wyred dot nu

( T-T)

900K loss. *sigh*

First of all, the Despot adjustment!

After SE changed Ulli to a forced pop NM, Ulli’s popularity fell as everyone farmed furiously for those Diorites.

As a result, Despot’s popularity soared.

I’ve seen like 3 LSes camp along the Despot corridor and the situation was as bad as Ullikummi’s room before the Ulli adjustment.

Now, I assume Despot is claimed by whoever kills the PH, which is like Steam Cleaner?

Then again, this may or may not fix the RMT problems as the RMTs on Odin have 5~6 BLMs standing by, a THF does a massive pull of Groundkeepers and then the BLMs all do a synchronized thundaga.

Oh well. Next item, grips!

A list of the new items are available for viewing here. I’ve already decided on the grips that I’m going to get for my DRK.

Platinum Grip: Acc+2, Additional effect: Stun. Probably for HNM, full ACC setup. Low priority.

Sword Strap: 2-hand weapon delay -3%.

Pole Strap: Double attack +2%.

Claymore grip: Critical Hit +3%, for use with my unlocked Subduer.

I’m also anxious to see how much damage my DRK will do to high level monsters now. And also to see what has been changed for Cross Reaper. Will it be as strong as Spinning Slash?

Chocobo Racing‘s up. I think it will be nice for us to watch while waiting for a PT invite. And I think it’s a good time to start raising a chocobo now that the whole chocobo raising fad has calmed down. I remember back during the first few weeks of chocobo raising, tokopekko grass is being sold at 100,000gil for each single piece!

Mog lockers accessible from Nomad Moogles. About time!

Shield Bash and Weapon Bash have been enhanced! :D :D :D

Oh, and I just heard this from Sireen and verified it. Each 1 STR now gives 1 Attack and each 1 DEX gives 1 accuracy for 2hand weapons only. Previously it was 2STR = 1Att, 2DEX = 1Acc. My attack total now exceeds 500 without food! Cross reaper now gives better damage. Or perhaps it’s giving better damage because of the STR/Attack adjustment?

Can’t wait to test DRK on Kirin. >:)
This is the only HNM that I have a chance to touch by the way. 

I guess that’s all for a list of updates that I really like. I hope DRKs will be more wanted in merit PTs now!

Alright. This is an overblogged topic but as a fan of anime myself, I want to put my thoughts out there.

Here’s what’s been happening in the anime scene in Singapore for the past few weeks. Everyday, there’s an article in the news regarding this incident.

Local anime distributor, Odex, has been sending out legal threats to many people for downloading anime. People who received those letters were shown a list of their downloads mostly, perhaps all of them, using the bittorrent protocol.

These people were asked to go down to the Odex office to sign an agreement which basically admits that they downloaded and promise not to do it again. However, from what I understand, the agreement allows them to further legally screw you whenever they feel like it. Downloaders also had to pay sums of $3000~$5000 ($2000~$3300 USD), which is a sum of money not to be taken lightly.

Odex claims these amount of money are used to cover their lawyer fees and the costs incurred to track down the downloaders. It’s in the news that they have the info of about 3000 IPs. Some may belong to the same person because local ISPs here give dynamic IP addresses.

So let’s assume 1500 people are going to be sued for an average of $4000. Odex acquires $6,000,000 in it’s lawsuit rampage.

Oh, the youngest offender so far is a 9 year old. He wasn’t given a chance.

The response, a majority of fans began discussing this legal threats on the forums. Someone managed to find some information on one of the directors of Odex, Stephen Sing, and his posts in another forum.

"Nope~ Me too busy sueing people~" and "Hahahaha! I double-6-ed so many downloaders~"

These 2 posts, obvious that it was about the recent legal threats Odex has been giving, further infuriated people which resulted in headline news:

When interviewed, he claimed it was taken out of context and he had forgotten about it because it was posted 2 months ago. However, it was actually 2 weeks…

Poor guy now has his address, Identification number, photoshopped pics of his photos all over the net now.

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Some interviews with Peter Go, another of Odex’s directors, claim that they only want to stop piracy and help anime flourish in Singapore. But shooting out lawsuits is definitely not the way.

The majority of downloaders are casual fans and only want free stuff. You stop them from downloading, they’ll just move on to other sources of entertainment. They won’t buy VCDs or DVDs. Odex loses here.

The real fans who will fork out money to buy the DVDs of a series they like, may stop buying from Odex now. Most of them probably never bought from Odex in the first place, because of the poor translations.

Originally, the anime community in Singapore is small. Thanks to fansubs and the ease and speed of bittorrent, this community grew fast. Cosplay events became bigger and quality improved over the years. 4 years ago, I would feel embarrassed reading manga in public while dressed in my formal work attire. But not anymore now.

These lawsuits may discourage and kill alot of fans. There’s a good chance anime’s popularity in Singapore will fall thanks to Odex.

Many fans now live in fear everyday, fear of getting the Odex letter in their mailbox. Not all can easily fork out that sum of money.

