Thursday, January 28, 2010

US Server On 2ch?

Browsing around today I stumbled across this thread on 2ch, which seems to chronicle the US Server's happenings fairly accurately... as well as talking about the more well-known/notable/infamous players & clans in particular. I'm a little confused as to why my origin is listed as Revert, considering I was never once in that clan. Oh well, 100% factual or not, it's an entertaining read.

Side Note:
Hit level 90 on Rhuki last night... 90 is much less gratifying the second time around.

Another Side Note:
Can I +ego over this? Please?

Final Edit:
After seeing the 2ch thread degenerate into nothing but ASCII-porn directed at a particular player, I'm choosing not to link the thread anymore. This is clearly a player who came to the US-server and failed, based on how much QQing they've posted. Just proof that some people on the interwebz are truly disturbed (and will undoubtedly never have sex without paying for it). There's a big difference between doramaz for lolz and being some creepy stalker hentai-freak. Have fun fapping to ASCII-art~

P.S. No, the Hamster-picture has nothing to do with this. I just refuse to plug threads that flame people who are good-hearted and kind like the girl you have some perveted obsessed hatred for. I hope the poster in this thread gets over their sexual frustrations someday.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Lrn2Mod pl0x

It seems as though lately more people are having trouble grasping the concept of modding their equipment properly. The tradelist has been littered with gears with improper soul stones or slot-modifications. While it's fun to get a laugh out of other people's ignorance, it's also quite sad and a testament to how poorly educated our server really is. If you're going to take the time to modify/enchant one of your gears, make sure of two things:
  1. The piece of equipment you plan to modify/enchant is beneficial to your class/build.
  2. The modification/enchant you plan to do is beneficial to your class/build.
As long as you follow these two basic principles (that really shouldn't even have to be pointed out in the first place), you are halfway on your way to success in this game.

Are You Goofus or Gallant?
Photobucket
Gallant modded his Kotetsu II for +15% Slash to become more efficient at destroying vegetables.

Photobucket
Goofus modded his Avalon-24 for +15% Spread because he has no idea what he's doing. He also bathes in the sink.


Please don't be a modification Goofus, otherwise you'll end up on...

The Modification Wall Of Shame
The names have been hidden to save people the embarrassment. These are definite modification failures that would better serve as deconstruction material than the horrible fate these items are suffering.
  • Exhibit A: The Spingunner
Photobucket
It's a build we all laugh and joke about all the time, but apparently they do exist... and yes, that is a normal Stealth Top, not the reissued ones.
  • Exhibit B: Killing Two Mods With One Stone
Photobucket
Not that Tanegashimas are "pro guns" to begin with, but here's a good way to make all your modding useless: change the weapon's affinity.
  • Exhibit C: Microphone Check?
Photobucket
This Enka has literally passed hands at least 5 times now. It's been on the tradelist under different names for at least 2 months. I offered 5k macca in an attempt to just delete the item to put it out of it's misery, but the current seller didn't like my "noob offer." Guess I'll never be pro without this Enka D:

Photobucket
This seriously made my stomach turn. If you're going to farm the materials for an expensive 5-slotted weapon you plan to mod for fire, please make it a Phantom Star. Seeing this kind of mod would make any Class 10 Destruction Mage lose sleep at night.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Aeria Fails Yet Again~

So up until recently, things had been rolling fairly smoothly with Aeria; content was getting updated more frequently, the tiered spending promos were actually decent equipment for the price-brackets (i.e. LNC sets, Nightmare, Sentinel, SMT: If... sets, etc.), and there'd been an odd air of happiness(?) floating around. Things seemed to be looking up (or at least as good as they were going to get, we'd reached a happy-medium it seemed).

Then 2010 started.

