Herr Braun, on the other paw, was less generous than Der Smong but at least he didn't hit below the belt by using the term Nanyang Tongkat University.
Now why John L'Otter call this a very Singaporean week due to this incident is very simple: Remember Kevin Kwan Kong? He's Singaporean. Remember Crazy Rich Asians? That's Singaporean. Remember Jimmy Chow Yang, the son of Mr Ken Chow?
Because this particularly Singaporean episode was at least as offensive as Havas Atas Tapas versus the Super Nair Siblings, John decides to take things into his own paws. This post will contain zero Singaporean stuff. However, the videos will (hopefully) give out a vibe of positivity. After all, Daily Nas isn't the only person capable of spreading positivity.
A level results a bit rubbish? Don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and I’ve rented this place for the summer. pic.twitter.com/tJNmJNv14X
For starters, allow John to demonstrate positivity through the culture of China. As offensive as it sounds to the typical angry river otter, the below video can be very inspirational. That is if you understand Chinese. Wait, someone else already mentioned China before John.
To the river otters who only can only understand Chinese and some Hokkien vulgarities, the above song is actually Cantonese.
And yes, there are more to come and none of them is done by Singaporeans.
Note: Yellow blood in the lyrics refers to the blood of cowards. So no, there's nothing racist about it unless your English isn't good enough.
P.S: Okay, it's getting late and John's brain has started losing its functionality. Before he ends this post, allow him to post two more inspiring songs. The first is for all the romantic ones out there, the last one is for all the broken ones out there.
Seriously, they played this song during John's sister's wedding.
9th of August, National Day. John suddenly has the mind to share a video accidentally Singaporean.
The reason why John pulls off this stunt is very simple. For some funny reason, Japan has gotten "quite" obsessed with Singapore. John has to add the quotation marks for a very good reason: It's Japan where gaijin politics don't matter much. Yet, this was no excuse for Japan to showcase the correct Yui in a kimono displaying the full glory of Singapore. Weeks later, Dr Tan Cheng Bock was given a similar treatment at the hands of Nikkei Asian Review (also known as the Bloomberg-WSJ of Japan). Dated 4th of August, you may think it's no big deal. Wait till you noticed these...
1. Coverage of opposition politics in Singapore has never been the forte of the international media even though this should be even more important than what the likes of TOC, TRE, and Alex Tan said.
2. The neutral guy called Reuters last covered Dr Tan in July while Nikkei Asian Review actually posted a later version at Aug 4th.
In fact, an effort made by the unusually generous Japanese before the 5 days prior to 9th Aug was noticed by these river otters.
Moral of the story? Maybe someone should invite the big kahunas of Nikkei Asian Review for next year's NDP.
A furious Fury?
Okay, it's official. Layes Wolf*bleep* is now officially Layes Wolftree. The reason why John decided to do that was that Layes was, after all, a bastard. To give a terrible (?) analogy, such a person is NOT like a child born from a local Singaporean woman and a white foreign guy but rather a bastard born from a Japanese guy and an Ainu woman. If this sounds offensive, please understand that Rhaegar can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of a Yamato while Lyanna can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of an Ainu. Hence, Jon Snow can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of a... Yamainu?
Anyway, Viaa Bellerouge was intended to be seen as a daughter of nobility. Quite obviously, she didn't agree with her parents on the social straitjacket (i.e. something that Antonia Bayle was immune to for obvious reasons). But that doesn't mean the name of Bellerouge shouldn't be used. As for Wolftree, it's equally obvious that this is an English last name, unlike Viaa's French last name. Thank you, all you Western European sons of a Germanic gun. You made John L'Otter recognise the difference between a high-class name and a middle to low-class name.
While this post is mostly about his experience of using a Fury, it's possible that he may add in a few bits on using a Paladin. To cut short the chase, is Fury a viable choice for first-timers? Below are two links which may make you think twice before investing your time, life, and possibly money on the A-bomb class.
The biggest challenge in using a Fury is this: You need to play like Batman instead of Superman.
