There are a couple of things I would want to talk about on this entry though (even though I’m pulling an-almost all nighter for an assignment of mine) regarding some of the current stuff. It might be some what of a long read, so I’ll just post a bullet point of each topic and hide the rest of the in-depth thoughts after cut.

1. Pokemon Black & White
2. Latale
3. Recent Earthquake in Japan

Okay so. First up, Pokeymanz. Yes, something that I’ve been playing since elementary school. I still remember all the rage when Gold and Silver was released for GBC and it was the first colored pokemon game to be played. Oh man, I loved my Pokemon Silver so much. And to make it better, it was a gift from a dear elementary friend of mine for my birthday. Super sweet present back then. But yeah, Gold and Silver built the foundation of later Pokemon games to be released. Things like breeding, having the father passing down a specific egg move, day and night system, and daily events. Move tutors as well as battle tower in Crystal. Oh, can’t forget those daily swarms as well. Good old times. But yeah, fast forward to present time, we’re at generation five with the North American release of Pokemon Black and White. While the pokemons are getting more and more ugly (aside from a few of em), I must say the background, music, and structure of te game is just amazing. I used to turn off the sound because I didn’t really like 8 bit OST when I was walking around but now I find myself to turn on the sound to near maximum just to enjoy the full sound of the OST. Then there’s scenery porn with the background. Wooow, 3D feature of some of the cities are amazingly well done. And the plot too, imo, for the first time, I almost wished N would win (without resulting game over). He’s just so naive and full of innocence which makes me wanna give him a giant hug. xD But enough about that, if you haven’t gotten your Black or White copies yet, you should totally get one.

Now, for Latale. Well, I haven’t done much on Latale besides logging on daily for an hour or so and chat with some guildmates. Since midterm week, I kept to 1 hour a day schedule even for weekends and that’ll continue till all my exams are done (May). But surprisingly, I’ve had decent luck with Ladeck lately. I’ve gotten first place prize when they re-released masterhand guidebook back to Latale. And every since that one, I’ve been getting into number 1 club with the leftover + more number 1 club darts. I think it’s at least 3~4 first prizes in a row with the number 1 club darts (and nothing more). Ah, also got full puppy set thanks to my Xenadia Review entry.

If you’ve noticed something in the screenshot, congratulations, you have keen eyes. Indeed, Latale had a major makeover with their UI system and we had an user interface overhaul. Everything (aside from the bottom bar) can be hidden/moved around on the screen. But I kept mine the default way since I’m pretty much used to it. I did move party display down to the right hand corner though!

I’m not too happy with some of the recent events OGP has been holding, especially the lolbox ones. The current one is especially controversial because not only did it come right after two lolbox events in the row (okay so the you’ve done well boxes didn’t need astros to unlock, but still lolbox event), its prize list is also quite..interesting. Prime XP Holy Water and Colosseum Desire Coupon. I don’t have a confirmation of the prime holy water yet, but if it’s like other prime xp pots, then this is 10 hours of continuous 500% exp that stacks with the 1 hour prime exp potion. That’s at least +1000% exp bonus not counting other bonuses like fashion sets and whatnot guys. And yeah, the biggest controversial item in there: Colosseum Desire Coupon. While the chances of getting something like that is low, it can still be gotten if people keep opening them. (Speaking of which, I hate OGP for ruining game economy even more right now. I mean, one astro lolbox after another made it so that 2 astro item which usually go for 350~400k to averaging 800k per. Seriously =_= And pet herbs which are on sale right now at 25 astros are STILL being sold for 6mil. What the screwed up ratio.) Anyway, if someone gets the coupon, they can immediately exchange for a +20 advanced colosseum coupon of their choice. That’s right, they won’t have to farm for endless hours to get wolf tears and then upgrade slowly in hopes that past +10, the adv. weapon doesn’t break. =_= Yes OGP, we know you want money, but this is killing it. You all know that even with small chance someone’s still gonna get it. Har har har har.

