What Happens When “You” Get Stolen
by Serielley on Jul.07, 2010, under LOTRO, MMO Gaming, PC Gaming
In between customer calls and various projects involving spreadsheets, I received an email. At first, I laughed, thinking that a spam mail had gotten through Gmail’s filter and landed in my inbox. The subject line read: Turbine Account Security Notification. I opened the email knowing that it was just another phishing email, sent by goldfarmers halfway across the world. As I read though, that sinking feeling that people always talk about made itself known, slowly but surely. I checked the headers. I then went immediately to the Turbine Account login and tried in vain to log in for the next fifteen minutes trying every password combination I had ever used just to be sure.
My Lord of the Rings Online account had really been hacked. I couldn’t get in.
Since I couldn’t do anything about the situation at that exact moment in time, I stepped outside the office to clear my head, put my work face back on, and kept at it for the rest of the day. I went on my guild’s forums and let my static group know what had happened, and there was instant empathy. It’s something that’s happened to a lot of people in the last few years, so the damage that can be done to an account is fairly well known, and our static group is just full of wonderful fellow human beings. When I got home, I immediately started following the directions the email provided. I ran every program I have in my arsenal to see if I was infected. Nothing. Checked my Firefox settings. AdBlock, NoScript, FlashBlock. Everything was turned on, working properly.
How did this happen? Weeks later, and I still don’t know. I never will, and that’s ok. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and I have my account back now, thanks to two customer service reps at Turbine who were very helpful and patient over the phone. I wish I knew your names, but thank you!
This is Serielle, my level 65 Minstrel. I tried LOTRO at the urging of my husband, and I created Serielle to play with him as his pocket healer, heh. I really enjoy playing Serielle, since the Minstrel is both a healer and a really great damage dealer. They can hold their own pretty well, but are still pretty squishy. Plus, you can kill with music! Heal with music! Who wouldn’t love that? Also, PIMP HAT.
Seriwen, blog readers. Blog readers, Seriwen. I equally enjoy playing my Hunter. It’s addictive to have high DPS, the ability to travel where ever you need to go, and be able to make campfires. Campfires rock!
I’ve been playing LOTRO since December of ’07, so almost three years now. I’ve put a lot of time into each of these characters. Serielle is my most complete character, with very decent (but not the best) gear, fully leveled crafting, and a lot of crap in her bank vault. I mean, really. There were things in there that I was keeping purely for sentimental value. My Minstrel class quest rewards, clothing items my husband had made me, all of the wood crafting materials I’d saved up… It was just pixels though. Those items weren’t “mine”, no matter how attached to them I was.
During the week that it took to get the account back, I went through a lot of different emotions, but after my initial reaction, I felt pretty zen about the whole situation. I knew exactly what would happen to my characters, so there wouldn’t be any surprises. First, they would send all of the gold to another account, then start stripping the character of items to sell on a vendor. If the thief were particularly malicious, they’d drop all of the character’s equipment. I knew that I’d be lucky to have anything left, and as luck would have it, I ended up with a lot more than I ever thought I would. All of my gear was intact, along with some other useful items that would allow me to get back what I had lost in a short amount of time, except for anything that was purely sentimental, of course.
Compared to others, I got off really easy. Some people have waited weeks to get their character back, and have had to spend as much time restoring lost items and gear. I know I was lucky. I didn’t lose anything physical, and technically the characters I’ve created aren’t mine, but belong to Turbine as any MMO character belongs to their respective creating companies. It all boils down to pixels and time, since that’s all that any game really is. It can be more than that though, and we really can feel strong attachment to those goofy looking polygons. Ultimately, our gaming is what we make of it, as is our connection to the characters we create.
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I’d like to thank OTG and the Sunday Night Chili and Beer group for all of the offers of assistance to replace missing items and the offer to run instances to get equipment back. I’ve said it before, but I’m lucky to hang out with yous guys.
The Sunday Night Chili and Beer group. You can always count on us to deviate from the path to attack a troll!
E3, Week of Shiny Goodness
by Serielley on Jun.13, 2010, under FFXIV, Final Fantasy, General Gaming, MMO Gaming, PC Gaming
I love E3 week. So many shiny games, so little time!
