Video recorded at 720p using an Aiptek GVS ActionHD 1080p (however, this camera does not have image stabilization at 1080p and therefore I do not use 1080p for recording videos).

Technorati Tags: Pittstate, PSU, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS, Kansas, Oval, The Oval, Aiptek, GVS, HD, ActionHD

Technorati Tags: Street Fighter IV

Anyway, on a side note, I’m going to have YouTube post all of my videos (probably from both of my YouTube accounts) to this blog. Video logs are a little more interesting than just text blogs, don’t you think?

One of my YouTube accounts are used for real-life videos. They’re primarily weather videos, but I also record the occasional video on campus. I’m particularly fond of attending Korean events on campus (of course!), so those should show up here. They’re not very frequent though, and I may also record miscellaneous videos around campus.

My second account is specifically for gaming, so that one will post Street Fighter IV matches more than anything else.

Of course, you can simply subscribe to me on YouTube. Here are my two accounts:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/Talis29
• http://www.youtube.com/user/AnYungPS3

I like to get sassy in Street Fighter IV, but honestly I suck at the game. LoL

See you folks around,
-Steph

Happy new years, all.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, New Years, snow, ice, cold, weather, wind

With that very brief synopsis out of the way, I have been playing Aion in the last two beta events. I’d like to share a quick few thoughts about it.

• Aion is essentially like every other MMORPG. Quests (I call them “jobs” or tasks”) are the same (slay 10 creatures, collect 15 of these, take this here) are the same as what you find in other MMOs, with the occasional interesting story-based quest that pops up completely unexpectedly.
• Combat is similar to other MMOS, but the chains do add a small choice to your combat. Do you knock them back, or do you shield bash for extra damage? They’re small choices, but they can add up to make a big difference
• Flight is significantly more limited that I expected. The majority of the game world is a “no fly zone”. The only time that you can fly (outside of the abyss) is when you are near one of three or four chunks of the Tower. These are, of course, city or outpost areas. The adventure zones are all no fly zones.
• That said, you can glide in the no fly zones, and the website claims that some areas have “pockets of air” that will send you higher… kind of like a hang glider, actually. I have yet to run into these locations, but you do have a limited amount of control over your gliding. With some practice you can glide longer than usual, as long as you’re effectively going down hill or at least have jumped from a cliff.
• The main cities – Sanctum and Pandamonium – are both no fly zones. This baffles me, particularly in regards to Sanctum because that is a city floating in the clouds! Yes, it is possible to go over the side and die, although much of the city does have invisible walls preventing this.

With all of that said, it is a solid MMO. The game runs beautifully; that is to say that older computers should have no problems running this game (though you will, of course, need to turn down some graphics options). The animations are smooth and fluid (more often than not). The client is stable, though the beta servers can have some issues (I suppose that’s expected).

The real fun is obviously in the PvP of the game. NCSoft has been really smart about the PvP in Aion.

You don’t need to engage in PvP because there are areas in the game that the other side simply can not enter. These rift-free zones are of the same level as the rift-enabled zones. If you just want to grind and do the usual MMO jobs then you can do that, but taking part in PvP brings considerable benefits.

First of all, the campaign quests – those are the quests that reveal your character’s missing memories and progresses the game’s main story line – are (in my experience thus far) only available in the zones that have limited PvP. So if you want to continue your story then you’re going to have to accept the possibility of occasional, limited PvP.

I’ve said “limited” a few times, so what does this mean? NCSoft loves to use the description PvPvE. That’s “Player versus Player versus Environment”. This describes the action in the abyss, but these limited PvP zones are a way to slowly introduce the players to this concept.

There will be “rifts” (think worm hole) that appear in these zones. Sometimes they’re one-way and sometimes they’re two-way. These rifts don’t always appear, and when they do they are always in a limited number and they are in a random location. When they do appear you will see a message in your chat box that says “A rift to Eloysea has appeared” or “A rift to Asmodae has appeared”. It will repeat once for each rift that appears (I never saw more than 3 at once).