That aside, there are a couple more events going on right now — namely two other design contests for new pet and fashion. While I already have all my concept sketches and poses sketched out for the pet part, I’m hesitant in lineart and actually base coloring it. Why? Because the participation prize is absolutely pathetic to the effort someone can put in. A superior potion for participation if you don’t win? And what’s a design contest with just one winner? The pet contest grand prize winner just gets a pet of their choice while the grand prize winner for the fashion design contest gets any fashion of their choice. Rest of them? Sorry, even if you came close, all you’ll get is a superior potion, which can be gotten easily if you did two second facebook share for one of their trailers/screenshots and posted on the correct thread with evidence. Or, you could just spend 2 minutes killing sphinx and loot all its drops and sell it to npc. That’s at least 1.5mil which can let me buy a superior potion. To make matters seem even worse, I happened to come across Horie’s blog entry about jLT’s design contest prizes and I was just left going dotdotdot. Hopefully the prizes will change sometimes before the deadline to reflect better for the effort of the overall entries people submit. I’m hoping for tiered prizes (1st, 2nd and 3rd) as well but who knows. If they actually change prizes for the better, I might just brainstorm up a good entry and enter the fashion design contest as well.

EDIT: (3/17/11) Man, one of my pet peeves is that people talking about entries on the actual contest entry topic. No guys, I don’t want to read your comments and be like ____ IS GONNA WIN THIS with x5 people agreeing or going all like OMG I LOVE THIS ENTRY CUZ ___ DID/DIDN’T DO THIS. No, just shut up. You’re not the one judging the entries nor are you posting a question or entry to the topic. Be my quest if you want to talk about how you love a certain entry within your buddylist/msn/art forum if the creator posted there. But otherwise, please, keep out of the topic for the rest of us. It’s annoying and discouraging to people who have entered/yet to enter. So please, keep your comments about the entries OFF that topic. =_=

There is one more contest that has me amused right now: Miss Jiendia contest.

Well this should be interesting; I’m gonna enter Shikigami since she’s my sexy diva idol figure while Frill’s more cute but yandere loli.

As always, click on the images to view their full sizes.

Still waiting for the character fanart result which I’m assuming is gonna be out soon. They copypasted the date of reward wrong (posted 2/17-2/18th for the date of reward even though contest wasn’t over till 20something) so I’m assuming it’s gonna be March 17-18th for the actual date of reward. Well hope I win. This one is my entry.

Click on the image to go to my dA and view its full size. /o/ It features my ruin walker, Frill, walking down the Sunset Street in Aoich.

And that’s about what I want to say for Latale. And lastly, the recent earthquake. I’m sure almost everyone has seen videos or images of the extent of damage caused by the earthquake near Sendai. There are disgusting people who rejoice at the thought that it’s karma/payback for Pearl Harbor/Nanjing Massacre. While I personally despise the Japanese government (for what they did at Nanjing as well as how they deny about it), in the face of natural disaster, we are all the same to mother nature. I encourage you to donate any spare change you have in your pockets to your nearest Red Cross or whatever organization that’s collecting donation on for Japan earthquake/tsunami relief funds. Gonna go donate all the spare change I have in my pocket on Friday since my school’s having a donation drive Monday – Friday. And yeah, I’ll just leave this here for some reading. It brought tears to my eyes when I’ve read it.

Till next time,

Wen

1. To begin, first make an account on MMOsite.

2. Get the activation email and activate your account.

3. Log in an and out (else it won’t recognize you as activated account)

4. Go to this page (logged in again) and click on submit to obtain your 10 digit/letter code

5. Visit this page to enter the code and redeem.

6. Wait up to a week for the prize to be deliverd, if not, helpdesk?

Hope this helps.

Edit: This has personally worked for me and other ggFTWers. So if it doesn’t work for you, wait a few more days and see!

Anyway, to start, follow the cut after this!

Hur, Shiki’s look before changing into a bard. Lol Berkhart set + ladybug earring stuff >: Well, back then it was either Berkhart or Mikoyan functional sets.

