Forever questing (?) Pt 1

Okay, John believes he's not going back to Neverwinter in the long run at least. The reason why? This sounds terribly like what a Republican Don might do, but John did feel restless after doing all that needed to be done in DCUO. After all, there's a serious need to finish the latest edrafted chapter for A Requiem From Winter Past. Seriously, he's now at the final lap which should be very easy for him to clear. But at least it's a good thing that John doesn't have to credit Monica Baey for accidentally spurring him on to resume/continue writing a fantasy novel where God doesn't exist (something which the Japanese are surprisingly good at unlike those from the Western Hemisphere). Nevertheless, John stumbled upon a song which suited the chapter decently well. Also, it felt very weird that John actually came across a Facebook post having something to do with the currently edrafted chapter.

John L'Otter was truly as restless as Don L'Républicain. As a result, he started swimming and/or drifting for a free MMO to sate his thirst/hunger/both. Of course, he could have settled for Neverwinter. But after what happened for 5 years in a row, that'd be going back to square one. After all, there's a reason why John bailed out on stuff like TERA, Rift, League Of Angels 3, and Path Of Exile (seriously, that one had to be the most insane MMO John ever played). Going back to any of these would be no different from going back to Neverwinter. Simply put, maybe, JUST maybe, John would find it easier to rein himself in if it's a brand new game since the pressure to continue from where he last left off wouldn't be there. Seriously, John was truly as wrong as the Don.

So why the post title? Long story short, John decided to try out Everquest. Not Everquest but Everquest 2. Quite obviously, this had nothing to do with the Daybreakers. Otherwise, John would have already tried Star Trek Online since it's done by the same studio responsible for Neverwinter.

Funnily enough, the first time John came across Everquest was during an era where the internet was being owned by noisy modems and 3rd world connectivity by today's standards. If John recalls it correctly, that was at a Popular bookstore. You'd imagine seeing only books there. Today, we're seeing this.

The reality for John more than 10 years ago, however, was this.

When Everquest came out, it was 1999. When John L'Otter saw elven cleavage, Everquest 2 had yet to say hi. Because John didn't want to spend N hours trying to work things out by dying N times while satisfying his inner fantasy geek (must have been caused by the Singaporean education system), he felt that the first game featuring a set of elven boobs wasn't for him. The feedback he got was that you'll have to be as hardcore as the protagonist of Full Metal Melayu to weather all the challenging stuff there. Because John had to decline the role of Rahmat Rempit, the next best option would be the second game featuring... well, the same set of things. Apologies to every Rahmat, Bin Rahmat, and Binte Rahmat for the Rahmat Rempit joke. If you're not a Malay, then you don't have to know who is Mat Rempit.

How Daybreak makes its $$$

Before John gets started on Everquest 2, allow him to analyse how Daybreak makes its USD apart from converting the Russian ruble to American greenback. Seriously, 2016 was truly a political supernova in ways more than one.

If there's anything John noticed about both DC Universe Online and Everquest 2, it'd be that they're running on a similar revenue model. Now it must be noted that before the Daybreakers made another DC universe (seriously, you think only Marvel and Nasu Kinoko were good at doing a multiverse?), Everquest 1 and 2 were already done and released. Not by the Daybreakers but SONE. Unrelated to a SONE, SONE refers to Sony Online Entertainment. However, as of 2015, SONE no longer existed. This was due to those big kahunas at Sony Interactive Entertainment deciding to sell the studio. Apparently, they prefer Tifa to an unnamed elven mage.

Okay, the history lesson is over and now back to the present. When it comes to making $$$ in the F2P industry, unpleasant decisions may have to be made. And when John said unpleasant, he's not referring to this because this is called an act of stupid behaviour, not unpleasant. Neither is he referring to this because this is called an act of criminal behaviour. When John said unpleasant, it means making decisions that could risk either angering the fans or making people questioning whether the big kahunas upstairs were smoking weed during meetings. While you can say it's a Trumpish hyperbole, the fact remains that the Daybreakers pulled off a risky move that could have ended like Jeff Hardy throwing himself onto a table. That actually happened a lot whenever the Dudley Boyz or Edge and Christian were involved in the fight.