In addition to these limitations, the game also imposes a numerical limitation. That is to say, only a small number of the other side can come through at any one time. Once a certain amount of players use a rift then that rift will vanish. This makes it impossible for the attacking force to out number the “home forces”; you can not be zerged. That’s not to say that you’re limited to single digits; all together you can have more than 10 players from the other side in your area, but it’s unlikely that they will ever have more players than are on the home side.

You can never see the level of the opposing characters, so it is actually impossible to know for sure exactly what you are going up against. Logically a ganker could try to make their way closer to the city in that area to find potentially lower level players, but you have players coming and going fairly frequently. You can never be sure that the person who you are about to attack is weaker than you. There is also nothing stopping the “home force” from having considerably higher level players in the area for one reason or another.

In the two weekends that I’ve played I’ve had a small number of PvP kills. I think that it’s about 24. It’s only that high because I went through a rift, found an invading party, and happily went about assaulting the enemy. ;D It was fun times. They eventually caught on to us and sent a repelling force around twice our size and basically steam rolled us. Hah! Well, they missed the assassin who could hide, but they did eventually find that sneaky little bugger too..

In so far as my home area is concerned, I had few enough PvP encounters that I could easily count them on one hand and probably still have a finger or two left over.

It’s an interesting way to ease the player into the game’s PvP action. You’re never over whelmed because they have a limited number that come into your area, and they are not always in your area because the rifts are not always present. When they do appear then you know about it and you know how many rifts there are (but not necessarily how many players, if any, have used them).

Lastly, the launch version of the game will have another feature. If a player decides to jump through a rift into an area that is considerably lower level then them then they’re in for a bad surprise. The game curses you after you kill so many players that are considerably weaker than you. You can no longer return your character to your home. You’re stuck in the enemy map and that’s that. You’re not going anywhere until you get killed.

Some of the other players have told me that upon getting cursed the location of the cursed character is always shown on the area’s map. I do not know if that is true or not, but I do know that the ‘curse’ described above is true. Still, this is something to keep in mind.

Generally speaking the game becomes a more enjoyable experience once you join a group and decide to take part in the PvP. The rifts are so random that I’ve come to think of the opposing characters as rare uber spawns with rare loot. No, players do not drop loot, but they do give you “Abyss Point” which can be spent to get sweet gear, useful items, as well as better consumables (potions, food) than you can find on a common vendor.

Oh, lastly there are arenas that you can enter if you want to do something like that. These are not “capture the flag” or other types of games. They are simply gladiator arenas that you enter, are instantly flagged PvP upon entry, and can consequently attack anyone else or be attacked by anyone else in the arena.

Of course you can avoid all of that if you want, but I’ll be happy to take part in it. When I get bored of it or just want a break, well, then there are the PvP-free zones that are the same level as the rift zones.

In all it’s been a decent experience. It is not a genre-changing game, but it’s a MMO that offers enough features to keep me interested. . . for awhile.

These BlazBlue trophies really crack me up.

Note: The description is “Do a 20 hit combo after the round is over” (yes, you can continue to control your character, to a limited extent, after KO).

BlazBlue also has an “easy specials” feature and is designed to work very well with a pad. You press a direction on the right analog stick and you do a special. This includes Distortion finishers and Astral Heat finishers. Of course, the person who creates the lobby can disallow easy specials.

That’s another thing. BlazBlue has real lobbies. Up to six players, if I recall correctly off of the top of my head, can be in a single lobby. When you create a lobby you can set it so that the winner keeps playing or that the loser keeps playing, or I think random? I’m not entirely sure what the third option is. Anyway, it’s pretty cool.

In addition to the above, anyone can save their game to their consoles hard drive. It dumbfounds me that CapCom didn’t do this, and in fact put limitations on the playback feature for each console. In BlazBlue you can save any fight that you have, and you can even allow other people to download your fights. So, in SFIV you’re limited to the top 5,000 players, but you’re free to share your fights as much as you want in BB.

There’s also a spectator feature in BB. You will be booted if your connection can’t keep up. That’s happened to me once. Generally, though, it’s pretty easy and painless to watch other people’s matches. This is a feature that can be disabled when the room is created, so it’s not always available.

