So, there’s this nutcase who’s leaving nasty comments in Cobalt Paladin’s blog about top ranking people in the Ping.sg game.

Because I won the game, I was singled out to receive the lion’s share of name calling. Woo hoo! :)

He called me a bitch and accused me of “acting like a Queen”.

All the rest (including me) are just called “cheaters”.

Hahahahaha.

About Queen Sheylara

To be honest, I was really embarrassed about winning the game. Cobalt Paladin was the first to give me the Queen title.

And then people in the Ping.sg shoutbox followed suit.

I found it hilarious so I just laughed.

I don’t know how people deciding to call me Queen Sheylara translates to me “acting like a Queen”. But then, you can never win in a logic argument with crazy people.

They are the kind of people to whom, if you show scientific evidence that the earth is round, will nonetheless flail their arms, bulge their eyes out, screech at you, call you a liar and insist that the earth is square.

These people are like that one. No use arguing with them. Just agree with them, pat them on the back for being clever, and then walk away.

So, yes. I am the Queen. Bow to me, peasant.

Right.

Okay lah, seriously.

I’m not sure why everyone is raising a huge ruckus over the game. I must admit that Ping.sg founder Uzyn is a genius for coming up with the idea and then coding the game in seven hours. But it’s just a simple little game lasting one day and I thought people would play it and then forget about it. After all, Uzyn only meant it as an April Fool’s distraction.

About Ping.sg

Ping.sg is a blog aggregator where members’ blog entries get pinged so everyone can see what everyone else is blogging.

Each ping shows a title, a post excerpt and details such as name, date and time.

About Ping.sg Game

In the game, you’re shown a title and post excerpt. You’re given four bloggers’ names and you have to guess which one of them pinged that post.

The game is quite clever in that it will show you four names that are likely to be associated with that style of post, so it keeps you guessing.

You have 10 seconds for each question. Correct answers net you 3 points. Wrong answers take 1 point away.

Very simple game. It started at 7 am on April Fool’s Day and ended 6 am the following day.

Playing the Ping.sg Game

I wouldn’t have even known about it had a friend not asked me to go check out Ping.sg for something.

The game was something new so I tried it out and found it fun. I got a high percentage accuracy in my first 10 questions because I was lucky to get posts and names I vaguely recognise.

And then I looked at the player ranking chart and almost fell off my chair. The top player had, like, 1,500 points.

I thought, “Whoa, good luck to you guys fighting for top spot!”

But it was fun and challenging so I continued playing. Getting right answers gave me a sense of pride (I told you, I’m easily amused!) and getting wrong answers made me want to make up for the lost points.

Cobalt Paladin had the right of it. He said, “The game is like gambling. When you lose, you want to win back; when you win, you want to win more.” (Source)

So, that was how I found myself clicking obssessively.

The Time Lapse Bug

At first, I took time to read all titles and excerpts. Then, I realised there was some bug or lag or something. Once in a while, the question would only flash at me for 2 or 5 seconds. Then it would say I failed, without even giving me the full 10 seconds.

As a seasoned MMORPG player, I am no stranger to such glitches, so I just took it in my stride and ignored those misses. Perhaps my Internet connection was lagging or something, big deal.

But I quickened my pace and tried to answer questions as fast as possible to reduce lag failures.

As a result, my percentage fell because I was just clicking crazily and not really reading or analysing much. But that was okay because I wasn’t taking the game seriously, anyway.

I got to, like, 300 points and decided that it was too time consuming.

Quitting The Game… Temporarily

At this time, the Goonfather sent me a bunch of links about feng shui and decorating because we’re moving at the end of the month.

I stopped playing the game and got engrossed in reading articles and MSN chatting with the Goonfather. We even downloaded an Ikea program which allows you to play like The Sims, decorating your floor plans with Ikea furniture.

Time flew and then it was dinner time.

Back To The Game

After dinner, I really meant to sit down and blog. I haven’t posted an entry yet on that day.

