Paalam Ragnarok

Jupitel Thunder!!!

I never really played Ragnarok pero I think I can relate sa mga players nito.

Way back 2000 something during the beta stages pa lang, I can remember renting innernetz sa isang chipanggang net cafe sa Boni. Dinayo pa namin kesehodang 1km away dahil sa 15 pesos per hour. Normal checking lang ng profile sa Friendster, search ng walkthrough sa GameFAQs, at download ng songs sa LimeWire. Napansin namin ng kapatid ko na busying busy naglalaro ang mga tao sa isang game. Ragnarok Online. Feeling inggitero, nagpa-aassist kami sa caretaker na installan din kami. Tanggi agad ang sagot ni kuya. Wala na daw pwede maglaro.

And with that never ko na nitry laruin ang Philippine Ragnarok. Yes nagtampo ako. Tanga din naman kasi si kuya. Di man lang kasi inekpleyn na closed na ang beta. Mauunawaan ko naman yun. Pero ok lang. At least di ako naadik masyado sa game.

Pero naadik ang mga friends ko nun. Sila Ferdie, Louie, at Paul nagpupuyat sa mga net cafe sa Kalentong.  More than 12 hours yata sila nagbababad doon. Minsan bibisita na lang kami pero di mo rin sila makausap ng matino kasi mga grind mode. At wala pang kain at tulog na maayos. Yan ang dedication sa game. Actually may nagfriendship over pa sa kanila ng magkanakawan ng items sa Kafra. Extreme I tells yah.

What's so special sa pRO? I can't really say. Sa perspective ko kasi parang simpleng online game lang sya. Pero sa mga players nito equivalent ito sa dugo at pawis at oras na ginugol para lang maharvest ang rare equips at cards. Looking back, naiisip ko ang Ragnarok parang Friendster ng online games. Parang jologs lang sa mga outsiders pero cool and engaging. Hindi nga sya tulad ng modern MMORPGs with the ultra realistic character models and environment, fast pace action, high tech gameplay and all. Simple lang pero rock.

PS. Pangarap ko maging Mage dati kaso nga di ako nakapaglaro nito. Kaya dito ko lang maicacast ang Jupitel Thunder spell.

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Photo by alegria via zerochan.

Happy New Year Yoshi-P

Heavensturn greeting from Yoshi-P as he addresses what we might expect from patch 2.5 Before the Fall. As said, it will be split into three parts. First part will take majority of the patch by mid to end January: three new dungeons for Keeper of the Lake in Mor Dhona, and hard modes for Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace; conclusion of the Crystal Tower in the World of Darkness; and a new battle for Odin, among others. Patch 2.51 will feature Manderville Gold Saucer area including Chocobo Racing and Triple Triad. Patch 2.5x will be the transition patch by end of March before expansion 3.0 Heavensward.

I don't wanna go into detail in Heavensward as you might have already read the details and rumors. Excited much. I just wanna know what they have in store for us Summoners. Maybe a Grand Summoner-esque ability to call on the Primal itself not the egi, in Yuna fashion, or maybe the watered down version of Scion summoning in Ivalice.

Anyway, what I really wanna know is the pic Yoshi-P inserted in his greetings.

Ichi-Fuji, Ni-Taka, San-Nasubi. One-Fuji, Two-Hawk (as per Google translate or should it be hawk?), and Three-Eggplant. What? It doesn't make sense. Anyway, happy new year y'all!

Y'shtola Minion

Minion for sale. WTF. 5 USD for this cute minion. I want. But I want this for free for some event quest or something. OMG! Cuteness overload!

Barriers not included.

Spotted: Jecht

Jecht cosplay from Bukarest Otaku Festival 2012.

You can be my Final Aeon anytime!


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Photo by Marino Calssara via Flickr.

Captain Marvel x Captain Marvel

Photo by Nick Perks via DeviantArt.

