My feelings towards FFXIV

If there’s one thing that FFXI (11) has taught us, it would be how to pre-empt things.

At every version update (VU), many people want to speculate things and make guesses at what Square-Enix (SE) will implement. A recent example I can think of is the materials needed for the new gobbiebag quests.

Many people bought up potential quest item materials before the VU and if they get it right, they make a quick fortune from selling those materials after the VU. Because the demand for them is so high it drives people to pay huge sums of gil to buy them.

Basically, at any possible money-making event, there’s always someone there finding a way to push up the cost of getting something done.

As FFXIV (14) draws closer, and as SE slowly release more news about the game, there’s already quite a number of people out there preparing for it. Forums and blogs, domain names and all have already been setup and prepared even before the game’s beta has launched.

There’s also groups of people forming end-game linkshells (clans) also. And look at me, I’m here criticizing 14 before I’ve even played the game!

I have this feeling that once beta launches, while most people spend their time enjoying the game, there will also be a lot of people finding ways to monopolize the economy in the game. There would be so much competition at various things that it would become stressful for me instead of fun.

I forsee a lot of people farming certain monsters for quest items making it difficult for myself to finish the quest. If SE makes a certain quest item sellable. Even more people would be there farming them so that they can earn gil from it.

Even though I’ve said all this, I won’t say that I will never move to 14 for sure. The bloomy (lol bloom) graphics sure look a lot better than the current Vana’diel. However at the moment, I don’t have the slightest desire to play 14 unless everyone in my end-game linkshell in 11 decides to move over. Love those guys.

It’s here, it’s awesome

Dell S2409W. Full HD.

Delivered straight to my home last night at around 8.20pm.

Dell S2409W

Thinking back to the days where I had to use a 15″ LCD monitor at work makes me shiver.

Watching 1080p animes are sooooo awesome now. Lots of detail flooding my field of vision.

Working on photoshop is also a lot better now with more viewing space. Same goes for coding.

Next up on my shopping list, a White NDS Lite and a new computer!

Fatal Frame

A few weeks ago, I found out that Gamescore, a local game shop, has brought in all 3 original Fatal Frame titles for the PS2. When I just bought my PS2 Slim more than 2 years ago,  I went around looking to buy this title but couldn’t find it anywhere. So last week when I finally had some free time after work, I went down to Funan IT Mall to Gamescore to buy all 3.

I love this series so much that even though I’ve already downloaded financially-friendly copies of all 3 games from the internet (only because I couldn’t find it anywhere), I still went ahead and bought the originals without regret.

And now is also a good time to play this game because it’s the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. :d
(I’m not very religious/spiritual by the way.)

Every night as I play Fatal Frame, it has never failed to give me the creeps. I do enjoy folklore horror stories like these. One other example I can think of right now is “Silent Hill“.

The gameplay is simple. You explore an abandoned Japanese mansion, going around solving puzzles and armed with only a camera that can exorcise ghosts with a few shots. The ambience and sound in this game easily gives me the chills.

The first time I played Fatal Frame was back in my student days, our class had organized a chalet and someone brought his PS2 there. I played the game all through the night, until there was so much adrenaline that I started hearing things and so I stopped. I had wanted to complete the game before the chalet ends but failed to do so.

The second time was when I went back to visit my relatives in Malaysia. My cousin had PS2 and the second Fatal Frame title. I failed to finish it before I return to Singapore.

Just these 2 encounters with this series, is enough to make me a fan.

Can I has rest?

Lots of work, to the point I had to work overtime till 9pm.

Somehow I feel that a lot of work was pointless because of the way some of the people in my office do things.

Inefficient, outdated.

Silly stubborn people.

However, I’m also in the process of forcing some changes into our workflow. For the sake of making work easier.

Each website we do, we have to copy our CMS system into it. It’s a lot of work to set it up. We have to create a MySQL database, etc.

So now I’m working on a new system where we just use 1 database for hundreds of our sites that run on our dedicated server.

From my experience in editing wordpress templates, I’ve come up with an single php file that does all the work. So all we need is to just call functions to get the data we need, and not write copy paste a long bunch of PHP codes and SQL statements that retrieve those data.

Once this project gets finished, I can cut down the effort needed for us to produce a CMS-enabled site by half.

Last weekend, after a mid-term Japanese test, I went down to Suntec to attend the Singapore Toy Games and Comics Convention. All I can say is there’s nothing much to see or do there.

Haven’t had time to slow down and laze on my bed. Hopefully I can have a break tomorrow…

My company just gave us a small bonus. I might go buy that 24″ widescreen Dell LCD monitor, that I’ve been eyeing for a long time, today after work.

PS3 Slim was announced recently. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time so it’s another good reason to get that HD  LCD monitor.

selling my old stuff

I’ve decided to sell off my old computer parts for some cash. There’s a bunch of stuff I want to buy by the end of this month.

As some of you already know, my secondary computer which I let it run 24/7 because I use it as a web server, had it’s core harddisk die. I suppose it’s because of poor ventilation which made the disk too hot.

So I’ve decided not to use it as a 24/7 computer anymore. It’ll just be one which I’ll use to learn Linux or maybe for lan parties.

I plan to get a new computer soon, an Intel i7 CPU with 3 sticks of 2GB RAM, to replace my primary computer which I use for gaming and photo editing. I’ll re-use the WD Raptors and HD4870 graphics card from my current PC.

Then the current one will become my 24/7 computer which I use for bittorrents and stuff. I’m used to having a computer ready for use. Always connected to the net, with my IMs and IRC running so I can stay in touch with my friends. A computer which I can remote control from work in case I need to access some files or test server connection.

Each of my computers have a 17″ LCD monitor. One of them has begun having problems which might indicate it’s going to expire soon. If I switch it off and on instantly, the graphics on the screen would go haywire. It needs to stay switched off for about 20 minutes before I can use it again properly.

But until it’s 100% malfunctioned, I intend to keep using it for as long as possible. My mum borrowed a huge sum of money from me recently to start a small business so I have no spare cash to go shopping.

And if it ceases to work, I’ll be getting a Dell 24″ LCD. The huge resolution is going to make post-processing my photos a lot more comfortable.

2 months and 18 more days till my contract with my existing mobile service provider ends and I’m going to switch over to Singtel simply because they have the exclusive rights to distribute iPhone 3G in Singapore.