We all know what Goblin Slayer and the Notorious UBG are famous for. Apart from traumatising people with graphic content (for some funny reason, the Japanese are very good at that. Just askIsayama), there's the Japanese Batman trope. Case in point: Goblin Slayer is the epic fantasy Batman while Emiya Kiritsugu is the contemporary fantasy Batman. Wait, does that make John an ally of justiceor an anti-rape vigilante?
Apologies to the river otters who keep black cats at home. You're definitely not Guts.
One thing John noticed about the relationship between survivability and playing a Fury is the fact that you really need to have a staple control move that either slows down the enemy or (better still) immobilise that fellow. The reason why is that the risk of using a Fury lies in fast mana usage and being less than ideal on the defensive side. While being a Priest class, Druids can't wear full metal jackets. This makes them less bulletproof than guys and girls like Templars and Inquisitors. While being able to wear leather armour, they're not Scouts (i.e. they can't dodge like Bruce Lee on exobytes). It's quite obvious then to see that any defensive aspect lies in the buffing. For Wardens, this shouldn't be an issue since this is the defensive half of the druidic coin. For a Fury, it's healing and... more healing? That is unless you opt for a slow/stop-and-destroy strategy. But there's another problem...
No nukes for you until you're old enough
The challenging part about using the Fury is the same as the challenges of being a minor. Below the legal age? Sorry, that means you can't booze, have sex, and watch The Sexiest Canuck Alive in M18 mode. Below level 32? Sorry, no nukes for you.
One major (and massive) difference between using a Paladin to survive and doing the same thing for a Fury is the fact that Paladins have the famous two holies: Holy Circle and Holy Wrath. The former is an AoE hit-and-heal while the latter is an AoE hit-and-stun. Needless to say, the duo makes for a very good bread-and-butter AoE synergy. So what does a Fury have? The need to have a tactician's mindset. Killing stuff and enemies in Everquest falls under two possibilities: Either you go one on one or you go one versus a mob. That's the issue with using a Fury in mob fights. A Paladin is like an A*STAR scholar while a Fury must be like Batman graduated from ITE.
If there's something that worked for John like a dual-edged sword, it'd be NOT using slow/stop control to shape the fight. Rather, his bread-and-butter control tactic remains as Death Swarm. Or otherwise known as the most druidic holy spell (i.e. Druids are not known for holy damage). Why it's called a dual-edged sword is very simple: While it gives Layes a higher overall damage output, it also results in the need to go melee and hope he can outlast the opposition like how Archer famously outlasted Gilgameshin the Great Heroic Bailout). Thankfully, John managed to invest that one AA point into Kudzu-kun.
John doesn't know how many Fury first-time users are capable of having to revive no more than five times or so while below level 20, but he hopes there are quite a number of them. The reason why being that... well, Layes actually revived like no more than five times while below level 20. Considering how difficult it is to level up in this game plus the fact that things could/would go rough when running Thundering Steppes at any level between 20 to 25, that may sound crazy. Hopefully to John, that is. After all, it'd be very awkward for him to be called Batotter.
Why you have to be an animal 24/7
Why do you need to be an animal 24/7? This is NOT a question involving otter nature and what Isaac Asimov once famously said. This question is about being a Fury and how to survive any aggro before you can unlock Starnova. The answer is very simple: 1+1=2.
In Everquest 2, the allocation of AA points is done on auto-pilot mode. This is not to say you can't do anything about it. You have three personal unused slots, so use them. Wisely and properly, that is. At the same time, left-clicking an AA power on the right column would result in a rollback. What rollback does is to revert your AA powers back to the relevant point. John knows this is nigh impossible to explain, so allow him to use the Mr Bill analogy: It's called the Everquest version of system restore. Those who understand how Windows work would tell you that to create a system restore, you need to set a system restore point where you can revert your OS back to when it used to be up till the system restore point. Rollback works in a very similar way as in any changes made to the AA powers would only take effect as far as where you set the rollback. Sounds confusing? Let John give a clear(er) example below:
There are ten AA powers on the right column. John clicked rollback on the fifth AA power in the list. This should and would result in the AA powers starting from the fifth to be reset. In other words, any new choice of AA points allocation would start from the fifth to the tenth.
