It's been a long time since I blogged. It's actually a good thing because left on my own devices with a PC and no MMO, there's every chance that I'd behave like a vindictive Orsimer who nevertheless worships Trinimac instead of Mauloch. It's not a good thing. Thankfully, I still have the freedom of choice as an incel. Do I want to be a supreme gentlemanor a gentleman named Zhao Yun? I'm not a saint and I know only too well the truth of Friedrich Nietzsche's famously understated advice. I don't agree with him in a lot of things, most notably whether God is dead. But I wholeheartedly appreciate his words of wisdom below nonetheless.
Suffice to say, I chose the path of Zhao Zilong instead of... well, you get the drift. There aren't many blessings in my life. This happened to be one of them.
Twitter, Nobunaga, and the national bird of Japan
Okay, so my old handphone number was already dead. What this means is be that I already got a new number. I enabled two-step verification for my Twitter account. This means I needed to update my handphone number by logging into my account. By the time I realised I needed to do so, it's too late. My number passed away before I realised it. I had two options:
1. Try to get my Twitter account back.
2. Euthanise it like the national bird of Japan.
Long story short, I decided to emulate Oda Nobunaga even though I would never agree with his modus operandi. While the link is still reflected in my Facebook profile, that didn't change the fact that the national bird of Japan is officially euthanised.
A special relationship with Singapore (no, it's not about Israel)
Do I... well, hate my country? You have those believing hatred is better than apathy but I disagree. Apathy means you decided to let go of the sword, hatred means the opposite. One must understand the difference between Judah Ben-Hur and Hamlet wasn't that of status or race. It's about the decisions made. This is also the reason why unlike some of my fellow Singaporeans, I got no issues with PM Lee's speech.
(Note to all non-Singaporean media outlets: Please don't address him as PM Loong for Stendarr's sake)
With that being said, no country is ever without its challenges and struggles. This is especially true when you're in a nation less democratic than the U.S but nevertheless having better stability. If there's anything I've seen in this side of the boundless sea, it'd be no nation is perfect. If there's anything I've seen on the other side of the endless ocean, it'd be that not every person can look far. As a victim of schoolyard democracy, however, I do feel for this article.
There's a very good reason why I felt a very strong connection to the Big Three of the Elder Scrolls world. Namely, the Nerevarine, Hero of Kvatch, and the Last Dragonborn. It's never about the prophecy. It's about the fact that their path to heroic greatness began from two factors:
1. Divine intervention. This proves that every hero has his/her own moments of actual helplessness before circumstances just like everybody especially those suffering from mental issues.
2. Effectively the Elder Scrolls' version of a low SES useless bastard. I know this sounds crass but I don't think you can deny the fact that all three of them were the Empire's equivalent of a Changi jailbird. Figuratively, this definitely applies to those wrangling with mental issues.
I really like the fact that despite the Empire being forced to look bad because of what it did to the Nerevarine, Hero of Kvatch, and Last Dragonborn, it's actually the protagonist's faction. The Empire didn't screw the Nerevarine beyond kicking his (?) Dunmer (?) backside back to his (?) equally Dunmer homeland, Azura or no Azura. For the Hero of Kvatch, let's not forget the Empire got its own bastard (i.e. 死に急ぎ野郎) in the form of Martin Septim (no Lee Hsien-Yang jokes please). As for the Last Dragonborn, we all know the Stormcloaks and Imperial Legion were equally patriotic. Alas for the Thalmor. For the Greybeards, let's just call them the true evangelicals of Tamriel. Hopefully, the likes of Pastor T, William the Pastor, Mr Lee, Mr Chin, KBS 장로, Dori Dori, Ryan, Frontline Bro, Patrick, Date Masamune, Ms Tang, and Claudia don't get to read this.
I recently discovered another video from Jim Henson's FudgeMuppet. Interestingly, I identified myself more with the Last Dragonborn even though the same goes for the other two on a lesser scale. It's not because of my DNA despite my facial features resembling either a Japanese kid adopted by a Singaporean Chinese couple or a half-Ainu guy who doesn't know the truth. It's because of Skyrim's state of pre-heroism. More specifically how grim it was. If there were songs capable of soothing the emotional scars, two of them would be readily available.
Has Rome fallen?
Recently (or not so much), news of Activision Blizzard getting sued made the headlines. This is clearly no laughing matter. Coupled with news of a pro-Frankish culture in Ubisoft Singapore, it made me ask a question which perhaps no one might have tried: Is there anything in common between the two apart from an expose ten million times more explosive than any other expose from Xiaxue?
Interestingly, I discovered both studios are based in big cities. Ubisoft is based in the suburbs of Paris while AB is based in California. You don't need to be an actual sociologist to know socio-moral values in rural areas differ greatly from that of major cities.
This is not to say rural regions don't have their own skulls and bones hidden in the moral closet. They do and you can't disagree with that. If I can take seriously the fact Singapore isn't perfect, it means I can and have to exact the same standard for every other place. After all, impartiality is a virtue I credit Singapore for when it comes to proper education. Yes, I know it's an irony. Then again, my church is my classroom. And my church is a Singaporean church. Anything wrong I did is my own doing. Anything right I'm capable of comes from an unlikely source.
