Okay we just came from the Paskuhan celebration at UST last night, which they hold every year. Well, sort of. We were in the area but we (Mikey and I; Abby was somewhere else with Cat) weren't in UST itself. Mikey and I were at a cybercafe called Zone.com on the P. Noval side of UST. All we really got to see from the Paskuhan celebration was a lot of people, a few glimpses of the big tree, and a bit of the fireworks display at the beginning, with a view very obstructed by trees and buildings.

At the cybercafe, however, we played RF mostly. Mikey is still there now, and he'll be playing until about 3 AM I guess. He'll be sleeping in the cybercafe too, as he has a class in the morning, from 7 to 9 AM. I kinda envy him really, because I've always wanted to do that. Staying at a cybercafe with the beautiful specs and the excellent broadband, and playing until morning? Hmm. Nice.

Okay so since I got to play RF (I saw Francis almost as soon as I logged in by the way), here's my objective analysis:

The game system is pretty different. It's the only game that I know where even monsters that should be below your level would cause you to spam pots. Everything does too much damage, and you don't seem to do enough. As I read on some forums, RF is basically a game of pot-spamming. This being said, you lag = you die. Techniques are even being developed by players to allow pots to be spammed automatically, including sticking paper into the function keys on the keyboard so they stay jammed down, etc.

The game graphics aren't so heavy (I'd say it's about the same as Silk Road), so it can run on my PC, theoretically (even the benchmark on their website says so).

Levelling at low levels is very annoying, because at first you're friggen poor (you start out with 0 money). And the newbie monsters can kill you if you're unlucky, as an effect of what I mentioned above (everything doing too much damage). And since you can't afford potions yet, death is too easy to achieve. Sooner or later though money starts to come by easier, at around level 8-10 and onwards. You'll start picking up equipment that's better than what you have, though often it's at least 4 levels above your current level.

Pretty much all the quests you'll get consists of monster-killing, with the monster targets getting ridiculously harder as you roll on. Some quests you get are probably not meant for you to complete until a few levels later, when you can equip some better stuff and afford to buy more expensive potions.

The main redeeming factor, though, is that this will all be a blur by the time you reach level 30, which should only actually take a few days to over a week, depending on your dedication. By level 30, you can join the war (and actually be useful that is), and that's actually extremely fun from what I've seen. I saw some coordinated raids on enemy territories. I'm not sure if the races are at all balanced, but whatever. The only downside to this is that when it gets really chaotic, like in the middle of the battlefields, it puts a heavy strain on your machine, because so much is happening. Even the good computers at the cybercafe we played at can't handle it!

Okay the review is getting long, so it's time to summarize. To me, RF is good fun from maybe level 20 onwards, and only if you have a reliable broadband connection (doesn't spike or get disconnected) and a pretty powerful machine. And even at that, when it goes P2P, I'm not sure that I want to spend any money on it at all.

As for Flyff, which I've also been trying, it seems like fun so far. I may have to wait to get broadband first, which should be at the beginning of next year if not sooner, to really play it, because I have to download the international client yet, which is something like 500 MB. And from what I've seen so far, I actually enjoyed Flyff much more than RF. rofl o_o

Okay we came from CCF today (Wednesday) to watch their presentation on the Da Vinci Code. First and foremost, let me explain my background knowledge on this book. I haven't read the book yet, but I've heard some speculation and criticisms about it before from other people, believers and non-believers alike. Drawing from only what I've heard like that, the book is supposedly a novel that explains some things about religion and spirituality. Though many of the topics were simply false and even downright blasphemous. I reserved my judgement until I could actually read it.

But after seeing the presentation at CCF, I'll have to agree with the experts and more importantly, the Bible, that the Da Vinci Code, though the topic of much controversy, is definitely not to be taken seriously. The author, Mr. Dan Brown, didn't do as much research as he claims he did, and all the things he mentions as being factual ended up being false. Even the little things. So in short, the book is to be treated completely as fiction, including the parts he claimed to be true. Personally I don't want to read it, lest I be subjected to the lies and he put a doubt in my mind, which is a bad thing.

Okay now for some better news. I've been playing Silk Road Online for since my birthday. After several trial-and-errors I ended up with the character I currently use, which still has errors. Wow I thought the skill reset at level 20 is all-out-skill wipeout. Turns out you can only remove 1 level from 1 skill. I put in around a dozen points into unwanted skills, so I'll have to work on that part...

Anyway I'm finally in the trade system and I can go run trade routes now. Yay! It seems to be very profitable. Hmm. o_o Now to try to get Abby to play too. First she needs a GeForce2 video card or better installed (like me; remember, I got GeForc4?).

