving come the new year, since her husband is off to glorious grad school up in Columbia. She’s awesome as a person, decent as a boss, and I’m sad to see her go. When she announced this, though, she mentioned that someone else was going to be replacing her. It was at this moment that every single ad set associate jumped to their feet and demanded to know why I wasn’t getting the job, and then stormed the manager’s office to tell them I should get the position.
Needless to say, I was touched and emotional from all this. I mean, so often I get into moments of “Why am I working so hard? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing that? This isn’t my job.” Last night, I saw clearly WHY I work so hard. To be shown so clearly that you have the respect of so many people all at once is just… whew. I really can’t explain it. But it was completely appreciated. I have to bake everyone cupcakes or something, I swear.
Let’s hope someone in management isn’t a jackass and screws me out of the job. Having such experience on my history can only help me when I go out to get a “Real Job” a semester or so from now. Either way, though, such recognition just… it means a lot.

I’m sure none of you awesome people read this thing, but if so? Thanks again. Seriously.

The following contains Fable 2 spoilers. Like, I talk about every major plot point. So… keep that in mind.

The game was great. I never played the original Fable to compare it to, but damn, this was a great little game. Perhaps not QUITE as super as Molyneux would have you believe. But this is a game everyone with a 360 needs to play. Hell, if you don’t want to do sidequests? The main quest is fairly short, I’m sure you could rent it beat it over a weekend and still have a great experience.
The thing that really quite shocked me about the game, though, was how much I cared about what was going on. There were several points in the game that gave me serious emotional hits, and I want to talk about them, which is why this is so spoiler-y.
The beginning, sure, has a hit right up front with the death of your sister you’ve been running around with thus far. Her voice actor is great (all the voice actors in the game are, really) and you really feel close to her by the time you get to that point. But still, you expect a tragic beginning to get you into your life of heroing, so that one doesn’t leave you with much. Still, it’s done well.
The point where it first really hit me was when I was forced to be taken as basically a slave and waste 10 years of my life just to rescue this guy I was told I needed, but didn’t know what for. That really upset me, not only because it did a good job of making you make choices during this time so you could feel oppressed, but because, dammit, that’s ten years! I had a lesbian wife! I was a real-estate investor! I had an in-game life, and throwing it all away for some guy I didn’t even know seemed horrible. I left that quest thinking that, if I was really my character, the quest would end the moment I got free. Fuck this hero stuff. I think the fact that that was my first reaction to it means something. I mean, the game is created for you to go on adventures, and the game managed to create an emotional situation where I didn’t want to sacrifice anything anymore. I didn’t want to adventure anymore. That’s skillful shit.
Of course, I continued because I wanted to beat the game. The game just kept bringing the hits after that. The side quests continued to be funny and touching, but the main quest kept being emotional and depressing. I had to recruit the final “hero” who is an evil dick. A charismatic, funny evil dick. You know, one of those truly evil people that just entertain you to listen to? Yeah. But first I had to go on a quest to talk to this shadow council, and they were going to sap the life force from the person who held this evil seal that I was tricked into carrying, just to keep this dick alive for another hundred years or whatever. I could have pawned it off onto an innocent and have her life force taken, but dammit, I’m not going to do that shit. So I got old. Granted, I looked good with grey hair. Distinguished. But that made me angry, too. And when I walked back to him to start the end game… well, he kept killing artists making portraits each time I visited him, and this final time, Barnum, an NPC you have many quests with throughout the game and who is very entertaining, was taking his picture. And he kills him too. It made me pissed. It really annoyed me I couldn’t murder this person because of the quest. I was seriously, seriously angry at that moment.
The final hits come in the very end game, of course. Lucien, the bad guy, tells me he personally murdered my wife. It shocked me that this affected me. Your family is not especially robust. They don’t have an interesting personality, from what I can see. Still, I went back to her over and over throughout the course of the game for a roll in the hay to refill my health, and she kept giving me experience potions. I was glad I got married, and then, once again, this stupid-ass quest kept me from being there to stop people. It hurt. And of course, finally, he shoots the dog, which is the last fucking straw. You get closer to that dog than ANYONE in the game. It is so charismatic, cute, and useful. If the game wanted me to hate the bad guy, it did a damn good job.
In the end game, you’re forced to pick one of three fates. To revive all the people murdered by Lucien, except your family and loved ones, to revive just your family and loved ones (including your dog, of course) or get really wealthy. Obviously I’m never going to pick the riches, but dammit, I really debated picking Love. I was planning on picking Love. But the game really put me in an emotional state where I had to think about things. I deserved to have my family back, but so did everyone else in the world, and I couldn’t deny that to them. The point is, though, I made the choice with my heart. Bravo, game. Seriously. That means you did a spectacular job.

Still, when it puts you back into the game afterwards, and my dog wasn’t there beside me… man.