This is very important because Everquest 2 is all about trial and error. If you think like a typical river otter, then please don't bother playing this game. If you think like an insane river otter, then (perhaps) this game is for you. Thankfully, it took John like level 25 or so to get the trial and error right. So why so much seemingly hoopla over this? Because as a Fury, you'll need to max out Shapeshift.
Running in animal form is vital in surviving mobs. The reason why is that in animal form, you take less damage. This is especially evident in winter wolf form (John will elaborate on this later on). As a Fury, a maxed-out Shapeshift would result in two awesomely unexpected consequences:
1. You won't turn into an animal once you enter shapeshift mode.
2. This has to be arguably the most important aspect of a Fury's game: You can trigger BOTH Peerless Predator AND the shapeshift form of your choice.
How does John know that? By doing a trial and error like an insane river otter. See why he says this game isn't for the typical river otter? Although to be honest, that was an accidental discovery since his aim was only to max out Shapeshift. Talk about the next best accident since Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the medical version of 007 otherwise called penicillin.
Note: Please be aware that the dual animal logic only applies once your character hit level 25.
Not literally having to be an animal btw
Peerless Predator grants you the form of Singapore's favourite animal. Namely, the lion. While this is the best shapeshift form a Fury can get prior to level 25, it must be stated that being a lion alone won't bail you out from sticky situations. Actually, John doubts you can survive the Crypt of Betrayal by being a fearless lion alone. In other words, you have to choose a second form to act as that vital compounding factor. It's like asking John why the Japanese were able to win the Russo-Japanese War despite suffering a higher body count. His answer would be this: Because they won the fight on the infantry side even though the war was focused on the naval end.
Same logic here. The lion is to be your navy and the other shapeshift form is to be your infantry. So which infantry should be your choice as a Fury? Now before John starts, allow him to point out that any increment on the attack and defence will NOT show on the character sheet. Any changes seen is the result of what the tooltip says, so please don't be bluffed. Again, this discovery is brought to you by Trial & Error.
Tiger:
This is the dps member of the trio. Fast attacks plus a 10% chance of triggering a specific attack called Tiger Bite that deals slashing damage. But there's a problem. The tiger does take more damage than the other two members of the druidic trio. This is effectively your light assault infantry.
Winter Wolf:
This is the 50-50 member of the trio. The reason why John says that is because despite giving you a 3.5% bonus in critical chance, the dps value is lower than the tiger. However, it's definitely higher than the treant. This is effectively your medium vanguard infantry. If you want to play it rough in group PvE, then you'd want to seriously consider this option.
Treant:
Furies, please take note of this walking plant. If you need any reason to become Treebeard's mini-me in your quest to curb stomp every orc and goblin you come across, look no further than two things: The increase in base incoming heal shown in the tooltip and the defensive increment NOT shown in the character sheet and the tooltip. Furies are not as defensively resilient as their Warden counterparts, so the defensive synergy can be very good. Actually, it's very good. This one has to be your heavy defensive infantry. If you want to play it safe or just way too lazy to switch form like John, then this one should be your choice.
Shapeshifting and three basic archetypes
Personally, John does feel that playing a Fury does offer you three archetype choices: hammer, caster, and spell-sword. This is apart from the commonly (?) stated healer, damage, and healer-damage archetypes.