But something (I don’t know what) made me go back to Ping.sg and then, without thinking, I just started to click-click-click.

Very soon, I got into top 20 and realised that I actually had a fighting chance to get into top 10 and win that “mention”.

(1st prize is a Ping.sg t-shirt. Top 10 players get a mention in the Ping.sg blog.)

Then, Ping.sg went down for a while so I couldn’t play anymore. I went to do something else.

Doing Something Else

I went to play Viwawa Mahjong. Wang Wang recommended this game to me last Saturday and I have been playing it compulsively since.

It’s just too cute to resist! This is my avatar:

A Viwawa avatar is called a wawa, which is the Chinese word for doll. You can customise your wawa after earning credits from playing the game. It’s really cool. And the game interface is super cute! Everyone should go play it!

Back To Ping.sg

Later in the night, maybe 10pm or so, I went back to Ping.sg to check on the game. I noticed that people were talking about a hack in the game, so I went in and joined the shoutbox chat.

Apparently, ironicgamer had found an exploit which allowed him to not lose any points. Using it, he had shot up to top position with a score of over 2,000.

But he was honest and told Uzyn about the bug. Uzyn fixed the bug and ironicgamer’s ill-gotten points disappeared. He was down to about 1,000 points now.

Since it was so fun chatting in the shoutbox, I stayed on Ping.sg. And since I stayed on Ping.sg, I might as well continue playing the game. As I alternated between clicking the game and chatting, I somehow got myself into 5th position. Then 3rd position. Then 2nd position.

It would have been easy for me to get into 1st position if i continued clicking, because the top player wasn’t online. But I didn’t want to because I felt I would be embarrassed by the buzz if I won.

So I stopped and went back to play Viwawa Mahjong, where I stayed for three hours. Wang Wang made me a mahjong addict! OMG.

Ranking #1

At about 2:30 am, I decided to stop playing mahjong and go to bed. But before retiring, I checked my ranking on Ping.sg.

I had dropped to 6th place.

I would have been happy to leave it at that because I only wanted to stay in top 10.

But the shoutbox was really active at the time and I couldn’t resist joining in. Everyone was complaining about how tired out they were by the game.

So I complained jokingly, “Who kicked me to 6th place?? I have to fight back!”

And I did, lol. While chatting with the crazy Pingsters, I continued clicking the game and won back 2nd position within two hours.

At this point of time, the top three spots were held by me, Ridz and ironicgamer, who had climbed back up and regained all his lost points.

At about 3 am, Ridz called it quits. He was now at #1 and I was behind him just a bit, at #2. He said he was going to take a nap and I should overtake him so I could have a screenshot of myself being #1.

But he would be back at 5 am to claim his spot back.

So I did what he said and overtook him to get to #1. But I didn’t take a screenshot because, like I said, I wasn’t planning to blog about it.

It’s like, all I would be boasting about is how bo liao I am and how much time I wasted playing this game. Haha.

Why The Game Appealed To Me

But I still compulsively played it because it was more of a personal challenge.

At one point of time Masterleong came into the shoutbox and asked how I could stand sitting there answering thousands of questions.

I told him it was my MMORPG training. It’s like grinding in an MMORPG. You do nothing but kill monsters 10 hours a day just to see numbers (experience points and gold) grow. Each increase, no matter how minor, gives you a fresh boost of energy to keep increasing it.

It’s a numbers game.

You just want to see the number grow and you derive a weird sense of achievement from it.

Which was why, after I overtook Ridz’s score of 2,609, I carried on.

I was really planning to sleep after getting 2,610, knowing that Ridz will come back to claim his top spot, and not minding.

But the obssession with number-growing overtook me.

Getting 3,000 Points

Arzhou was at that time also playing the game. Arzhou is also an MMORPG player and he understands my limitless tolerance for grinding.

He encouraged me to keep grinding away at the game. *lol*

He was also grinding at the same time as me, although he was much lower on the ranking at that time.

