The Ego's Nest

Three episodes in, and I'm enjoying it so far. Fairly standard unlikely-romance story... male lead bumps into impossibly-perfect female lead while the latter is doing something embarrassing, doesn't make a big deal about it, and cute romance blossoms. The "embarrassing thing" in this show is anime fandom, but at least so far, it's more of a prop than anything else (not to mention license for the show to do some thematic validation pandering to otaku, but oh well.) It could have been motorcycles or sumo and the show would still be cute.

Few more panty shots than... well, I'd be lying if I said "comfortable with", since goodness knows I'm inured to that sort of thing by now. But as usual, I wish they'd refrain from the little sister ones! Come on, guys, you've got plenty of attractive older characters to show off (and this show does, heh); could we skip the loli-service for once?

I don't have a deep reason to keep watching, but I enjoyed it enough to keep going for a few more episodes. (Well. It has maids... But that's not a deep reason!) From what I've heard, the writing took a downturn in the second season, but there's still plenty of episodes before I get that far!

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 216 words, total size 1 kb.

Even now, big clots of the white stuff are falling outside.

Frankly, it's a little nicer here than in Chicago. It never really got deep in downtown Chi-town, mostly because they have a fairly efficient snow-removal system - the offending flakes were melted on heated sidewalks, plowed from the road, and stomped into a filthy slush on a minute-by-minute basis. Here it's just piling up. (Though not on roads - it's not cold enough to stick there.)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 03:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 82 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm in Chicago, Mon-Wed, on business; we're going to be offering Relativity hosting for clients, so it's off to the Kcura headquarters for training.

Not much to say so far. Our flight stopped in Kansas City, where the snow was really coming down (not enough to stop us from taking off, but enough to make 'em de-ice the plane). It's freezing in Chicago, but there's not actually any snow hanging around downtown; I'm assuming that the heat island effect warmed things up to melt it off, because there was plenty still on the ground coming in to the airport. We're supposed to get a couple of inches tonight, though, so that ought to be fun to trudge through in the morning. (Fortunately the hotel's only a block away from the training site, and we've the promise of good deep-dish pizza to keep us interested...)

Don't think I'd want to live here, though. Urban downtown doesn't do anything for me. Hard to drive in, hard to park in, and I can't imagine walking everywhere in the winters they get up here.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 09:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 181 words, total size 1 kb.

The 5770 card I'd placed in the new machine didn't survive 24 hours; it choked and went stone dead. It has been replaced... with a 5870. The store didn't have any of that model of 5770 when I went back, so I figured, eh, why not spend a little extra for a much better card? (Well, because it's not just a little extra. Guess I should put some overtime in this month... or more like, I already did.)

Today's Supreme Court decision was pretty interesting... the court essentially tore the throat out of McCain-Feingold, so now campaign finance is up in the air again. Interesting stuff, really, opinions all over the place. Take a few minutes to read up if you've got an interest.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 03:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 130 words, total size 1 kb.

The home PC is ill. Trying to keep WinXP running and trojan-free is getting ridiculous - even being properly cautious and keeping everything updated isn't enough. It's time for a wipe and reinstallation.

...and if I'm going to go to the trouble of wiping everything, I might as well install stuff on completely new hardware, right? So I went down to the local Micro Center and dropped quite a bit too much money on some nice gear. I'll get the old machine working one last time, long enough to get any data I haven't already backed up off and onto the external HD, and then it's format and forget for that box.

New machine will be an Intel i7 860 on a Gigabyte motherboard, 4 GB RAM, Radeon 5770 video, 1 TB HD, and the usual bells and whistles (notably, I don't usually do much in the way of audio.) New case with a nice external SATA port if I ever need to go in that direction, and boy don't I wish I had some of those for the office.

I may configure the old box as a file server, but honestly, I don't know if I have the need for one. Another possibility is as an HTPC in the living room, which might be interesting...

I've opted to pass on the Blu-Ray drive on the new box for the moment. I hardly have any of those now, and I've got a perfectly functional player in the PS3.

With any luck, when I get home tonight, I'll be able to get the new box up and running, with everything moved off the old box that needs moving. The real question is... what to name it...

Edit: Especially when it's glowing an eldritch blue! Darned quiet for as many fans as it's sporting, though. I'm posting from the new box now, which needs about three tons of software installed, and I'm still working out getting Win7 configured up.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 06:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 331 words, total size 2 kb.