The intuitive approach would be giving the gamers the freedom to choose whether and how much to spend. The Daybreakers chose to go the other direction. Namely, choosing between whether or how much. In DCUO, the rule is very simple: If you want to get more gameplay content, pay. Otherwise, you can only play like half of the content available. For Everquest 2, the law was more lenient as in paid content comes in the form of bonus aspects of the gameplay rather than the content itself. Stuff like pets/familiars and mercenaries are now under the paid category. Visual customisation is also paid content. Arguably the greatest bummer of them all? Transfer of characters from one server to another. This is very notable because unless your characters are on the same server, they can't share bank slots. Either that, the same starting city, or both. Given what John deduced from the Daybreakers' aggressive revenue model, he wouldn't be surprised if bank sharing is certified paid content.

The Daybreakers were nothing short of counter-intuitive. Instead of assuming casual gamers willing to pay to play, it's possible they assumed the other way around. Namely, gamers beyond the casual category are the ones who pay to play. It's not that difficult to understand this logic once you realise people paid to play Final Fantasy 7 for a reason. If you're a casual gamer, chances were that you're not going to spend time and money watching Aerith die. If you want to see the most shocking moment of the game, there's the internet. And then there's also YouTube. But if you're a gamer beyond the casual category, you don't need to be a hardcore gamer to play this.

Of course, it must be pointed out that those guilty gears at Grinding Gear never gave a damn to casual gamers dying in order to learn. Talk about forcing casual gamers to fight like a Sol Badass.

Yes, this is the theme of Sol Badass aka the Freddy Mercury of Japanese anime.

To learn, one must die

Thankfully, the reality in Norrath was that death merely means a literal respawn. This isn't a Deadpool joke. Try interacting with an NPC on the relevant info and you'll see. This info may or may not be available at New Halas, though. John is currently running two characters for the sake of bank sharing. Turned out that only a female Human Berserker resembling a wee bit like Emilia Clarke as in her Daenerys look was given the info. This was at Queen's Colony fyi btw. The Half-elf Fury wasn't that lucky. Then again, the info was most likely for show unless you want to know something about XP debt and revival sickness.

Learning stuff in Everquest 2 is never about relying on dummy proof tutorials. 15 years ago when this game came out, the developers most likely never believed in childproof and padded learning. This is NOT to say modern day MMOs are for idiots. Rather, times change and people change. Ever wonder why a hero could become a jailbird?

If you want to know how gamers find ways to get past fights, quests, and bosses to get the best possible loot 15 years ago, you have no choice but to play their own game(s). Expecting them to play your game(s) 15 years later from 2004 means you're most likely going to be laughed at. In the comedian Brad Upton's own logic, they played with guns, knives, and fireworks while the dumb ones didn't make it. In fact, it's unbelievable that Everquest 2 is still surviving since 2004. Not surprisingly, Everquest 2 (and Everquest 1) had to make certain tweaks in order to stay relevant. Originally going by the paid subscription format, one could say that World of Warcraft changed the MMO industry in ways more than one. Who'd have imagined during 2004 that the F2P industry would end up playing the upstart?

To lower your frequency of #respawnlol, you must know what you're doing. You can't just do a half-baked move set and expect to have a decently easy time. Know what your moves can do for the next step, be it healing, buffing, controlling, and attacking. If one whole row of moves can confuse you, then settle for a two-move strategy where you can have something stable to work from. A classic example of this would be the Berserker, Emilia Clarke or no Emilia Clarke. But if you think John's main is female Human Berserker resembling a real-life Khaleesi, you're wrong. Using a Fury can be an enjoyable learning experience, if not sometimes a frustrating one.

If you're running as a fighter build, mana drain isn't much of an issue. In fact, it's quite likely that power cooldown for fighters tends to be longer than the caster type. This would explain why using a Fury felt very different from using a Berserker. But hey, that's how we learn both in real life and gaming. No one likes making mistakes unless said mistake is no mistake at all. The second part happened to be a very common argument made by lawyers, politicians, and everyone else in the world by the way. We always make mistakes. no matter what, how, when, and where. In Everquest 2, making mistakes can easily result in debt, sickness, and damaged gear. If this isn't an incentive for people to start learning via hard knocks, John doesn't know what else is.