Thanks to his encouragement, I decided to break the 3,000 barrier.

Gamers love breaking records and being the first to reach a milestone. After that, people can overtake you but it doesn’t matter, because you were the first to reach.

So I did it.

I was going to stop at 3,000 exactly but I got 3,001, instead. I didn’t want to purposely lose a point just to make 3,000, so I went on and stopped when I naturally got a nice-looking number: 3030.

I could have gone on. I could have gotten 5,000 points because there were still people in the shoutbox entertaining me with chats. I still wasn’t sleepy, and the game was still fun. I was learning more about bloggers’ styles and getting more right answers when I took the time to analyse and learn.

But, like I said, I really didn’t want to win. I just wanted to be the first to break the 3,000. I knew if I continued playing and got 5,000 points, no one would be able to beat me, since the game would end at 6 am.

So, leaving myself with 3,030 points, I bade everyone good night and went to bed.

Still The Winner

I woke up at 8 am and discovered that ironicgamer and Ridz did not wake up to fight for the championship title!!!!

What the heow!!

I was, like, shit lah!

You two slackers, you!!!

You made me win the game!!!!

Even Arzhou took over 3rd place!!!!

I think I won the game by default!

But thanks, all the same, you guys. I have to admit that winning something is also quite fun, even if it’s nothing to feel proud about. On the contrary, you get people calling you a cheat and a bitch. Hahaha. I think that’s what amuses me the most.

My Trick To Winning

Most Pingsters have already blogged about methods, so I won’t add much. We can all recognise patterns. For example:

• All titles starting with “of” belong to lancerlord
• Cowboy Caleb’s posts always end with his copyright notice.
• Anime posts belong to Tedfox
• Larry Lim is the SEO expert so all SEO posts are his.
• Sheylara’s posts always have Goonfather in it (haha).

In my case, I recognise fewer patterns beacuse I’m not a super regular Pingster. So, I relied on my analytical skills and elimination tactics.

For example, if a post had a sentence saying, “My boyfriend brought me to this restaurant today…,” I assume it’s by a female blogger, so I’ll eliminate all male-sounding nicks and choose a female nick.

Or if a post was a serious, businessy one, like “Internet Marketing Tips For The Web 2.0 Savvy”, I would pick a serious sounding username. I would, for example pick henrychan over happygirl1234. (Title and names made up.)

I also relied on my knowledge of individual Pingsters with whom I’ve had a chance to hang out with, to help with the elimination.

After a while, I learned which user wrote which kind of posts and it got easier from there.

The Real Trick…

But it wasn’t that easy. There were times when elimination and analysing didn’t work, like if there’s a totally bimbotic post (which isn’t mine) and the four choices are equally bimbotic names, then it’s a 25% chance.

That’s why I only got a 47.75% accuracy. (It would have been more than 50% if I hadn’t “anyhow click without reading” a huge chunk of time.)

But, in the end, I think the real reason I won is because I am bo liao (free) enough to just sit there and click my night away.

I actually enjoy the game. I only find it a chore when I start getting like 10 wrong answers in a row. But when I manage to analyse my way into getting a correct answer, I feel a sense of achievement.

That’s what kept me going.

And, of course, the entertaining chats in the shoutbox.

Very simple lah. Anyone can do it!

Conclusion

This is a super long post I had no intention of writing in the first place! But I just had to say something because everyone’s making a big deal of it. *lol*

Okay, please stop making a big deal.

And watch out for the next game Uzyn is sure to release.

Thanks for the time sink, my friend! *lol*

Now, go and read the official report of the game, if you’re not already tired of reading about it.

Categories: Gaming Notebook
30 Comments »

My calf is aching, my throat is sore and my thumb is screaming.

Such is the result of the evil that is Rock Band.

I can’t wait to torture my body again!

I was really excited about Rock Band when news of its impending release came. We camped our regular gaming store and waited miserably for it to arrive in Singapore.

