This comes to mind a very interesting question: If Singapore needs a hero, what kind of hero should we get? Amazingly enough, it's not Superman. Even though Singapore looks far more like a Metropolis than a Gotham City, Superman actually pointed out that the true hero of Singapore should be like...
"His parents died when he was so young. Shot. Killed right in front of him. He was raised alone. A kid in a huge mansion. With his memories of his mother and father. He had love, and they took it from him. He should be a killer. He should want to tear the world apart for what it did. And yet he took that pain. That shock of death. And he turned it into hope."
Moral of the story? You don't need to be a white knight to be a hero because the dark knight is the real knight.
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.
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.
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 twoCrazy RichAsians. The reason why John says it's a twisted fact?
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!")
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,
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?
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.
So now we're all back to The Drifting. Since John's brain now has something inside instead of one big block of blank, he may as well write every (?) word down before they evaporate.
But before John continues, he needs to play this song. The reason why being that life would never try to understand you. This comes to mind an article featuring John's fellow otters.
Recently, John L'Otter came across an interesting article featuring Señorita Cruz and the #MeToo movement. Before John continues his post, allow him to point out that complimenting a señorita won't get you into jail because no one has ever complimented Monica Baey while she was bathing. In fact, doing something like this means you're a danger to society and correct family values. But to ask any señorita to translate the video below? It depends on whether you're lowdown enough to ask about that one unwanted word.
Now to be fair, there are two types of men and DC did a very good job of making them well known.
Then you have those who are like John L'Otter.
This reminds John of a weird double whammy of 1981. A few days ago, Mr and Mrs Song announce their divorce. If you think that sounds like Mr and Mrs Smith announcing their divorce, 1981 ended up hitting the fan. An ice fan, to be exact. Now why four numbers were involved in the process is very simple: Song Hye-kyo was born in 1981, ditto for Fan Bing Bing. Quite obviously this was a freak case of freak coincidence, but if only the average casino visitor to Osaka's IR was to be that lucky. Definitely not John, though. Thankfully, there is no news of Wonder Woman splitting from Steve Trevor. It'd be disastrous if S.A.L.T. Entertainment has to announce it because that'd be like what happened to Zatanna and Nick Necro. Okay, that's going too far into the JLD end.
Hopefully, we can get to see a DCEU movie entitled Constantine starring this bloke below as the titular character.
Interesting note: Matt Ryan was also born in 1981.
In other news, John is facing a bit of a mental blank state. Most likely due to too much gaming, John L'Otter is having a few challenges trying to finish the latest edrafted chapter. The reason why being that John ended up making some changes and he didn't want things to end up going... well, berserk.
Hopefully, things can be done by the end of this week. That is, hopefully. For now, John decides to up the existing chapters. Even if it's 4 teh lolz.
On the home front, the numbers game may be getting interesting. Ask any feminist which numbers they hate and chances are that they'd say three, five, and seven. The reason why is that... well, they're quite Christian. Those knowing even a wee bit of Hebrew numerology would tell you that these three numbers are holy numbers. RICE Media is known to be pro-feminism and John recalls this article. While John isn't going to speculate whether the number seven was being used, word has it that it took a girl sharing the same name as Aragaki Yui to show Kim Kardashian how to utilise the kimono properly.
Because this should be seen as some massively positive PR for Singapore, John decides to play the Hebrew numerology game as a form of reciprocation. Actually, he's just doing this for fun.
Since G20 is being held in Osaka, John may as well invoke memories of its local castle.
Speaking of G20, will we see a consensus between the two big kahunas? While a lasting agreement is very unlikely, the chances of a temporary ceasefire are quite another story. Unless Steven Mnuchin would end up looking like Steven Lim, what the Federal Reserve did on the rate cutting might be hinting at something. Albeit no one is saying a permanent deal is possible. In fact, a successful ceasefire this weekend would (and should) be considered a shocker. Then again, the last time a temporary truce was made was N years after the salty Koreans from the north and south made a similar deal 100% immune to torpedo attacks.
