Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Taxes

So I have two W2s, one pointing toward the normal place and one pointing toward Mauritius.

From Wikipedia:
Mauritius – based front companies of foreign investors are used to avoid paying taxes in India utilising loopholes in the bilateral agreement on double taxation between the two countries, with the tacit support of the Indian government, who are keen to improve figures relating to inward investment. The use of Mauritius as a gateway to funnel foreign investments into India has always been controversial. Mauritius's financial regime has a number of the key characteristics of a tax haven, which has helped to facilitate this.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Arcana Heart 3 is out

<HeartNana> ok
<HeartNana> shit felt PERFECT

And some joy finally starts creeping back into me.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Cosmic Break broke my heart

Sort of delayed, sort of old, but yeah time to post a final wrap-up more or less.
Cosmic Break broke my heart.
I'd be sort of over this if I didn't keep getting asked questions suddenly by IRL friends from the fighting game community.
"Hay sibladeko what's a good build" x9000.
Imagine my face when I have to tell them that they should never spend money on this game because the people running it are insane.
Where were you clowns in the previous betas when the game was actually good?

In short, Cosmic Break USA's insistence that it was "well aware they were dealing with a different market" was pretty much lies.
True they started out with "discounted" prices but they kept the RT conversion the same and once those discounts end it will go back to the hilarious Japanese pricing of 20 dollars for 5 rolls.
And so ends Cosmic Break.
10 dollars 5 rolls.
Not budging on that price point, that's what DFO uses and that's the border of sanity.
It's only fair too given the lack of a trading system and other bullshit the userbase puts up with.
If they had used that price point I'd be flying around with those shiny wings right now with chocolate Lily instead of playing other games.
But no they think 20 bucks 5 rolls will work here.
Even with the discounted rates (16 bucks for 5 rolls! 12 bucks for 5 rolls, almost there but no cigar) have firmly cleaved the user base by 66%.
And hell I wonder how many of those remaining 33% paid?
The few people who have shiny wings all belong to the merged clan of lagging HKers and iHOP called Everything's(Not)Fine.
That and maybe Middle Eastern Prince *******, he has something like 4 shiny wings on an alt.
Truly the saviors of USA Cosmic Break's economic model.

Quite honestly I spend tons of money on stupid shit, I threw 50 bucks at Ougon (HAHA SUCKER), I'm throwing 70? at Arcana Heart 3 limited edition, just to name my most recent examples of excess.
But I refuse to throw any more money at Cosmic Break USA until they change the pricing, which I don't think they will.
It'd be pretty trivial for me to throw 1000s and get overpowered bots like Everything'sFine and rule a dead game.
Except I don't want a dead game, I want a game that can grow, that can thrive, that can survive a balance change instead of having people quit because their 1000s of dollars are now worthless.
Buy in and you basically reward Cyberstep for their idiocy and their desire to kill their own game.

Edit: Oh yeah as for shit people ask me the most:
If you want to be a winner, Redux will help you win.
Tons of problems in the base game...though changing flat garapon price goes a long way toward remedying that.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Ougon Musou Kyoku


Is pretty kusoge.
I'm having limited "fun" with it but right now the biggest problems are:
1. Cancel window is retardedly tight and chains actually hurt my hands to do, very mashy game cause of how the command interpreter is.
2. Pressure is extremely linear, the guard meter builds hella fast so there's almost no reason to open someone up, just make them block. You basically block low 99% of the time in this game waiting for the obvious tag overhead.
3. Attacking someone gives them more meter than you.
4. Bursts are omega free, with the amount of meter you get in this game there is no reason NOT to burst. If a game has both sides bursting like 5 times per match there is a problem.
5. Metaworld is staggeringly powerful for certain characters, there is no reason to NOT counter meta if you have the meter and even if they have more meters to redeclare it throws off dash timing like a bitch and shortens the duration of it.
6. Everyone's combos are the same, though I don't mind it that much. No meter combo is 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c2c special if you have it. One meter on your main? 2a5b2b5c metaworld dash 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c2c metaworld super into dizzy. One meter on your sub? 2a5b2b5c tag 2a5b2b5c metaworld dash 2a5b2b5c metaworld super into dizzy. Ange has limited chains but she has rejumps. Probably one of the more interesting characters in the game.
7. Hitboxes are all over the place. True there is a slash wisp I believe in the actual move, but look at that thing. Same with a lot of the other moves, I think Battler's tie is something like impossible to attack head on.

8. Netplay is disconnecting garbage with no spectate and no way to copy paste IPs in (you have to mash up arrows on the number fields)
9. Limited joystick support, when's the last time I've played a doujin fighter that couldn't realize the directionals on both my pad and stick? Maybe 10 years ago?

Pluses:
1. Presentation is slick as hell, looking at the sprite work confirms this. Plenty of cool in-jokes and story moves as well, the characters really have a lot of their stuff from the sound novels.
2. Music is amazing, although it is in uncompressed WMA!?!?! Lol why is the continue song 2.5 minutes. It's like they didn't care. Plus a 7 minute stage song for a game with a 180 second timer. Do not understand.
3. Voice acting is top notch, everyone sounds in character and the ones who are annoying are annoying as hell nyehheheh (silly rabbit).
4. I really really like the meter system in that you only build meter for your partner. It really does promote the "tag" aspect of the game, however everything else sort of falls, especially of how metaworld is handled. Maybe doing metaworld super ends your metaworld immediately, because at the moment Beatrice has infinite momentum, Battler and Ange have free instant full screen punishes on anything you do that isn't down back, etc. etc.