I love changing into second job, but I don’t love Atlantis quests for the levels. Especially the ones that involve climbing that research lab in Abyss ruins.

One, I hate the giants on that map. And two, I hate how my latency doesn’t allow me to jump to places nicely ughhh. And I thought that was the worst of it (till vintor came in).

But at the same time, I learned I can also level at some other place besides abyss ruin quests.

Man, I learned how I reallllly love killing lizard men on that edge. They can’t hit me but my ES (or any ranged attack) can hit them and get EZ kills.

Annnd, I can still remember when I posted on ggFTW complaining about how I don’t have an active buddylist to talk to and Hira, Pie, Jerry, and Zuro were all like IT’S K ADD ME ON TO YOUR BUDDYLIST. /adds

LOL, I cracked up when I saw Hira’s greeting for me. NICE PLAYBOY MAGAZINE. XDD

Andddd, I also remember trying out a bunch of outfits to find a good look for Shikigami.

THIS WILL FOREVER BE MY FAVORITE SET OF OUTFITS. The colors match so well /o/

And because I was still somewhat low level when attempting Ocean King quests, I learned to also hate that old geezer.

Fufufufu, pioneer set soon after it was released. I liked my +40% exp gain 8D

When February came along, OGP decided to hold a poll in-game to see who was more popular between 2 female NPCs.

THE VERSUS: Berkhart vs Ases. I personally voted for Berkhart, but apparently Ases won by a landslide. : (

Man, anyone still remember the old crafting system? I sure do and I miss them so much xD

And my first phoenix run, I had it easy. With Vic and Sherry IRing me on top of bifrost along with Hans + them doing most of the killing = LOL EZ QUEST COMPLETE. Too bad there’s no valk coupon in store for me >:  Even to this day,  phoenix is still among one of my top hated mobs to kill. That curl + explode = OHKO : (

And not too long after mining lv 2 became more common, crafting went through semi-major change.

Sigh, crafting got a lot more annoying to level up for both weapon and accessory making. Oh well, I switched over to alchemy for EZ-leveling. x:

And does anyone still remember when Primes were around 8mil each? Hahaha, I sure do since I did make quite a bit of profit off them.

And people buy them for the price I listed. 8D I sold them all over one night.

I still remember when I first joined FrenchBread and how I was QQing over it because I had order earring/rings. : ( I had to switch to chaos earring/ring. FML BUT, on the bright side, the first crop I did with French Bread was the only spa one we had LOL. Maybe it’s cause I said if it wasn’t going to be spa I’d pay for the part of next crop myself.

Leveling was a pain around 120~130s, but it was made easier when you have Zuro to help out with the TDD debuff thing on the mobs.

Yeah Len, it’s not a menacing look at all. xD

After Vintor was introduced, everyone was pretty excited for it. Little did we know what latency had in store for us.

FML. I HATE THOSE FLOATING PORTALS. Yes you can get in after broad-jumping repetitively, ughhhh.

I don’t think the following picture needs explanation.

And sometime after that event took place, canons were introduced into OGP again /o/ Hello lag-fest.

And us other gang chilling near a canon and being silly in general.

And more (other) gang pic spam while we wait for that night’s update which contained—-

Dundundun. These babies were only limited timed and a lot of people didn’t know so they didn’t grab those. I bought it off someone who kindly sold it to me for 22 mil. The fourth character slot made room for my sorceress, Covet.

Oh man, when I went through my screenshot folder, I can’t help but to OTL at the sight of my valk and how I broke it going for +8 because it didn’t do as much as my NPC guitar nor did the TDD help too much. >:

Byebye valk. I don’t really miss you LOL. That reminds me, I counted the number of times I won grand prize from LaDeck and wow, I won 6 times in a year. Geez, that’s a lot of astros spent on darts OTL. No wonder I quit.

And when I was doing the last stage of my 5th tier quest, I almost died thanks to my guidebook being blacked out.