Hammer relies on combat arts and auto-attacks. If you want to go on this path, please max out Nature's Blade. That is because this combat art gives you the Haste effect. Combine Haste status with Primal Fury and you're on your way to be Wolverine. This also means you'll need to max out your mitigation and possibly blocking chance as well. This can be done via maxing out the physical damage mitigation AA in the Dragon tab and the elemental damage mitigation AA under the Hierophant tree in the Druid tab. After that, depending on your secondary shapeshift form, you may want to focus on other aspects of defensive AA, not the least the five-pointer blocking AA under the Shadow tab. If you're running as a tiger, it's strongly recommended to focus every AA point on the self-defensive ones, after which you can move onto the offensive. If you're running as a winter wolf, you can afford to free up more AA points for the offensive ones. But please still focus on the mitigation. Not only that, you'll need to come up with an effective mitigation synergy where stuff like wards and damage debuffs are equally important. You may have to trial and error for quite a while though. Not to mention the possibility of this below.
Caster can be very straightforward. In this game, you have five attributes. Strength, Stamina, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom. Out of the five, only Stamina and one attribute relevant to the class are important. The rest is moot. That is until you notice the first tab of the AA section indicates which tree is under which attribute. Using the Druid AA tab as an example, the list looks like this:
Naturalist-Strength (i.e. for all the hammers out there)
Animalist-Agility (i.e. best self-defensive option if we're talking about the final tier AA)
Serenicist-Stamina (i.e. the one with a must-have AA power related to critical chance)
Hierophant-Wisdom (i.e. survival spec tree which is also known as soulforged druid)
Stormcaller-Intelligence (i.e. nuke and heal)
This implies that each Druid AA power would be affected by the relevant attribute, so it's up to the gamer to try guessing what the attribute would modify. This is also the reason why John said the caster archetype can be very straightforward. Because spell damage for Druids is based on Wisdom, maxing out Stormcaller's Control (i.e. the second AA under the Stormcaller tree) means jacking up the base spell damage via Intelligence as the second spell damage mod.
If that's your cup of herbal tea (no intent to advertise Game of Thrones and Emileesi Clarke btw), then please maximise the firepower by selecting the Intelligence increment boon under the racial tab of your character advancement. As accidentally racist as John may sound here. The first two selectable options should be choosing between Intelligence and Strength. If you're a hammer archetype, go for Strength. If you're a caster archetype, go for Intelligence.
Spell-swords are quite interesting. They don't necessarily need the resilience required from the hammers or the high damage of the casters. They are basically the adjustable scale where you can opt for a 50-50 balance to your best of ability or rig the balance towards either end like Will Raj. As a result, spell-swords don't have to be choosy when it comes to the gear. You have gear which gives you bonus spell skill, you have those which give you bonus defensive skill. Then there are those giving bonus offensive skill. Spell skill bonus improves your spell casting while defensive and offensive skills should be self-explanatory. For Layes Wolftree, it's a case of gravitating towards the caster end. Of course, this is not to say melee doesn't feature half as much as it should. A simple trick John discovered (again?!?) here: Death Swarm>Thunderspike. Due to the presence of Primal Fury, this means he doesn't have to worry much about Haste. That is, for now.
Solving the mana death riddle
Since survival is of utmost importance to a Fury even more than a Ranger, the question should be what can be done to up the efficiency. The answer is very simple. Just do something about your in-combat health regeneration. Ideally speaking, you should be having two characters in your roster slot unless you're willing to pay according to the aggressive terms of the Daybreakers' business model. If you're going to main the Fury, use your alt to craft imbued rings of Stamina. This is definitely the main source of in-combat health regeneration since the percentage triggered is like 14% or so if you're running a character of at least level 20 with an imbued ring of Stamina at level 20. At the same time, having little to no options in the AoE department means higher chances of triggering the effect even though the probability stands at 3%. That's pretty a lot even for a level 30 since we'd be talking about accumulative percentage in actual circumstances. Depending on your personal preference between playing it safe like Zhuge Liang or taking risks like Guo Jia, you can choose between having two imbued rings of Stamina or just one. For Layes, he decided to be a son of a gun by choosing one imbued ring of Stamina and Demini's Class Ring. Works very well so far.
In-combat health regeneration can go a long way in preventing death by mana death. The reason is very simple: The more you're pinned against the ropes, the more mana you have to use to keep yourself alive. That's not cool. At the same time, using treant as your secondary shapeshift form means better insurance while keeping your mana bank account healthy.