X-Women Power

It's only now that I've started catching up with my X-Men. I remembering just watching the 90s cartoon series. It was fun. Really. But when you go back to your wikis, I was so surprised the comic books are way too different from what I knew from the cartoons. And I'm not even talking about the cinematic universe cause they're really fucked up.

Anyway, with various mutants transferring from team to team, it's hard to follow who's on whose team. With a mutant rebellion headed by Cyclops and Wolverine now an Uncanny Avenger, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning is left with the ladies to defend. Yes, it's girl power on the latest volume of the X-Men franchise.

Marvel has so many girls. Come to think of it: Avengers has the Black Widow, Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman. On another side of the galaxy we have Gamora, strongest woman in the galaxy, and Angela. Asgard has Brunhilde and Sif. And now Marvel will be releasing a lady Thor, which is weird I know. DC has just a few, and you only need one: Wonder Woman. Up to now I don't think Marvel has a direct rival to the princess of Themyscira.

The current roster for X-Men is Jubilee, Rachel Grey, Psylocke, and Monet St. Croix lead by Storm fighting against the Sisterhood of Mutants. I don't like the mohawk on Ororo though, a throwback hairstyle if you must. The past Jean Grey is with the other time-displaced First Class team including Kitty Pryde and X-23. The Uncanny X-Men has Emma Frost and Magik. X-Force has Domino, Hope Summers, and Spiral on different team sets. X-Factor has Polaris. I'm not even haflway counting the ladies.

The poster above is Terry Dodson's variant of the 5th issue. We still have Rogue in it. I thought she's part of the Uncanny Avengers? I dunno, I haven't started reading about this volume.

Spider-Gwen

Obviously, I'm still grieving for Gwen Stacy's death from the Amazing Spider-Man 2 months ago. Until I googled something.

It's Spider-Gwen! This is part of the Edge of Spiderverse series--a what if Gwen Stacy was the one bitten by the radioactive spider--to be released in November this year. Obviously, we won't see this in the cinematic spiderverse. But I'm still hopeful that they might consider this as an incursion in the Amazing Spider-Man mainstream universe; maybe the filler female Spider-Man movie in 2017. Watchathink?

DORKLY: Lessons That Videogames Have Taught Me

Carbuncle?!

We've seen this image posted on the official Facebook page of Final Fantasy XIV. Seems like a normal pic when you realize the player is a Summoner wearing an AF+1 gear (Summoner's doublet set) while she's still has an Emerald Carbuncle as pet.

So what's the big deal?

For one, you can't wear the artifact sets without finishing all the job specific quests. That means you will have to finish the Primal quest to get the Garuda Egi which basically overwrites your Emerald Carbuncle as your Summon before you can wear these sets. 

Will we be seeing all the summons side by side in the next patch? I mean you have a choice to cast either a Titan Egi or a Topaz Carbuncle, or a Garuda or Emerald Carbuncle? Will we see a Leviathan Egi and Ramuh Egi as well? Will these summons transform into a higher form, say for instance, maybe a Suparna/Chirada version rather than a full Garuda form?

And lastly, if we fix this for Summoner, could we also have a Scholar who can cast Carbuncle? Topaz Carbuncle perhaps for an off-tank in a Light Party, anyone?

Chun-Li VS Mai Shiranui | DEATH BATTLE! | ScrewAttack!

Alt Scarlet Witch

I've been playing Marvel: Avengers Alliance for close to 2 years now. I remember the Avengers film got me hooked with this game. After lots of spec ops, PVP seasons, nerfs and crazies that went with the game, I've never left it. Well, most of my friends did. I don't blame them. It feels like Playdom is in for the money. But who cares, I still enjoy it as it is.

What I was really looking forward is the alt costume for Wanda. The Scarlet Witch has limited design so when I've heard they'll be releasing an alt for her, I really got excited. A year later, we got this.