The festivities this year get started on Sunday the 13th with an event thrown by Microsoft for their Project Natal launch event. Cirque du Soleil will be performing, ooooooh flashy. Monday will be the beginning of the ever-popular and heavily media-covered press conferences, with Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft all starting the party off. Sony and Nintendo will wait until Tuesday for their conferences, so by about… ohhh, 2:00p on Tuesday afternoon, we’ll have all of the juicy goodness spilling forth over the intarwebs to inform us about what to look forward to during the coming year.
There are very few games that I’m really looking forward to seeing at E3. I’m mostly waiting for the unknown, the big surprise announcements for things that no one knows about yet. I wanted to write about the few games we do know about that I’m looking for, and maybe put down a prediction for an announcement that would make my year.
(continue reading…)
Nier-ly Missed It
by Serielley on May.29, 2010, under Game Reviews, General Gaming, PS3
I wanted to take a little break from the Final Fantasy Playthrough to review this little game called Nier.
Nier is a new IP from Cavia, the developers that brought us Drakengard 1 & 2, Bullet Witch, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and a few anime games based off of Naruto and Death Note. Square Enix recently acquired Cavia and placed their publishing seal of approval on Nier in the attempts to get an original IP out into the wild. The reactions from both players and critics have been very, very mixed, and this game isn’t getting all that much press because of it, so I’d expect to see it taking up space in your local game store’s bargain bins in the relatively near future. I say that’s a good thing for those of you who enjoy playing JRPGs, as you’ll be able to get a really decent game for a good price. I almost didn’t pick this game up, as I hadn’t seen too much press on it, and noone was really talking about it. I’m glad I took the time to check it out!
The main strength of Nier is its brilliant, dark, and moody storyline which is brilliantly voice acted by a cast of anime and video game voice veterans who do an amazing job of communicating what can be a sometimes difficult to understand plot. I would be remiss if I didn’t give huge kudos to Jamieson Price who voices the main character, and Liam O’Brien, the voice of the main character’s book companion Grimoire Weiss. (Yes, I wrote “book companion”… it takes a lot more time to explain than you might think.) These two really bring their characters to life, and add depth and emotion to the game that you really don’t expect.
The basic premise is that the main character (Nier, if you don’t name him something else) is searching for something that will cure his young daughter of a mysterious disease called the Black Scrawl. That’s really all I can say without going into spoiler territory, so if you’re into that kind of thing…
| Spoilers! Click Show if you dare! | |
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There’s so much more to the story, and what is in the spoilers barely scratches the surface. As you progress further, the marketing catchline for the game “Nothing is as it seems,” really figures heavily into what happens. The best, and most impressive thing to me in regards to the story is that when you begin a New Game+ after finishing the first time, even more of the story becomes available, and this process repeats itself up to 3 times! That’s right, in order to see the entire story for the game, you have to beat it at least 3 times. Most games would just toss in an extra cutscene at the end to justify playing through one more time, but Cavia decides to add even more information as you play through the new game in the form of multiple new cutscenes and entirely new perspectives during the main questline. This really makes it worth your while to play through those extra times, that is, if you get involved in the story enough to do so.
One final note about the storyline. Rainbows and unicorns do not exist in this dojo. This story will seriously #$%& with your head in certain places, and can be very dark. It does have humor, and some light points, but for the most part, this is not a lighthearted story by any stretch of the imagination.
Now, on to gameplay and graphics.
As you can see, there’s really not anything too innovative about either the graphics or the gameplay. The graphics especially aren’t anything to write home about, and you frequently encounter a little tearing or artifacts. Gameplay can be repetitive at times, especially if you choose to complete all of the optional sidequests which amount to basic fetch quests. There are other diversions like fishing or gardening, but overall, playing Nier feels to me like playing an offline MMO, which I don’t have a problem with, but others might.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed playing Nier. I’m still playing it to see all of the endings, and to complete one of the gardening sidequests. It has been a really enjoyable experience, and the storyline is one of the best I’ve come across in a long time. If Cavia can mesh their story creating abilities with better graphics and more innovative gameplay in the future, they would easily be able to have a AAA best-selling title on their hands.
