cuddlefish | (no subject)

Today is Superbowl day! For those of us who don't care about football, this is a great day for junk food. I think red velvet cake and cupcakes are rising in popularity because Cardinals fans are serving them.

I got my PSP online in a local cafe that happens to offer free wifi. My mom and I went for soup/sandwich and some hanging out in a setting outside of home. The only problem is that the wifi automatically disconnects your machine after half an hour and won't let you back on during peak hours (they want to keep customers from taking up residence during office lunch hours). It doesn't matter if you buy lunch or you're pretty or you wear green socks. HALF AN HOUR. We went during peak hours. :( And the PSP browser is slow, so now I have to go back for the Radiant Mythology 2 theme 8|

I bought an overpriced copy of Tales of Phantasia PSX at Otakon eons ago and I always avoided opening it because I thought I would sell it for sum bux and play the PSP version instead. I couldn't take it anymore so I broke it out and started playing it. It is a testimony to how sweet this game is, even after 5 or 10 years, that I'll play it without turning it off or saving because I uhhh don't have my PSX memory cards! Yup. I'm really surprised at how nice this version looks. I was expecting something closer to the GBA version but the graphics are all niced up for the PSX. All in all I think it's quite effective.

Runan, if you happen to read this, are you interested in signing on for the open beta of Aion Online? Wings included with every character >:3

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I was reading a bit about Aion Online, and:

http://elliotinaion.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/ncsoft-anti-bot-on-the-outside-bot-utopia-on-the-inside/

:(

...incredible. Well, that's it. The game is dead in the water. Do they even care about protecting their investment? Does letting botters take over really make that much money? Do they think they're going to be as big and well-loved as WoW by behaving like this? Are they trying to prove that their business model of free fellatio for people who ruin it for everyone else is the one true paradigm, from which all other MMO systems must be derived in order to avoid certain death? It boggles the mind. I don't even know when the US beta is and I've given up on it.

If you don't mind me going off at the mouth again =_= Isn't the situation where a company claims that they don't allow bots in their policies, and then never enforce it so that the game tastes like ass for paying players, a bait-and-switch trick? (I guess the problem here is that the botters and the game companies are never actually in cahoots with each other to steal money from people and so you can't really blame either one.)

Sometimes the botters pay the company a cut of the earnings from gold sales. It appears to be a more complex problem than it appears from cursory inspection!

WoW is still suffering from gold farmers even now, btw. If there is a resource that costs people time to acquire then there will be people who are willing to pay for it. I think the trick is in letting people pay for it in a way that doesn't affect the enjoyment of others (see games like Pangya, etc)

And yes, you're right, it is a bait-and-switch, and I think it is despicable.