The single player has a pretty decent story, as far as fighters go. There’s both a story mode and an arcade mode. Oh, and you don’t have to unlock basic characters lol, but you do have to beat arcade mode with most characters to unlock their Astral Heat finisher.

BlazBlue’s features are far superior to Street Fighter IV. In fact, it blows SFIV out of the water and really shines a light on IV’s confusing, dare I say archaic limitations. When reviewers say that BB is the new standard that fight games will be set against, that’s true.

The game play, of course, is significantly different. Just watch any video and you’ll see that it’s more chaotic. I had no idea what to expect before I got it; I never heard of Guilty Gear before people began talking about BB. I thought the game was going to be some crazy and confusing stuff, and it is because I’m new, but it’s not as bad as you may think.

The game play in each is just too different to compare though. I can’t say that one is better than the other. They’re both good games and both require a unique approach. BlazBlue will be friendlier to new players though, I think.

While it sounds like I’m a gushing BlazBlue fan boy, the facts are simply the facts. SFIV’s features simply doesn’t hold a candle to BlazBlue. The game play, though, is so different that I don’t think it’s right to say that one is better than the other.

Still, I can’t recommend Street Fighter IV to a new player. BlazBlue’s feature simply puts IV to shame.

Technorati Tags: Street Fighter, BlazBlue

Most of this new direction in fitness and health came about when I found Scooby’s channel on YouTube. There’s a ton of useful information there, and the fact that he’s about 15 years older than I am yet has a physique that just blows me away was enough for me to really pay attention. He knows what he’s talking about, and it works.

If you’re looking to diet and lose weight then I highly recommend his YT channel. He doesn’t sell a single thing. Scooby has a web site – Scooby’s Workshop – with a load of useful information and, again, as with his Youtube channel he doesn’t sell a thing on his website.

This guy has been very helpful as I’ve moved toward losing weight and building muscle for 2009. My diet is much better and I’m eating tasty food in spite of that fact.

As always, the changes that you make will have to become a permanent change to your life style if you want to keep the weight off, so what it boils down to is: Are you unhappy enough to actually change, or are you comfortable enough with your weight that you won’t? You may complain about your weight, but will you actually change your life to change your weight? Those are questions that only you can answer.

I’m not complaining though. Last night’s dream was pretty damn good.

The dream began in an old, two story house. The set up was similar to a movie: Something terrible had happened in that house in the past, but we didn’t know the details of it. Of course, bad things began to happen around the house. The situation worsened until young girls were turning up murdered.

I don’t remember the specifics. Dreams will be like that. I do remember being in the house with two young girls. Some bad things had been happening and scaring them. While my memory is vague as to the details of why I was there, I think that I was trying to help the young girls in some way.

We were at the top of the stairs when the ghost appeared. She was maybe 7 years old, physically solid, and by this point in my dream I knew – we knew – that it was the ghost who had been murdering the children. Always girls. Always around the age of the ghost.

She paused when she saw me. I wasn’t her target, but I was standing between her and the two kids who were with me. Though I don’t remember the specific words that were exchanged, I remember begging the ghost to leave the children alone. Either the ghost showed me at that point what had happened to her, or I learned previously – I don’t remember – but I remember insisting to the ghost that it wasn’t “their fault”, and they “aren’t the one who done this to you.”

As it turns out, the little ghost girl had been murdered by her sister. It was no accident. I don’t think that I ever found out why – the ghost didn’t know either – but her sister had deliberately killed her. I remember seeing something like a flashback.. her sister smiling at her, then a flash of flame, then feelings of “Why?” and “Help me!” and sounds of her sister giggling, or maybe yelling at her to die..

Whatever the case, I pleaded with the ghost, asking her to see that these little girls who she had been killing – these revenge murders – had nothing to do with her own death. Killing them wasn’t going to make anything better.