Now, please excuse me, as I need to go harvest some plants. 
E3 is just around the corner! I have my own predictions and hopes for the gaming event of the year, and the Final Fantasy Playthrough continues with Final Fantasy II. Coming soon!
Final Fantasy Playthrough: Beginning at the Beginning
by Serielley on May.20, 2010, under Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Playthrough, PSP
Final Fantasy was released here in the U.S. in 1990, when I was ten. I honestly don’t remember playing it. I know that I did, though, because as I played through it recently, points in the storyline toyed with my memory, giving me at least the illusion that I’ve done this before, I’ve found my way out of this labyrinth before… I just really wish I could remember for sure. Whether I remember or not, I’ve recently finished playing through the game that started it all.
Sadly, I don’t have an NES anymore, so I couldn’t play the original game the way it was meant to be played, but I’m ok with that. Playing the PSP version released in 2007 was a great experience, with updated graphics and music, so it was worth it. Not the same, but worth it. The PSP version has additional content as well that I didn’t take a chance to explore, as I wanted to just play the original game. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll get back to that and see what it’s all about, but for now, playing the original game was just fine for the time being.
The original Final Fantasy has a very basic story and doesn’t really dig too deeply into the motivations of the characters or the history of the world they are trying to save. The world itself doesn’t have a name, but is governed by the four elemental crystals of Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. 200 years before the beginning of our story, a great change came upon the land, and the four elements began to fail. The four Warriors of Light appear one day in a kingdom called Corneria, whose princess has just been kidnapped by a former member of the royal court, Garland. They carry with them crystals corresponding to the four elements, but they are dead and useless. The King of Corneria sends them to rescue his daughter, and thus our story begins.
The “monomyth”, Universal Myth, or the “hero’s journey” is basically what we are progressing through with Final Fantasy and most other video games based on the quest motif. Joseph Campbell provided us with the basis and understanding of this concept which basically goes thusly:
In a monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift or “boon.” The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, he or she often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero returns successfully, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Buddha, for example, follow this structure closely.[1]
Campbell describes some 17 stages or steps along this journey. Very few myths contain all 17 stages — some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These 17 stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation, and Return. “Departure” deals with the hero’s adventure prior to the quest; “Initiation” deals with the hero’s many adventures along the way; and “Return” deals with the hero’s return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey. – Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
The hero’s journey has been with humanity since its earliest beginnings and cultures around the world from ancient to modern have embraced it and made it their own. I think this is an important thing to keep in mind as we talk about the original Final Fantasy (and the series in general) and try to explain why it had such an impact that it has endured for over twenty years. The Quest is something that all of us can relate to in one form or another, and it can resonate deeply within people if they are so inclined.
For myself personally, the hero’s journey has been something that I’ve been familiar with since a very early age. Since I was an early reader, my family regularly gifted me with books, and my favorites were ones that contained fairy tales. There was one in particular that contained all sorts of traditional tales, pre-Brothers Grimm, and looking back now, I can see how profoundly they affected me. I devoured anything about ancient civilizations and loved the tales of King Arthur as I grew older. Video games fell naturally into this sphere for me as they were another way to experience a story and thrilling adventure.
By the time I was ten, I had only played video games like Mario Bros. and the first few Zelda games, and though they were excellent, you can’t exactly say that they had compelling plotlines. Then comes along Final Fantasy. Despite the spare plot and storyline, the Quest was still there, and I’d like to think my younger self saw and recognized this. Hindsight is 20/20, right? I really wish I could remember more of my first experiences with the series, but alas… time has eaten away at that part of my brain. Regardless of my lack of memory, I know the original Final Fantasy hooked me from the beginning, and here we are today.
I really enjoyed playing through Final Fantasy twenty years down the road. It only took me about 12 hours to finish, but it was great fun. Even with the polished graphics and music, the gameplay is still the same turn-based simplicity that changed the RPG gaming landscape so long ago. It holds up well today, in the world of fast paced combat and shiny graphics, and I’m glad that I revisited it for no other reason than to experience the Quest one more time.