It took forever. By the time it did, all the excitement had died. I got busy with other stuff and lost all interest in the game.

So when the Goonfather bought the game unannouced on Tuesday night, I was, like, “Dude! That’s $389!!”

(I don’t actually call him Dude in real life. It just seemed right to type that.)

The game box is really huge. It filled up the entire car boot.

We took it home.

The Goonfather took photos of the unwrapping, so I have to publish them because this is like the first time he voluntarily took photos for me.

(Every time I ask him to take a photo of me, he makes a face and grumpily takes a hasty, blur shot. Which is why I had to master the art of self-camwhoring.)

Okay, back to the box!

A scary looking bright pink warning slip!

It looks scary but when you read it, you’ll go, “Duh.”

Duh.

Ooh. The software and drumsticks!

Strangely, that makes me feel hungry. I’m thinking of chicken now.

Ahh, the microphone! It looks rather small and retarded if you ask me. Very not glam. Hmm… in the first place, do rock stars use this kind of microphones? I thought they use headset mics. I can’t remember cos I don’t watch MTVs or concerts all that much.

This looks more fit for karaoke. Hahaha.

Ok, next.

Everything out of the box!

There’s a drum set, a wireless guitar and a microphone to form a three-man rock band.

Rock Band allows up to four players for a jamming session (drums, vocals, lead guitar, bass guitar) but the box only comes with one guitar, which is so inconvenient!!

The company doesn’t sell individual guitars. If you want an extra guitar to form a full band, you need to buy another Rock Band set.

Of course we’re not going to do that. You think we print money is it?

Anyway, since we have two people at home only, the Goonfather decided to get a mic stand so one person can play the guitar while singing and the other person can play the drums.

It was too late to rush out to buy a mic stand, so the Goonfather made his own. (How much does a mic stand cost, anyway?)

He has a bunch of toilet pipes lying around at home from a previous, abandoned project, so he dragged them out and drilled some holes and played lego with the toilet pipes to form this:

Wahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s so terribly unglam lah!!!!!!!!

I think we should call our rock band Toilet Pipes.

Close up:

The drilling was to make a lobang for the wire to stick out of:

I don’t know why they can’t give us a wireless microphone if they can give us a wireless guitar. It’s so stupid.

Last night, we invited Morte over to jam with us.

They are both still in their work clothes!!! Hahahahaha! I could just die laughing.

Here’s a back view picture of me on the drums.

There’s no front view because Morte didn’t photograph any.

We were too busy to take photos, anyway. Most of the night, we took turns swapping instruments and trying them all out. It was so addictive that Morte stayed till 10:30 pm, even though he had to be at SIM at 10:30 pm to pick his wife up from school. Hahahahaha. (It’s about a 30-minute drive from my place to SIM.)

I wonder if Wang Wang (Morte’s wife) gave him hell for it. I would if I were her. Hahahahaha!

As you can tell, I am highly amused by the entire incident.

Okay, that was a preliminary jamming session and like everyone was in their work clothes, so I didn’t take too many photos.

I’ll take better photos when we organise a proper session on a weekend with all my friends!

It is damn fun!! And damn funny!!! Especially when your friends are crap at a particular instrument and you can scold them for making you die. Hahahahaha.

Okay, of course dying is not funny. But you know what I mean.

I love playing the drums. Playing guitar is more glamorous but I’m kind of sick of it because it’s like Guitar Hero.

The drums is cool! But its hell on your right calf because you’re using your calf muscles to step on the foot pedal. I found out last night that I have really weak calf muscles. It’s a muscle I didn’t even know existed until last night! *lol* It started feeling irritated and trembly when I played too many songs requiring a lot of fast, nifty footwork. (Or maybe our chair was too low.)

The vocals part is fun only if you know the song. They do give you lyrics to sing to and a pitch indicator to tell you whether you’re singing the right note or not, but it’s better if you already know the song.

And it is DAMN COOL playing the guitar and singing at the same time… like a real rock star! Hehehehe!