Lol lucky strike. I mistakenly thought I learned lucky learner instead xD Huzzah for learning lucky striker /o/

It took quite a bit of helpdesk from OGP to actually get all my coins for 5th tier skill book. I’m thankful OGP learned from the Hell’s Door update when they did the Xenadia update.

And around late May, Len and I got married in-game hurrr. I GOT HIM WHIPPED.

Colosseum update came after Hell’s Door. I wasn’t high enough to even enter expert Colosseum so I could only grind in intermediate. It was good exp until I tested water in expert. xD It’s also where I met Nick ([GA]OrngChow before he was a GA).

The following picture also does not need explanation.

Time sure flies by and suddenly it was Halloween. New fashions from the Halloween update had me spend cash for new fashion 8D

My new outfit for Shiki. Too bad the eyepatch was timed. : (

Colosseum’s been quite a nice place to grind. I picked up a +4 water stone from it and had it enchanted and upped.

Current water stone I use. The water intensity is quite nice >:

And the long waited Xenadia update quests were glitch free and I was able to change into a minstrel without a hitch. (Too bad I can’t say the same for the post-3rd job change for other classes)

So, that’s quite a nice way to end the year. From mage to bard to minstrel in a year for someone who’s a casual gamer is a decent accomplishment to me. Hope 2010 treated you well and hope you all have a nice year in 2011.

Farewell to 2010!

-Wen

In any case, I was pleasantly surprised when I was checking through my events tab on Shikigami while turning in my wolf tears from some expert runs.

Wow. I didn’t think I got my wish granted. Although they said 30% people who post their wishes would get em granted, I had no expectation about it. PLUS, I thought the wished items were going to be delivered to the gift box tab in the bank so when I saw I didn’t have them, I figured I’d try the second make a wish event for facebook users only.  What a surprise!

Had to double check the thread + my wish to believe. xD

And the first give back to the players event rewards came.

While I’m pretty happy about getting the rewards, I can’t say the same for other people. There were quite a bit of people on both OGPlanet + ggFTW post that they logged on the whole 27 days but didn’t get the tartarus set or anything at all. And some people who did not log on for an hour ever day for 27 days HAVE gotten the tartarus set. I’m appreciative of OGP doing these events that have such wonderful prizes. But I do think that if someone’s going to host an event, they should take some prep time to make sure the event was done right. I can only hope people who helpdesk OGP would get some sort of explanation about this event.

Also, as time passes by, more problems are discovered by players regarding the Xenadia update. Here‘s a topic that compiled a list of problems after the patch got released. I hope those all get fixed soon.

So yeah, I’m happy I got both my make a wish + log in 27 days prizes, but I can’t help but to feel that these things can’t outshine the problems created after the update + log in 27 days event. x:

Anyway, click the cut and let the image load fully. It’s 500×10,000 image file, about 1.2mb.

TO BE CONTINUED…

You can get to this map by going to the beach map as if you’re going to Atlantis, but instead of taking the upper warp by Tonio, take the newly added lower warp and go all the way right and talk to NPC as you get near it.

Anyway, follow the cut for more Xenadia update related stuff!

Xenadia is a pretty big update seeing how it’s adding new classes into the game. While they’re still like their second job counterparts, 3rd job classes have newer skills as well as hp/sp bonus upon job changed. However, job changing isn’t just like jumping into a giant machine like you did when you changed into your 2nd job. Third job, like 5th tier quests, requires you to complete a good amount of quests in order for you to advance into 3rd job. If you are having trouble with third job quests, I suggest you check out RandomPerson‘s (Pie) quest quide here.

There are 23 common quests that all 2nd class have to complete as well as class specific quests. Class specific quests revolve around your class. For Shikigami, her quests are all related to music such as collecting musical scores as well as using listening skill and try to get stones from ores that produce musical sounds instead of a frog croak xD

While I do think bards have the easiest quests, it is still time consuming. It’s nice that they don’t even have to leave Xenadia map at all but I think I was really frustrated when I have to hear all the ores by the aqua room and try to mine on the ones that had a nice musical sound. Except, there are different musical sounds for each musical stone, so it’s a bit hard for me to know which ones to mine. It’s very time consuming seeing how even if it produces the musical notes, if it’s not the right one, it won’t drop the stone you need. And you had to do that kind of three times. Talk about frustrating.