As for Abe Shinzo and Xi Jinping, it'd be interesting to see how deep the thaw can go. After all, China and the entire Korean people never have a positive impression on Japan. Trade alone can only go this far since there's no way Trump could stay in the White House beyond 8 years. Long in the face of economic recession, yes. Long enough to create a lasting impact? John doubts so considering any attempt to modify a post-war constitution.
Okay, the next chapter of A Requiem From Winter Past has hit a... well, snag. The reason why?
Apart from procrastination, there's this weird lack of drive. Maybe it's due to too much gaming. Perhaps it's due to this. Mayhaps 'tis a matter of cause and effect. Either way, maybe more blogging can contribute to more writing. Who knows?
Vital announcement: John L'Otter is officially offline in Neverwinter Online
No, this is no #fakenews for your info. You're not gonna see characters like Arylos and Cyrea Durothil in this game. The reason why being that John committed the same mistake of trying new MMOs. However, there's a key difference between this and then. Back then, the gamer is encouraged to log in daily just to get/do some things. Due to John's obsessive tendency to maintain a pointless schedule, John ended up developing an obsessive tendency to see things beyond the very end. It's like being Emiya Shirou in Unlimited Blade Works, just that it's not even one-tenth as awesome.
This time around, the situation changed. Due to considerations involving the need NOT to log in daily just to do the customary stuff, John decided that Neverwinter Online is officially offline for him.
To the good people at the Legacy of Magic guild, thanks for all the help given. The same goes for the guild alliance, in particularly the occasional raid in instances like Fangbreaker Island and Cradle of the Death God where frustrations tend to be a consistent fixture due to time and practice not readily available to this typing critter.
The most American game ever?
How American is modern-day America? Whenever we talk about rights, the left got a problem with religious liberty while the right got the same problem with gender equality. When it comes to justice, freedom of choice is basically about choosing between your POC neighbour and your other neighbour's unborn child. Like how Emiya Kiritsugu understood a righteous God more than Kotomine Kirei despite being an atheist, it's possible that he also understood America more than the typical American despite being... well, a Japanese.
This comes to mind a question: Is every brand of American creativity a case of Hollywooding every possible thing under the sun, moon, and stars? After all, the X-Men series was effectively Marvel retelling the civil rights movement with names like Purifiers, William Stryker, and salty Korean involved in the entire process. Okay, not the salty Korean but you get the drift. And it's not as if the right is more correct than the left.
Thankfully, things may not be the case here. While it's very likely that Hollywood ended up winding up the conservatives via works like Noah and Mother! like Cristiano Ronaldo winding up Wayne Rooney more than 10 years ago, there's something about DC which doesn't feel that... well, socio-political.
To be fair, John was first acquainted with Marvel. In fact, it's very likely that John knows more about Deadpool compared to Deathstroke. And yes, that part proved to be one of those quirky moments involving the famous Marvel-DC rivalry with Captain Marvel saying Shazam! as another such moment. It wasn't until he got his paws on DC Universe Online that things change.
In America, it's always either you choose the left or right when it comes to utilising the controversial parts as fuel for creativity. Use the conservative bias of others and you'll be called a war hero. If it's the other way around, you're a superhero. Choose both and people won't respect an ally of justice.
Not so for DC. In this sense, they're more daring than Marvel. A classic example of this would be the Gorilla Grodd where Darwinism wasn't the best way to save the world. Actually, it is never the correct way.
Then you have DC angering PETA and radical feminists via Poison Ivy.
At the same time, it remains to be seen whether DC will be sued for demonising sin and beings with horns.
No need for the daily log-in
One of the key aspects of DC Universe is that you don't have to log in daily to get stuff. That's good news for John since he doesn't have a normal human being's ability to manage time. Simply put, John would be given more time and space doing his own stuff albeit only in theory until proven 100% true. Of course, exceptions do exist. Like the Bonus Stabiliser weekend event.