It's still too early to tell whether the Rome that is World of Warcraft would self-destruct in every sense of the word. A lot hinges on not just the verdict but also the post-verdict response. Not from the people because one thing I've learnt is that you can't force people to forgive just like how you can't force someone to rescind his/her forgiveness. Rather, I'm referring to the post-verdict response from AB itself. If I want to be impartial and fair, I'd say Andrew Cuomo is possibly in far greater trouble. Whether you like them or not, politicians are expected to behave themselves instead of doing a Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. The same goes for others, but the burden of morality is surely heavy on the likes of AB while heavier for politicians. The only ones having to bear a greater moral burden than both? Evangelicals. Okay, all you radical leftists and critical theorists can hire a Serbian assassin to off my sorry existence now.
The announcement of an actual hiatus on future WoW content development was no surprise. But if this means the death of Rome, I'd be very surprised. Let me use another video game that is arguably a greater farce as a comparison: Cyberpunk 2077. The problem with Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't a sex scandal or a frat scandal. The issue with AB reflected corrosion in professional ethics, something which I'm convinced Mark "not Lee" Kern had said since day one. For Cyberpunk 2077, it's not a case of corrosion in ethics. It's more like dropping a quality bomb. For all I know, gamers are still having plenty of fun doing memes here and there. Yet, CD Projekt Red's decision not to cut and run is clearly a commercial decision instead of a few egos above deciding for the majority below. Likewise, for AB to euthanise WoW like Nobunaga euthanising the national bird of Japan would be seen as a folly. I don't think we'd see actual news within the next couple of years by my guess. But that doesn't mean nothing is going to be done under the radar. AB has no choice but to make the correct post-verdict response. Not the politically correct reactions defined by blokes getting fired over something waiting to be proven or disproven but the morally correct response expected from a corporate of this physical magnitude. Needless to say, the same goes for Ubisoft from Paris to Singapore. No matter which studio we're talking about here, let's hope no one does a Blitzchung apology. The community clearly weren't amused by that.
The near-future of MMO competitivity
If there's anything the big tech monopoly has taught us, it wouldn't be how high Jeff "not Hardy" Bezos was in outer space. Rather, it's the fact that monopoly is bad. Let's not talk about politics, let's talk about business. If there's one thing the PAP is willing to admit, it'd be that monopoly in business is bad. Just plain bad. This comes to the question of whether WoW was that monopoly before its great Roman collapse. The answer is yes. While recovery would likely take years, this means the race has been blown wide open. Imagine Manchester City dropping points like a political party giving out blank cheque after blank cheque. What do you think will happen? Apart from José "will he be Roma's Romulus?" Mourinho possibly hinting Pep "every Catalan's favourite first name" Guardiola experiencing some sort of depression, you can be very sure the chasing pack of English greyhounds are going to catch up. From the other half of Manchester and that half of Merseyside to three parts of London, that'd be quite a sight.
While the reality ahead isn't going to be that crazy, I can foresee two titles capable of exploiting the gap. Namely, Final Fantasy XIV and Elder Scrolls Online. I can't say anything for FF14 apart from the spike in player population clearly being a positive absurdity. This alone, however, means Yoshida "not Hanzawa" Naoki and his #TeamNaoki are clearly doing something right. You don't need to be a genius like Komikado Kensuke to understand it. For ESO, I can say personally that this is the best MMO I've played as a casual gamer. Update 29 made things better still by alleviating the social pressure to power climb. Replay value is top-notch. You don't need trial gear to prove yourself since there's always either A Mother's Sorrow or Leviathan for all you DPS fellows out there. And Cyrodiil is clearly more enjoyable than anything similar I tried before. There's a reason why Gwent was my first PvP experience for a very long time. I attempted Domination PvP in Neverwinter and it was horrible. For Gauntlgrym, it shouldn't have been euthanised in the first place.
Believe it or not, I scored my first PvP kill in the Cyrodiil Blackreach campaign last night despite me swearing off the whole of Imperial territory unless it's for PvE dailies or seeing what that golden cat has to offer. In case you think it's a gank, no it's not. I was being a 死に急ぎ野郎 due to my lone wolf attempt to retake Bruma from one Aldmeri Dominion player plus plenty of cover fire. This was clearly a planned takeover since no ganker would ever have the guts to do that. If there's anything a Daggerfall Covenant player can attest to, it'd be that Bruma is infamously known as that sitting duck larger than Singapore itself. Needless to say, this 死に急ぎ野郎 got his just deserts. The fact I could take down an actual PvP player instead of a ganker was more of a "WHAT THE OBLIVION?" moment than anything else. Molag Kena can be deceptively good if you got the right gear and correct front bar. Anything else more absurd than that? Daggerfall Covenant seizing second place in the Blackreach campaign I was in despite it getting owned at third place hours earlier. I don't want to speculate why this could be possible considering Daggerfall Covenant being that one faction constantly owned in the ranking across every campaign.
P.S: I'm going to end the post here. Maybe the only super long posts I should have done are A Requiem From Winter Past and the relevant lore entries.