But I’m not going to videotape myself doing that cos I sound horrible singing rock songs, like a frog croaking. Luckily, the game doesn’t judge you on voice quality. It only judges pitch. You don’t even have to sing the right words. You can la la la through the whole song and still score top marks if you hit all the right notes. Hahaha.

We made a band last night to play in career mode and called it Buns N’ Hoses. (Morte’s idea.) Hahahahahaha!!!!

I better stop blogging now before I kill myself laughing.

More pictures next time!!

Categories: Gaming Notebook
26 Comments »

At first, I thought that the Goonfather had lost all his marbles.

He sat at his desk, chanting to himself.

“Pata pata pata pon… pata pata pata pon… pata pata pata pon.”

“Stop it!” I told him, “You sound retarded!”

“Hey!” he objected. “It’s a PSP game. Looks cool. Maybe I should get it.”

Then he went on chanting while I rolled my eyes to let him know what I thought of his patapon.

A few days later, the Goonfather slumped into the bean bag with his PSP while I was working on my computer.

After a while, his PSP started chanting, “Pata pata pata pon…”

OMG, he got the damn game. I buried my face in my hands and wept silently while, in the background, “pata pata pata pon” droned on merrily.

Shortly after.

We were in bed one night performing our nightly ritual (the Goonfather on his PSP, me reading a book) when, once again, I heard that confounded “pata pata pata pon” squeaking off his tinny PSP speakers.

What could possess a grown man to suffer such hideously cute drummings in the ear? Curiosity rolled me over to his side of the bed to peer at his PSP screen.

What the hell. As I watched the game, I started laughing and couldn’t stop.

Patapon is the cutest game I’ve ever seen. When I first heard the chanting, I was irritated by the whole cheesiness of it. But seeing it is altogether different.

In the game, you control a tribe of little eyeball soldiers. YES, EYEBALLS. With tiny little arms holding tiny little weapons. Absolutely cute! It’s a rhythm game, so you beat out relevant rhythms on your PSP to command the little eyeballs (to march, attack, defend or retreat).

Each time after you beat out a rhythm, your little patapons will chant the rhythm while they perform your command, so you get an endless loop of chants that go, “Pata pata pata pon… pon pon pata pon.”

It’s a simple game with a simple premise but it’s hypnotically captivating. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I couldn’t wait to hear the next chant. I couldn’t stop delighting as I looked upon the cute little eyeball patapons. I couldn’t stop laughing at the funny things they were saying.

They’re talkative, the little patapons. Speech bubbles pop out continuously as they comment on the battle or on your playing (they’ll complain if you suck).

The Goonfather is known as Lord Goon in the game. Hahahahaha.

I haven’t actually played it myself. I don’t think it’s fun because it looks pretty monotonous, being a side-scrolling game with only one floor to march through in each mission. The Goonfather is addicted to it, but I only like looking at the patapons and hearing their cute chantings. I don’t actually want to play it.

You can go to the official Patapon website to hear the chant.

Or you can watch this YouTube trailer.

While you’re at it, check out this funny TV commercial showing cute Japanese girls playing the game. At least, I think it’s funny. I don’t know because I don’t understand Japanese.

Can someone tell me what they’re saying??

Yesterday, I was at McDonald’s when I suddenly heard a soft “Pata pata pata pon!” straining under the noisy Sunday chatter and radio music blaring in the restaurant.

I pricked my ears (sorta like a dog except I can’t actually move my ears) and there it was again.

“Pata pata pata pon!”

A little girl was saying it.

I finally traced the sound to this table where an Indian man sat with his three kids. The man and his son were both playing a PSP each.

The little girl was watching her daddy play while she chanted nonstop, “Pata pata pata pon,” in time with the music.

OMG.

If I were her daddy, I would strangle her.

It’s super irritating when you hear someone chant it. Actually, the music/chanting in the game is also super irritating if you’re only hearing it. You have to watch the gameplay at the same time in order to appreciate the cuteness.

