10.31.05

Ninja-Blizz

Posted in News, Online gaming at 7:41 am by yuka

Blizzard has apparently come under fire for their use of spyware regarding WoW. (Warcraft game maker in spying row for full article) Although I’m in no position to argue yea or nae (I’m not that computer literate!) surely it’s a fair move by them. Take a look on eBay, and rows upon rows of “x-gold on any European/US server” flashes by. If these were legitimate businesses, run solely by Blizzard (as it is their intellectual property) I doubt they would have needed to take such a measure and appear, perhaps, paranoid.

10.29.05

wtf?

Posted in Online gaming at 9:58 am by yuka

Nah, sorry, not WoW news as such, though perhaps this is a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ of sorts. See, CoH site is now up and running and the message boards are intact. Makes a change from when we just couldn’t even see the damn thing! But then again, it doesn’t tell us much, despite going on for 62 pages (so far). By reading, you can almost sense that most of these players are hissing and spitting in frustration, because no matter what they do, they’re having the very same troubles I encountered last night.

And yeah, for some unknown and unsaid reason, CoV is still refusing to even start up for me. Honestly, NCSoft, if you can’t explain to your customers what the hell is going on, how do you expect them to keep on paying?

10.28.05

CoV/CoH inaccessibility

Posted in Online gaming at 4:53 pm by yuka

I know it’s late, I know that there has been maintenance on content as well as servers… BUT… what the hell is going on?

For the last few days, both City of Villains and City of Heroes has been inaccessible. I have repeatedly during this time attempted to log in to both and was given the ’server down’ message. Obviously, in case of any announcements or updates, I reasonably check the site forums. Lo and behold, the forums are inaccessible too.

The former being in its Beta stage, I’d imagine there’ll be several hiccups along the way – fair enough. However, the latter has been online for quite a while now, not to mention the subscription that players pay (£8.99 per month) and what do we get? It’s a piss poor excuse for an online gaming site. Sort it out, NCSoft, or you’re going to lose a few players who’re fed up of this mediocrity.

Final Fantasy makes a come back!

Posted in Japanese, News at 3:31 am by yuka

What is now titled Final Fantasy IV Advance for the GBA/sp has currently a ‘Preorder’ status at Amazon Jp for roughly £22. Even the Japanese fans were surprised by its arrival coming within the year, and seems ecstatic that there’s an additional new event/dungeon with souped up graphics.

Then of course there’s Final Fantasy III on DS. The ‘making of’ can be read in the November issue of Famitsu – of course, that is if you can read and understand Japanese… oh well, if I can’t get hold of the said magazine, translations won’t be available.

10.25.05

City of Villains (Beta)

Posted in Online gaming, Reviews at 7:01 am by yuka

After leaving everything on all night, it’s finally ready to play, and so I’ve spent the last hour or so happily figuring out my somewhat rusty City of Heroes techniques. Yep, it’s pretty much the same (so far). You don’t have those faithful citizens cowering in terror or thanking you for saving their lives however, and the background is aptly lacking in colour. And of course, instead of beating up the thugs, you get to batter giant snakes and (possibly well-meaning) officials and guards.

Obviously this is just a first impression (of a Beta to boot), but I feel that there needs to be something fundamentally different to Heroes for it to be a success in its own right. I’ll play it some more of course, and I hope that I won’t tire of its simplicity too soon to go back to (inevitably) Warcraft Online.