I also knew instinctively that if I pushed too hard then she would kill me along with the two children who were with me. When the ghost stepped forward I didn’t try to do anything. I could feel the turmoil from her. She stepped up to the two girls who were with me, and they cried and tried to back away. The ghost suddenly stepped toward them as though she were going to attack them, then her face, her clothing, and I’m sure her hair all burst into flames inches away from the two children. She screamed furiously into the faces of the two girls. I recall seeing her skin burn from her face, the layers of her skin blistering, burning, and dropping away.

Then she vanished.

She had so much anger that she just wanted to release it. It was rage, but she also recognized that I was right and killing them would do no good. Frightening the two girls was her compromise.

My heart was beating incredibly fast. I was afraid. I like dreams with ghosts, and creatures, and monsters, and things, but this one had me frightened. I’m not entirely sure what was so different about it, to be honest…

I also think that the murderous sister’s ghost was around too, but I don’t recall any specific interactions with her. I remember a sense that their parents saw the murderous sister as a perfect, sweet little girl and spoiled her, but I don’t remember if she was treated better than the sister she had murdered. I do recall, though, that the murderous sister got away with killing her sister and all the while their parents thought that she was a sweet little girl.

The dream morphed after this. The setting shifted so that this old house was atop a large hill across the street from the house that I grew up in. In reality there was no hill across the street..

The people at my old house were a resistance group. Apparently they were “hunters”, at least of a sort. A group of people who went after monsters, like werewolves.

I was apparently a double-sided spy. I recall hearing their plans of going out that night to kill the werewolves, and I remember thinking “what if they find out?” and feeling like I had to get out of there. That I had to warn my friends.

Late that evening, before they headed out on their hunt but while no one was looking, I dashed across the street, dashed up the hill, and darted into the house. I was a werewolf, and they were coming to hunt me.

I shifted form, becoming the typical werewolf beast. I eyed the house below with their fire burning in a metal trash can where the porch should have been, and, if I remember correctly, I may have howled. There may have been a sense of others, nearby or not.

Then the dreams were over.

Technorati Tags: dreams, ghosts, werewolves

I was lucky enough to sit in on the Korean language level 2 class this semester. I received no grade for that class, but I did learn something new. The instructor this semester is a good teacher. I’ll miss her class.

The Principles of Learning class was very slow, especially in the beginning, with the instructor cover a single topic in a single class quite heavily. This wasn’t needed in the beginning of the semester and, I’ll quickly admit, wouldn’t have been needed later in the semester had I not begun suffering from considerable (general) burn out. The result is that I stopped paying much attention in class nor taking things anywhere nearly as serious as I should have. The final exam definitely suffered. I would have been happy to see a C… disappointed, but happy, but I think that my attendance is what brought it up.

Issues In Today’s Economy had a good instructor, in my opinion, even though the material of the class was very boring for me. Some subjects simply do not click with a person, and economics is one such subject to me. There are bits of interesting information in there. Anyway, I was crossing my fingers and just hoping that I would get a C in this class. The last minute hard work seems to have paid off.

Social Psychology was… not my favorite class. It’s a fascinating subject, but I do better when a classroom is more a traditional classroom. Social Psych had far too much random conversations going as a part of the class that only vaguely related to what was being talked about. In my opinion, anyway. Maybe I’m completely wrong. Perhaps it’s just that I was at odds with the class’ format.

Creative Writing was a class with a high amount of over head. Writing stories and poems, rewriting them, reading others’ work and giving feedback.. it wasn’t difficult, just busy. There were certain things one needed to do to earn an A so I wasn’t necessarily expecting an A in that class.

Anyhow, there’s that college semester. Later folks!

Courses Taken 2009/SP at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas
(Undergraduate)
Dept Course Course Description Hours Grade
PSYCH 394 PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING 3.00 B
ECON 191 ISSUES IN TODAY’S ECONOMY 3.00 A
PSYCH 456 INTRO TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 3.00 A
ENGL 250 INTRO TO CREATIVE WRITING 3.00 A
Credits Attempted Credits Completed Semester GPA
12.00 12.00 3.7500
Semester Messages
Dean’s Scholastic Honors