But thankfully, after 8 hours I was able to get through all the tedious tasks and get to the second to last quest which gives you professional skill reset book as well as an scenario quest item (cannot be thrown away).

Look at all those pretty stones I’ve collected filled in on the wall 8D It’s quite rainbow-y eh? Now you’re ready to get your final quest to change into your 3rd job class.

You’ll need to talk to Goddess Seres at the top of Xenadia map. If you are around level 140, I suggest you to be VERY careful climbing to that map since all monsters at the last map to the Holy Place are level 180. I was 181 when I changed Shikigami and ow, those mobs hurt.

Once you finish talking to Seres, voila! Third job and unique aura thing by your feet. Your new job will also have different run and idle animations so go check them out.

Quick expert colosseum run to test out our newly gained skills. Sleep and Harmony buff are reallllly nice. And old sound of heart got major upgrade and now adds +3000hp maxed at lv 20.

Minstrel run animation; I think the guitar being held that way looks awkward. I prefer the bard running animation. : (

I’m very pleased that OGP learned from the 5th tier disaster and actually released the content when the third job quests are bug free. That is a very major kudos to them since I didn’t really have high expectations for OGP to make the quests glitch free. That being said, the content patch itself is not glitch free.

One of the biggest disappointment is that class armor sets (lv 80 and lv 130) do NOT work with 3rd jobs right now. While you’re not required to take off your armor when you go talk to Seres, even if you have them equipped on, the equips do NOTHING. You do not get class armor defense, there are no set bonuses, and even your own enchanted bonuses are not there. It makes it very frustrating for people who use class armor sets like Fury or Tactical because it basically renders them armorless. Talk about a glitch.

The second major thing is that once you’ve changed into your third job class, you don’t get Iris buffs anymore. Remember how everyday after 12AM OGP time, if you log on or change channel, your Iris (50% exp bonus for an hour) will automatically activate? Yeah, now it’s not there anymore. I’m pretty disappointed by it since it’s less motivation for me grind seeing how my daily Iris buff got taken away >:

There are other glitches like ruin walkers’ cannon/broad jump skills are missing skill icon and strider special hits cancel out their pet/food/IDR/xp buffs. Geez, glad I’m didn’t make a blader else I’d headdesk. Things like class specific accessories don’t work for 3rd jobs. And well, some skills don’t do what they are supposed to do, ie. elemental master’s black hole skill. : (

I can only hope these bugs will get fixed by an emergency maintenance or something. They don’t affect me personally (huzzah minstrel) but that’s definitely a /owat/ for me.

Anyway. OGP also put in new hairs into the salon. But they were really fug so I didn’t bother taking screenshots. The new fashions though? While I don’t really like any of them instantly, I think I can work with a few items to make new clothing combos.

And here are the clothing previews.

Eyepatch and gota hat are not included >: Those are my own and I got too lazy to take them off. Special thanks to Sharpe for sending me the Romeo set image preview.

They also brought back the limited time pet Rudolph, which appeared during last Christmas.

Rudolph add 12% speed at level 20 if I remember correctly. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Dance with Rudolph heals a tiny bit of hp (I think around 200?) but speed could be nice.

And there is currently another sale going on right now. Remember 6-10 super puzzle coupons? They were 15 astros during the back to school + half off sale. Now they’ve been discounted even more to 9 astros each. Pretty good buy in my opinion. I’ve put together a picture listing all the worth buying discounted items.

I was hoping to see the crafting mask to go on sale, but alas it wasn’t. And I’ve also hoped that masterhand title would be in the christmas stocking (that you need astro razors to open) in the new lolbox event they started 2 weeks ago, but yeaaah also no. However, I still do recommend this batch’s lolboxes since the prizes are better and actually contain useful items like no-durability Hell Stocking/Earring (they’re good for upgrade fodders), superior potions, enhanced IDR nostrum, super puzzles etc.

