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04/01/2005 Archived Entry: "Yeah, I'm alive..."

Yes, I'm alive and still kickin'. It's been a long, long while since I posted anything on this journal. There's no real reason why. Sometimes you want to go into haitus on a grand scale, you know?

That and the fact that I quit playing "Ragnarok Online" and "Final Fantasy Tactics" is eating my brain.

Why I Quit Ragnarok Online (and other Scary Stories)
I didn't want to believe it, at first, but all the reasons RO wasn't fun anymore just got compiled onto the overall feelings of how futile it was to play it as though it was -still- as fun as when in beta testing here in the US.

When the Amatsu patch came in, all the trouble basically started avalanching. Monsters on the maps that people had memorised practically by now for leveling specific kinds of characters were moved. Monsters that were way too difficult to kill were added to maps on Sakray and then those maps were soon abandoned (well, save for the bots).

And the way they've continually forced you to play with other people. You can't solo, which would be okay if War of Emperium was eliminated. WoE, I feel, totally ruined it. There are so many friendships destroyed over a PvP event in-game. How messed up is that? I hate to sound like the old geezer on the porch here, but I remember when there wasn't any WoE and guilds used their teamwork and cooperative efforts to defeat boss monsters! Personally, I'd think that was more beneficial than "Let's go beat the crap out of other people and then point fingers afterwards, destroy friendships, and kick people out of the guild when we lose!"

I think eliminating WoE or making a PvP-only server where WoE is only hosted there would be a better solution. That way all the people who enjoy killing other players can get it out of their system there.

And the market of RO has not changed. Why? Because once you buy a certain weapon, chances are you will never buy another one again. Weapons don't deteriorate and if that's not changed then you should never consider even playing a forging Blacksmith. Essentially, once everyone in game has the weaon they want, they'll never buy from you again because the items never cease to work. How do you fix the economy? Have -all- gear slowly lose effectiveness over time. Like the way -other- games have been doing it! Yeah, people are going to complain about the rare cards they'd lose over it... BUT! They'd go out and actively play on the maps again to either look for more cards and the rare weapons again! Thus, the market moves.

Unplayable new maps were my other miff. John and I took our Wizard and Priestess out to KunLun and you talk about a -HELL- of map! And I don't mean this in a good way! The dungeon is inexplicably difficult as in it's a pain to kill the monsters and what's more is if you survive the confrontation you are given experience that could have easily been earned on easier monsters to fight.

This "whack-a-mole" method for bot control is ridiculous, as well. They really need to provide more ways to either report bots in-game or filter bots out of the game. Bots ruin the already shoddy game economy by botting for rare items or leveling 99 characters for WoE and then selling the spoils of unfair play on "vend slave" merchant characters. Not everyone knows where to go to even report bots, for that! You have to make a junk search on the FAQ to even find the "Email Inquiry" button to send an "Ill-Mannered" report.

Don't get me wrong, I love RO. I've been playing RO for years! As in, since beta! I have every right at this point to offer suggestions. I've seen it grow and frankly, they've been throwing us too many bones instead of fixing many of the known bugs. Until they do something about it I'm not joining up with RO again.

Final Fantasy Tactics
A week or two ago, John and I bought a used PlayStation. I think when the Sony/Nintendo Wars were going on, never in a million years would be have fathomed of owning this console let alone play anything off it. It was as bad as the Cola Wars (y'know, Coke/Pepsi... which is kind of stupid because Cherry Pepsi is good when I'm not in the mood for a Coke and when I'm not in the mood for -either- I'll drink an RC Cola... HARRR!!) was by comparison. John refers to Sony as the "500 pound gorilla" and I sit there picturing Grape Ape on a van with a Walkman.

Now I know why the fanboys got all foofed when I mistakingly refered to "Final Fantast Tactics: Advance" as "Final Fantasy Tactics". This game is very impressive! The music is much more detailed! Thing is, that's because it's the difference between a cartridge and a CD, for one. And I think FFTA is -perfect- as a precursor to playing the original Tactics! Without FFTA, I would've had more difficulty playing the original. FFTA is like a less story driven form of the original Tactics, where you get more of the actual gameplay and the focus is more on the missions and the creation of characters. And "Steal: Ability" is an extremely powerful skill that Tactics doesn't have! I wish it did! LoL!

.....

Well, that's my report for today, anyway. Like you really wanted to hear my little nuggets of gameplay critique. LoL! I'll probably have more to prattle on about as soon as I can think of anything.