Music to NaNo to

The special live performance of "Mombasa", a track from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the movie Inception. Hans Zimmer and Johnny Marr lead the performers.

If that's not music to write to, well, hell, I must be deaf, mute, and a moron.

I'm really not NaNo'ing this year, I swear, although I've been writing nonstop for the past few days.

It occurs to me, though, that with the amount of words I've chalked up I should probably have crossed my fingers and done one of those "rebel" NaNo things, you know, signed up to write a bunch of related short stories with the goal of eventually creating a 'verse in 50,000 words. I'd hardly be the only person who'd tried to do something like a novel in a series of short stories.....

I've just had my paycheck, so I think it's time for me to rejig the personal budget a bit and try to see if I can pitch in for my now-going-to-be-a-November-habit of a donation to the Office of Letters and Light. They're the folks behind NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy [and their respective Young Writers' Programs]. Ten dollars a year is not too much to give to a wonderful organization that keeps the spirit of writing and creating alive.

Turning "japonais": kimono dreams

Because these days I've been writing out this entire universe of stories that are set in a fantastical swords-and-sorcery Japanese setting - you know, people in hakama casting magical spells or wielding traditional weaponry in epic duels - I've had kimono on the brain lately.

I have actually had the pleasure of wearing one of these very stately garments, but admittedly it was more like a yukata-type. It's been something like 11 years. I really would like to repeat the experience some time.

Anyway, here are some reference photos I've dug up from around the web. This first kimono has a gorgeous flower-and-tree motif. Aren't the colors just magnificent?



And this next one seems to be a compilation image of modern-day furisode kimono. If any one of the girls in the photo held out her arms to the sides, the sleeves would hang nearly all the way to the ground.

Granted, I'm a bit too old to wear furisode. These kimono are only suited for young women, and anyone over the age of 20, except a bride, is probably supposed to switch over to the tomesode type [of which the previous kimono is an example].

But I love the colors and patterns in these kimono and were I able to commission a tomesode kimono for myself, I would probably go for the pattern shown in the first / upper "furisode de invierno" [winter furisode].



Kirei na~, as the Japanese would say....

Chronicle of fandom work

I think I've mentioned the idea of a fandom exchange here before, but having achieved something of a minor Crowning Moment of Awesome in my fandom life, I hope you don't mind if I take you through it again....

Fandom Gift Exchange Fest
When a participant signs up for one of these, he or she agrees to create a piece of fanfiction or fanart for someone else who has signed up for the fest. In return, the participant will also receive a piece of fanfiction or fanart from another participant. As the key word is EXCHANGE, participants who drop out or fail to turn in their pieces will not get any gifts.

To make sure that everyone gets a gift that they will like, each participant fills in a form that details what they like and don't like in fanfiction or fanart in that fandom. Usually the form will ask for preferred or vetoed pairings, some prompts, things that the participant likes and doesn't like, etc. The form thus serves as a sort of blueprint for the person who's creating a gift for them.

Many fests are anonymous and reveals are scheduled for after the time when the gifts have been posted, in order to increase anticipation, participation, and excitement. Also, I think it's really fun that way.

Some exchange fests are limited to one fandom only: every piece of fanfiction or fanart is keyed to characters/situations from that fandom. Crossovers are allowed as long as the main fandom is the featured exchange fest fandom.

On the other hand, some exchange fests are geared specifically towards crossovers of all kinds.

Fandom Big Bang Challenge
I'll take the definition here straight from the FAQs of the one I signed up for:

A big bang challenge is a collaborative project between authors and artists. Authors sign up to write long fanfiction within a predetermined time frame, and artists sign up to create art based on these stories.

The idea of the fandom big bang challenge apparently originated in a specific challenge that grew out of a specific branch of Harry Potter fandom.

Now back to the aforementioned very minor CMoA.

For all my years in various fandoms I'd never even heard of these terms until 2010. Since it turned out that people liked how I wrote in my current fandom, I decided, okay, to hell with it, never know till I try - and thus I signed up to write three stories: one for a one-fandom gift exchange fest, a crossover fandom gift exchange fest, and a fandom big bang challenge.