This comes to mind the question of how many healing spells you'll need to keep your Fury in optimal shape after every fight so that he/she doesn't have to spend too much time bumming at the same spot in order to allow the health and mana bank accounts to self-refill. For John's bastard Fury, it's three direct heals, one HoT heal, and Sylvan Touch. Out of the five, two direct heals are used for bringing the HP bar back to a healthy state before using the lone HoT to push it nearer to 100%. The third direct heal and Sylvan Touch are for bailout purposes with Sylvan Touch as the one-shot bailout while the third direct heal is to be used as what John would call a four-spell sequence.
Note to Furies who want to take the imbued ring advice: If possible, craft an Imbued Gold Band of Stamina due to the zero hate mod. Or basically any tier 2 imbued ring of Stamina depending on the crafting level.
P.S: Let it not be said that John doesn't endorse the river otters' spirit of positivity.
This is insane. Originally, John should have finished the latest edrafted chapter of A Requiem From Winter Past. Unfortunately, he pulled off a cop-out amounting to a massive case of procrastination. Quite obviously, John L'Otter would want to blame the Norrathian trinity of Qeynos, New Halas, and Kelethin for this. If there's anything John is thankful for on this matter, it'd be new ideas amounting to a semi-Total Recall. In the words of this vid below, "Thank you, Isayama". Actually, John doesn't know how much an Isayama he's going to pull off.
So will Eren die a savior's death with Reiner becoming the true hero by delivering the killing blow? If so, then... "Thank you, Isayama, for your *bleep*ed sense of irony".
But why mention cleavage since it's an Everquest 1 kind of thing?
John L'Otter wants to ask everyone else (not him because he knew the answer already) an interesting question:
Would you still want to play video games if cleavage isn't part of the deal?
It's like John asking whether you'd still support He Ying Ying if she didn't don a low-cut dress during this year's Star Award. Of course, the textbook answer should be yes. The keyword being textbook. Everquest 2 also features cleavage. Can you believe John only realised Antonia Bayle was the poster girl after he started to play the game? Yeah, that sounds terribly fake since many guys tend to prefer boobs to the type of anti-Singaporean stuff shown below.
Server bait and switch
Okay, John attempted a stunt shortly after he finished Pt 1. Apparently, server sharing can be done by selecting the correct server. In John's case, that'd be the Antonia Bayle server. So what this means is this: John deleted Daeni the Human Berserker and chucked in an equally female Human Paladin named Viaa. After all, it'd be too boring using two male characters. Female characters can be every bit as good as their male counterparts when it comes to character creation and using them properly, you know. Never knew a female Paladin can be so good to use, though.
Currently lost (?)
The fun thing about choosing Qeynos is this: You have plenty of options when it comes to questing. In fact, chances are that you're bound to get yourself neck-deep in quest backlog. That's how insane things are if you decided to start off at Queen's Colony and end up in Qeynos. For a bastard named Layes Wolftree, the choice of starting city was New Halas. Or otherwise known as the most boring starting city. For Viaa Bellerouge, it's Queen's Colony.
[Note: Wolftree is 100% English while Bellerouge is 100% French. Maybe John should try Wolfbaum. Wait, Wolfstaude sounds better in German. Thank you, all you West European sons of a Germanic gun.]