A very good Christmas in Houston this year. The whole family was able to get together, along with Jeff's new wife Manesha and her brother Manesh. (Uh. I almost wanted to ask their father "why did you hate your children so?" But my dad's first name is Aubria, so I guess it's not unique...)

Picked up the Carcassonne tabletop game (played it with the folks, and it's quite fun, while not taking too long), as well as novels by Pratchett, Banks, Erikson, and Hamilton. Biggest gift was a nice adjustable easel table, which turns out to have had a broken pen tray for the bottom... except I'm going to be using it as a hobby desk for painting 40K figures, and thus wasn't even going to put it on anyway. Funny how those things work out sometimes. There's also a nice magnifier/light for when I'm doing really finicky detail work. (And, of course, I can plop the table down in front of the TV and catch up on painting and football at the same time, though I don't think I could manage subtitled anime that way.)

And clothing, of course, but I actually asked for that; I'm getting old enough that getting clothing for Christmas is pretty nice (and my hobbies are esoteric enough that sending Mom out to get stuff for them is kind of a crap shoot. "Uh, I need a... stomper? And a DVD of Spicy Wolf?")

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 12:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 244 words, total size 1 kb.

Went down to the local comic store today for a 40K tourney. They called it on fairly short notice, and Sunday's not their regular tourney day, but ten guys still showed up with a thousand points and a few dozen dice. Three games later, I, uh... I won!

I'd like to say "well, it's because I read my Clausewitz," or something pretentious like that, but there was a lot of luck involved. (I mean, I did read my Clausewitz. I actually enjoy military history. But Clausewitz had very little to say on the subject of orbital insertion as a factor in squad-level combat...)

If anyone's interested, blow-by-blow is below the fold. Sums up easy, though - I had a great time, I won about $60 in store credit (spent, heh), and I'm definitely coming to the next one.
more...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 858 words, total size 5 kb.

Second batch is complete. Below the fold...
more...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 03:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 295 words, total size 2 kb.

A few of the ork models I've picked up are an older style, and have both metal and plastic parts. The bodies and giant rocket booster packs are metal, and the arms, legs, and heads are plastic. (I also have a couple of all-metal character figures, but those suckers are staying safely unassembled until I get a good bit better at this!)

The problem with these models is that good ol' plastic glue doesn't work on them. (Plastic glue actually dissolves some of the plastic on each side of the join, making for a fairly strong connection.) For the metal/plastic or metal-metal joins, you have to use plain ol' superglue, which works great if you have a nice smooth connection between the two parts, and something less than great otherwise. Guess which kind of fit these models have?

It took quite a bit of work with files to get the rocket packs flush against the ork bodies, but now that that's done, the joins are extremely strong. (I don't mean to say that they'd hold up against intentional efforts to lever the things off, but they're not going to come off with casual handling.) The joins between the arms and the torso aren't that sturdy. I'm not terribly sure why - it looks like a fairly flat join - but obviously it's not working like one; out of my 16 stormboyz, 4 have lost arms and one his head, just traveling between my living room and bedroom. I definitely don't want to have that happen after I get them painted up!

So I picked up a pin drill. With it, I can drill a small hole in the arm, and another in the torso, and then put a short length of metal rod in to reinforce the joint. (This is the technique they use to fix the broken Gundam model's leg in Genshiken, incidentally.) I was worried that drilling into the metal parts might take a lot of force, requiring some sort of clamp, but as it turns out, the drilling is really easy.

With the metal rods reinforcing the joints, I can prime up the stormboyz without fear of unplanned amputation. This is a good thing overall - while they're not the best unit in the Ork army, they're quite fun (partially because they're quick - they can get halfway across the table to get "stuck in" in a single turn - and partially because the idea of a malfunction causing an Ork to corkscrew across the battlefield and faceplant into a wall is pretty funny.)

Next batch of boyz just got their blue shirts and gloves issued, and after a bit of touch-up, they'll be ready for the metal basecoat. Definitely looking sharper so far.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 460 words, total size 3 kb.

Well, it hasn't all been funeral arrangements around here. After a good amount of building, gluing, trimming, filing, priming, and a little painting, I've got some orkish results... (Images after the cut.)
more...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 542 words, total size 3 kb.

My grandfather on my father's side passed away two days ago.

