blueZhift Blog

I’ve been looking for the Guitar Hero World Tour drum kit for the last couple of months without success. So when I finally saw them being stocked, I bought one right away. My youngest son was going to be our drummer to complete our band. But surprise surprise! My oldest daughter, who generally does not play video games with us, tried the drums last night and really enjoyed it!^^ Not only that, she’s a natural!

The drums are a lot harder to play than one might think, so it’s pretty cool that we’ve found our best drummer in the least likely person. We all took turns, so anyone who wants to play drums gets a chance. But I’m just thrilled that we now have a game that everyone in the family can play together.

Ever wanted to be engaged in an epic struggle with no hope for victory? Then tomorrow will be a good day to die in Tabula Rasa which is going out with a bang! No happpy ending, everyone dies in one last heroic battle. Damn! Now I wish I’d picked up this game just for the dark ending. A warrior’s death, perhaps not a bad way to die.

Yesterday I heard that the Tabula Rasa US servers were being merged only a few short days before the game is scheduled to shut down at the end of February. Not only that, the developers were adding all sorts of new content. WTF? The game’s about to shut down forever, why do that now?

Some have speculated that it was a departing gesture of good will. Or perhaps the game was being prepped for sale to someone else by NCsoft.  Lately I’ve been seeing so many free to play MMOs that I cannot help but wonder if perhaps Tabula Rasa will have a second life (pardon the pun) as a free to play game. I’ve been tempted to try these out, but where to start and where to get the time? And with so many of these games around, the crap ratio is probably pretty high. Tabula Rasa certainly had it’s share of flaws, but as a free to play game, I might just give it a look. Well, time will tell I guess.

After a 4 month hiatus, I reactivated my Final Fantasy XI characters and returned to Vana’diel. When you spend years building up a character, you get a little attached. So it felt good to be home! Not only that, there have been a lot of changes to the game will make it more fun for players like me who don’t really have the time for the traditional grind. 

Playing on my PC, Vana’diel was as beautiful as ever as I set out to explore my new, old world. The first thing I noticed was that the mobs weren’t as tough as they used to be. FFXI was originally a game in which solo players were doomed to lowby-hood. To advance you had to form parties. But as the game aged and World of Warcraft came along with its more solo friendly gameplay, getting a party became more and more difficult. FFXI has about 500K players, but heavily skewed towards higher level players by this time which leaves new and lower level players in a lurch.

Apparently the mob (ie monster) levels have been adjusted downward to allow faster solo leveling. Another new thing introduced was the Field Manual which is a book found in many areas containing training exercises that reward gil (money) and xp (experience points). This is like the quest system used so successfully in World of Warcraft. I spent a couple of hours doing one of these last night and earned more xp and gil in that time than I could have in 6 to 8 hours in the previous revision of the game! I still like partying, but just getting a party could take hours before because of level restrictions and needing the right mix of jobs.

While I haven’t experienced it for myself yet, the party system has also been opened up via the new level synch feature. This allows higher level players to level down to play with lower level players and everyone stills gets good xp. And rather than losing higher level weapons and having to reequip (a hassle), higher level weapons are scaled down to the lower level. I’ll have to find a party to try this out, which may not be too hard given the traffic I saw in the Valkurm Dunes last night.

So I’m pretty happy to be back in Vana’diel!

Someone favorited a picture I took from my first Otakon back in 2005. I logged into my Flickr account and found that I had not labeled quite a lot of the pictures I took. While adding details I ran across this wonderful gem of what is now one of my favorite series, Tsubasa Chronicle by CLAMP.

One of the reasons I was excited to come to Chicago for college, was the lively and entertaining political sport that takes place here. The current Burris controversy continues to entertain. I’m rather annoyed by the whole thing which to my eye isn’t much to get excited about. I’m annoyed that the state Republicans are still harping on that special election nonsense after 0 Republicans in the House, and only 3 in the Senate supported President Obama’s Stimulus Package. Against this backdrop they want Illinois voters to send a Republican to the Senate so that he or she can join with the other Republicans in opposing the policies of the President, also from Illinois. Yeah, right, I’m all for that…

So hold on Roland, just don’t seek reelection. As for calls for resignation from unnamed Black ministers, well, that really means that someone else, who I won’t speculate on here, is angling for the job behind the scenes. That’s entertainment!

Illinois At Its Finest

A few days ago I finally got what I thought was a good idea for a Facebook application. I’ve been working on it and learning a few things about what is allowed and what is not. Now comes the hard part, making something that is really useful and perhaps fun, but not in the usual pandering chain letterish sort of way that most Facebook apps I’ve encountered are guilty of.

I think a good Facebook application should foster meaningful communication centered around some shared interest. I’m not going to outline what I have in mind here, but that is my central premise. And, of course, it will be nice to make some money from this as well. For that I’m depending on sales commissions which, if I accomplish the first goal, will hopefully follow in the steps of a truly useful application.^_^

I had the strangest dream last night. In it, someone I met at Otakon was a seductive spy and/or hacker who made off with some of my organization’s secrets. For reasons unknown, she came back and I managed to capture her and subsequently turn her into a Vocaloid singing in a digital band.

The dream was far more vivid than I’m describing here, punctuated with flashes of nudity. But wtf, Vocaloids?! I’ve heard of the game, but never played it. Though the woman in the dream would certainly make a great Vocaloid. She’s a great singer and very cute!^_^

After the beating they took in the November elections, you would think that the Republicans in the U.S. Congress would have learned something. But from the almost total lack of cooperation with President Obama regarding the economic stimulus bill, I guess they did not.  I’m particularly disappointed in Senator McCain, whose gracious concession speech on election night really impressed me. But now I can doubly see that Barack Obama was the right choice for these current times of economic crisis.

The Republicans just don’t seem to get it. People need help now! I have no idea who they think they are serving by trying to block the package. If they continue on this course, they will virtually guarantee a Democratic super majority in the Senate come the next election cycle in 2 years. No tears for them from me though, they’ve never been my friend and aren’t likely to become one in the near future.

I feel like I’m on a deathwatch for Borders bookstores and the manga publisher TokyoPop. Inventory at the Borders that I frequent downtown and in Hyde Park continues to shrink. Bankruptcy rumors have been surrounding Borders Group for nearly a year, so I can only wonder if they are having trouble paying suppliers and have cut their orders to reflect that.

As a manga reader, I’ve also noticed that manga publisher TokyoPop’s releases have slowed to a trickle.  All I’ve seen after seemingly forever is Chibi Vampire Volume 12, Fate/Stay Night Volume 2, and Fruits Basket First Bite, a  repackaging of volume 1 with extras. There may be others, but either they aren’t shipping many copies, or the Borders I was in was not buying many copies. I bought the only copy of Chibi Vampire Volume 12, but didn’t find Fate/Stay Night until I went to Barnes & Noble which only had a few copies. There have already been layoffs and title cancellations or delays at TokyoPop which are probably responsible for what I’m seeing.

While I hope that Borders and TokyoPop will not fail and disappear, it’s beginning to look like buying manga at retail is getting more and more difficult. Variety and quantity of titles is dropping everywhere I shop. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if there may be room for niche bookstores to pick up the slack, assuming that everyone except Viz, publisher of Naruto, doesn’t go out of business!