Slot in the wrong move? Then die>respawn>restart.

High mana usage frequency in battle? Then die>respawn>restart

Not defensively good enough? That depends.

Not wanting/learning to use your Heroic Opportunity? Seriously, you really have to. It took a bit of messing around with a Berserker alt to realise this. Thankfully, fighters are the most robust ones in any battle, Khaleesi or no Khaleesi. John wouldn't have said this had he not create an alt for fun and bank sharing.

Sounds good, but will it work?

Thankfully, there's nothing much for John to focus on for DCUO. This means there's a chance of him doing DCUO dailies/weeklies twice per week with Everquest being played twice a day as well. At the very most, three days per game. And besides, there's a need to clear the tier 1 crafting stuff.

P.S: Gonna try a stunt to see whether it's possible to... well, you can watch this space. John really needs to say something about Heroic Opportunities. And it's really very important.

The Drifting (8th Jul 2019)

In today's drifting, John decides to first bring up a matter involving Hollywood, Chicago, and the coincidental fact that these two things are related to the Democrats. Otherwise known as the Full Metal Straitjacket, an accident might have exposed how terribly unfixed racism still is in the U.S. But how great is the problem exactly? Is it racism or tribalism? Or maybe one word is just another version of the other for all we know.

It's an absolute irony that it took a white guy to point out the other side of tribalism. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska did himself no disfavour by pointing out that tribalism is, in fact, what we are not instead of who we think we are. Simply put, identity politics may well be an actual case of identity crisis if we're to go by Ben's Logic. It also means the examples below aren't necessarily examples of tribalism:

I am a Democrat because I support Clinton.

I am a Republican because I support Trump.

I am a Sinkie because I kenna buang by the government.

I am a foreign talent because I kenna imported by the government.

Rather, the below examples may be a more accurate version of tribalism:

I am not a Gael.

I am not a Pict.

I am not a Breton.

I don't support Boston Celtics.
I don't detest bandung and ondeh ondeh, therefore I'm not a racist. Seriously, the original version of Full Metal Straitjacket was 100% made in Singapore, not Chicago.

Jokes aside, John L'Otter can't help but wonder whether the reason behind the tribalism plaguing his fellow otters blessed with a different DNA is due to statements like "I am not a PAP supporter!", "I am not an opposition supporter!", and "I don't support white men taking our local women, be they Chinese, Malay, Indian, or Eurasian!". It's like Stanley Kubrick saying "I am not an Asian!". A case of one reaction resulting in another, hence the two faces of tribalism? Wait, this sounds like the tale of Harvey Dent.

But perhaps the most twisted joke Hollywood has to offer was never about anything Stanley Kubrick pulled off, be it Full Metal Jacket or A Clockwork Orange. Rather, it's the fact that a scene featuring Iron Man and another Ben was more than capable of pointing out the relationship between stupidity and the stupid per defined by the entire Full Metal Straitjacket episode.

The irony of the aftermath couldn't be any less or more evident.

Twisted fact: The wife of Amadeus Arkham actually shared the same name as two Crazy Rich Asians. The reason why John says it's a twisted fact?

Seriously, is this some kind of irony?

Now it must be stated that the whole Full Metal Straitjacket episode wasn't the reason behind today's edition of The Drifting. Rather, it was because John feels like upping this song here instead of Facebook.

Now onto the next part. But before John L'Otter does that, allow him to up an inspirational video to his fellow local otters even though he's nothing more than the only sea otter in an island full of river otters. After all, plenty has been said about the SPGs, be they Chinese, Malay, Indian, or Eurasian.

John's note: Apologies to all local Singaporean girls who happened to be associated with cats especially black cats. Doesn't matter whether you're Chinese, Malay, Indian, or Eurasian.

The next part of this post involved something John did months ago. Originally, it's possible that the Honshu guy in this photo was the Emperor Shōwa. In reality, it couldn't have been him.

The most tell-tale sign of this person NOT being Hirohito lies in the eyebrows. Go Google for his photos and you'll notice the difference in the eyebrows. Don't believe John?