As of yesterday I've just turned in all the completed drafts to the three challenges.

And now I am keyed up for posting and reveals over the holidays.

You guys. Like I said. FIRST TIME EVER. And now I know I CAN DO THIS SORT OF THING. I took on three successive challenges and didn't flake out, didn't drop out, and didn't quit.

Each challenge had a specific word count: the first one I completed had to meet a minimum of 2000 words, the second a minimum of 1500 words, and the big bang had a minimum of 15,000 words. I'm happy to say I went over every one of those deadlines. [Wow, self, overcompensating much....]

I almost feel like I should have enough time to actually tackle National Novel Writing Month next, but, as I am grossly NOT prepared at all for that this year, I will wait until November 2011 for my next attempt. That will not stop me from mailing in a donation to the Office of Letters and Light, though!

Woo hoo!

I know it was Spirit Day yesterday

But "It gets better" is a message that deserves to be out there every day of the year.

Here are some wonderful and kickass Google employees talking about how it gets better.



Love the Android Pride shirts, too.

http://www.glaad.org/spiritday

Gotta WTF 'em all - jejemons!

Okay, I admit it, the first time anyone tried explaining to me what a jejemon was, I thought of THIS demotivational poster:



I was going to let that poster stand for all my thoughts on the subject, but I thought it would be nice to have my statement on these sorts of people right here on the blog for all the world to see.

If I really wanted to be honest about it, jejemons are just the latest in a long line of people who make me despair for the future of the English language. I can live with the fact that a living language is an evolving language, but I personally cannot abide such hideous constructions as "bestfriend" and its equally obnoxious contractions "BFF" and "bestie". [Oh, don't get me started....]

And then there are the jejemons. I won't strain my fingers and my brain trying to type something up in their representative idiom, and I won't break your eyes - so, all I want to say is this.

Look, I can understand that jejemons think their language is fun and, yes, unfortunately, uniquely suited to their way of thinking. But if a jejemon really wants to put in so much effort in encoding his/her thoughts in this particular way, and if he/she really wants other people to pretty much break their brains trying to decipher the stream of visual gibberish....

How will I know that you're actually trying to send me something as profound as

Four score and seven years ago,

or

To be or not to be,

or even

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,

if the alphanumeric symbols are just a mush of visually unappetizing soup?

And that is all I have to say about that.

Earth Day 2010!

"...[a]ll of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home." - Carl Sagan, talking about the "Pale Blue Dot" photograph. The pale blue dot is, of course, our very own planet Earth.

At the end of his documentary/presentation film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore condenses the message down into four simple words:

That's all we've got.

It's Earth Day today. What have you done for our planet lately?

***

References:
Earth Day
Pale Blue Dot photograph
An Inconvenient Truth

New Twists in Crochet: Front/Back Post Stitches

This post is for my dear friend Clair, who was wondering about whether she was getting her front post and back post crochet stitches right.

Crochet normally creates a flat fabric, but some stitches are used to give it a more three-dimensional feel. Both the front post crochet stitch and the back post crochet stitch can create a sort of raised ridge on either the front surface or the back surface of the work.

Front post and back post crochet can be worked on the "regular" stitches: single crochet, double, triple, etc. [American terminology.]

Here's a video tutorial for the double crochet variation, by DragonGrandma on YouTube:



Front and back post crochet are used to create interesting textures in crochet fabrics. They can be used to create variations on ribbing, but one of the main applications for these stitches - particularly when done in double and triple crochet - is for creating cables.

Cables are decidedly among the handsomest and most interesting knitting stitches, and they retain the same gorgeous effect when done in crochet. I've found a few sets of beginner's instructions for cables in crochet here and here.

And there's a particularly delicious photo of a scarf-and-hat duo in crochet cables on page 66 here. I have that book myself and really want to try making the project when I have good natural-hued yarn on hand.

Hope this helps, oneechan.

Now, THAT'S Perseus.

Perseus holding the head of Medusa, sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini. This statue is located in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy. Note the details: winged cap, no horse, a specific blade given by Hephaestus. Not included in the sculpture are the other iconic parts of the myth: the purse that could expand to hold Medusa's head, and Athena's highly polished shield, which allowed the hero to see and slay the only mortal Gorgon.