The Goonfather hasn’t played it for a few days because he’s now addicted to Dynasty Warriors 6 on the PS3 and God of War on the PSP.

But he’s very easy to influence. He’ll probably feel the urge to play it again after reading this blog. Then I’ll get to see more cute patapons!

Sly, eh?

Categories: Gaming Notebook
37 Comments »

I hope y’all had a great Valentine’s Day.

The Goonfather and I had a Non-Valentine’s Day, in keeping with tradition.

We had more of a Geeks R’ Us day, in fact.

I woke up bright and early and got dressed.

To go to work.

At a stuffy old office.

In a sad lonely cubicle.

(Where one can camwhore in relative privacy when one’s boss isn’t looking.)

The day passed (really slowly and laboriously because I didn’t have enough sleep the night before).

And then it was 6 pm.

Time to get out of the office and head for the mall.

A geek mall, if ever there was one.

Funan the IT Mall.

Where GAMESCORE, my favourite games shop, resides.

I had to sneak off work early to buy a present for the Goonfather.

(We tend to be more pragmatic than romantic so we usually avoid getting suckered into the commercialism of Valentine’s Day, but we love buying presents for each other.)

But I gotta stop doing things last minute.

I won’t say what I bought, yet. But you can tell it’s some geeky thing.

Next stop: Eastpoint Mall, to meet up with the Geekfather, who decided that Valentine’s Day was the perfect day on which to run errands.

He picked last night, of all nights, to get his phone serviced.

And to pay his parking fine.

And to drool over data cables and geeky peripherals at Challenger.

The geekmeter shooteth up.

And then the highlight of the night: Dinner!

Dinner was fast food because we wanted to be done with it quickly so we could rush home to play games.

(Actually, that was more my idea.)

Yes.

We have both become PotBS addicts, although I’m a sorry sort of addict, having not enough time in which to encourage the addiction. Which explains why I’m only level 7 while Kell Jade Dragon is level 17 (plus he has a Level 8 alt!!!! wtf). And we both got the game on the same day.

(Kell Jade Dragon is Elyxia’s boyfriend, whom we sometimes lovingly address as Unker Kell.)

The Goonfather is level 13. He has more time to play than I do because he spends his lunch hour playing and he doesn’t blog. But he obviously has less time than Unker Kell because Unker Kell plays games for a living. Sort of. Plus his bonnie lies o’er the ocean, so he has a lot of time alone, poor bloke.

But I digress.

Dinner was at Long John Silver, my favourite fast food joint.

I love fast food. The Goonfather hates. But he allowed me to drag him to LJS last night because:

1. Fast food restaurants don’t have ridiculous inflated V Day prices.
2. He tries to be accommodating on “special days”.
3. Long John Silver is a pirate so it fits in very nicely with his PotBS addiction.

We tried to rush through dinner so we could be home as early as possible to play PotBS.

But it was really hard to rush through a feast.

I don’t know what the GoonFather was thinking when he ordered all this food…

For two people.

Honestly!

Amazingly, though, we finished most of the food.

And then it was home to let the Geekfather have his presents.

I received my Valentine’s Day present early this year. It was Pirates of the Burning Sea (including unlimited subscription, wahoo). The Goonfather is very fond of giving me advance presents.

Like he gave me my birthday present (a Wii) in May when my birthday was in July. When July rolled around, he had to buy me another present (a DS Lite) because I insisted that May was too far away to be counted. Haha.

Anyway, in return for my PotBS, I got him a DMC4 for the PS3.

He had been slavering at it for yonks (even before it was officially released) but just haven’t bought it because he’s been too busy with PotBS.

Oh, I also got him a bonus present.

It’s a Goomba!

More accurately, it’s a Goomba mini bolster cushion whatever.

You do know what Goombas are, don’t you? From Super Mario Bros. They’re so cute!

The Goomfather loves Super Mario Bros characters. He has a Koopa Troopa shell for a keychain.

