Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by XEN -v- gK

Dragon Nest SEA

XEN -v- gK — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:49:59 +0800

http://campus.51job.com/snda2010/about/sin.html
It seems that Shanda, the China publisher of Dragon Nest, is coming to Singapore.
From their corporate website, it also sound like they gonna bring in Dragon Nest to this region.
But didn't Asiasoft holds the rights to Dragon Nest for this region too?

Than I found this piece of news.
http://tradingtipsnow.com/shanda-games-lim...edentity-games/
Shanda have buy up the development studio of Dragon Nest (Eyedentity) about 2 months back.
This makes an interesting scenario, a competing company holding the game development and licensing rights to another competing company.
Not sure how this will play out, but it will be interesting to watch.

Whether Shanda or Asiasoft holds the publishing rights, the game is definitely coming to our region.
This naturally means oversea service to Dragon Nest will be IP Blocking this region.

The question is:
Will you play Dragon Nest SEA?
*If you could elaborate your choice, it would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Ragnarok Online 2 - KR OBT has begun

XEN -v- gK — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:36:55 +0800

The game is now in public OBT from 22nd Feb 2012.

Official website: http://www.ragnarok2.co.kr/
New RO2 Anime style Promo Trailer
[YOUTUBE]A6uQ8rdi5NY[/YOUTUBE]

Want to start playing and need KSSN?
Grab them here!
KSSN
thanks to mcblade

Confuse on how to register and start playing?
Installation Guide
thanks to mcblade

Play RO2 in English with the Fan English patch
English Patch
thanks to DevilLynx

Player List
Server # - Lowyat ID = Character Name
Server 1 - XEN -v- Gk = Applebloom
Server 1 - mcblade = punchie
Server 1 - wangpr = xdeathgodx
Server 2 - mcblade =Sharpie
Server 2 - franstormer = menphina
Server 4 - benloh5251 = wulanfo

Server ? - merru = Atheathe
Server ? - Yuki Ijuin = LilithMist

TMNet cut service due to RM48 late payment

XEN -v- gK — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:34:35 +0800

This just came in the mail yesterday.

The letter says they will cut the service on 25th May, but actually Streamyx connection in my house have already been down since 2 days ago.
Some might want to to now how did I end up with this.

I usually pay my TMNet bill online via credit card on http://www.tmonline.com.my/
There is never much late payment since I got the service, 6 or 7 years ago.
Last month, I accidentally key in rm40 instead of rm88 while making payment and didn't notice it until I got the letter.

A call to 100 is fruitless as the operator insist that it is their policy and I must make the payment of rm48 balance to continue the service.
I am fine with that, paying for the service is not an issue.
My grips with issue is that they cut my service just because of a late payment of rm48.

How desperate a company needs to be to do this?

Reminds me of the news article in Stars, about the lady whos house was auction off by the bank because of a late payment for rm1000+.
The lady sued the bank in court and was awarded rm25000 in damage.

Sakura Wars ~ So Long, My Love ~

XEN -v- gK — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:05:51 +0800

Anyone got a copy of this yet?
I am interested in the quality of English localization.

The PS2 version get to have both English and Japanese voice track with English text.
The Wii, I think, only has English voice track.

Hellgate: Tokyo

XEN -v- gK — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:55:58 +0800

Hellgate: London was pick up by Hanbitsoft Korea.
It was later release as Hellgate: Resurrection in Korea.

On April 6th they will be releasing the latest expansion to the game.

Hellgate: Tokyo
There is no Gundam to save you now...

[YOUTUBE]3kJqTAK1KBo[/YOUTUBE]

http://hg.hanbiton.com/Teaser/Tokyo/Home.aspx

Valkyrie Sky

XEN -v- gK — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:44:43 +0800

I think this game been around for sometime, but I just found it recently.
Plays like old school 20cent arcade machines but with MMORPG feature like weapon crafting and upgrade, also have guild war and pet.
Any lowyyat kaki playing this game?

http://valkyriesky.gamekiss.com/

[YOUTUBE]TQR_InwgPuY[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]WQLv8e6terA[/YOUTUBE]

Warriors of the 3 Kingdoms

XEN -v- gK — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:53:31 +0800

Got this from asiasoft website, http://www.asiasoftsea.net/upcoming_games/...the_3_kingdoms/

I was playing on the Taiwan server for sometime until I cannot stand the lag anymore, because its almost impossible to play nation war in Taiwan server due to distance lag. Recently many Taiwan game is also IP banning other country like Malaysia.

Warriors of the 3 Kingdoms is an action online game, similar to Rakion.
But unlike Rakion where you play in a host room with a few others, W3K lets you play in a map with whole bunch of players. The number of monster also greatly increase, small group can be 3 to 6 enemy, medium group would be around 10 to 20 enemy, while in high level map expect to be swarmed by 30 or more enemy at one time. Boss enemy will aways be accompany by a at least a medium group of underlings.
Good thing is, your attack is not like most MMORPG that only hit 1 target. Each attack, even normal attack, attack everything within swing area so the game play pretty much just like Dynasty Warriors.
Oh, the game support gamepad too.