Currently, the Half-Elf Fury is starting to get himself neck-deep in quest backlogging for a very good reason: Kelethin and Qeynos offer recipes for adornments and sprockets crafting, but not New Halas. Choosing between Kelethin and Qeynos wasn't that difficult. After all, it's a case of personal whims more than the fact that Qeynos is one hell of an extensive Queen's territory. Those who played the game N years ago (i.e. the majority of the existing gamers in Norrath) would tell you that navigating Qeynos is a nightmare. If you don't know how to use the zone bell, then good luck in trying to find your way here and there. If you know how to do it, it's not even half as bad as what John said. With that being said, John lost count how long it took his Paladin to discover a way back to Queen's Colony just because he assumed the Total Recall command would take her back to Queen's Colony (apparently, there's some problem trying to get back up on dry land after getting stuck at Razortooth Falls). To make things worse, using Total Recall just like that would port your character to the Qeynos Harbor. Simply put, trying to find the global bell requires the internet and Google. Actually, the global bell could be found just at the end of the Qeynos Harbor. No matter what, it makes one wonder how crazy MMO gamers were 15 years ago when there's nothing childproof and padded about navigation. Try finding the Crypt of Betrayal from Vermin's Snye, John dares you. Unless you're looking at the right place, you're going to end as a hamster stuck in a wheel. In fact, some of the quests can easily take you days to more than a week depending on the zone. The swimming trip to the bottom of New Halas would have been one of them if not for the internet, Google, and the wiki, Thundering Steppes in general is... well, aggro friendly when it comes to the Skeletor brigade even though you're no He-Man or She-Ra. Seriously, they're one of hardest dudes to take down in Thundering Steppes unless you break the level 30 ceiling. And to think it's considered a level 20-30 zone.
To be honest, this game is fast looking like a monster requiring an insane amount of time and effort to deal with. Who'd have imagined the questline system being absurdly non-linear?
[Note: Interesting fact about the real (?) Skeletor brigade can be foundhere.]
Running here and there
So far, Layes has journeyed only to the Thundering Steppes while Viaa is currently running around in Kelethin with one eye on Qeynos. If your character chooses Queen's Colony as the starting city, there's a chance of the Goblin dropping either the quest for Goblin language, Goblin lore book, or both. To make your life easier, take a trip to Kelethin asap. There are two Goblin territories, one at a lake and the other underground. You should be able to complete both quests or either in this way depending on your situation. Beyond that, it's up to you to decide whether to upgrade your enemies to the Crushbone Orcs since you can farm stuff for the Orcish language and lore book quests.
No matter where you start your level one, it's advisable to choose New Halas as your secondary city to travel. The reason why being that the Norrathian version of Hokkaido is easy to navigate. This is very important as every city will give you two crafting quests (one for adornments and the other for sprockets) and one transmutation quest. You need the transmutation quest to level up your transmutation. This is vital because you'll most likely need adornments once you start going into the level 20-30 zones (i.e. the real test lies beyond Antonica and the Commonlands save certain parts like Stormhold). As for the two crafting quests, they give you plenty of crafting XP. This is worthy of note because crafting in Everquest 2, unlike some (?) other MMO titles, is a necessity. From level 1 to 20, it may not be that evident depending on your class. Once you enter level 20-30 territories and even some of the quests in Antonia and Commonlands, that's where your crafting comes into the picture. At least it's a better investment than buying gear and weapons from the vendors since purchased stuff doesn't give you bonuses beyond mitigation and damage (spell skills if it's stuff like wands and symbols).
This comes to mind a question: What if your starting city is the Ezoland of Norrath? Just choose Qeynos as your secondary city. The reason why being that Qeynos got plenty of quests for you to run. In this game, levelling up requires plenty of time and effort since the only thing childproof and padded would be the presence of the wiki site and those crazy fellows. Seriously, use those resources unless you're the kind of gamer who doesn't mind spending money to watch Aerith die since you don't need money to do an image search for Tifa's boobs. Of course, you'll need to run around and familiarize yourself with the city. Again, use the wiki if your attention span isn't the Witcher 3 gamer type (i.e. the gameplay, NOT Triss' cleavage). The convenient part about travelling in Qeynos has to be about the inter-city portal travel. Of course, the Irish folk also got their own inter-city travel in Kelethin, but that requires the fact that you cannot fall off the bridge. That plus the Irish portals look like a manhole cover. Not that it matters anyway.
If your starting city is Kelethin due to being a Hibernophile, then use Qeynos as your post-20 questing hub with New Halas being your crafting XP convenience store.
At the end of the day, New Halas as a crafting XP hub is for those who favour convenience over the joy of travelling within Antonia Bayle's fortress or the Tuatha Dé Danann version of Gardens by the Bay. If you're either semi-retired or totally retired, then it's a different story.