This resulted in the line separating the casual gamer from the more hardcore type. The latter has got no problem gaming more often while one wouldn't see the former logging in on a daily basis. Effectively, this is the Daybreakers' way of saying "you have a choice and we're not going to play mind games just to make sure you log in on a daily basis". This is NOT to say that other MMOs are operating like a dictator. After all, you're still given the choice whether or not to do so. But did DC Universe make things easier? The answer is yes. At the end of the day, it takes a visual creature to understand another visual creature.
Some tips (?) for the casual gamer
Is gaming addiction a psychological disorder? Apparently, the WHO assumed the role of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung by saying yes. Be it psychology or psychiatry, Freud or Jung, gaming can easily turn a hobby into something else truly scary. At the same time, however, this also brings forth the question of whether the Korean remake of Scary Movie has anything in common with the fact that Taeyeon got groped years ago. Seriously, the groping part was real because John L'Otter does have the memory of a Manchester elephant.
This is not to say the Daybreakers at Daybreak are a bunch of charitable ladies and gentlemen. No one should ever say retrenchment in Singapore is a myth just because retirement in Singapore is... well, a myth since expiry age is more real than retirement age. In other words, Daybreak has been doing the very same things Singaporean employers have been doing since day one. At the end of the day, it's very likely that the Daybreakers were merely thinking out of the box in terms of business decisions. But that's good enough for the typical Korean and pseudo-Korean.
When it comes to pre-30 level content, you're most likely going to experiment with stuff just to see what works for you. This results in the AI fairly easy to take down. Case in point: Running around with a rifle here involves bringing down a non-boss target in a matter of shots numbering less than 5 or so. At the same time, an effective AoE close range attack is more than enough to wipe out any mob. The real challenge comes once Batman and his dual-faced (ex) BFF requests your aid in bringing down Danny DeVito and a kleptocrat (Note: The correct definition of a kleptocrat is unrelated to a Democrat in the same way kleptocracy is unrelated to democracy). That'd be when your combat rating goes like 40 or so after your character's level hit the ceiling. But even then, that's only two one-shot quests given. Simply put, what are the things you can do post-level 30? This is where the one-player instance raid content comes in.
Every week, you can complete up to 5 (if John remembers correctly) tier 1 single-player raid instance queue. This would drop a weekly reward box per run (note that weekly loot doesn't drop more than once in any specific raid). In fact, it's possible that the weekly reward box would drop in any instance raid from single player to the eight-player format. While the loot tends not to be at the higher end (at least for the single player ones), sometimes Harvey Dent does win the coin toss in the form of better gear instead of base decoration items. At the same time, better gear has a higher drop rate when it comes to winning any boss fight and completing the raid. This means you'd get at least two loot drops instead of one once per week. It depends on how many bosses you have to fight.
This gives casual gamers something to do without risking their daily schedule or whatever stuff they plan to do within the current 24 hours. Only have time for 15 minutes or so? Just run a single-player raid. If you're good enough, 15 minutes shouldn't be a problem. Have time for more but not wanting to screw up your time management? You can run just about any combination of single-player and two-player content (note that DCUO's equivalent of a dungeon crawl involves at least 4 players). Maybe 3 or 4.
Now it must be stated that DCUO involves a lot of grinding. While this is something other MMOs would always do (especially the F2P ones due to a business model concept very different from their subscription payment counterparts), there's something tactical about DCUO when it comes to getting things done. It's not that significant on a pre-30 level basis since combat for John was more about messing around with the controls without getting knocked out. Unlike Neverwinter where the combat system thrives on creating and maintaining the dps momentum, combat in DCUO involves harder-to-kill AI and knowing what to do when something like zerging comes. As a result, dps pace is more about the cards you have than the cards you play. In turn, this makes the combat pacing slower.
So does that mean you won't die that easily? It depends.
The art of counter-attacking
Counter-attacking is a matter of tactical art. Whatever this means. It's like Jon Snowgate trying to make Middlesbrough great again ever since Jeor Moggamont became a part of northern history. You can't win games by relying on attacking teams like Barcelona. Because it's not going to work once Martin O'Neill parks his Irish bus. And you know it's going to happen.