I find it a bit of a coincidence that the last two movies I saw have both been riffs on the myth of Perseus: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and Clash of the Titans [2010].

What did not surprise me was that both movies got the story rather...wrong. The current generation of moviegoers doesn't know their Greek myths, and no one cares enough to get all the details right.

Coming out of the theater where I saw Clash with my partner tonight, I accidentally listened in on a girl as she enthusiastically explained to her companion that the movie was a riff on the Christ theme. This is probably due to how Perseus was presented: the only demigod on earth, therefore a "son of god" and a savior. Proves my point in the previous paragraph, really....

At least Percy Jackson made it a central part of the plot that the gods simply could not keep it in their royal pants and kept producing so many half-divine children.

When I was a kid one of my favorite books was Edith Hamilton's 1942 book Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. I had been given a paperback reprint copy for some occasion or another, and basically read it near to shreds. And one of my favorite myths was that of Perseus.

I've been cringing a lot at all these remakings and revisitings of the Greek, Roman, and Norse tales. I have loved these tales of tragedy and triumph for many years, and to see them get mucked around with through accident or design really rather hurts quite a bit.

Earth Hour 2010

Earth Day 2010 is this Saturday, March 27. Turn off all non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour, act now on climate change, and incidentally, join at least a billion people worldwide for a global party!

But it's also good to address the issue of this being just a "token" sort of thing. Let's don't just leave it at that, and practice some common sense.

Some people use their desktop computers not only for the usual sorts of things but also for other things, like being a server for a website, or beaming music throughout the house, or some other resource. But if you're not actually using it at the same time, there's nothing wrong with saving a little electricity by just turning the monitor off.

You know what I do? I get cold easily, so during those nights and rare days when the temperatures drop suddenly, I simply turn off the electric fan in my apartment. Yes, even if this means waking up to do it - the cold makes me get up and grab a blanket anyway, so why not turn the fan off at the same time? No sense in being made colder and more miserable than I already am.

It's also a good idea to install environmentally friendly light-bulbs: they last for a long time, don't use up too much power, and give off a nice light.

And there are certain things that one can enjoy without needing to use a lot of electricity and/or resources. Try going off the grid from time to time, to read, knit/crochet/spin, play board games or chess.

Here's the official video for Earth Hour 2010, from http://www.wwf.org.ph/earthhour/.



Remember, Saturday night is all right for lights-out!

Topic 101: Automated Elections

On the same day that we ate conveyor-belt sushi my partner and I ran into a voters' education program at the SM Mall of Asia. It was being hosted by both the GMA Network and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV).

This year, on May 10, will be the first time for most Filipinos to cast their votes in a national election via an automated election system, and a lot of people are still apprehensive about the new technology, not to mention are really not familiar with the process for voting via machine.

So while the PPCRV has been touring the Philippines with lectures and some hands-on voting practice, GMA went one step further and created a song-and-dance number that explains in the vernacular how the new process of voting works. It's called "Bilog na Hugis Itlog" (or, roughly, A Circle Shaped Like An Egg). The song features the company's resident dance troupe, the Sexbomb Dancers.


For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

I'm talking about this now because I participated in the mock voting exercise on Sunday, and afterwards my partner said, "You should blog about this whole elections thing: the process, you know, tell people how it's done."

I'm not sure I'm going to do a better job than the folks at PPCRV, who have been at this for years, but I will do my best to try.

March is National / International Crochet Month?!

Okay, in my defense, I have been plenty preoccupied lately, but it's a little odd that I didn't know that there was such a thing as National / International Crochet Month. Or, as the Crochet Liberation Front puts it, NatCroMo (yep, it is exactly the same sort of shortening as in NaNoWriMo).

PDF File on the Crochet-Along, March 2010, Crochet Guild of America

Hmm, what shall I make to join this Crochet-Along? I've been thinking about creating a scarf for myself. Maybe a skinny scarf in two shades of blue? *thinking*

So, to mark the month, here are a few choice links and neat things.