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Links to relevant articles:

Jan 9th 2007 – DarkMirage: An open letter to Odex

Aug 16th 2007 – CNet Asia: Kicking kids for profit

Aug 18th 2007 – Death threats against Odex

Aug 22nd 2007 – Riuva: Vision of Odex

Odex’s website

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Note: I may still edit this entry further in future

Finally finished PLD Relic AF. I got the legs piece in our previous beaucedine run. Now I think I’ll start spending points on 100 pieces to work on my lolrelic shield.

 

My dynamis LS has taken a different approach to some things. We use only 1 PLD in sleepga PT now and 1 NIN tank as main. I get to go as DRK/NIN and sometimes help to tank a little, which keeps me awake. Seeing the BRD and BLM keeping all the mobs slept makes me sleepy. >_<

As to why I feel sleepy, the times of my dynamis runs are 12am and 4am, local time.

My NIN static is slowly approaching to an end. Just 2 more levelling sessions and I’m quitting it for good. Our last PT, a JP RDM disconnected a few minutes after levelling up and never came back. Instead of finding a replacement, we just continued on as 5 members (WHM BLM SMN MNK NIN). Even though we are only 5, we could chain #5 and get around 180~266exp per kill. :D

I begin to have interest in MNK and WHM. I’m playing WHM just to experience the different aspects of battle in FFXI; Tank(PLD,NIN), Damage-Dealer(MNK,DRK,WAR), Support(RDM,BRD), Healing(WHM). Is there any category that I left out? I’m playing MNK because a friend keeps telling me it’s the best DD job, thus I decided to try it out and see for myself. MNK also seems like a job that can solo stuff well.

The upcoming update looks very good for DDers who use 2-hand weapons. SE’s going to adjust the damage formula so we can deal more damage against high level monsters. Hopefully it applies to NMs too. They’re also going to introduce "grips" which is to be equipped in the sub-weapon slot.

Screenshots from POL site show an example of a grip that reduces delay by 3%. 2 good news for DRKs, SAMs and DRGs. :)

My last 2 Haubergeon synth sessions, I broke and lost a damascus ingot each. Just when I got discouraged and about to give up…

2 HQs out of 6 synths! XD

Last week, there was a Chan Brother’s Travel Fair at Suntec Exhibition Hall. Dragged my friend down with me to take a look. It was there, I bought my air tickets to Japan.

There was a VISA promotion for NorthWest Airlines. It was the cheapest fare I could find. But it requires the payment to be made through a VISA credit card. Luckily, my colleague at work had one so he helped make the payment for me.

The bad thing is, the flight’s only at 6am. And I have to check in at 4am.

Maybe I’ll see if I can grab a few friends to spend the night playing NDS at the airport with me. Haha

Can’t wait for November to come.

Had a little interest in MNK so I went to camp the NMs for the quest items for Brown Belt. 1/2 on Nue, 1/1 on Dodo, 1/2 on Morbolger. Morbolger drops the item 100% so what I mean by 1/2 is I lost claim on first attempt.

I feel lucky that I finished this in 2 days.

Next, I was asked to help on a Swift Belt run. My friends brought 5 triggers and we fought the Hume one for all 5. No drops on first 3 fights. Drop on the 4th one. So they decide to use to 5th codex for me and it dropped. :o

 

I knew about this belt and that many people were after it. But the 4% haste didn’t feel much to me so I never bothered about getting it. But now that I have it, maybe I’ll borrow dusk gloves when I max out Desperate Blows and see how fast I can go.

Friend says it’s good for my PLD/NIN or DRK with Desperate Blows LV3 + Haste + Walahra Turban + Swift Belt.

I tried it on my NIN last night with my static PT. I borrowed a friend’s Fuma Kyahan(3% haste) too.

NIN AF body (Enhance Dual Wield) + March(Song) + Haste + Swift Belt + Fuma Kyahan = Fun.

Setup was WHM BLM BRD WAR MNK NIN (LV 57-58), camp was just outside Nashmau, fighting birds and puks. Our first hour, we got 7000exp (8000 with empress band). I pulled non-stop, even though the mages had less than 100MP, but somehow we didn’t have any problems.

 

Back when I was around 10~11 years old, DragonBall Z games on the NES were the craze among RPG gamers. I’ve played and completed DBZ 2, 3 and 外伝. Of all 3, 外伝 is my most favourite one.

If I remember correctly, you move around with cards and monsters are random encounters. You battle using cards too. There are many different cards with different kanji characters. A certain combination will allow you to use special moves.

For example, to execute Son Goku’s famous Kamehameha you need to use cards in the order "体爆光". For Super Kamehameha "拳拳体爆光". Cards come randomly. Z card allows you to choose the character you want. Sort of like a wild card.

You start off with being able to use only 3 cards in battle. Then slowly progress up to 7(? can’t remember).

If anyone’s interested, you can find the NES rom here.

Looking at these screenshots brings back memories. I’ve even recorded the OP theme music and used it as my ringtone!

The main character, the hero of the story, the protagonist, is a fat guy?

I know I will. And I expect an epic storyline.

If the storyline involves him saving the world, I can accept that.

If there’s romance in the story like FF8, I can accept that too. In fact, that might be awesome depending on how SE does it.