No need to overdo it on the condolences, I'm doin' okay. He was 93, and had reached that point where eventually it would be one thing or the other. It ended up being a stroke, which has the benefit of being quick; a far better way to go than many of his other options.

Dad flew up there immediately, and the rest of the immediate family is going to fly or drive here tomorrow and we'll all caravan up together, to a little town called Lockney, Texas. We were going to have a Thanksgiving where everyone was spread out - Mom was visiting her mother in Oregon, Jeff was going to join them, and Dad was going to visit his parents. Now we're getting the whole family together and then some; just wish it was a happier event.

I've only one thing I can fault my grandfather with - a man who grew up with the name Aubria ought to know better than to name his son that as well. It's little wonder that Dad uses his (and my) middle name instead.

Other than that, though, he was a good man. I can only hope that at his age, I can look back at everything I've done and have as much to brag about.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 229 words, total size 1 kb.

Posting's been pretty sparse here, since there's been plenty of new games - Brutal Legend, the punishing Demon's Souls, and the surprisingly-entertaining-for-$20 Torchlight. But I've also been spending a lot of time on another hobby...

I'm putting together a Warhammer 40K army.

Ach, I know, I know, this is not making me less geeky or enhancing my chances of ever providing grandkids for Mom and Dad. But it's always been something I've been interested in, except that in the past, the expense has always been a factor. My finances, notwithstanding the lack of contract work, are in fine shape, and the boss has just finagled me a raise (of hearty content, too, and the second time this year); with big upcoming projects promising many hours of overtime, and the bank account sitting fat and happy, I figure I can afford it.

So I picked up a starter box, with a bunch of Space Marines and orks. Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm going with the orks. (Masochistic for two reasons - first, ork characters are notoriously lightly armored and get shot in droves... and second, they're cheap, which means to field an army, you need many many of them, which means you gotta paint many many of them.)

I've spent a couple of weeks assembling what I've got, including the Space Marines for testing purposes, and today I primed about 50 models (ran out of black primer spray paint before I could knock out the last 10 and the 5 helicopters). Started painting, experimental-like, and found that I'm not happy with the brown I've got (way too flat for good leather straps), but the layering technique makes for astonishingly realistic-looking green skin. I'll take some photos once I've got finished models I'm not embarrassed to show off.

I've also done some buying on eBay (and picked up another 40 boyz, so my total model count will be over 100... better get more primer, too!) At this point, I seriously need to think about how to transport these things. Big toolbox, maybe?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 347 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Beware, 40K is a path that leads only to bankruptcy and the eventual abandonment of ones humanity.

For carrying your army,  tackle box is generally the preferred method as the multiple trays can provide protection and categorization for your figures.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at November 04, 2009 02:07 PM (NkKu7)

2 I use rifle cases for my 40k minis, since they come with foam padding already inside them. plus the  "whoah" factor when you walk into the store carrying 2 rifle cases.

Posted by: DarkSong at November 04, 2009 06:10 PM (zJX7v)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

So as you might expect from a medieval fantasy/heavy metal dystopia game, you spend a significant amount of time guiding Eddie the roadie around and hacking, slashing, electrocuting, or igniting anything that moves, when you're not mowing them down in your lightning-shooting, flame-spewing heavy metal hot rod while blasting a selection from something like 100 songs. Par for the course. Even a bit repetitive, honestly.

But every so often, at key parts of the plot, you engage in battle... and because you're a roadie, and that's how you roll, "battles" are played out as huge stage shows. ("Hey, where I come from, this guitar makes noise. Here it shoots lightning. I can't wait to see what happens when we put on a whole show!") The game temporarily becomes quite different - you can still run around and pound enemies, but "winning" the stage requires you to take control of various strategic points, then take the resources they collect and use them to recruit troops, which you then order around with a fairly simple "attack that/stay here/come with me" command system.

The combat's not that hard to put together. Collect the resource points nearest to your stage (you do this by playing a solo, which prompts the construction of a... merchandise booth... sigh), pick up a few Headbangers and some ranged troops, then set off after the nearest enemy-controlled point. Trying to take the enemy army on alone is suicidal, but if you have even a small group with you, it really cuts down on the amount of fire you draw (the computer is not smart/evil enough to say "everyone shoot at the player!") You then plow into the biggest group of enemies, play the "Face Melter" riff, and watch as they dissolve. Suddenly the skirmish is overwhelmingly in your favor, and you can go on to whack an enemy resource point. Once this is done, rinse and repeat, except more and faster.