One of the best thing I like about the game is the nation war.
Instead of just 1 nation war map, the battlefield is divided into 6 fronts. Each front with a level range so even low level player can join the fun. Success in these front will affect all fronts, such as defeating the defender in the flanking front will boost attack for all attacking nation players, or defeating the attacking nation player in flanking front will boost defense for all defending nation players.

There is also some strategy involve before nation war.
Elements such as food/resource and cities governor will affect the battlefield, even if the attacking are overpoweringly strong, if they run out of food/resource before taking the city they will lose the battle. In situation like this, the defender will want to focus their attacks on the raiding front. Winning the raiding front will cause loser to lose food/resource to the winner.
Citizen also can vote to transfer general and governor from city to city, as each general will have different buff effects. It is ideal to always move warrior general(武官) instead of bureaucrat general(文官) to frontline cities. Bureaucrat general are excellent at regenerating food/resource in the back and later have players transfer the food/resource to frontline before war.

Game will be hosted by Asiasoft and will be available in English and Chinese.
Nothing much to see on the website yet, just a splash site.
http://www.ctsea.com/

Some screenshot and video link from the forum.

[YOUTUBE]eN3Lc3XDD4g[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]TPCpHECoypk[/YOUTUBE]

Onslaught

XEN -v- gK — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:37:59 +0800

Straight forward no nonsense light gun action!
Plays just like any arcade light gun shooter, except you get to freely move around the stage using the Nunchuck and aiming your WiiMote.
Use mushroom button to move while turn or look around using the WiiMote.
Come in 13 stages and 4 basic gun, plus 1 grenade and melee weapon (laser whip).

Support multiplayer over the Internet for up to 4 players.
All this for only 1000 Wii Points!

If you have the game, tell me your code so I can put it here and we can go multiplayer sometime.
XEN : 5456 4946 1674

[YOUTUBE]VVAN0DnJ4hs[/YOUTUBE]
Trailer

[YOUTUBE]dJg8Y8_f7D4[/YOUTUBE]
Multiplayer co-op

Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)

XEN -v- gK — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:56:34 +0800

Also known as Oboro Muramasa, and exclusive for Wii!
From the makers of Odin Sphere, Princess Crown and Grim Gilmoire.

2D scroll action RPG with multiple character ans storyline, as always.
This is gonna be so damn awesome!
Definitely in my buy list for 2009.

http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/game/wii/oboromuramasa/
[YOUTUBE]1Srupq1x1Ok[/YOUTUBE]

Scanned article too huge.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Got targeted for torrent block?

XEN -v- gK — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:49:50 +0800

This is what happen to me.
After using Deluge for sometime and not getting good results, I switch back to BitComet and download a bunch of stuff.
My phone bill say I downloaded 140GB ++ of data last month, I was a bit surprise but have no problem with it and pay my bill accordingly.

Last week, my connection suddenly gets cut off for a hour with the DSL light blinking.
When the connection returns, I found BC and emule display my port is blocked. After spending a few day doing port forwarding and whatsnot, the result is still the same, every port I try to open will return as blocked.
What is more interesting is that BC report that my IP is being block from full access.
Reconnecting to change IP will also have the same result.

I even have problem remote desktop to my pc from work, which never happens unless the line is down.

Did I just win the jackpot and get targeted and torrent blocked by TMNet?
Have anyone encounter this?
btw, I am located in Setapak, KL.

1 small victory against TMNet

XEN -v- gK — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:10:23 +0800

I cant find the old thread on the TMNet games on demand on the forum, but to make a long story short.

When TMNet game on demand was first release, the service comes with some heavy clauses.
Especially the minimum subscription of 6 months and the quit penalty, alot of us wasn't happy about it and complain all over the place. In the end the boss of Jumboplay, the people who power the service, took notice of the problem and promise to discuss it with their partner, TMNet.

http://bluehyppo.jumboplay.com/
Today I check back at TMNet games on demand after the long holiday and notice they have changed their policy to be much like the original service on Jumboplay. With no minimum subscription, cancel anytime with no penalty plus 3 months free play for anyone who sign-up to Streamyx broadband during Merdeka promotion.

This is proof that we can actually do something against TMNet with their Streamyx service too, if we keep up the pressure.

Major service outage in Malaysia

XEN -v- gK — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:38:43 +0800

My home line have just went down(Error 678) yesterday afternoon and still unable to connect until now.
I called the helpline first thing in the morning and before I was put in contact with a CS staff, there is a voice recording stating that there is a major service outage in Malaysia.

If anyone facing this problem as well?