Our current Fortune Cards are literally 2 years old, dating back to January 17th, 2008 and February 7th, 2008. We never recieved either of these FCs up until this point, where none of these gears hold any relevance to today's damage-standards (minus Conviction, which essentially every melee who wants one has one at this point, and I suppose the outfits could be argued they could be Regenerated... but that's beside the point really). What does Aeria do when the FC fails? Promos~

Let's chronicle everything that's happened in the past week:

They clearly already knew the upcoming FC was going to fail, by the release of not only one, but two instances of the Abyss Cloak being putting in their infamous Floating Mystery Box on the web mall. They released the box 2 days back-to-back, with a price increase on the second day.

There was the Re: Chaos Set/Flamehorn raffle, the Demonic Ward/Cups & Melons Mystery Box Promo, the Seeker/Sentinel tiered promo, and now we've had the release of Cross Regenerator Mystery boxes and (again) not only one, but two corresponding raffles to add more insult to injury. Today drops the Warlords tiered promo, which makes no sense... how is a set like Nightmare that adds a general damage boost $50 and a near-statless and completely useless set like General's worth $70? Makes zero sense.

For those unaware, Cross Regenerators were released in this FC on the J-Server. Looks alot better than Mystery Boxes, right? Why was this not released as this week's FC? Instead we get ridiculously outdated crap that no one needs. The Cross Regens were also released on the J-Server's web mall the same day the Fortune Card was released for ¥4980 each.

I find it ironic that the Cross Regen thread was locked promptly after I called Aeria on their bullshit, and expressed they're truly showing no care for their customers at this point. Locking the thread with literally zero response to what I said merely proves my point even further.

It's shocking that Aeria has an A- Rating on the BBB, but then again when you buy your votes from your players anything is possible. If you have a problem with how Aeria Games runs their business-end, I implore you to speak the truth. Makes you wonder just how many of these reviews are buffing that A-. At one point Aeria had a D rating...

EDIT:
I find it quite ironic I point out the fact the +50% expertise handgun is missing, and within 48 hours it's found it's way to our item mall. The GMs apparently didn't know the item existed... and yet that doesn't explain the fact it was clearly taken out of the FC.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

URUTORAMAN! URUTORAMAN SEBUN!

Ok, to balance out the somewhat sappy post, here's a video and chatbox lulz:

The only reason I made this was I wanted an excuse to pay homage to Megaman 2:


This is why our Xat box rules:
Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket
Photobucket


Memories

Contrary to Azuno's post, I've been working on updating the blog in my spare time at work for like a week now... and I'm too lazy to work on posts at home >.<

It's really hard to believe it's been one year. I find myself slowly drifting into the more casual-player category; but I'm okay with that. I've worked hard for everything I've done, and it was always at my own pace. There's no point in being hardcore about anything when my main doesn't gain XP anymore and we're still waiting on content updates. I spend most of my days hunting the field bosses in Shinjuku Docks, soloing 4 Kings for a challenge, making new demons, testing new ideas and theories out, and of course the occasional PvP match here and there. Last night I decided to start up a swordsmith for fun (I have an old level 57 synther on another account with a macca-hourglass still on it, might as well use it), so we'll see how that goes. Anyway, this entry isn't about anything that's happening now; I wanted to share some memories and pay tribute to some long lost friends as we wrap up our 1st year of Megaten.

Note: I have pictures to add, but I need to upload them when I get home.

When Imagine was announced that it was being brought to the US, I knew absolutely nothing about MMORPGs. I'd never played one in my life, nor did I have any intentions of playing one. However I never pass up a Shin Megami Tensei game, so I felt obligated to at the very least try it. I only logged in a few times during closed beta, knowing that my character would be wiped I just tested the game out to see if it was even enjoyable. My laptop at the time caused the game to lag a lot (go go Vista), and dungeons were virtually unplayable for me. However I found myself enjoying the game nonetheless. I realized with my current computer there was no way I was getting far, so I wrote it off as something to play if I got a new computer. In the meantime I tried WoW, only to quit after merely 3 days into my 10 day trial (that game is awful), and saw that every preconcieved thought I had about the game was 100% true.