I can see how some people would have trouble with this part - if you're playing mostly to go kill stuff, it can be hard to think "oh, it's too dangerous to attack that group, I need to fall back and pick up my reinforcements". But if you have invested even a little time in RTS games, it'll be really simple - the enemy does not have great strategy, and once you get rolling you have a resource advantage over the enemy, which usually means victory in the long run.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the game. It could have taken itself really seriously, in which case it would have been terrible. But the writing's quite witty so far, and Eddie's got the right mix of "I am a Bruce Campbell-style badass" and "everything will be fine so long as I remember that I'm a roadie". Could have been whiny, but isn't; could have been a cardboard hero cutout (could always devolve there, too; I'm not done with it yet), but so far, hasn't.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 500 words, total size 3 kb.

So what have I been up to, aside from slogging though Churchill?

- Red Faction: Guerrilla. Picked it up off Steam. The multiplayer game is fairly lousy - some major graphics bugs are keeping people out of it, which means that it's almost deserted, and the bugs themselves make it annoying. But the single player game is fun, in a Grand Theft Auto meets Blast Corps kind of way. There's something viscerally appealing about taking a sledgehammer to large constructs, then (hopefully) getting out of the way before the whole thing comes crashing down. I've also had some appallingly funny deaths - my favorite was from bailing out from a moving car, just before it smashed into a giant lamp pole outside a cemetery, only to have the light fixture dislodge from the shock and land directly on the space that my character was occupying. Squish, whoops. Fortunately there's not much of a death penalty...

- Katamari Forever. Odd and funny as ever, but much sharper in HD. Which is a good thing, because a lot of the levels were cribbed off old Katamari games, so you've literally rolled 'em up before. Still, not too bad if you're a fan of the concept or have a tremendously high tolerance for weirdness.

- Eureka 7. Mood just took me, so I've watched through most of it rather than launch into new shows. Occasionally tough to take at the beginning, as Renton has a bad case of Shinji Syndrome to start with, but he eventually gets his head out. Great conceptual "other planet" story, which takes what could have been a thin excuse for "they have flying surfboards" and builds it into a fairly good plot.

- Yotsubato vol. 6. I've only been waiting what, five, six years for this thing?

- Demon's Souls. Or not, actually, as my attempt tonight to obtain this amazingly-well-rated and hurt-me-difficult game were stymied by everyone around here being totally sold out. But my travels were rewarded, as I did obtain a copy of...

- Brutal Legend. Metal as advertised, except where it is more metal. Brilliant Ozzy cameo. I haven't exactly been inculcated into the great secrets of metal, but when a level is a giant capstan pushed by head-bangers suspended over a lake of lava, it's hard to go wrong. (And that's the FIRST level...) It's hard to write self-aware humor without going too far into the Bruce Campbell zone, but so far it's doing a good job. Doubtless I'll expand on it later.

- Gobs and gobs of overtime. The recession hasn't hit law firms, at least not so long as there's suits about all those obscure investment vehicles that were involved with the real estate collapse... Good thing, because contracting is dead at the moment, with virtually everybody who uses contractors on life support or fleeing the market altogether.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 481 words, total size 3 kb.

I'd always wanted to read Churchill's own account of WWII; finding that it was available as an e-book spurred me to actually do it.

The first volume is... it's interesting, but not enthralling. There's a dreadful sameness to it, really. Some action is taken by the German government, the British government responds in pusillanimous fashion, Churchill gives a speech in Parliament that was 100% correct but went unheeded, and so on. There's no issues with the writing, and reading the text of these speeches, it's difficult to believe that they could have failed to carry the day... but they did.

And the failure is where Churchill is at his most interesting. He bemoans that he wasn't more effective (a little), but simultaneously gives thanks that his opinions made him such an outsider - that he was ready where and when he was ready, having been proved a visionary by events, not tarred with the brush of having been responsible for the crisis. But he's very... polite? It's more than politeness, really. It's easy to say terrible things about Chamberlain, and about the ministers who proceeded him, but Churchill doesn't do so; he's careful to make it plain that at all stages he enjoyed cordial relations with everyone involved, and instead of saying "Chamberlain made a terrible policy decision", he'll phrase it in general terms - "It is scarcely to be believed that such a policy decision could have been taken," if I can paraphrase a little.