See, now this is just amazing and inspiring. Crochet makes it all the way to TED in this 2009 TED talk on crochet, hyperbolic geometry, and the Institute For Figuring (IFF), given by one of its co-directors, Margaret Wertheim. It's almost 17 minutes of pure awesome.

Next, in the entry about the crocheted watch cap I briefly mentioned my new stash of crochet magazines. While I was browsing the Sept/Oct 2009 issue of Crochet Today! my attention was caught by the issue's theme of being environmentally friendly. It turns out there's a ton of great yarns out there that are either recycled from other fabrics or are made from environmentally sustainable materials. Not to mention several brands and product lines of crochet hooks in bamboo.

I wish there was some way to bring stuff like the Red Heart ECO Yarns, the Lion Brand Recycled Cotton Yarn, and, of course, the Susan Bates Bamboo and Bamboo and Aluminum Hooks here to the Philippines. I'm sure my fellow crocheters here would appreciate the greening trends in crochet.


Bamboo crochet hooks are easy on the hands, gorgeous to look at, and Earth-friendly!

Did you know that crochet in itself is a "green" craft? If done during the daytime, crocheting does not use up any electricity or resources of any kind - only human power.

Scrunchies and a meditation on crochet-based geometry

[Warning, this post contains mathematics. :D]

My sister is going to be graduating from high school in March, and will hopefully be going on to cooking school after that. Since both her school uniform and her love for cooking require her to keep her longish hair under control, I'm making her a series of gifts that will see much use in the days to come: scrunchies, and quite possibly a headband or two.

In particular, there are these: a set of six hyperbolic scrunchies - three in her favorite colors, three more in black. [I SAID there was math involved, didn't I?]




These photos show two of the three colored scrunchies; I'm making the violet one later, and then the black ones. The pattern is based on Cayenne Boyer's Hyperbolic Scrunchie; I've modified the pattern by taking out the fourth and final round. [Pattern remains © Cayenne Boyer.]

The scrunchies take the form of a hyperbolic plane [see Wikipedia entry on hyperbolic geometry here]. For some reason, the craft of crochet has been used, in particular by the Institute for Figuring, as a way of visualizing this non-Euclidean form of geometry; they're the folks behind the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, based on the techniques of hyperbolic crochet created by the mathematician Daina Taimina.

In crochet terms, it actually comes down to a definite pattern of increases in a piece made in the round, causing the edges to ruffle up.

I don't claim to understand the math behind the scrunchies I'm making, but it makes for a fascinating crafting experience.

I hope my sister enjoys using these.

One more thing to wish for: COSPLAY!

Yes, the non-Japanese Takarazuka Kagekidan fandom has been in a bit of a whirl right now and there are many ruffled feathers a-flying. No, it's not because there have been fights or anything - it's just that people are retiring. That makes us all sad pandas.

[That latest announcement just hit two days ago and I'm not sure we've all recovered from it yet. Me? With Yumiko retiring, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop: will Mizu Natsuki do the same?]

Anyway, the subject of today's entry is ベルサイユのばら Berusaiyu no Bara. The English-speaking world knows it as "The Rose of Versailles". This shōjo franchise is the brainchild of Ikeda Riyoko and encompasses 10 manga volumes, a musical play in several story versions, an anime series, a live-action movie, and a ballet, with an Italian opera production upcoming.

For the Takarazuka Kagekidan, BeruBara [as it's abbreviated] is the play that established the Top Star system *and* triggered a large surge in the Kagekidan's popularity, the "BeruBara Boom". No wonder it's one of the most-performed plays in the company repertoire, and Ikeda-sensei even pens original stories for them to bring to the stage.

I've always wanted to cosplay and Lady Oscar François de Jarjayes being one of my favorite female characters in the history of EVER, she's one of my cosplay targets. Just check out the following photos:


You saw this one already, in the Takarazuka wishlist entry.

Last night I found THIS one:

The title on the poster is still ベルサイユのばら, but this is probably the movie Lady Oscar. That's Catriona MacColl in her acting debut.


Oscar also has a third uniform, the red one, seen here in a still from the anime series. This is my favorite of the colors because it contrasts so strongly with her blond hair.