From what I've Googled, the Romani costume is from Turbulence - Avengers vol 8 #3, what she wore to get in touch with her gypsy heritage. I really don't know. I'm not a big Marvel buff. But this really reminds me of Wonder Woman. I don't know how, but it does. Really?! SRSLY?! This doesn't even stray much from her Classic costume. I know you can't draw her in any other color other than red. Scarlet IS red duh. But they could've chosen any other design. So let's revisit her other costumes.

Classic Wanda. We already have this in-game. Just a reminder that simplicity IS beauty. She wore this during the AvX event.

House of M. Her most hated one-liner, wearing an equally hateable gown. Come on?! Who are you wearing, Wanda? She could've just tweeted that and averted a mutant catastrophe, but noooo! She had to open her mouth. hahah

Ultimate Wanda. Photo by lambchild via DeviantArt. Plain but sexy.

Evolution Wanda. I don't like it that much. Well, I don't like it at all. But this is a stark departure from the Classic one and it should work.

Marvel Cinema Universe Wanda. As designed by madarivian via DeviantArt. We know MCU would always design their characters closer to reality - what you might practically wear nowadays if you were, say given a superhuman powers from the red sun or something like that. You know what I mean. If I were Wanda, I wouldn't be caught wearing that gypsy costume.

The Crossing Wanda. Her red and black costume during the The Crossing event on Avengers. Supposed to be mystical. I'm now confused what color her chaos powers are--is it pink, red, purple or green?

Marvel Now! Wanda. Art by vylla via Tumblr. Her more recent costumes in the Marvel timeline. We're lucky if MCU would design her close to this. I really wish MAA could've used this design instead.

I know I'm missing a few other costumes. Til then, No. More. Rants. For me, at least. So, what's your favorite Wanda costume?

Happy Valentione

Love is in the air. Again. Even in Eorzea. And they have a subquest to boot.

You could actually get a Valentine inspired outfit from the countess herself, Arabelle de Valentione from Ishgard who will spread the love across all of Eorzea. Or at least the three citystates only.

It's just weird that the female costume looks like a bloody gothic Lolita, while the male version is a red hearty master chef costume.

Anyway, part of getting the costume is the need to trade with any female Eorzean a piece of chocolate. Males get bitter chocos as quest rewards while females get the pure heart choco. I got the entire set with 5 chocos. But I still look like some wannabe red chef or something.

Ryu - Assassin's Fist

A sneak peek via poster of Ryu from Street Fighter Assassin's Fist. He is played by Mike Moh, who is actually Korean. I'm excited to see this.

In the meantime, let's look at how Ryu attacked Taylor Swift at the Grammy's.

5 Reasons to pick Invoker

Why is it only now that I've known of the awesome epicness of Kael?

Feudal Art: Daenerys

Mother of Dragons in Ukiyo-e style.

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Photo by seiji via imgur

Heavensturn - Uma

I'm currently playing Final Fantasy XIV on my laptop. It's so fun I tells yah.

They're having a new event to mark the Lunar new year for the Year of the Horse. It's called Heavensturn in Eorzea. Since we know Final Fantasy is known for having chocobos as mounts, it's quite funny to see a far eastern envoy presenting the horse as a new mount for Eorzea.

Funny scene when the two wackos for chocobo versus horse battle it out. Unfortunately, they are not giving out any equestrian mount.

Diablo III: Crusader

Diablo III will coming out with an expansion on March 2014. With they'll introduce the Crusader class, inspired from the Paladin class.

SF: Poison Super and Ultra Combos

Poison is one of the announced new characters on Ultra Street Fighter IV coming out June 2014.

Well, we expected they'll reuse most of the combos from SFxT. Some may argue that the design is bad, but at least it's a whole lot better than Final Fight Revenge.

Mists of Pandaria - Patch 5.2: The Thunder King

Street Fighter Fanmade Edits - Girls ver

Addendum to the last post.

R. Mika: Silvia

Sakura: Capcom Tribute

Karin: Ingrid

Source: Capcom Unity