The point of all this is, even if the game does have some flaws (huge-ass load times, fairly linear when sort of advertised as otherwise, really kind of annoying interacting with people through expressions system) it does an amazingly good job of emotionally involving you in your decisions, if you let it. Gaming needs way, way more games that do that. Fable II will probably not get game of the year from anyone, but it deserves a lot of praise, in my book.

Yesterday, I met a legend.
Throughout the halls of Kohl’s, there have always been whispers of a certain customer. She’s the wife of a doctor. She demands constant attendance by an associate at all times. She spends more than I make in a week in the store every single week. She is infamous. Everyone hates her.
I finally got to meet her, and she was everything I was told she would be. And more! As I was forced to follow her around carrying about candles and pillows, I was struck by how little money meant to her. She’d go “What’s this?” And I’d say “Oh, that’s such and such.” And then she would go “Well, I can’t pass that up. Here, carry it for me.” She would buy double what she needed “just in case.” My favorite part, though, was when she suggested that she would get special treatment because “they know me here.” Oh goodness. If only she knew how true that was.

I had some other things to talk about… oh yeah, I wanted to talk about SBCG4AP Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands. It was good! I was saddened by the surprising LACK of Coach Z raps. I assumed there would at least be one full song in there. Not the case. But it was quite enjoyable. However, Strong Badia The Free was still a much better episode. The Hierarchy thus far goes 2>3>1 but they’ve all been great. The most impressive part, though, was the trailer for the next episode, where it was revealed that Episode 4 is Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective. Oh Em Gee. At least Strong Bad didn’t lie when he said it would be in 3D, eh? Still, I feel like this makes my dream BisCasFri episode much less likely. Oh well, we’ll see. Anyway, if you like Strong Bad and haven’t ponied up the 35 bucks for this series, you are an idiot.

Everything else is going mostly okay, I suppose. This is where I normally state my IoTM opinions, but since KoL’s isn’t out yet, that’ll be another blog post, I think. Yeah. In any case, I’m going to go have a good day. No, seriously. I am.

So in class today, we were talking about the end of Twelfth Night. It’s kind of a bad play. It has so much potential in looking into gender relations and it squanders all of it with stupidity and a much-too-quick ending.
But anyway, we were talking about why Sebastian goes along with Olivia, who is spouting crazy talk about how she knows him, and marries her. And I’m just like “Come on, hot girl with lots of money falls into your lap, why wouldn’t you go along with it?” Because that really seems like Sebastian’s motivation, combined with a little naivety of youth. Then, someone in the class, pointed out that that was a very “male” point of view, and that she doesn’t think that’s the right reaction at all, because she’s a woman.
Ugh.
And then, immediately following the bad taste that left in my mouth was a discussion about how everyone in the class “can so clearly tell if someone is a Tranny.”
Ugh.
I mean, I had a lot of problems with some of the discussion in class anyway, since it seemed to me that a lot of the interesting things going on in the play were based more about power relationships than gender relationships (of course I admit that those things were very much tied into gender back when the play was written and that it is still the case to some extent today) and so there was a lot of throwing about of characters not being feminine and whatnot just for showing some initiative. But man, that kind of stuff just made me want to drag the class to a halt and throw a little fit. I didn’t, of course. I’m not an ass or anything. I just seethed for awhile and eventually got over myself. But just… dammit. So much of this shit is just a cultural illusion and meaningless. It’s fine that you disagree with me and think that’s because of how you were raised as a woman. It’s even fine if you think I think a certain way because I was raised as a guy. But dammit, I don’t have a “typical male response” to anything. I’m me. It’s my response. It’s the same reason why I dread being in lit classes where most of the class is female, because at some point during the semester I will get turned to for a “male” perspective and will have to shrug that off to my satisfaction and the awkwardness of the class.
Anyway, I guess that’s about the only interesting thing that happened today. Well, thus far. The day is still young and whatnot.

Why I Want Attention
An Essay By Alexis Long

The reason that I want attention is.

I mean, fuck, I dunno. The thing that really gets me is that here are people wanting to do something with me and then I turn them down because it’s not the right kind of attention. How fucking stupid can I be, you know? Geh.
I hate myself when I get like this. I have wonderful friends. I don’t need to be like this. I am such an idiot. Such. An. Idiot.

Anyway, that’s totally lame, so let’s talking about things that aren’t totally lame.

I have found a new favorite Jamiroquai song, and that song is The Kids. I’ve listened to it approximately 40 million times these past two days. Man, seriously, is there anything NOT awesome about Jamiroquai? Cause I love thems so much.
Also, my iPod touch makes me actually pay attention to album art. Why does all the Jamiroquai albums have the guy from Ico on them?