Man, what I'd do to be able to get fit and make Oscar's uniforms look GOOD. *sigh*

Otaku Crafting: An Introduction

A picture of a Granny Rectangle Scarf; pattern here. One of the projects I want to tackle soon.

Define Otaku: "people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games"

Define Crafter: "someone who participates in a particular handicraft, either as a hobby or as a small business"

Some might say, the entire crafting community worldwide is vast and large and undeniably otaku in the "obsessive interests" sense of the word. Fannish arts and crafts are nothing really new. People build models of Gundams and Daleks and Enterprises and the Millennium Falcon - homebrew or not. People sew and knit and crochet and generally create costumes, accessories, plush toys, and all sorts of things associated with their fandoms of choice, all the way up to entire cosplay get-ups and styles. People create doll clothes and accessories for whatever they have: fashion dolls, BJDs, or what-have-you. There are all the fantastic steampunk crafters with their amazing interpretations of such items as watches, coats, goggles, and weaponry.

I guess I'm posting because I really want to join that entire community of otaku crafters. I've already bookmarked no less than two crochet patterns for Jayne Cobb's "cunning" hat (fandom: Firefly/Serenity), and want to learn how to make amigurumi, those uber-cute knitted or crocheted stuffed toys.


R2-D2 in crochet! Credit to jillvedge, posted here

I suppose I could even extend the whole crochet-stuff-for-real-people thing to dolls, i.e. taking a pattern for a human-sized scarf or poncho and reworking it in a smaller size and with finer thread for use by dolls.

That's going to be one of the hot topics on this blog soon. I hope you can stick around for it, and join me as I make my way through the inevitable mishaps and successes, the hunt for thread and yarn, and the hits and the misses alike.

World AIDS Day 2009: Red Ribbon Post.

Today is December 1, and since 1988 the day has been commemorated as World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection.

I remember rather vividly when I started wearing that red ribbon. I was in high school, and I spent all damn day answering the following questions from classmates and people in other years:

"What's the red ribbon for?" (Cue explanation.)

"Does that mean YOU have AIDS?" (Cue facepalm / headdesk reaction.)

I should just be grateful that progress has since been made in both the areas of awareness (i.e. THAT reaction described above? Getting rarer and rarer every year....) and the disease/syndrome itself (read about one phase of testing for a specific vaccine here).

I will continue to support the global fight against this disease - and, in corollary, I continue to support the fight for equal rights everywhere. You're a man, a woman, gay, lesbian, transgender, a child, elderly, suffering from some sort of disease or condition, hungry, thirsty, etc. etc. - YOU HAVE RIGHTS. Fight on.

WorldAIDSDay.org
Wikipedia article on World AIDS Day

So I've got a novel-like monster-manuscript-thing. Now what?

[Picture unrelated, but cute, and also, hey, it's a puppy-smile Totoro, what's not to like? ♥]

Okay, so that's the next question that might need tackling, whether it be for me, sitting on a manuscript that's 51,000 words and change long; or for anyone who's ever thought seriously about seeing their names in print.

To publish or not to publish?

Bear in mind that when I say publish, I initially mean "print off a bound and professional-looking book-like thing to proudly and perhaps overbearingly show off to family and friends". The whole idea of prepping the thing for actual PUBLICATION as in selling it in a bookstore comes a far second (and is anyway a topic I'm not actually qualified to write about - dammit, Jim, I'm an amateur not a published person!).

Enter John Scalzi and a very recent blog post.

Just to make it clear, there is a Grand Canyon's worth of difference between "vanity press" and "self-publishing". DON'T, for the love of all that is good and chocolatey (and bacon-y), go the vanity press route - you'll be fleeced, you'll be cheated, you may very well lose your intellectual property rights over your own work, and you're likely not going to *sell* at all.

Far better to do the proper self-publishing bit: Scalzi explains and advocates the use what is called a Print-On-Demand service. (Lulu.com, CreateSpace.com) It can be done for either peanuts or, under some special circumstances, absolutely for free - that last link is for NaNo-ers and is definitely something I'm looking forward to myself.

[I'm already thinking about the book cover design, and I haven't even finished the manuscript yet or even verified it, haha!]

Why have to learn all these things and go through all these hoops just for a proof copy or a bound manuscript anyway?