I'm going out tomorrow (Thursday) to pay the usual monthly bills, but there's a huge plus! We're finally applying for DSL!!! This is waaay overdue, as I've been wanting broadband since 2001, when we first got our own internet connection at home. Hmm anyway we're hoping for speedy processing so we can use it immediately. :D

Ahaha okay first off let's go with the bad news. Yesterday, my cell phone got stolen from me! Yeah. There was some guy sitting at the PIU machine watching me dance. He got all friendly and all, and we talked for an hour or so about PIU and I even got to talk to him about CCF a little bit (and I gave him a copy of the little handout thingies with the basic rundown of the Gospel that JZone gives out). Soon after we went to Timezone to play Soul Calibur II. I left my bag for like 20 seconds to buy some credit for my game card, but when I got back, he was gone! I was kinda careless and forgot that my phone was in my bag. The guy seated next to the Soul Calibur machine told me that the guy I was with took something from the bag and left. My eyesight blurred and my stomach got weak all of a sudden, realizing I'd been had. I told the security and I was brought to customer relations. Nothing could be done about it now but though I doubt I'll ever see him again, I'm praying for him because I didn't get to finish sharing the Gospel with him.

Speaking of Gospel, the woman at the customer relations office and the head of security apparently are both Christians also. And the security guard who was very friendly and helpful seems interested so I might be able to share with him next time I go to the mall.


Alright now that's overwith, It's my birthday today, yay! I'm 22 (GTO?). Yesterday (after the whole cell phone incident) we went and bought me a new video card as a birthday present. It's nothing fancy, but it's much better than the one I had. I bought an 64MB Inno3D GeForce4 card. I wanted to buy the 128MB but the budget didn't really go that high. The new video card fixed a lot of my problems with my PC really, including some lag issues, sudden freezing, and the highly distorted lower half of video when in full-screen mode.

Oh and now I can play SilkRoad Online yay. It's fun actually, though obviously at lower levels you gotta fight a lot. I might redo or make a new character later, just to try out other kinds.

As an additional present, mom got me new shoes. :D Ones that actually fit this time lol. Because the last pair I bought was like 1 size too small. They fit... snugly. And it hurt after a while. Now my new shoes fit right, and that makes me happy yay.

Oh and finally, for the first time since before I was a teenager I think... I don't have a cupcake to celebrate my birthday! BOO! It's been a tradition for me and my family, because even when I was young, I didn't like birthday parties. But my mom obviously wanted to celebrate. So we talked about a cupcake for a small family celebration, and that kinda stuck. But this year mom forgot to buy a cupcake. Hmm. I should buy a cupcake tomorrow just for the heck of it. :D

Well we watched The Myth last Sunday. It was excellent all the way up to the ending. It even had the traditional bloopers during the credits. This movie featured classic Jackie Chan and at the same time, also featured a new serious Jackie Chan. But the fight scenes were kickass, whether he was being the quick-thinking not-really-a-fighter guy or being the really skillful general guy, as is trademark of Jackie Chan. The ending was very abrupt in my opinion, like they wanted to cut it short but didn't know what to do. It leaves some questions unanswered, and it does so in a bad way. Overall though, the movie is very fun to watch.

I finally finished downloading the KIU Mega Bumper pack. I was doing so over bittorrent. This isn't an exceptionally huge file; I've downloaded much bigger before. But I get lazy to download it sometimes because a file so big over bittorrent uses up a lot of system resources. The file size is about 530 MB. Anyway it supposedly has all songs from the first version of PIU all the way to Exceed 1. I wonder why they didn't include Exceed 2 though. Ah well.

Anyway my stepping skills are quite surprisingly getting better. I just suddenly tried some harder songs and I found that I could read the steps. Go figure.

I just finished (?) this map I was making for Heroes of Might and Magic III. It took me a few weeks to make, and I've been testing it over and over the last few days. It plays out pretty good. I made two versions of the map. The first version, which is the real version, is called Seeking the Light. The story has you underground, trying to break out of there, but the faction on the surface is trying to destroy you because of that. Even worse, the other faction underground with you is trying to destroy you and take over your part of the caves, so they can amass armies against the surface-dwellers. The alternate version, which I consider as a "fun" version, is called Keeping the Light. In this version, you play the faction on the surface, against a much more buffed-up and united underground faction.

For both versions, I tried to keep the idea of fighting legions. It's very easy to gain control of swarms of creatures for both sides, and soon you may both have legions.

Speaking of Heroes, I just read that Heroes of Might and Magic V will be out soon, which is excellent. I saw some previews and screenshots. The game is in full 3D, and from the looks of things, there are new creatures and maybe even new town types. I never really played Heroes IV because it didn't look too good, but Heroes V looks very promising. It's due out in the first quarter of next year (around February, last I heard).