In Februrary I managed to finally get myself a killer desktop for a new DAW (digital audio workstation), and shortly after installing all my recording software I remembered SMT, so I figured I'd give it another run. I forgot my password for my original username, so I started up a new account, made a character, and dove face first into the world of Imagine.

I don't know how many of you know, but Royce is not my original character; originally I was known as Iwata, and actually played a male character *gasp*

I wanted to keep to myself and had no real interest in joining a clan, but I got a random clan invite in the middle of killing Cait Siths for Act III. I can't really say much about them, I was in the clan for like an hour? No one talked the entire time I was there, so I left figuring I'd be better off alone.

I didn't talk to a soul until I ran Act IV, where a Dutch girl named Syardis who was looking for a group of people to run Act IV's Grey plate as well. I offered to come since I needed to do it to, and ended up making my first friend in Megaten. We ended up talking for a long time, running a couple Sugi Bronzes and just overall had fun. Later on that evening I recieved another random clan invitation, this time to Clan Cruxifer, which ended up being my home for the next several months. 15 year-old Ceruben was the leader, who gave me a submaster position based on the fact I was the 2nd highest level in the clan because I "obviously knew what I was doing," which was a total lie... I had every expertise turned on! 18,000 points? No way I'm ever maxing all that out! I had stats in strength, magic and speed because I wanted to be a "jack-of-all-trades"...

Cruxifer ran like pretty much every other clan back in early February; you see a random clanless noob, invite first and ask questions later. Ironically this method wasn't that bad back then, as we got several people that didn't have their head up their ass completely, like Lorant, Ayaki, Senlan, Xerdrick, Nakea, Miyazuki, Kagusashi, Churumelos, Kisarabi and Andraen. We actually had a decent team of people for just a bunch of random invites. We actually started to get a little serious about the game. Around this time is when I retired Iwata at level 34, and decided to try a new class. I had made Royce as my mule (that's right, Royce was initially a storage mule), so I decided to give mage a try. I had a gut feeling that females would get better gear than males, since this is a Japanese MMO after all, and boy was I right. I ended up being a hybrid of mage and melee in the beginning, due to the fact we had no tanks in the clan, plus we had no idea what builds worked and what didn't back in these times. Syardis actually joined the clan around this time on her new character RazorRamon (this time male, playing my opposite again)... 5 bonus points to anyone who gets that reference. EdwinRhys also joined our ranks, who was possibly the best random noob invite ever. Lorant, Edwin and myself were like the Rat Pack of Cruxifer; we did everything together. I still miss those days :/

As the clan grew more serious about actually working together, expanding our clanbase and overall being good at the game, several clan members felt that Ceruben wasn't really fit to be clan master anymore; all he did was ask for people's Jack Frost cards and steal all the loot in dungeons by turning FFA on. I got picked by all the submasters to be the new clanmaster, but asking Cerbuen to step down wasn't something I wanted to do. We didn't want to make it seem like some coup d`etat, but Senlan ended up stonewalling him and Ceruben sort of freaked out, passed master, left the clan, and his 3 irl-friends followed. Cerbuben ended up quitting the game because of this, which was never anyone's intentions. I think we just learned a very valueable lesson that day-- you can't maturely reason with a 15 year old boy.

Outside of Cruxifer, I'll never forget the other fellow channel 5 people; Clan Arcana people like the perverted Jherek (who was convinced I was a girl irl, even though countless times I said I was a man...), AIice and of course Sekushi. There was also the Clan Aria crew-- Gainshard, Sekh, Eone and shoon (who all ended up helping create Destiny), the Clan Touhou crew-- Looms and Zlito, and the Clan DaraTen crew-- Yreal, Seppoku, and Mewie. Then there's the clanless people where you wonder where they mysteriously vanished, like Verdeman, who seemed to be the only swordsmith for the longest time, then was gone for good in the blink of an eye. There was also Alesa, the clanless enhancer who used to bother Jherek with me. She vanished completely after she unlocked class 5 enhancement, which was all she did at the fountain for weeks; grind expertise and chat.