Next up in the Final Fantasy Playthrough is Final Fantasy II, also on the PSP. I’ve been working on it for the last few weeks, and I have to admit that I’m having a little difficulty playing through it. Some of that might be attributed to picking up the new game Nier for the PS3 (review coming soon!), but I think there’s more to my reluctance than that. I’ll explore this in my post after either finishing it or giving up and moving on. We’ll see what happens!
The Great Final Fantasy Playthrough
by Serielley on Apr.12, 2010, under Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Playthrough, General Gaming, PS3, PSP
A while back, I was examining my gaming options for the year. (Does anyone else do this, or am I just really that nerdy? Never mind, I know the answer to that…) I realized that after I finished God of War 3, I’d be left high and dry, without any new games that I was interested in until Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is released during the Summer. Sure, I’ve got all sorts of games that I can play and some that I still haven’t finished like The Witcher, The Last Remnant, one of the new Zelda games, and another playthrough of the amazing Chrono Trigger. Yep, I could finish all of those if I wanted to, but the problem was that I didn’t really have any burning desire to do so.
As I was playing Final Fantasy XIII, I realized that there were some games in the Final Fantasy series that I’d never finished either. Whether it was from lack of interest or boredom, there were portions of the series that I had completely ignored, and as a Squenix fangirl, that bothered me, right down to the bottom of my chocobo infested soul. I took stock of what we had in the collection and realized that we were only missing a few of the games, so why not get them and then sit down and play through the entire series, from start to finish? It would be a pleasant way to spend my gaming time, and would be something I’d never done before, so why not?
I decided too that it would be a fun project to write about here on the blog, and would keep me posting on a regular basis, so it really was a win-win idea all the way around. I probably write about Final Fantasy too much, and this might be overkill, but to those of you who aren’t fans of the series, I beg your indulgence. I don’t want to write reviews about the games, since that’s been done and overdone for the last twenty-plus years. Instead, I want to write about my experiences playing the games, about the memories I have about growing up with the series, and perhaps some in-depth analysis of story and character.
Now I had to decide how I’d play them through. Would I include the spin-offs? Would I am for specific goals like leveling the characters to max level, or gaining all of the ultimate weapons? Here’s my plan for the Playthrough:
Just play.
I’m not going to burden myself with aiming high, as I don’t want to burn myself out, and I want to just experience the games again. I want to enjoy what they have to offer, and not infuse the experience with elitism. I will, however, toss in two of the spin-offs, just because I can. Here’s my playthrough order, even though it’s probably pretty obvious and goes without saying:
- Final Fantasy (PSP, 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Final Fantasy II (PSP, 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Final Fantasy III (Nintendo DS)
- Final Fantasy IV (Nintendo DS)
- Final Fantasy V (PS1 Anthology Collection)
- Final Fantasy VI (PS1 Anthology Collection)
- Final Fantasy VII (Playstation Network, played on PSP)
- Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core (PSP)
- Final Fantasy VIII (Playstation Network, played on PSP)
- Final Fantasy IX (Playstation Network, maybe PSP, maybe PS3?)
- Final Fantasy X (PS2)
- Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
- Final Fantasy XI (writeup only, as I’m not going to be playing this one again due to it’s online and addictive nature!)
- Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
- Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
- Final Fantasy XIV (yes, going to write about this as well, as there is a strong possibility it’ll either be out, or I’ll be playing open beta)
Whoo! That’s a lot of gaming. It’ll be quality gaming though, and I know I’ll enjoy the hell out of it. I have no idea how long this will take, as some of these games can be well over 100 hours long. I hope though, that with each game, I’ll discover new things about each one, and won’t bore my visitors to tears. Ha!
Final Fantasy has been a part of my life for the last twenty-someodd years. I’ve grown up with the series as I’ve said before, and it has been a part of my most important friendships, not to mention THE most important friendship I have, with my husband. I’m looking forward to reliving memories of the past, and creating new memories for the future during this playthrough. I hope you’ll join me on this trip, and please feel free to add your own memories to mine as we travel together. I’d love to hear from you about how Final Fantasy has been a part of your lives, and what kind of role it played or plays in your life. That sounds really deep, and makes Final Fantasy seem like more than what it is, just a game. Is it though? This is the kind of question I want to explore as I playthrough each game.
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