Pre-30 level difficulty wise, breaking free from control effects shouldn't be an issue since it wouldn't happen that often. And by that, it still happens often enough. A taste of what it's like on the higher end would be running the raid version of bringing down Mr Sinestro. That'd involve a two-player run plus the sexiest Canuck alive wearing green. Or at least something like that.
The so-called control-breaking involves pressing only one key. Namely, Shift. Needless to say, you can tweak the key binding settings to suit your style. So being too used to playing Neverwinter shouldn't be an excuse. After all, you can change from Shift to Tab.
Why John mentions this is very important: Your next move after control-breaking will affect the offensive momentum. In tactical speak, it's called staging a counter-offensive. For John, a jailbreak counter-offensive involves a two-attack sequence intended to nuke the surrounding enemies. More specifically, it's Vortex Trap>Karmic Backlash. Works well so far if John says so himself.
A tip for Jon Snowgate(?)
The final part involves something John L'Otter discovered post-level 30. If he remembers it correctly, that should be somewhere while busting Danny DeVito at level 43 (i.e. applicable only to him and the kleptocrat for now).
At this point, John has devised a simple way of right clicking. Initially, holding down the right mouse button would result in the rifle firing an endless barrage. Then the fun part arrived: Holding down the forward button and backward button. The latter would result in either a backflip barrage or mortar shells raining down like fire, fury, and brimstone. As for the former, it's rolling forward and firing a short barrage of artillery resulting in the target being stunned.
The backflip barrage is not just a simple jailbreak tactic. Moving forward after that, pulling off a Vortex Trap>Karmic Backlash would be 100% doable. It's like Jon Snowgate staging a counter-offensive by breaking up play at the defensive area only to play a swift two-pass move. First pass backwards and a long pass forward. To pull that off, however, the backline needs to have nerves of Teesside steel. So will Dael Fry be our Boy of Steel?
Raining down mortar fire, fury, and brimstone has to be the worst way to play football. The number one rule to the classic British strategy is this: You don't have to try it in order to knock it. One might say it's a miracle for John to fall asleep only after 45 minutes of Martin O'Neill's British football when Aston Villa was still in the top flight. Which was exactly what happened. John means the sleeping part, not the miracle. But if Jon Snowgate got no choice but to defend his Winterfell... well, beggars can't be choosers. Last time John did a check, a certain Mr Lee was still sighted in the city of Bristol.
John believes Ryan the Shotgun is still around. Just sayin'.
The forward roll tactic is arguably the fun part. Positionally speaking, this could be seen as the advanced version of Oda Nobunaga's 2nd Amendment tactics. How this works is very simple:
1. Stand and fire.
2. Hold forward while the artillery is still going off.
3. Move accomplished, target stunned.
4. Pause for a split, then perform step 2 again.
5. Once close enough, do a Karmic Trap (i.e. Vortex Trap>Karmic Backlash area nuke).
Steps 1 to 3 should be enough to take down any lower level target. At most, just right-click to pop an arching shell to end that fellow. In terms of crowd clearing, that'd be steps 1 to 5.
For Jon Snowgate, that'd look like securing possession via the backline with the midfield covering the defensive space in front. Sounds like a defensive tactic? Just play the ball forward to the midfield without the need to launch the Anglo-Saxon cannons. Once the midfield receives the ball, control the game with it via one-quarter of the pitch. Compact approach, yes. Long ball strategy, no. There's a reason why we need to secure the presence of Marcus Tavernier and Lewis X-Wing. As for George Jr, just plaster him at the other side of the midfield since Tavernier is a lefty. As for the Karmic Trap, that requires Huge Jordan and Big Bad Britt. Oh wait, would that be overly cavalier? Maybe Jon Snowgate should opt for a 4-4-2 since formation doesn't tell you anything beyond possibilities of approach.
P.S: Switching off now. And two more videos from DCUO and John's personal favourites.