Fyi this was taken from Wikipedia.

The guy holding hands (?) with a little bear had arching eyebrows. Hirohito, on the other hand, had straight eyebrows. At the same time, the facial outline was different. Hirohito had a more oval shape than the unknown guy. The only thing in common would be the hairstyle, but then again you also get to see it in Yu Yu Hakusho in the form of Urameshi Yusuke. Based on the two factors, it's impossible for that unknown individual to be an Emperor (in)famous for starting a war. Oh, and there's the width of nasal bridge as well.

This comes to mind two interesting questions:

1. Who from mainland Japan would have the guts to feature himself in a photo together with an ethnic minority not regarded as Japanese since the Meiji era?

2. Assuming that guy got the guts to pull it off, why were the old Ainu couple daring enough to feature themselves in the kind of photo that could get themselves into unwanted trouble?

Relationship between the Yamato and Ainu were never good. In fact, it remains to be seen how much ground would Ainu indigenous rights cover after next year's Olympics. During the Tokugawa era, life was better for those people despite things going out of control at times. Then again, there's a reason why indigenous rights remain more than just a Japanese issue. Once the Meiji era kicked in, that's where things went terribly wrong. Unlike the previous era lasting for a whopping 264 years, the Ainu were denied the right to their ethnic identity. In other words, the identity crisis was very real since the definition of being Japanese shifted from the geographical to the racial. In fact, the first breakthrough for indigenous rights came only around 2008 where you couldn't blame the political pundits for being baffled over something no one would expect the government to do. But even then, it took the nation a whopping 11 years to make the next step. Actually, it's far more practical to expect the government not to do anything after 11 years and beyond.

It makes one wonder how life was like for ethnic minorities during an era where the closest thing to a selfie would be a monochrome photograph. And that's not considering the fact that nothing was said about the Ryukuans.

To further verify whether this particular monochrome wefie was something happening once in a red moon instead of once in a blue moon, John did a brief Google image search with the relevant keywords. The outcome?

In other words, everyone involved in the monochrome wefie was playing with fire except the bear. Then again, a bear isn't a human being. For the tourist (let's assume him to be one for the sake of convenience), how would his own people feel? ("You dishonour family! You no Japanese!") For the elderly Ainu couple, what would their own people say? ("You dishonour community! You no Ainu!")

Now John isn't about to assume the photo having something to do with the progress of indigenous rights in Japan made so far, no matter how little. That'd be very dangerous. If the salty Koreans are able to hire lawyers to defend their celebrities from internet rumours, then to quote a certain MP Low...

But can John try speculating why this monochrome wefie existed in the first place? Well, he can try even though he's not Batman. Again, let's assume the guy was just a typical tourist since his facial features already proved he's not the Emperor Shōwa.

To know what is possible shown through the supposedly impossible, there must be key details to work from. So is there any such detail giving us an inkling to why? Interestingly enough, the answer may be a yes,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people#Military_Service

Now it must be stated that unless there's either a green or locked symbol, anything coming from Wikipedia can either be true, untrue, or semi-true. But let's assume the above portion is more or less factually correct. Otherwise, there's no point doing this detective work like a chimp.

There's only one area to look at. Namely, the Russo-Japanese War. One intriguing aspect of the Wikipedia article pointed out that two Ainu guys were given the Order of the Golden Kite. So what exactly is that thing? It's the only known military order award in Japan. Now, you won't get to see it today for a very good reason: Japan raised its own flag minus the red centre in 1945.

Considering the discrimination being faced on a daily basis plus the fact that the Yamato has always been the overwhelming ethnic majority, you can't blame people for wondering what's so special about those two Ainu guys. In fact, it should be a natural thing to have two more Yamato guys getting the award rather than two Ainu guys getting the same honour as so many Yamato guys out there. Can you imagine two black guys getting the same honour as so many white guys out there in the Confederation?

But the fact was, the Japanese did make the kind of decision that would make any Confederate general cringe. Now what does this have to do with the detective work involving the monochrome wefie, you may ask. Okay, John is going to try explaining it from the military perspective here.