(As an aside, one of the disadvantages of e-books is that they're hell to browse through for quotes!)

Of course, he's still criticizing here, and he doesn't pretend otherwise. There's an interesting passage where he talks about French decision-making in '35, and stops short of that conclusion, saying that the area was ripe for research if the French were interested in pointing fingers at responsible parties. By extension, he's acknowledging that he's doing that for the English, even if it's in a very genteel fashion.

But it's not just his writing style, because Hitler doesn't get the same benefits. Without descending into outright name-calling, Churchill makes it clear that Hitler isn't entitled to any of the politeness, or benefit of the doubt, that he would extend to his domestic political opponents. Of course, that's the advantage of the distinction between "genocidal maniac" and "person who let the genocidal maniac get started, out of good intentions"...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 06:16 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 408 words, total size 3 kb.

BvS madness continues. A long description of an Out On Top attempt follows behind the cut.


more...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 08:55 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 1297 words, total size 8 kb.

1 Good luck!

I was planning to save my cash until I could hit 3 million or so, but then I looked at the rankings, and it's actually easier in S2 than S1.  So I'll definitely do it before I loop again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 05, 2009 11:37 PM (PiXy!)

2 Depends on the night. Once you get past 2 million, it's really heavily dependent on parties (and, by extension, on money, though a Catgirl Entourage is a big help too). I'm just hoping that all I run into are S1 guys hoping to get lucky on their weekend Sannin run. ;p

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 06, 2009 12:13 AM (pWQz4)

3 Dang! #2. Ah well, at least I got a Pirate Hat for the trouble.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 06, 2009 04:18 AM (vGfoR)

4 Curses!  At least you'll look stylish.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 06, 2009 11:44 PM (PiXy!)

5 Got another Kaiju in Turtle - bishies this time - and I'm hoping for a drop.  There's currently only one other Sannin apart from the leader (the other looped to S4), so I stand a decent chance.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 14, 2009 06:03 AM (PiXy!)

6 I'm trapimitated in the zomjia forest. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at September 15, 2009 07:33 PM (aXMnk)

7 You can always retreat (unless you're zero HP or Nommed).  Anyway, I stopped by and healed you.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 16, 2009 04:10 AM (PiXy!)

8 Regrettably, no zombjas for my alt. He got invited directly after the map started...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 16, 2009 01:55 PM (pWQz4)

9 Ditto, and I missed out on the Bishie attack, too.  I'm a sad duckie.

Posted by: Wonderduck at September 16, 2009 04:56 PM (/O6qY)

10 Eh, there will always be more monsters. And early on you can't really contribute much to fighting them - each "hit" is a roll, where you do damage equal to the number of successes you generate, modified by frankly a whole lot of things. I've hit monsters with a pretty good S1 sannin character for over 160 in a single shot, but the new alt chunin I have would be lucky to do 3 points of damage. (He doesn't have nearly the stamina, either...)

Zombjas is different, as it's a game completely independent of your stats in the main game. A S10 kaijukage who's never done zombjas before is exactly as good as a freshly-minted S1 genin.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 16, 2009 06:43 PM (vGfoR)

11 I got my kaiju drop this time.   Useful one too - money printer.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 19, 2009 04:33 AM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

The first round will be over in a few days. Here's a chart of the voting so far (part two here). Interesting comments:

Lucky Star's getting slaughtered - Konata out, Kagami out. The Kagami round was interesting, because it was the highest vote total so far. Kagami lost narrowly to Mikuru (kind of a rip, because this is Mikuru from the shorts, but oh well.) The same round had Maria from Hayate winning in a close match over Touka from Saki (why was that even close? Touka's not moe!) I suspect we're seeing even more of the "knock out any moe girl who isn't my favorite" voting that's already caused a lot of eyeball-rolling this season, but it might have cancelled itself out between the two rounds.

Strike Witches is doing pretty well - the only major characters who've lost a round were Yeager (up against Hisa from Saki), Ella (up against Rika from Higurashi), and Bishop (quite a respectable vote total, but up against Taiga from Toradora...)

On the topic of Higurashi, why... won't... it... die?

K-On advanced Yui, Azusa, and... Nodoka. How does Nodoka advance (by five votes against a minor Saki character) and Mio doesn't? It's like the fabric of reality is about to rip apart and show that something's gone fundamentally wrong with the order of the universe.