Clover Studio shuting down

XEN -v- gK — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:58:45 +0800

gamesindustry.biz
Daily Update
13/10/2006

One of the most disheartening things to happen to videogames in the last year is this week's announcement that Capcom's Clover Studio is being shut down, having recorded a 400 million Yen loss in the last year. On the face of it, compared to news like the delay of the PlayStation 3 in Europe, the demise of one studio doesn't seem like a major cause for sadness - but Clover Studio, in its short lifespan, demonstrated a level of creativity and innovation which made it into a beacon for the ability of games to leap beyond being pigeonholed as simple entertainment, and actually become a marriage of both entertainment, and art.

Founded in 2004 by Capcom in an effort to incubate creativity and address concerns that its portfolio was stagnating, Clover housed some of the publisher's finest creative minds - and set free of the corporate decision making structure, they proceeded to build titles which captured the attention and fired the imagination of game fans the world over. Viewtiful Joe and its sequels, Okami, and finally God Hand, are the lasting legacy of the studio - and while those titles may have polarised opinion, it's impossible to ignore the creative drive behind them, and would be nothing short of heartless not to give credit to the willingness to explore new kinds of gameplay and new visual styles.

Of course, in the final analysis, Clover Studio lost money - and thus Clover Studio was shut down, with Capcom marking its passing with a vague comment to the effect that Clover had fulfilled its purpose. It would be easy to mock such a statement, but that would be cheap. Capcom may have bottled out of the Clover experiment when the losses mounted a bit, but unlike most publishers, Capcom at least had the guts to try the experiment in the first place.

The sad truth is that the vast majority of videogame publishers, contrary to the lip service which they pay to innovation and creativity, don't actually understand what it takes to drive that forward. Projects are killed off when they look like they won't have the kind of profit margin a publisher wants, or when their project leads fail to stand up in front of marketing and reel off a deathly dull list of other popular titles which their game is "a bit like". Entirely original ideas have nowhere to take root in a modern publishing environment - originality means risk, and why allow your staff to take risks when you could be burning them out on a movie license with a guaranteed return instead?

It's easy to scoff, from a business point of view, at the pleas for originality. Sequels sell; licenses sell. Innovation is risk, and often it's bad risk - Clover's games, despite their critical acclaim, still saw the studio losing just shy of three million Euro last year. Not a vast amount, but then again, if they'd been working on a tie-in to a summer blockbuster, they'd probably have made a profit - right?

Such an argument is as logical as it is predictable, and as financially sound as it is utterly incorrect. It's the kind of argument made by videogame publishing executives who wouldn't dream of lifting a joypad in their spare time, who see the medium in terms of products, quarters and bottom lines, and manage to look, at best, incredulous but indulgent when developers, fans or, indeed, journalists mention the word "art" in the context of videogames. As well as being blinkered and short-sighted (never a good combination on the eyesight front), it's inherently damaging - short-termism at its very worst.

Look to the movie business, and consider their business models with regard to smaller films. Giant movie studios and the moguls who run them create incubators for talent, funding the development of risky films and supporting the rise of new talent, new concepts and new directions. When studios or executives choose to fund films that are artistic, or creative, or simply worthy, they don't expect to get their money back, and normally they don't. Games industry executives viewing this situation must feel their jaws dropping - the movie business keeps sending good money after bad? Why? Are they insane?

Of course not. It helps that movie executives are, in my own experience, much more likely to actually love their medium than videogames executives are - but more importantly, they recognise that while you might lose money on ten small projects, there's a chance that the eleventh could be the one that opens up a whole new market, creates a word of mouth phenomenon, makes your studio into the creative darling of the film world and sees a new talent explode onto the scene. Not to mention making you a great big bucket of money - and if it doesn't, well, what's a few million bucks compared to what you're going to make from that Johnny Depp and Ben Affleck starring summer blockbuster you've got lined up?

That, in essence, is why we should mourn the passing of Clover Studio. The 400 million Yen (about 2.7 million Euro) which the studio lost would have been buried in the money Capcom will inevitably make from the next Resident Evil game. Equally, Electronic Arts could easily afford to fund innovation from the proceeds of its big franchises (and letting Will Wright do a project every few years and then referring to it every time someone says the word "innovate" doesn't count), as could Ubisoft, Activision, Sega... The list goes on, until it encompasses practically every publisher in the industry.

It's counter-intuitive, and enough to make a business graduate gag - but until this industry learns to make games which it knows won't make money, this industry will always play second fiddle to every other creative industry.
---------------------------------------------------

Even with highly acclaimed games like Viewful Joe and Okami in its profile, Clover Studio still cannot make enough money to justify their continue existence.
Capcom has announce that Clover Studion will be closing down.

Look for eBook reader for Java phone

XEN -v- gK — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:33:45 +0800

I am using a Java phone, Alcatel S853, and looking for any application that let me read eBooks on it.
Preferably one that do not require me to sign-up or only accessable over the the interent. I have already tried Googling and Yahooing for one but not much success.

Does anyone have any recommendation?
Thanks.

Granado Espada English

XEN -v- gK — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:54:41 +0800

Get ready to join the beta test soon, register yourself here.
http://www.granadoespada.sg/