So earlier the Calories Man walk all having trouble thinking of what to write for Gamespite and talking to me. And I had a good idea for a blog post that didn’t apply to him: Podcast-friendly games. I find I don’t really have any of those right now. Well, besides my browser RPGs. I can’t listen to podcasts while playing Fable because I find the dialog too entertaining to miss. I keep wanting to play some version of HoMM to scratch this itch, but don’t want to try to find my discs nor spend money, so I don’t. Anyway, is it sad that, at any particular moment, I would like to have a portable game, a podcast-friendly game, and a game game? Maybe that’s greedy. I dunno. I mean, they can overlap, if they wanted.

Anyway, I’m going to end this thing. I hope you didn’t read the beginning. Or any of it, I suppose, there’s not a lot of value in it.

First off, in my new world order, all scholars must place their journal articles online, and get their heads out of their asses, which are in the past.

Secondly, man, I’ve been stupid busy, haven’t I? A long time since I posted. Shame on me.

Anyway, what’s been going on? HOMEWORK.

Also, Fable 2.
Now, there’s been some mixed reactions to Fable 2? But my reactions are almost completely favorable. This is a fun game. It’s not the deepest or most complex, but, besides the game ending bugs, I guess, the game is very polished. The world feels very alive, and you can do some neat things. The combat isn’t all that hard, but if you take it as an excuse to make yourself look like a badass, you can have tons and tons of fun with it. It really is quite a bit of fun. I highly recommend it if you like fucking around in an open world and action RPG combat mechanics.
I have some reservations, though. Although I think it’s interesting, what they’re trying to do with the expressions as open-world conversation mechanics, it makes my character seems even more mute than most mute RPG protagonists, which is really kind of frustrating. It also makes it impossible to form any kind of real bond with any character, making the whole marriage and having kids thing kind of… empty. I married a girl into a lesbian marriage, but it’s so empty, really. She gives me items, I give her money and sex. But I don’t really like her. She just is, you know? Compared to how I feel about the puppy, which is by far one of the strongest parts of the game as far as making you care goes, it’s absolutely nothing. I shouldn’t care more about my dog than about my wife, should I? I dunno.

I also finished Forumwarz Episode 2 since last I blogged. It was completely and utterly worth 10 bucks. Seriously. Go play, go enjoy, go invest. The thing that really interested me about the whole experience was the fact that I was actually thinking about the story by the end. I spent a whole night at work thinking about what all the plot twists right at the end of the episode meant and how they were going to affect episode 3. I think that’s really high praise for a vulgar, roughly-humorous game about internet culture parodies, you know?
In any case, I got more gameplay fun out of a lot of, say, XBLA $10 purchases, so go buy it. Yes.
I’ve also been playing my new Camwhore. Man, Camwhores are easy mode, aren’t they? They have serious healing capabilities. It makes fights with them much less healing-item intensive. It’s pretty nice. It’s also nice that they do play a bit differently than Emo Kids. I was kind of worried that everyone would play mostly the same. Certainly makes me want to try a Hacker more, now.

The end, I guess. Time to go relax or some shite.

Happy Secret of Mana Day!

No, wait…

Happy Spend Lots of Money Day!
I spent a whole lot of money today. Would you like to see how? Okay.
Guitar Hero Rechargeable Battery Pack. I was tired of always having to buy batteries for my Wireless guitar when we need to get our Rock Band on. $15.
1000 Wii Points. I needed Secret of Mana on Virtual Console! I’d also like to get World of Goo, but I’m holding off for now. $10.
iPod Touch (2nd Gen 16 Gig Variant). I gave up on searching around town over and over again and just bought it from Amazon. Approximately $300 (!!)
I also went out to eat, but that doesn’t count. I’m also probably going to buy some more Microsoft Funmoney for Rock Band songs tomorrow. (I like the song, not the album, Dr. Feelgood and I want it. So I will have it.) Also, I’m not working much this week. This week is not good on my bank account! But I don’t much care! I’m not going broke, and I’m having fun and getting shit done. What more can I ask for? If I want nifty toys to help me stay stable while I graduate, fuck, I should have them. I deserve them. But still…

Bank Account Gets Wacked!
or some joke like that!

But no, seriously, you know what game is still awesome? Secret of Mana is still awesome. We played for three hours and it did not get bored, though I think Jonathan and I were intimidating Spaeth, since we could play through the beginning of this game in our sleep and he had never played before. We got to the second Mana seed! I’m all excited about playing through it some more. I hope we get to. Either way, it was worth the money to actually get to play one of my favorite games of all time with three players, as it was meant to be played.
The thing that really blows my mind about the game, though, when I actually think about it, is the fact that I have put enough hours into Secret of Mana to have beaten it countless times, and yet I have never beaten it. I always tend to burn out about the time I get Flammie. I really don’t know what it means that I’ve never beat one of my favorite games of all time, but… well, I’m not really too worried about it. I love it. It’s mine. MINE!
Anyway, we’ll see how far the adventures of Kiljoy, Sprite, and Noa get. Either way, I had a really great day. Tomorrow is going to be really quite busy, but after it, I’m pretty well home free for Fall Break, which is exciting. Wish me luck.