Well, isn't the mere idea of having a professional-looking BOOK with YOUR NAME on it as the author a good reason to look into self-publishing? After all, I'm one of those dreaming writer-types who wants to be published some day, go on book tours, sign autographs for adoring fans, etc etc etc. And let's face it, a lot of people who write or profess to write also have dreams running along a similar vein. So learning about these sorts of things in advance can be a big boost towards making those dreams come true.

I want to say here, though, that I've got modest ambitions for my NaNo manuscript [which was the whole reason why I decided to go for it in the first place]. I intend to clean it up and really shop it around to the local publishing houses and see if it has any chances of making it into a real honest-to-cookies bookstore. I freely admit that it may be naïve of me to think that a printed-and-bound manuscript will help me in such a quest. Still, not going to stop me from trying.

[Next question: conversion into e-book format for the people who've asked to read the novel.]

NaNoWriMo status report, Friday the 13th edition

In the Acknowledgments to her debut novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger describes writing as a solitary thing: it’s only exciting for the person who is doing the actual work of putting the words down. Anyone who happens to be watching will only see a hand with a pen, moving across a sheet of paper; or fingers dancing over a keyboard.

It’s true for me at least and for those of my friends who profess to the same craft. There is nothing exciting in watching my hands stop and start as they type. I might have a nice pen and a moleskine-type notebook, but that’s still only window dressing to the actual task of recording the words. And for me, writing is, like, the farthest thing on the planet from a spectacle. The act of writing becomes, literally, nothing to write home about, at least not for anyone watching.

Sure, I might have the resources of the whole damn world (a/k/a Google, Wikipedia, and sometimes The New York Times) at my fingertips, but they’re just sources of information; they’re impersonal, they’re out there in the vast stretches of cyberspace; they’re the farthest thing in the world from an audience.

Sure, I might blog about the work or post about it on Facebook or on some forums, and then people comment and strike up a conversation about the work or about my writing, but if any of those people actually went and saw me doing the actual writing work they’d quickly drift away with boredom.

So things can get wildly, wildly different when instead of writing in purely solitary fashion, you wake up one day and there is an entire community of people worldwide who are frantically writing along with you. I’m not talking purely about being in a writing class, although the experiences of this entire NaNoWriMo thing are starting to turn out to be just that – a lesson in writing, spread out over 50k words or more and precisely 30 days.

And how have I been doing so far? Daily breakdown, by date and total word count reached:

Nov 6 - 13667
Nov 7 - 16361
Nov 8 - 18759
Nov 9 - 21196
Nov 10 - 23422
Nov 11 - 26211
Nov 12 - 27712

Have I mentioned yet that it's been a HELL of a rush every day? Even when yesterday I failed to make 1667? The adrenaline, it is terribly addictive. :)

TECH NOTE: If all goes well, I shall have another post up over the weekend. Wish me luck - I might finally be able to buy an Asus Eee 1005HA Seashell later today!!!

(I shall love it and squeeze it and take care of it and call it HAMSTER! :D)

(Yes, I shall name my netbook Hamster because of THIS Hamster:



♥♥♥)

Appeal for assistance for Typhoon Ondoy victims

For the entire weekend, Philippine cyberspace and mobilespace have both been working overtime: people are updating with weather reports, news on relief and donation drives, locations of people who still need help, and admonitions of more bad weather possibly coming in.

In an attempt to weave together the many tales of help-wanted and we're-ready-to-assist, Google has put together a page expressly for Typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana): how to help, where to go, rescue operations, news and information, the works. Most of the information in this post therefore comes from that page, located at http://www.google.com/landing/typhoon-ondoy.html.

First off, an Ondoy situation map for Metro Manila, a volunteer-driven map plotting flood updates and persons who might still be in need of rescuing.



It's useful to note here that friends and fandom idols have even chimed in with calls for help and assistance. Neil Gaiman has already both tweeted and blogged on the subject - see this blog post: Bet you thought I was... oh hang on, I used that one already. Thank you, sir, for thinking of us even when you're recovering from the stresses of your trip and film shoot.