Holy Fire and Fury: First impression on using a Fury and Paladin
Let's start on the Paladin first. Actually, Viaa Bellerouge is only 20 (i.e. the level, not her age).
Yes, John knows she looks 20 as well. Let's not make that a distraction, shall we? Anyway, this Paladin is still a work in progress. John won't be surprised if using a Paladin means having two loadout slots unless you're a PvP'er. But F2P games are not known for having even half-decent PvP gameplay balance due to a lopsided balance between the spenders and non-spenders amounting to the haves versus the have-nots.
A brief look at the Crusader tree (i.e. that's the category the Paladin is under together with his/her antithesis the Shadowknight) reveals a very straightforward build planning. So far, Viaa is far more a Crusader than a Paladin. The reason why being John chose to invest all the Alternate Advancement points thus far into that area. John is a firm believer of the whole "If you want to win, you have to survive and not do things like a suicidal bastard" gaming doctrine. While he used to play it overly cautious like J.Mou when he first started off by playing Neverwinter (please note that Neverwinter was the first game John played seriously on a prolonged basis because he spent like only a year playing Marvel Heroes before that as Black Panther plus his two female bodyguards compared to five years serving the Lord Pretender Dagult Neverember himself). Then slowly but surely, he started gaming like this German lion below.
The defensive base is still there, though. After all, John L'Otter has never forgotten his pragmatic roots like Didier Deschampion. This makes Viaa Bellerouge rather easy to use due to high mitigation and Holy Circle (i.e. Viaa's staple/only AoE move). Initially, it seemed that using only one healing spell should be enough. Running two quests involving the area surrounding Crushbone Keep taught John one very important lesson: Never go with just one healing spell (Faith Strike doesn't count in John's tactical dictionary btw). Due to John's main being a certified bastard (i.e. that's what Half-Elves are, to be politically incorrect), it means plenty of time to mess around with things.
At the same time, Knight's Stance is absurdly useful in solo PvE. You'd think Wrath Stance is good. And John believes so as well. But surprisingly, the daughter of House Bellerouge (?!) operates better as a lady knight. John actually tested it during the Orcish Information questline. The damage pacing was much slower, but the balance between defense and offense was much better. Of course, this is not to say Wrath Stance suck. You just need to strike a balance between the defensive and offensive. Which is quite dodgy for now because John doesn't really know how to do that. Actually, he doesn't know how to do it at all. Then again, those guys at the Crushbone Keep region (i.e. the area surrounding the actual place) are basically Orcs high and angry on steroids. You'd most likely see quite a number of yellow ranked enemies bumming around at level 20 there. Considering the fact that the quest given by Elonca Nusback was set at level 17, the whole process felt more like running a heroic than a mere solo quest. Seriously, don't try running this zone unless you really have to. If it's the final part of Orcish Information questline, then just go in, get out, and keep your fingers crossed (i.e. please sprint instead of just walking once you enter the area in order to minimize the risk of unwanted aggro). This zone isn't meant for anyone below 20 unless we're talking about Fighters. Due to the gear, you know why these stand-and-fight fellows can afford to do it. And even then, you'd be a suicidal bastard to think your level 20 Fighter can survive the actual Crushbone Keep. There's a reason why John chose not to continue Nusback's questline.
[Note: You'd most likely need to hit level 25 or so by John's estimation in order to survive the Crushbone Keep region if you happened to be a non-Fighter character. The info given by the wiki was clearly outdated when it states a Crushbone Centurion to be at level 17-18. The whole process actually involved a level 18 character running around in a level 20 zone. Completing both the third Orcish Information and Nuback's first quest, however, can easily give two levels' worth of XP if your level is near 20 due to the overall AI difficulty level plus the fact that they go around in groups of two or beyond. Needless to say, this logic only applies to Fighters with a good defensive game.]
P.S: Okay, this post is getting too long now. Might as well do a Pt 3 in the future.
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.