Our night ended with PotBS, as planned.

I bought a new graphics card finally. Better graphics now?

This was supposed to be an amazing picture because there was a beautiful view of the rising sun. But just as I remembered to tap my screenshot button, this hill rose up to hide the sun.

As you can see, I didn’t even have time to get rid of my UI.

Then I got too busy to bother with screenshots because I was set upon by pirates. (It’s a pirate eat pirate world.)

And now I have to rush off to work because I sacrificed my morning to write this blog, so I’m going to have to make up for it by doing OT tonight. Zzzz.

TGIF!

(Funny to be saying TGIF when one has to OT.)

(Funny that one never appreciates weekends until one has a regular day job.)

Happy weekend!

Categories: Gaming Notebook
18 Comments »

I finally managed to play Pirates of the Burning Sea last night, after four days of not being able to touch it since installing it. Well, I only had a few hours to play but I’ve got some first impressions.

There are only three things I like about it.

1. The costumes.
2. The music.
3. The poses.

That’s it. Pretty lame things to like about a game. Haha.

The costumes are pretty and authentic and very customisable, with many choices for mixing and matching, and a huge colour palette to dye your clothes.

I chose a black-and-red theme. Yes, very safe and boring, and probably the choice of colour for 80% of the Pirates population. But you can’t deny it looks good and that’s all that matters.

Meet Sheylara Scarlett, my pirate, captain of her own ship (albeit a lousy newbie ship):

I love how I can wear sexy cleavage-revealing clothes in MMORPGs.

I would have gone for a pink-and-white theme but the pastels in the game are dodgy and they all end up looking a pale dirty yellow, somehow.

The music is fantastic. You feel like you’re in your own Pirates of the Caribbean movie. There’s piratey carnival music when you’re gallivanting about town, and there’s piratey battle music when you’re battling. Cool.

And the poses. By that, I mean the way the avatar stands when it’s stationery. There are like five or so different positions which your character assumes randomly.

Other than all that, the game is more frustrating than fun. For me, at least. (There are certainly no lack of PotBS fans raving about the game.)

Some of the things I don’t like:

1. The tutorials are stupid and redundant because they don’t teach you shit.
2. You can’t jump in the game. I’m so used to jumping in MMORPGs that I feel crippled not being able to do it.
3. There’s no tailoring! I can’t make clothes! (I’m always a tailor in MMORPGs.)
4. The learning curve is very steep and the poorly-designed tutorials certainly don’t help.
5. The UI is laggy. Like when you mouseover something, the tooltip takes two seconds to appear. Or when you try to change your ship’s weapon with a right-click, your mouseover doesn’t highlight until 50 years later, by which time your ship has already been sunk by the enemy and your loot plundered and your crew raped.

The game is really very hard to excel in, with lots of strategising if you want to rule the seas.

At this point of time, I have trouble even telling the stern and the bow, or the port and the starboard, apart. I certainly don’t have time to worry about picking the right ship, picking the right weapons, choosing the right side to shoot at and shoot from, taking advantage of the wind direction to out-manoeuvre the enemy, while at the same time making sure your crew doesn’t drink up all the rum before the battle is over.

And I haven’t even started talking about the economy aspect of the game. Building warehouses and factories, harvesting raw materials to produce goods you can sell to other players for a tidy profit, doing it without getting yourself killed because you have to visit enemy ports to get stuff that you need.

OMG.

This is a game for people who have too much time on their hands.

Not me.

I have like maybe two hours a week. Just enough time to sit in the tavern and listen to the bartender wax lyrical over the new wench in town.

I suppose the game concept is pretty cool. I just don’t have time to get into the thick of things. So I’m just gonna log in when I can, try not to die too much and live off the generosity of my guildmates, assuming I get into a guild (called Society in PotBS) soonish.

In the meantime, I’m a clueless lass pretending to be a captain.

Sheylara Scarlett plays on Antigua.

Categories: Gaming Notebook
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