The game has potential, I don't even want to think of how Melty Blood was when it first came out.
Right now though it's a pretty limited, though gorgeous, experience.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Friday, December 17, 2010

Microsoft Taiwan makes a Silverlight Christmas dating sim



What the fuck? I didn't even know there were four Silverlight sisters.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Rollcaster

It’s possible for a sound to get played and then get canceled out by a rollback, which would of course be very confusing. I had to add some code that not only tracks every single instance of a sound being played, but what’s even more fun is that it has to check to make sure that the same sound wasn’t started on a later frame, so it doesn’t accidentally cancel something out that was just moved up a bit.

So you want to program games?
Hope to God you are as hardcore as mauve.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME PART 3

Voicework

God Beatrice sounds hilarious.


Anyway further shit:
Ange: Stun Boost (She gets a lot more hit stun on her attacks)
Battler: Resurrection (He heals life)
Beatrice: InfinitySP (One super she chooses costs nothing?!)
Lucifer: Attack Touch (Can tag in even if she is in waiting status)
Kanon: Silent Attack (Seals opponents SP gain when he hits them? Or makes them gain less, not sure.)
Shanon: Auto Guard (What it says...sort of vague, I don't know if it means you don't have to block mixups yourself or what.)
Eva: Berserk (??? Probably more damage)
Chester: Break Boost (Almost positive that she does increased guard damage)
Virgilia: ??? (???)
Ronove: Counter Boost (??? Guessing he does retardo damage off CH)

Serious thoughts.
Siesta looks ridiculous, guard damage is really absurd plus arrow spammy character along with rushdown type normals.
Not sure about Beatrice, she sure is elegant looking though.
Also if Shannon's shit lets her not have to block mixups she will be easy ass scrub character.

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME PART 2

Actual play footage.

So Keits posts three times about this game on SRK front page and Stupid Retarded Kids explode because of too much anime.
Also lol, Japan more pessimistic than #Umineko because "oh no combo game."
Also damage is spelled DAMEGE aka DAME GE- aka "do not want game"

Anyway analysis:
It is a tag game, lifebars seem shared between characters, super meter is not.
There are three life bars total per pair.
Tagging is called "Touch."
Canceling an attack into a tag attack is called "Attack Touch."
Bursting out of hitstun into a tag switch costs two meters of your sub and is called "Damage Touch."
You can combo into and out of tags.
There is a life gain mechanic of some sort.
There is a guard meter.
There is a shitload of projectiles.
The toolshed stage either phases in and out of normal and ritual or it's some type of game effect (think arcana activations in AH1 and AH2).
Backed up by the fact that in the clip after Lucifer goes into snap finger pose and the background changes.
Beatrice has something called "Infinity SP"
Battler has something called "Ressurection"
Kanon has something called "Silent Attack"
Shanon has something called "Auto Guard"
Eva has something called "Berserk"
Chester has something called "Break Boost"
Lucifer has something called "Attack Touch" (different than normal attack touch?)
Ronove has something called "Counter Boost"

Sunday, November 21, 2010

UMINEKO FIGHTING GAME




Holy fuck get out of my head Japan!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Friday, November 05, 2010

Asians don't age, they in fact reverse age!


From elderly white man to young asian dude.
And here I thought the plot of Mission Impossible 2 depended way too much on the face change gimmick.

My guess is either:
1. Chinese political dissident or criminal or something
2. North Korean

Chinese hands NK escapees back to NK, I wonder if you were able to seek asylum in Hong Kong before the revertsal of ownership.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Frontier Aja has more money than God

Touhouvania II cast:
Sakuya Izayoi: Sawashiro Miyuki (Mint of Galaxy Angel, Shinku of Rozen Maiden, Aruru of Utawarerumono)
Remilia Scarlet: Kitamura Eri
Patchouli Knowledge: Rikimaru Noriko (Manaka of To Heart 2)
Flandre Scarlet: Kanemoto Hisako (Ika Musume of Ika Musume)
Hong Meiling: Satou Satomi (Ritsu of K-ON!)
Reimu Hakurei: Satou Rina (Negi of Negima, Haruka of Minami-Ke, Mikoto Misaka of To Aru Majutsu no Index)
Marisa Kirisame: Shintani Ryoko (Xianghua of Soul Calibur, Milfeulle of Galaxy Angel, Sae of Hidamari Sketch)
Alice Margatroid: Tomatsu Haruka (Ai from Idolmaster DS, Nagi from Kannagi, Lala from To Love-Ru)
Yukari Yakumo: Endou Aya (Leanne from Resonance of Fate, Miyuki of Lucky Star, Sheryl of Macross Frontier)
Yuyuko Saigyouji: Shiina Hekiru (Haruka from Dream Club Zero, Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth)
Youmu Konpaku: Hirohashi Ryou (Kyou from Clannad, Rakka from Haibane Renmei, Sora from Kaleido Star)
Ran Yakumo: Kobayashi Yu (Setsuna of Negima, Mariya of Maria Holic, Kaere Kimura of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei)
Chen: Shintani Ryoko
Komachi Onozuka: Tomatsu Haruka

Friday, October 29, 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Mizuumi site redesign

Bellreisa's making a serious attempt to make Mizuumi somewhat legitimate.
Wish him luck.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Blizzard bans single player cheaters

That sound?
That's the sound of the entire Diablo mod community shitting its pants.
Terrible precedent, you KNOW this shit is going to be in Diablo 3.
And with SC2's terrible editor limitations already (they recently banned a typing of the dead style UMS because the dictionary included the word 'dyke') Blizzard seems well on their way to stifling any 3rd party development, even for single player.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Italian Magic Girl Leather


vs


The more I think about it the more the fact it was just the intro really points to it just being the same sample being used.

Monday, October 04, 2010

New Jersey

I'm officially living in it.