The list of characters advancing from Index is interesting - Misaka (no shock, she's getting her own show), the loli teacher, and Last Order/Misaka (another loli, but with a fun speech quirk). But not Index, who lost to Azusa.

Saki's been storming through so far, though it's also heavily concentrated in the last few matches (eh, that's what happens when you have 20 entrants). No main cast losses yet, though Nodoka, Saki, and Mako haven't come up yet (only Mako's really in doubt, up against Sanya). Hisa advanced, as did Saki's sister, rabbit-ear Koromo and cat-ear Kana, stealth-mode Momoko (over Mugi-chan from K-On, and yeah, I can buy that), plus Taco. Surprisingly, bondage-theme-loli Hajime lost out to Ayumu from Hayate...

Hayate (four advancing, plus likely Nagi) and Clannad (seven advancing) are the other big Round 1 winners. No shock there.

Off to what promises to be a full day at the office. I'll probably comment a little more in a few days, when Round 1 wraps up.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:37 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 396 words, total size 3 kb.

Even if I'm not posting much about anime...

Decided to catch up on Saki today. Up through episode 15, and enjoying it thoroughly, though I'm not so sure about the new opening and ending. Definitely a show that's less hung up on the arcane rules of the game and more on the mystical aspect. Not really unexpected, though, since we're really talking about a sports anime that's also a fan-service vehicle. I'll put a few more hours into catching up and update then, I think.

And updated after watching through 20. Steven spent a lot of time looking at the last hand of the tournament, and Kana's good hand that she had to throw away because it wouldn't win the tourney. It's worth noting that we get to see the dealer's hand after the victory, and SHE was one tile away from a yakuman hand too; if Koromo had tossed a north instead of a one, a different victor walks out of that room. (Of course, Koromo didn't have a north. And if she'd played defensively, she'd have won it easily. Heh.)

I think one of the reasons that Nodoka's bustiness sticks out, as it were, is that none of the other girls in the show are well-endowed. In fact, a little bit more padding would have been appreciated; too many "loli with shirt hanging off" fanservice shots for me, and this is a veteran of Nanoha saying this.

Looking forward to the wrap-up of the first season.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 254 words, total size 1 kb.

One of the biggest problems that you run into with relatively simple web MMOs is that you run out of new, interesting content fairly quickly. The game spends a couple weeks or a month unfolding, and then it turns into a huge grind... perform task A, attack person B, get resource C, and try to catch up to people who've been playing for a year and could crush you utterly if you had anything worth their time, or just because they want to.

BvS gets around that with a kind of game mechanic borrowed from other games not in the genre. The first time I saw this mechanic was in Disgaea, where you could "transmigrate" a powerful character into a wimp. Your levels were consumed, so your level 500 character is suddenly a level 1 character. Why would you do this? Because the 500 levels were transformed into potential for the character; after gaining experience back (which goes quick in Disgaea, heh), the again-level 500 character would be considerably stronger than he was the first time around.

BvS has something a little like that. When your character is approaching his maximum level, you get the opportunity to "loop". This sets your level to the minimum, removes most of your progress in the game, almost all of your allies and your techniques (but NOT most of your items, heh)... and increments your "season" counter. It's not a reset, it's the next season of the show! And what always happens when you get a new season? New theme songs!

Your character gets access to a few theme songs, plus additional ones if certain conditions were met in the previous season. These provide bonuses, but usually not straight attribute bonuses in the way that items or allies do. Some give you more stamina (actions per day), some give you experience bonuses, make you immune to Death Notes (!)... There's even a set of "filler themes" that give you penalties, but unlock seasonal content out of season (in case you want fireworks in October or Ninja-mas in February). Generally they make your climb back up to the top a little easier. (It's worth mentioning that there is also new content that you can't do until you get to season 2, or 3, or 4, and the .hack parody stuff requires you to loop like crazy...)

There are two hitches. First, each theme is either "opening", "battle", or "ending", and you can only get the benefit of one of each kind at a time, so occasionally you'll have to decide whether tomorrow you want more xp or more Drunken Fist bonuses or automatic ally-finding. Additionally, the theme changes lag a day, so you've got to decide what you want and then get the benefits tomorrow.

It's a good conceit, and it adds to the flavor of the game a lot more than "you incremented the loop counter, receive a shiny object here" would have.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:41 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 492 words, total size 3 kb.

