There's a bunch of upcoming new games that I'm looking forward to.

First off, SilkRoad Online is finally releasing something I've been waiting over two years for: the Europe patch. This means there'll be more than just the Chinese side to play. Even more, it seems the European weapons and stuff are more interesting, with a focus on teamplay ("role" playing, such as having pullers, tanks, nukers and healers, just like a good old-fashioned MMORPG should have). Several new features have also been added, including improvements and fixes to old features. All the details are on the website.

In other news, Soul Calibur Legends is scheduled for release on the Nintendo Wii, later this year. I don't have much information, but it's not a regular fighting game like the other games of the title. It's listed as an "action, adventure" game, and from the looks of a few screenshots, it might be something like Dynasty Warriors (except that you play with the Wii heh).

Soul Calibur IV is also going to be released in 2008. No specific release date or period has been announced as far as I know. The graphics look even more stunning than ever. It will be released for the PS3 and XBOX 360.

Well, so far in GE Japan, it's really been a learning experience for kanji recognition. I've had to memorize the kanji for buy, sell and trade and other similarly common MMO terms.

Since the JP server has been up for a while now, and most people are high level, like I thought, I have the low level dungeons to myself for the most part. This has made leveling extremely easy so far, however, I'm suffering in that there's almost nobody hunting for items at low levels, so it's hard to get good equipment by buying from other people.

Also, because of the high average level, the economy is really rocking right now. Stuff that you can get rather commonly can be sold at high prices because the people that need them are rich. For example, you can sell Bellem Boxes (boxes that drop random items) for about 20K or more in the market, whereas in the SEA server they were only worth about 4K. In contrast, you can buy the Catherine card for only about 5 million vis, or even much less, if you're lucky, whereas in the SEA server, it was about 7 million vis just for her hip.


In other news, Abby brought home BioHazard 4 to play test, since she was supposed to write a simple review for it for work. So we got to play test it, and if it was really good for the console thanks to analog controllers, it's terrible for the PC due to lack thereof. I can imagine the game could've been exciting, but the frustrating controls and poor camera control made it more annoying than enjoyable. Mouse support would've been much appreciated. Nobody in real life would spend 4 seconds aiming at an enemy that's only 4 feet in front of you and still miss.


Still other news, apparently Ragnarok Online 2 is in open beta now in Korea. The website Ragnarok-Tale.net has some early info. When it goes into international open beta, I'm surely going to try it. Similarly, I'm downloading RO1 again to play on another server where Kill Switch, my old friend, is playing.

今度は僕はGEの日本サーバーに入りました。うわ...いくつかが異なっていた。経験をいただいて貰うぞ。

実は僕の問題は漢字なんだ！和文が難しい漢字いっぱいあるから、よく分かんない！誰にも英語わかるかな、日本サーバーに。教えてくれないか？僕も英語を教えるよ、よろしくおねがいします！

Well, GE Japan is awesome. Fundamentally it's the same game. There are some minor differences in some things, like quest NPCs. For example, Brunie Etienne isn't in Cite de Reboldoeux like she is in the English servers, and your first quests as a new player come from a soldier outside (where Brunie should've been standing).

Another difference I noticed immediately is the graphics. Actually, the SEA server client version had better graphics if you ask me. It had a more polished look. The Japanese server looks a lot more fake texture-wise, and some minor cosmetic details such as lip cracks (so the teeth can be seen) are visible. The lighting seems to react differently as well, as in you're getting weird lighting in places that should be shadowed (noticeable in characters' lips).

Another bad point, which is mostly my side though, is that the Japanese IME doesn't work properly when in full-screen mode. I mean, you can type in Japanese and stuff, but the enter key doesn't work. So you can type and type but it'll never send the text out. It works fine when in windowed mode, though. I'm thinking that maybe it's more of a hardware problem (computer unable to handle the processes). Too bad because I never liked windowed mode (and using 1280x1024 windowed mode has UI bugs anyway, such as misplaced windows, and the taskbar popping out on its own). If I were on a Japanese version of Windows, though, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be a problem at all.

Now for some of the strong points. The dubbing is awesome. I appreciate that the GE English translators tried to give us European accents, but the voice qualities for most of the characters were pretty bad (some characters honestly sounded annoying if you're controlling them, like Lisa and the female Wizard). As for the GE Japan version, voice quality is really superior. Everything is in Japanese, but I'm pretty sure they hired professional seiyuu for this. None of the three characters I started with sound annoying at all, which is good. If anybody's going to sound annoying, it won't be one of the characters I started with. Heh.

Like I said in the Japanese text I typed up there, I'm hoping I'll meet a few people that speak English, even a little, to help me learn. One of the purposes of my migration to this server anyway is for me to further my knowledge of Japanese. I've put on myself to learn at least 1 Kanji everyday (if I can do 5 or more, go go go!).

Server is in maintenance right now (sadly), so I can't play until 1 PM Japanese time (12 noon here).

It's official. Granado Espada SEA server is going to be P2P with item mall. And though the price is going to be less than other games per month, neither Francis nor Micko are going to continue playing after it becomes P2P.