Finally, a new PC had arrived. Simply put, John L'Otter is now back and... well, returning to his otter self. Come 1st June, the Great English Bash will be on. And that's not considering the Europa League finale as well. So yeah, it's truly the Great English Bash. Not to be confused with the Great British Bash featuring two English teams, one Welsh team, and either team from the Scottish capital of Scottish football. Bummer that Brendan Rodgers chose not to stay a wee bit longer despite the presence of Stevie G at the other side of Old Firm.
Hopefully, John can restart his history engine. After all, Johnny Chinese has yet to reach its end. Thankfully, John doesn't have to namedrop politicians at least for the next part. Don't thank John for this, go thank the ex-boss of the U.S before the bossed became the boss.
In other news, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri might have given John some inspiration. Unlike Monica Baey versus NUS, this one may be for real. That is, a maybe.
If this goes ahead, it means there's a need to tweak things.
What this post is all about
In a past post, John mentioned something about fighting Arcturia. But there's a problem. While John didn't recall Arylos having the need to move and fire (seriously, it's like Rapid Shot all the way), fighting the same person with a Sentinel barbarian ended up the other way. Literally. This was further confirmed by a fellow guild alliance member where said member mentioned that he/she couldn't win the fight with a Soulbinder warlock.
The reason behind this annoyance was due to two factors:
1. Arcturia could conjure black holes on the ground at an insanely high rate.
2. She could also conjure black briars from the ground to drain your AP gauge 100%.
Factor 2 meant slowing down the dps momentum since you'd either need a daily power to deal large bursts of damage or keeping you alive. Factor 1 was the reason why it's very easy to lose the fight. The black hole wasn't intended as a dps move, but rather as a foolproof strategy to break up the dps momentum so that she could dictate the dps race instead of you.
This resulted in a weird situation where melee and healing classes were effectively screwed. For healers, the dps wouldn't be high enough since fighting Arcturia has been all about dealing more damage than her at a faster rate. As for melee classes, the butterfly cloud would just pull off an insanely high level of damage over time. This also meant the melee dps momentum would break as well. To summarise why Arcturia seemed to be unplayable unless you go in with a party, her gameplay mechanic hinged on high dps and the ability to reverse the flow of damage dealing via disruption attacks.
Which now comes to why Arylos could pull off a victory despite the obvious. There are only two possibilities.
1. The devs reviewed the difficulty level. In fact, they've been doing this since mod 7 and we're already at mod 16.
2. Either nothing much or nothing was changed. In short, there's a way to prevent her from pulling off her WMD (i.e. Weapons of Mass Disruption).
More than one way to do it?
The most straightforward way to complete the Arcturia boss quest would be getting one to two players to form a party. In fact, that's how John managed to seal the coup. More specifically, it's Sentinel+Warlock (Hellbringer?)+Arbiter cleric.
The reason why a three-member party should be good enough despite the difficulty level in any private instance being scaled according to the party size is very simple: Combat advantage and Arcturia's abysmal defence. In fact, John originally intended a tank+ranged dps two-member party since he's not thinking about whether a third alliance member would volunteer to help. Suffice to say, the first few tries while going solo didn't work out at all. Let alone not working out fine. This resulted in doing a lfg involving one warlock and an Arbiter cleric.
Because John has to work tomorrow, John is gonna make this short. Hopefully, that is.
Not exactly foolproof (?)
Disclaimer: This plan may or may not work. Whatever you'll see here would be a case of theory based on personal observation. If you don't feel like testing it. you can just put up a lfg request. In fact, that's what guild alliances are there for.
Fighting Arcturia is effectively a case of coming up with the correct strategy. Unless you can come up with an effective damage dealing strategy, any moment of tactical brilliance will be nothing more than a moot. Since it's impossible to break her dps momentum, the only way is to break her disruption game. Which of course is something easier said than done.