1 I wonder how long BvS has been running.  There are a lot of well-thought-out touches like that.  Like the way that if you fail to find something on a mission, you have an increased chance the next time - so it's challenging without being frustrating.  (Mostly...  I hit Terri's level-up mission five times without it taking.)

My alt's village has another zombja map up.  I scored a lawnmower right off the bat and then scraped together enough points for level 3 Careful, and now I'm mowing down zettas left and right.

...

It's like we're talking a different language.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 14, 2009 09:42 AM (PiXy!)

2

My alt's village has another zombja map up.  I scored a lawnmower right off the bat and then scraped together enough points for level 3 Careful, and now I'm mowing down zettas left and right.

It's like we're talking a different language.

That's for sure. That didn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 16, 2009 11:46 PM (+rSRq)

3 Heh. Rough translation... "Zombjas" is a minigame that your whole group plays cooperatively. It's like a board game, really. Lots of zombie pieces on the board (the "zettas" are tough zombies with special abilities), and they slowly march down towards your village. Everyone gets so many action points per hour (they build up) and goes out to destroy the zombies, the zettas, and the rifts they're coming from. Weapons are mostly improvised, searched for and found depending on the terrain you're in (so the grassy plains area yielded the lawnmower, and I'm partial to chainsaws from the forest). How the lawnmower is used to kill zombies may be left to the imagination, unless you've played Dead Rising.

You get special experience points for playing Zombjas, that are used for abilities that make you more effective at it. Pixy reached level 3 in "Careful", so he has a -9% chance of breaking his lawnmower (or whatever) every time he uses it to kill zombies. (Weapons have a default breaking chance - very low for chainsaws, very high for branches or chopsticks or cricket bats or the occasional laser, somewhere in the middle for guns. We're ninjas, we're not good at gun maintenance. ;p) His characters are more advanced than mine - I'm still gaining points in "Speedy", which reduces the number of minutes in between additional action points being awarded (which, you understand, is a nice bonus indeed; at maximum level, it yields 50% more actions per day.)

There's a wiki. Nobody picks up all the lingo instantly, heh. And doubtless it serves its intended purpose - it gets people to log into the game at different points throughout the day, and look at the pretty advertising. ;p

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 17, 2009 12:19 AM (vGfoR)

4 Just landed Destiny Warrior, which gave me enough awesome to buy Shattered Limits 1.  So +3 to all ranges in one go.

Also have 4 of the 5 Knightmare Frame parts.  No Su-chan yet, even though I've succeeded in that mission 6 times now.

Aether Village will probably go boom today, so I'll be heading back to dear old Turtle shortly.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 20, 2009 05:06 AM (PiXy!)

5 Village go boom!  And... Now I can't finish my BurgerNinja missions.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 21, 2009 07:45 AM (PiXy!)

6 Heh, that's where I was when Lemon exploded.

Just got the Cote yesterday. Not much left on my S1 goal list... make Sannin, finish the Wasteland, which means doing enough of The Trade so that I can farm note pages to make The Paper.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 21, 2009 12:44 PM (pWQz4)

7 Sannin looks fairly straightforward except for the daily XP requirement.  That's rather a lot!

I'm hanging out in Cincinatti for a little while.  Got Su-chan on attempt #7, ran the first part of Shift Manager of Doom, now I just need that last frame part.  And to roll 17d17...  Which is at least possible (natural Tai range is 18 now), and the Duelist's Eye is only a couple of days away if I need it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 21, 2009 08:43 PM (PiXy!)

8 It's actually not that bad. A single Silver Elixir is 100k daily ranking points, for 50 appetite. If you have Lulu and Cici as your team, all consumables take 10 less appetite, so that becomes 40. You've got 140 base appetite, and a Hollow Leg gives you another 50. (There are other things that can give you a bonus - I've got +30 from a village upgrade, you can get +50 if you bingo someone while Palmface is in your party, and juice can give you a little more...)

It's reasonable to say you can have 240, with Palmface and the Hollow Leg. That's six Silver Elixirs (themselves farmable from silver petals dropped by Shorty and Strawberry), so 600,000 points of daily ranking and you haven't run any missions yet, or spent any stamina except for one bingo. And you can eat ramen for another 40 appetite, one more potion, so that's 700,000. (And, if you have The Note, that bingo also means you'll earn 20% bonus ranking for the rest of the day, though it doesn't multiply the 700,000.)