Important note and something else to prepare for: several news sites have broadcast the word that there may be more bad weather in store for the Philippines. Be prepared for that, too, and keep helping those who are still recovering from this one.

Be safe, everyone.

Life After the Party Part 4/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part four.


Top image: Granado Espada login screen; bottom image: Atlantica Online login screen.

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
One amusing set of similarities between GE and AO lies in their settings. GE is located in an alternate-universe version of our own reality: the Old World features countries named Oporto, Vespanola, Correa, and Katai, while the New World boasts of locations named the Bahamar Swamplands.

(Oporto = Portugal; Vespanola = Spain, Correa = South Korea, Katai = China; the Bahamar Swamplands are an allusion to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and its tropical setting.)

On the other side of the coin, AO is set in a fantasy version of the Northern Hemisphere: towns include locations such as Manila, Saint Petersburg, and Chicago, while dungeons are set in wonders of the world and locations of interest such as the Taj Mahal, the Valley of the Kings, and the fabled pirate-infested coves of the Caribbean Sea.

Since both games have heavy graphics and AI loads they both require better computers and Internet connections. Additionally, GE's soundtrack works best piped through good speakers, in order to showcase the quality of the music. Other game bloggers have recommended going better than the recommended computer specifications given for both titles to maximize performance, making for a better playing experience.

Comments on both GE and AO from Filipino players attribute a kind of "learning curve" to the two titles. For one thing, the entire idea of the one-player-multiple-characters concept is like nothing else encountered in other locally-released MMO titles; the exceptions being those who had previously been exposed to Final Fantasy, its successors, and/or Tactics-type titles.

Titles of this sort call on players to have certain skills in strategy, long-term thinking, tactics and decision-making. It's best to make plans right at the outset: what makes a good family/formation at the newbie stages? What changes are required in order to survive in the endgame? On creating an account in either GE or AO, one must already be thinking about everything from starting equipment to working within the in-game economy to making plans for which extra characters to recruit and the order of recruitment, and all the way until the level cap is reached. And then what does one do when one reaches that cap?

Were that it were possible for more people to try new experiences even in online gaming. And for now, barring the continued progression of the genre as a whole and new advances in gameplay, GE and AO stand on the cutting edge, offering whole new levels of gaming experiences to casual and dedicated gamers alike. Both games come highly recommended and serve as groundbreaking titles.

***

These blog posts are dedicated to several friends and fellow gamers, and particularly to Mistress Hrin. Inspired by the musings of the MMOtaku.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Life After the Party Part 3/4

A long overview/review in four parts; part three.


Images in order from top to bottom. Top, a high-level female axe warrior in armor; second, the same character wearing a Jiangshi Outfit; third, mounts allow characters to travel more quickly and can be traded on the in-game market; fourth, encounter with an enemy mob; fifth, the first turn of combat; sixth, resting on the map and showing the UI.

PATH TO ATLANTIS: ATLANTICA ONLINE
In creating AO, nDOORS followed a different path. A player took control of a main character, and saw only that character while moving through the world maps. However, that main character could recruit mercenaries to assist him/her in combat situations. Progression through the game will eventually require one player to control a full team of nine characters: one main character plus eight mercenaries.

A notable addition to AO's complexity is its reliance on instance-reliant, turn-based strategic/tactical gameplay. Enemy groups are transported into an instance to battle; battle proceeds as per the classic rules of turn-based combat, where the enemy groups move in turn and alternate until one side is defeated.

Both enemy groups can use items or abilities to summon up to two more allied groups; this means that some battles are large-scale productions of 27 vs 27 (3 players and 24 mercenaries versus 27 enemy monsters in Player vs Environment, or another group of 3 players and 24 mercenaries in Player vs Player).

As with GE, many of the mercenaries in AO can be recruited as the storyline progresses, with their recruitment quests helping to advance the plot.

Both GE and AO have earned awards at home and abroad for their innovative take on online gaming and for their rich gameplay experiences. New titles employing the one-player-multiple-characters strategy have been announced to follow in their footsteps, including the recently-revealed Fantasy Zhu Xian from Perfect World Co. Ltd.

Now let's zoom in on what makes these sorts of MMORPGs click.

Part 2
Part 4