You have 64 Ainu guys fighting in a war which Japan won despite suffering a higher body count than the Russians. On the first glance, that's crazier than William Sherman operating behind the enemy lines with little to no backup. But if he's still alive, he'd tell you it's possible. So how was that made possible?

The Russo-Japanese War wasn't just a crowning moment for Japanese nationalism leading the entire nation to be pro-war until two A-bombs were dropped after Tokyo got bombed like Iran. It's also a war won through land battles despite the primary focus of this war was on the naval front. Sounds contradictory? Well, someone like William Sherman would point out that in any naval war where seizing dry land is vital, support from the ground is needed to sink enemy ships while providing defensive cover for their own ships. The Russo-Japanese War wasn't fought in the middle of an ocean with no dry land in sight. Rather, it's being fought closer to the coastal line than... say, the sinking of "Prince Charles". The British lost two of their big ones due to bombs dropping from the air. As for the Russians (and their Japanese counterparts), they had to deal with artillery flying from the land.

In any battle involving the infantry, the highest amount of casualties would always go to the infantry troops. To the Ah-Boys in Singapore waiting to be enlisted for NS, you may want to take note. This would be the only logical reason why Japan won the fight despite losing more men than the Russians. Because both sides knew the strategic value behind seizing the advantage of land support, it's only natural for many soldiers to die as a result. Imagine trenches, land mines, mortar shells, and the fact that either you or your bro would die come the next second. That's how cruel the reality of war is. And that's not including civilian deaths and war crimes in an era where accountability could be dodged so long you're not the loser. Actually, you can't blame Batman for disagreeing with Superman if they're to debate whether this kind of behaviour is still prevalent everywhere in this world.

This comes to mind an important question: Under this kind of circumstances, how in Izanami's Yomi was the famous (?) Unit 64 able to retain 56 of their numbers? The natural assumption should be Unit 64 being annihilated in what might be the most brutal one-year war in human history. That's unless Izanagi was protecting them. Or maybe Susanoo got nothing better to do ever since he got himself a wife by saving her from a giant snake.

Strategically speaking, it's possible that frontline deployment didn't involve Unit 64. In any war, commanders are needed. From the second lieutenants to the generals and admirals, those guys need protection. And since Unit 64 had to be under someone's command, it's only a question of whether their big bro was a second lieutenant or a bigger shot.

If it's indeed true that Unit 64 was responsible for the safety of its commanding officer, that'd mean an inhumane level of trust must be involved. The commander couldn't say "KONO HITO DE NASHI!!!" at them while they couldn't say the Ainu equivalent of this quote as well. Otherwise, it wouldn't just be eight of them gone from this world. And besides, who would protect the commander if he got ambushed by a party of big Russian bastards unless there's a group of sixty-four equally big bastards protecting him?

(Note: While John L'Otter has to shoulder responsibility for using the B-word, the foreign talent from Australia were responsible for inventing it.)

Assuming that Unit 64 was convinced that their commander was far less a Meiji era Yamato and much more of a Tokugawa bro (not that the big bro was really a descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu), having two of them getting the Golden Kite Award would make actual sense. All that's needed was for the commander to put up a good word or two while hoping Susanoo would favour them due to his perceived character.

This comes back to that unknown and unnamed Yamato guy in the photo. So was he that Bro of Unit 64? John truly doubts so since the colour looks more like a post-war era defined by a post-war constitution. Of course, John may be wrong. Of course, this may have been taken earlier. Of course, John was making a baseless assumption unless the descendants of the relevant parties decide to say something. Which would be impossible unless something bigger than the current Japan-Korea political wrangling is to happen.

But what if his father was that very bro? That'd be an extremely epic wefie in an era without smartphones, Google, and Steve Jobs. Just don't ask John how that guy was able to get away with it. It's not as if anyone could address the Emperor as との instead of 陛下. Actually, you can't. That'd be no different from addressing the current Emperor as "Hey, wassup?". You can try it if you want to, but that's going to be your funeral. John may be crazy joker, but he's not the Joker.

But that'd explain why the elderly Ainu couple were able to get away with it. John means the bro part, not the Emperor.

P.S: Going back to tribalism and two sides of the same coin, Isayama Hajime might have painted a fairly accurate picture of the whole thing.