Going through a "normal" day of A-rank missions, I can reasonably expect to clear 200k in ranking. You can stretch that out some if you go with a team including Pinky lvl 2 and Stalkergirl lvl 2 (each of which give you 1 stam back per regular mission, so that's 20% more missions.) With the Arena Favorite item (15% extra ranking) and a Note Rush (20% extra ranking), and grabbing every extra source of stamina you can lay your grubby hands on (z-reward, 7-day bonus, 50x spar bonus, beach vacation, darts, the works,) you've got a very good chance of hitting 300k.

Slow down with 200 stam left to go or so. If you look like you're going to come up short, break out the parties. Go spend 20k ryo in the Party Room to throw an All-Out Bash, which is worth either 50,000 or 100,000 daily ranking, depending on luck. Use Nadeshiko's "Perfect Goth Evolution: Loli Loli" technique to double that, but costing 25 stamina per use. The parties start getting more expensive after 2, so it goes 20k, 20k, 40k, 40k, 60k, if I'm not mistaken. One or two plus that technique should be enough to push you over the top.

What's tough is getting Out On Top (the theme awarded when you loop the day after being #1 in ranking; these days that can take 3 million-6 million ranking points, and relies heavily on having stupid amounts of ryo for parties, plus Loli Loli technique and a Catgirl Entourage for an additional 100%...)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 21, 2009 09:36 PM (pWQz4)

9 Ooookay.

I'll hit S2 Jonin after the next dayroll, anyway.   That's only 300k XP; I just needed to find Su-chan and get my third bloodline.  I have one Silver Elixir already plus 56 petals, and my village has Special Jonin Academy, so I could hit it without even running any missions first.

I guess Sannin would get easier as you loop - the higher your crank, the more XP you get from missions.  And with the Knightmare Frame just around the corner, I can hang around this time until level 81, which makes Sannin a lot more worthwhile.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 21, 2009 10:37 PM (PiXy!)

10 Huh, just realised.  Jonin!  That means +2 Tai and Gen range for me.  17d17 Tai is easy.

One more Knightmare Frame part and I'm home!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 21, 2009 10:39 PM (PiXy!)

11 Doh!

Grind through burger looking for (and failing to get) B part.  Give up, take Silver Elixer, go to Jonin Exam...  Out of stamina.  Have a Super Potion, but not enough appetite (ate some fries earlier for no really good reason.)

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 22, 2009 06:53 AM (PiXy!)

12 Yeah, that's the worst part of BurgerNinja. Fortunately I won't need to do the whole thing again (just up to Cici and Lulu for the appetite bonus).

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 22, 2009 04:36 PM (vGfoR)

13 Yay!  Jonin'd and Knightmare Framed!  And then I benchpressed a whale.

Even with my +100% item find theme, I still burned almost all my stamina - and 20-odd smoke bombs - hunting that B part.

Took me three tries to do 17d17 Tai, which is about what I expected.  I hope to land the Duelist's Eye tomorrow - that was my backup plan.  (Depends on how much harder the arena gets now that I'm Jonin again.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 23, 2009 04:58 AM (PiXy!)

14 Oh, and here's something nice about S2: As well as the "Stand By Your Ninja" theme , which gives you double the chance of finding allies, items, and ally drops, when you make Jonin you get Olmek as an ally, who gives you 2-for-1 on all drops.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 23, 2009 10:27 AM (PiXy!)

15 Woo!  Sanninated, with 158 stamina still left.

6 Silver Elixirs, about 330 stamina worth of A-rank missions at +3 crank, and one all-out bash with Loli Loli.  Piece of cake.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 01, 2009 05:01 AM (PiXy!)

16 And that wasn't even on a sevens-day.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 01, 2009 05:01 AM (PiXy!)

17 Getting sannin really isn't that hard, so long as you're willing to farm up enough silver elixirs. I'm making an OOT run on Sat, let's see how that goes...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at September 01, 2009 01:48 PM (pWQz4)

18 Cool!  I'm planning to do one as well, probably not for a couple of weeks though.

Oh, and Turtle has Zombjas now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 02, 2009 12:36 AM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

I just had to write a document on how to open a PDF. A small part of my soul shriveled and died...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:05 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 25 words, total size 1 kb.