But oddly enough, I found that the Granado Espada Japan server is F2P. And so I'm migrating. I speak Japanese but reading is another thing, so I might be moving around like a retard there for a while, especially if everybody uses Japanese netspeak. But it's a start for getting used to it, if I plan to live there someday.

So now the question is whether my IME will work on the client so I can actually communicate in GE Japan...

On another note, it's odd that GE Japan is F2P while the SEA server isn't... o_O

Meanwhile I'm also downloading another MMORPG that I played before, Rappelz. I remember it was fun as far as regular MMORPGs go (thought not necessarily special, it actually focused on characters playing roles in a party, rather than how a lot of MMORPGs seem to work these days, where everybody can be a soloist). I was looking for a fall-back MMORPG to play just in case GE became P2P (or it's otherwise down for some reason).

Granado Espada is closed for 24 hours (actually 22 hours and 15 minutes now and counting), because they're transitioning from their Pre-Open Beta Testing phase into their Open Beta Testing phase (insert fake hoorays here). The only thing it could mean is more things to test, especially server stress. Oh that and it also means the game is nearing its P2P stage. ~_~

I'm trying to forget about that depressing thought by taking this time to look around for new (and old) MMORPGs and other online games that might be interesting. Because of the death of my old computer, I no longer have the bigass installers for Space Cowboy Online or Rappelz. And I'm lazy to download over 1 GB for an installer right now. I also looked at the old SilkRoad Online (international server) website, and found nothing has changed much. I was hoping they'd have the new countries available by now. I tried loading the Japanese SRO website, but it's down (server problem; all the game websites hosted by the same company seem to be down).

So right now, I have nothing to play until tomorrow. Maybe just the good old MUD Adventures Unlimited. In the end, though, I realize that what I really wanna do is just hang around and kill monsters. Good old-fashioned hack and slash MMORPG action, just like Ragnarok Online used to be.

For now, moar screenshotz of GE!

Grace Bernelli: Y HALLO THAR
Idge Imbrulia: Sorry about my friend...

Yeah apparently they're going to charge a certain amount to allow you to play for 180 days. It's unverified yet as to how much it'll cost. It's too bad, because I don't want to spend on a game I only play casually, but I should've figured. Then again, all this time I thought this game was an item mall game. Apparently, it's BOTH. You have to pay to play for three months, and you have the option to buy in-game items with real money.

Honestly, I love the game, and it's one of the most interesting games I've played in a long time, but I'm not sure it merits wanting to spend on it. Then again, maybe it's just because I haven't made enough friends in it or something. We played in Philippine Ragnarok Online before while paying for it, and we didn't really get bothered by paying, because we had friends in the game. But right now, I'm not feeling compelled to continue playing Granado Espada, even if the game is beautiful and lots of fun.

Speaking of which, random screenshot mode. :D

Alright so I got me a new video card (ATI Radeon X1550 256 MB), and as a surprising bonus, I also got a new 17" LG LCD monitor. The only thing I'm lacking right now to be completely satisfied is another 1 GB RAM, which I'll get with my own money sometime soon-ish.

So I'm really happy with my new PC. After a lot of set-up and configuration issues (like fixing jumpers on the motherboard and stuff), I got to test my new video card and LCD monitor with the only graphics-heavy game I have on the PC right now, Granado Espada. Oh man the game is even more beautiful with all the graphical features turned on! D:

I'm grinding slowly because I don't really want to spend all day playing the game. That, and I don't want to leave Micko and Francis' levels too far behind. But I am pretty excited to get my Elementalist to level 30, so I can use the 2nd tier of stances for stronger magic and stuff. Meanwhile I dunno what to do with my fighter. ~_~ Not sure what stance I like, until I get the sword + gun stance and/or the rapier stance.

Goodbye, old PC. After 5 and a half years of faithful service, my Pentium IV, 1.6 GHz machine finally died on me. That's why after it stopped functioning suddenly and wouldn't start anymore last night (Tuesday night), I couldn't even complain or get angry. But I felt a little sad because I'd be saying good bye to an old friend.

With that, however, and with many thanks to God, I bought a new PC. It's got a clean white casing with the following specs:

Genuine Intel Pentium IV 3.0 GHz
ASUS P5GZ-MX motherboard
512 MB DDR2 RAM
On-board Gb LAN
DVD Writer
Seagate 80 GB SATA HDD

Unfortunately, I neglected to check the motherboard due to my ignorance. So my current, still-working 512 MB DDR RAM won't work on my new motherboard, and neither will my GeForce 4. FORTUNATELY, I've been given permission to buy those items tomorrow (Thursday).

It's not a dream machine, I know, but it's well above the average machine, and more than enough to run most games today. I'm especially happy about the cooling system the casing has, but it's not really special. Just that, compared to my old machine, this one seems like it's not going to overheat at all (compared to my old machine where none of the fans work properly).

I can actually already feel the effects of the 3.0 GHz processor.

Another "unfortunately": a new motherboard means a reformatted HD. So I'm down to scratch again, however my old HDs are still here. I'm just copying the stuff that I can, like my anime and bboy videos, mp3s, images, and some bigass installers that I don't feel like redownloading, such as Granado Espada.

Anyway, thanks for all the help thus far, old PC, which I'd never named. Come to think of it, I should name my new PC. From now on, I'll call it Larry.