But before that, it's highly advisable to summon a ranged dps companion. If your companion is either melee based or healing based, chances are you're screwed. Especially the former. John tried that. It didn't work at all. If possible. summon a level 25 Batiri Runt. For a green rank dps companion, that son of a batiri does have a very good dps game against bosses since Chief Killer could be unlocked without upgrading it to blue. If for some reason you don't have one, summon any green rank dps companion so long it's a ranged dps type. Wayward Wizard would be a good budget choice since you only need at most 50K astral diamonds to upgrade. Since Siege of Neverwinter event is now on, you can also choose to do five daily event quests in the siege warzone to get a Neverember Guard Archer. And besides, that one is auto-bind unless you get her via the event box costing 7 medals each.
The funny thing about using a ranged dps companion is this: There's actually a decent chance of Arcturia being kited away from the butterfly cloud. At least this would be the case for that son of a batiri. But it's very likely that any ranged dps companion could pull it off since it'd be terribly stupid to see your plan falling apart just because you don't have that one in a million companion. This isn't a joke. John actually tested it accidentally since the Cambion companion was doing effectively nothing due to being inside the butterfly cloud.
Once you get the companion part working, then you have to reconfigure your move set. Feats be damned, just go for effective single-target high damage output. There are two ways to do it. The most straightforward way would be putting her under the dps pressure cooker. Moves like Magic Missile and Rapid Shot are examples of dps pressure cooker bread-and-butter. But since not every class can thrive on a rapid-fire strategy, an alternative would be going for high one-shot damage, after which you just use a single-target at-will to take her down. A good example of that would be Brazen Slash where it's fast to come out and highly damaging for an at-will. In fact, John wouldn't be surprised if any fighter build can pull it off in any fight since there are now plenty of AoE options available. One-shot damage game is particularly important for any tanking build here since the high damage options available are severely limited. In fact, using Come And Get It would be the dumbest thing any Sentinel could do in this fight. And John was actually dumb enough to do that and equally dumb enough to realise a few days later that this was nothing less than a stupid strategy. So what if his Sentinel got the Extended Unstoppable feat? That didn't stop Arcturia.
Below are recommendations for those who want to experiment on their light bulbs like an Edison. Note that John is only going to put 1 daily, 1 encounter, 1 at-will, and two class features as examples here:
Sentinel: Crescendo (highest damage daily power), Primal Fury (no cooldown so long you got enough Rage), Sentinel's Slash (use Sure Strike if under Unstoppable), Steady Rage and Threatening Presence (for aggro pulling)
Justicar: Divine Judgement (highest damage daily power with fast startup animation), Bane (even better if you got Baneful Strikes feat), any at-will power apart from Radiant Strike post-Sacred Weapon, Binding Oath+Aura of Vengeance (for maximum damage reflect)
Vanguard: Blade Rampart (since the butterfly cloud auto-damages anybody within range), Anvil of Doom (magnitude 680), Brazen Strike (insanely high damage for a fast hitting at-will), Combat Superiority (higher Constitution=more AP generated+Blade Rampart)
Soulbinder: Brood of Hadar (insanely high damage escalation), Harrowstorm (continual damage so long the soul sparks keep coming), Essence Defiler (refer to Harrowstorm), Prince of Hell (because you most likely need that 2.5K armour penetration)
Devout: Guardian of Faith (only if you got Persistent Guardian Feat), Exaltation+Geas (20% damage bonus+damage reduction debuff+Blessed Armaments feat), Sacred Flame (because it's the only useful damage at-will for Devouts), Pilgrim's Light (contingency tactic since your companion would most likely get knocked out a few times), Towering Light feat (if you want to take risks by reducing the frequency of healing to the minimum. Not recommended unless you got Exaltation)
Oathkeeper: Either Divine Judgement or Sanctuary (depends on whether you're a risk taker since this one is a healadin), Banishment>Sacred Weapon>Divine Fulmination (endless damage spam), Guarded Prayers (in case you need to pop a healing potion for whatever reason).
P.S: Ending this now. Yes, John knows it's abrupt. But seriously, he doesn't blog for a living because he's just another otter albeit being a sea otter instead of a river otter.