I was always trying to push the envelope as far as what mages were capable of doing. At the end of April I was the second person (that I know of, at least) to have soloed Tokisada and farmed my own cards for B108 Ichi Gold, the first being Pearz.

I ended up leading Cruxifer from March until the beginning of June, when every just stopped getting along and started being too dramatic and overbearing. SuperBuu3 systematically tried to destroy the clan from the inside by spreading lies about everyone and planting seeds of doubt in everyone's heads... much like he'd done in Clan Trinity and Clan Aria beforehand (this was not some new trend). I couldn't paty with anyone non-clan without being guilt-tripped by the submasters for at least 45 minutes. The fact I was outleveling everyone in the guild by over 10 levels meant that I was "unfaithful to the clan" and "should be helping with newbies on acts" and "powerleveling the clan." I ended up just straight up leaving the clan, as everything I'd worked hard for months to achieve blew up in my face due to other people's jealousy. I'd already felt Lorant and a few others giving me the cold shoulder for like a month, and they moved on to help with SuperBuu3's newly-founded Clan Raziel, and I ended up joining Desire upon the invite from my friends Raid0uKuzunoha and ShinHitoshura.

The Desire-era was short for me (only 2 months), but a strange and interesting one; the clan was almost always dead silent. From what I hear the clan was pretty much already dead when I joined; all the old players had already quit the game. It almost seemed as though no one really liked each other, which was weird coming from Cruxifer where everyone had bonded so well. There were some good times in Desire, like running Ichis with Petrovich and Takemoro, running around Babel acting silly with Sachira, and the crazy 8-10 hour grind sessions I had with Xay. Eventually the clan split into 3 entirely new clans, which brings us to now. Destiny is starting it's 6th month of existence and as strong as ever.

So will it be time for me to hang up my gears and join the ranks of the other retired veterans? Or will I stick it out another year? I can't really say for sure, but I have a feeling I'll be here for awhile still. Perhaps Celu Gold will bring some new life into the game for me. I'm still anxiously awaiting Ueno Snake Cave too. Who knows, maybe the level cap will get raised soon. The past year has been a blast, and it's been really great to meet the friends I have today. It's sad to look at my friends list and see all the old friends I've had who have moved on; it's more like an obituary than a list of active players... and I refuse to delete a single one of them in hopes of them coming back someday.

Even though leveling is a total joke now, it's good to be an older veteran; I actually got to experience the game without hearing words like "sponsor" or "powerleveling" until I was 80+. You really miss out on a lot when you confine yourself to only running Ichi Golds. I wouldn't trade off any these memories for all the 10x in the world.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Updatez?

So it seems like no one wants to post anymore so I'm gonna post an update.
First off, I hit 90 like a week ago? Big whoop, not like it's much of an accomplishment anymore, I just wanted my Megidoroan lawl.

Photobucket


Royce's is better because it has a Nyar tarot, QQ @ U Royce D:

In other news I've been doing Valhalla a lot lately, I've actually gotten up to Valgrind, which honestly isn't very hard it's just long and just takes "massive amounts of noob killing". Hitting Valgrind allows me to go and look at this nice piece of armor:

Photobucket

The thing is godly, but completely unattainable for a longggggg time. 1.2million BP? No thanks.

Now for those getting mad at me for leaving Valhalla when I see a match is stacked, I just have this to say, I don't really care what you think. I'm getting rank for a random reason, once I hit it I'll do all the stacked, unfair, hard to win matches you want. But considering if I lose a match, it takes me 2 to make up for it, I'd rather avoid the hassle. But by all means, if you wish to make Team Valhalla fights PM me I'll arrange for it to happen, I'd love to have a fair match of level 80+