Exclusive Insanity

I've only seen about eight episodes of this series, but I do have some things to say about it so I decided to go ahead and make this post. My opinion could change later, obviously.

Following in the tradition of the .hack series, Sword Art Online is about a virtual reality MMORPG where players can log in and experience the game as if they were physically there. Like .hack//Sign (and perhaps other titles, but this is the one I know of), SAO is about being trapped in the game with no way to log out. However, in SAO this is global (all players are unable to log out, not just one). Additionally, if you die in the game, you WILL die in real life - and the only way to escape the game is to clear all 99 levels of the main dungeon.

Fans of MMORPGs (and fans of RPGs in general) will probably enjoy this title. It's fast-paced, well animated, has gorgeous music and exciting battle sequences, and there are many things that will be immediately understandable to gamers and make SAO feel like a real RPG.

I am really enjoying this anime, and look forward to watching more (Cody and I are watching together and trying to take our time since it's still airing right now). However! I cannot say it is perfect (far from it) and there are still a few problems I have with it.

( More under the cut )

Anyway, for all of this, SAO is pretty damn entertaining. I'm definitely looking forward to watching more and seeing how this story unfolds!

OP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA-ZdNkRBGA
ED: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w36jj0F-6pc

I have only five episodes left of Mawaru Penguindrum now, and it's getting good! Looking forward to the finale - I have heard good things so I'm sure it won't disappoint.

I have some series lined up to try. The order I list them in here is the order in which I intend to watch them. If I don't like one, I'll drop it and move on to the next, but otherwise, the plan is to watch the whole thing before moving on.

1. Ano Natsu de Matteru (for the tie-in to Onegai Teacher)
2. Earl and Fairy (it's about fairies, come on)
3. Outlaw Star (giving it another shot)
4. Sands of Destruction (we bought the set this summer and I am starting to feel guilty about how many box sets we own that I haven't watched)

Cody and I are also going to watch some series together! So far we've watched two episodes of Sword Art Online, which seems to be pretty awesome and I think anyone who's a gamer and a fan of anime should definitely check it out. He also found a new series called Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic which also looks really neat. We'll be trying that one out tonight.

The fact that Magi's two top recommendations are Hunter X Hunter (the original) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood gives me high hopes for it. We'll see if it lives up to those.

Just this morning, I finished watching Fantastic Children.

It was very good. I'd go so far as to say that it's a shame it's never going to break away from being a "fringe" series, because I found it entertaining and the plot was fairly well thought-out. A lot of people are probably going to be turned off by the art or the title before even looking at an episode, and then more will be turned off by the lack of fast-moving action and the fact that it takes a while before the viewer is able to figure out what's actually going on (although this was really part of the fun for me). But while I wouldn't say this is going on my list of favorites, I was still very glad to have bought it, because it was worth the money in my opinion.

( Thoughts )

In the end, while I don't think this series would be for everyone, it's a pretty enjoyable watch and I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

So, besides the fact that I love the game and find it very fun, it turns out there was another good reason to stick with FFXIV so long!

Recently, they announced that all players who have paid to play for 90 days or more between January and the beta for version 2.0 (the re-release, which will redesign a lot of the game) will be paying the discounted rate ($10/month) for as long as the game is still going! The new comparable rate is going to be $15/month, so that's a $5/month saving. And since I plan to continue playing for as long as the game is still going and still fun, this is a pretty awesome deal for me!

Another thing: the Final Fantasy MMORPG games (FFXI and FFXIV) typically give you one character, and you pay extra for each additional character you want to make. This is because FF lets you play every class/job (like warrior, black mage, etc) on one character rather than making you pick only one class for your character like just about every other MMO out there. However, the new pricing system will allow you to make 8 characters per server without any extra charge. So I get to play with character creation more!

There's an option for new players to pay $13/month and only have 1 character per server like before, but I don't know if many people will go for that. For $2 more you get 8, after all. As a legacy player, though, I pay $10 and get 8 characters, so I win either way!

FFXIV is also doing a "welcome back" free trial, so anyone who had a character but is currently deactivated can come back and play for free for 10 days to check out the game and see if they want to pay for 90 days and qualify for the legacy program as mentioned above. I think that's a pretty good idea too, because there's a lot of good stuff in the game now as opposed to back then.

All the details are here: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/campaign/campaign.html

Things that are still on my to-do list:
- get the last three Moggle weapons (must fight Good King Moogle Mog a bunch more times!)
- challenge and defeat the Aurum Vale (I haven't completed this dungeon yet)
- get the last achievement for Cutter's Cry (need to get all five chests on the way through)
- level weaver and leatherworking, and try to make gil off of them
- put more materia into my gear
- get the rest of my fighting classes to 50, and do the job quests for them

I'll have more on my list after this Thursday as well, because we're getting another patch with more things to do. Garuda fight FTW!

This post is delayed due to the fact that I have been sick, and also the fact that I am a procrastinator.

( But yes, I saw The Hunger Games on Saturday night )

So last night Cody and I went with a bunch of our friends to do the prerequisites for an endgame boss battle in FFXIV. After we'd done all of that, we decided to try the actual battle. Just to see what it was like, because there was no way we'd be able to beat it with our party setup.

Because we were all tired and having a lot of fun in the chat... the result was this.

So awesome.

Note: my character is Brynne Lagaao. Cody's is Messenjari Ankou.

This is a very informative video about ACTA.

Another article with more information about ACTA can be found here.

This is the only petition I have seen against it.

Cody and I hosted a fantastic New Years party last night with some great friends. Good times were had by all, so it was a success! Quiz, of course, stayed well away from the activity, but Hunter was in his element and got lots of attention (and tidbits).

2011 has been a year full of ups and downs. I'm sure I could go through my journal and pinpoint some key moments, but I don't think I will bother. I did notice that last year I didn't post any New Year's resolutions.

This year I will.

I was thinking about it a bit, and was considering making one of my goals 'weight loss', but then I decided that, y'know what, that's not really the important thing. The thing about losing weight was that it made me feel better about myself, and that's really the result I want. So this year I am resolving to improve my self-image and become happier with myself. I may have to make some improvements in my lifestyle to achieve this, and it's probably a goal that cannot be accomplished in only a year, but I believe it is worthwhile.

I'm also going to try and resolve to write more. Ehe... We'll see how that goes. But I would really like to finish either Game Over or Piece of a Legend - or both.

So, my first official Dreamwidth post! This site is actually really nice to work with. I've joined a few communities (they are pretty sparse right now, but I think once DW has implemented their community import feature, that will start to change) and friended a few people who have migrated or who have been here all along.

I'm feeling fairly positive about this place. Not totally leaving LJ yet (too many friends and communities still there), but I'm I'm thinking I might upgrade to a paid account and start making this my main journal. I want to wait until the holidays are over before making that decision, though, because I don't want it to be based on a knee-jerk reaction.

For anyone who is annoyed with the latest LJ fuck-up, right now Dreamwidth is offering free memberships that don't require codes (I think this will last until the end of December).

I've created myself a free journal (http://silverthunder.dreamwidth.org) and did some puttering around. The interface seems nice and simple and friendly. You can even import your current journal to their site, including all userpics, tags, and custom friends groups. They also give you the option to crosspost any entries you post there to LiveJournal (this is convenient if you have friends who don't want to move).

Best of all, they are ad-free, using the old user-based model that LiveJournal used to have! This is looking awfully tempting to me. I might even subscribe as a full paid user and start making all of my posts from there. We'll see how I feel in the next week or so.

If anyone else on my FL makes an account, please let me know your username - or drop by and friend me if you prefer.