While this update isn’t completely glitch free, I think OGP did do a decent job with them. It shows that they do learn from past mistakes and I think that’s a good sign of improvement.

Not sure if I’ll be able to complete my own 3rd job quest for Shikigami seeing how I have one more final to write on Friday and going home on Sunday. Well it can’t hurt to attempt to finish it!

Stay tuned!

There haven’t been much going on in terms of actual content so I was less inclined to take screenshots of fashion updates. The only /fashion/ update that’s worthy of talking about are the new Gaia and Tartarus Sets. They’re like Gabriel and Lucifer sets, being first place LaDeck prize, with the exception that upon equipping two pieces of the same piece, instead of RIDR that Gabriel and Lucifer give (correct me if I’m wrong, I believe they give ridr), Gaia and Tartarus gives IDR. Meaning, 2 pieces = 50% idr, stack another 2 piece from the opposite set and you got yourself constant 2x.

Speaking of IDR, I only just learned recently that IDR nostrums DO STACK together. I’ve used a 200% idr nostrum along with an 100% idr nostrum and both showed on my buff icons. Haha, I thought they were like experience potions that override each other.

Anyway, since this is just another short update post (I’ll write up a long post when 3rd jobs update gets here), I guess I’ll post some images regarding Shikigami.

I believe this is two or three updates ago when they actually updated with fashion set that I’ve been wanting for a while. And lol, I’ve fooled quite a bit of people thinking I’m a Maestro class with the little conductor rod I’m holding. c:

Halloween update came along and I decided Shiki need something a little more fitting for the occasion. Click on the image to see it in full size. I really enjoyed the chaos background in our guild.

And because it was Halloween, I decided to finish a drawing since it’s been a long time since I’ve drawn and I haven’t drawn Shiki in a while.

You’ll need to click on the image to see the larger size as usual.

Post Halloween update from OGP gave us girls new hairstyle to play with. I basically just changed my hair and still wear the Halloween costume on Shiki.

But sometimes, I’d like to tease people into thinking I’m a maestro again.

And oh, Shiki’s been leveling up quite a lot. Look at her level c:

Anyway, that’s it about the quick update I want to write.

Stay tuned for a full out update when third job comes (hopefully soon).

-Wen

First off, NPC for the anniversary events is..kinda broken. Not sure if it was planned or not, but that NPC Jane in Belos disappears way to often for players to access the event maps needed. Like, she’ll randomly appear and disappear and I don’t think that’s how the NPC for the event should work.

Secondly, they removed super puzzles completely from LaDeck because apparently the prices are ‘permanent discount’ prices now and people wouldn’t need to ladeck them anymore. Come on OGP. You want players to fork over 30 astros PER 6~10 super puzzle, driving up the market to even more insane levels? I’m pretty sure players were complaining about super puzzle prices before, so what’s this half assed solution? Oh okay, OGP gave us a ‘permanent’ discount. But the hell with that. They used the excuse that the summer sale discounted the ‘permanently discounted’ super puzzles so that’s why they were 15 astros per during the back to school sale.

How are the players supposed to know there were two discounts applied? To be honest, I still consider them lying to us through the teeth. Goddamn, 15 astros per puzzles is a good fair price. But 30 astros? What a joke. The 6~10 super puzzles have been floating around 1.2~1.5mil before the retarded price raise + puzzles being taken out of ladeck. Now what? Them 6~10 puzzles go around for 3.5mil on average. I’m not sure why OGP wants to piss off the players and break the economy even more or what during their /celebration/ time.

And yes, while 3rd class is overhyped, you’d think with Aeria closing, they’d start the 2nd anniversary with a bang right? No. Not really. Everything’s all quiet and lame. There’s no real content updates. Just boring events with pretty lame prizes (which doesn’t include super puzzles) to make the players bored and upset.

Way to go OGP. At this rate, you’re taking a leaf right out of Aeria on their path to fail.