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Final Fantasy XIV v2

I’ve been playing XIV for a few months now. It’s a lot better than v1. No more lag, nice cutscenes with famous voice actors (JP voices), cleaner UI, beautiful scenery.

Some of the things I like over XI is how the battles require lots of movement to avoid enemy attacks. Makes dual-boxing impossible.

Equipment cannot be switched during battle so no need to have a separate equipment set for weaponskills. (The battle system already makes this unneccessary anyway).

Though I do have 2 sets of equipment for my PLD, HP focused and damage focused. HP for the more difficult battles like the extreme primals and damage-focused for the easier ones like Wanderer’s Palace.

Community-wise, like any other MMO, elitism can easily be found. Doing Praetorium the other day with some new players, as soon as we mentioned that we’re going to watch the long cutscenes, one player immediately left without saying a word. Fortunately, we managed to finished it smoothly with just one healer.

It’s possible to re-watch the cutscenes in the inn but the experience just doesn’t feel right. I can’t tell which cutscene started at which point of the mission. The cutscenes also add more intensity and meaning to the battles that follow.

Some of the battles here require lots of movement, making it very exciting. And it can also be very frustrating for others.

While it’s good to be able to finish Titan HM with one try, trying it several times with an average group and finishing it feels great too.

I had a classic comedic moment doing Titan HM as a BRD over the weekend. As I did repelling shot to avoid Weight of the Land (WotL), another player was standing behind me, out of my screen, also had the WotL appearing beneath him. I laughed at myself after seeing my character jump back and land on his WotL.

With the v2.2 update coming soon, players will get a small boost on their stats after every wipe, in small increments for up to like 50%. This gives me some mixed feelings.

On one hand, I will probably be able to finish the extreme primal trials with less difficulty.

But on the other hand, I will definitely miss the feeling of overcoming the hard battles with players who are committed to sticking with the current group to the very end.

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Deploying with Github

Just a note for myself. Or if anyone’s interested, feel free to continue reading.

This posts records the steps needed to allow the webserver to run a “git pull” command in your website’s folder.

Setting up SSH

In the case of Nginx, the home folder is /var/cache/nginx/

You need a .ssh folder here with the ownership given to “nginx”, which is the user account the webserver runs as.

Generate your PKI keys, update the public key at github and also make sure nginx owns those keys.

Website folder permissions

You will need to change the ownership of all the files in your web folder, including the .git folder and files to the “nginx” user account.

Git pull

su nginx to “log in” as the nginx user. You may need to change the bash settings in /etc/passwd in order to allow this login.

go to your website folder and run “git pull”. You will be asked to add the public key for github.com into your list of known hosts, so just type in “yes”

Github hook

I have a php file in /var/www/html that runs the git pull in the website folder when accessed.

The line of code is simply:

shell_exec(“cd /var/www/websitefolder.com/; git pull”);

Then add the url to this file in github’s hooks section and whenever you push to github, github will send a post to this file, triggering the git pull in that website folder.

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The only sad thing about gaming

One thing I find depressing about console gaming is that newer generation consoles are often not backwards compatible. Which means they can’t play games from previous generation consoles; a PlayStation 3 cannot read or play the games of PS2.

So when one day, my PS2 console finally gives up on me, I would have to hunt for a second-hand PS2 or my games will all be unplayable to me anymore.

Which… is kind of sad…

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Can’t open NetBeans’ preferences on MacOSX

This problem has happened to me before and I forgot how I fixed it. Thus, this warrants a blog post to remind me how I fixed it!

The problem: Editor fonts look weird and the Preferences window refuses to open.

This may be because Java 1.7 is installed or in use. NetBeans on OSX does not work well with this version. You need to uninstall it by deleting the JavaVirtualMachine from the /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines folder.

Google for 1.6 to find the download on Apple’s website. Or if it’s already installed, run java -version in terminal to find out what version is active.

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So much hate to the point it just seems silly

TL;DR: Buy things that suit your needs well and shut the hell up unless someone asks for your opinion.

I don’t mind when people bash Apple’s products if they have good reason.

But nowadays people are doing it simply because it’s cool to do so.

It hurts a little when you’re targeted because of the other fanatics who believe in the same brand as you do, and yet you’re not as extreme as them.

Now I know how some Christians feel when I used to show my dislike towards their religion. (This happened during the days when I was young and foolish!)

Because these situations are so similar.

I used to dislike Christianity because of some extreme believers pushing their beliefs onto me, but then I learned that not all Christians are like that.

Hey, I’m just a regular guy who’s eager to give up his money for products that work well, for content that entertains me well, for services that serve me well.

Louis CK said it best. Everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy.