Another Meme Form

From Thomas.  The topics he picked for me are Touhou, KyotoAni, and Ragnarok.

I toned down the questions a little though, as the originals are a little too fangirlish for my tastes.

Touhou

1. The first character I liked:
   Ran Yakumo.  First Extra boss that I faced, back when I was really into Touhou.   I loved everything about that boss fight; the patterns, the music, and the way the difficulty hit me in the face (I had only seen and 1cced Normal at the time), forcing me to give it everything I had just to see the next spellcard.  No boss fight or Extra stage after that was nearly as fun.  That, plus I’ve always liked the “right-hand man” archetype and feel sorry for the way she gets treated by Yukari.
2. The character I unexpectedly ended up liking:
   Kisume.  She’s such an insignificant and completely random character, but the sheer silliness of a random girl in a bucket (and the fanart) eventually won me over.
3. The character that everyone likes but I don’t:
   Marisa.  I just don’t find her very likable.  She’s kind of a jerk, and is very annoying to fight in IaMP.
4. The character that I like but no one else does:
   Most Touhou characters tend to have a decent number of fans.  I guess I’ll have to say Ran again here.  Fanartists tend to put more effort and variety into drawing Yukari and Chen, while Ran is usually limited to Tenko/CHEEEEEENNNNNN memespam.
5. The character that I think is the best looking:
   That really depends on the fanartist.  Sanae, Yukari, Orin and Hina all look great in fanart.  Among others.
6. The character I’d want to be like:
   Maybe Yuyuko?  She lives a carefree and happy life, but underneath that silliness is an incredibly intelligent and perceptive person that always makes the right call.
7. The character I’d slap:
   Unzan.  The dude takes swings at me all the time, so I think I should fight back.  Though it’s probably not a great idea to get into a fight with a giant cloud that can crush you with fists several times the size of your body.
8. A pairing that I like:
   Not on a romantic level.  I like Yuyuko and Youmu because the contrast between their personalities is an endless source of amusement.  Maybe also Yuyuko/Yukari because of the themes of friendship and loyalty.
9. A pairing that I dislike:
   Yuyuko/Mystia – the I EAT YOU RAWRR thing lost its charm pretty quickly.  Same with Tenshi/Yuka, etc.
10. Favorite character:
    Sanae.
11. Five most favorite characters:
    Sanae, Patchouli, Shanghai, Suika, Satori.  Not so sure about those last ones.  It’s hard to rank exactly when the cast is well over 80 characters at this point.
12. Five least favorite characters:
    Shou, Marisa, Wriggle, Unzan (SCREW YOUR FISTS), and Pyonta (Suwako’s hat.  The hat itself looks cool, but why anthropomorphize it?).
13. Which character I am most like:
    Sanae.  Appears talented to some, but can seem very ordinary when placed near certain people.  Easily outshone by others and often winds up forgotten in the background as a result.
14. My deep, dark fandom secret:
    Well, it wouldn’t be much of a secret if I wrote it on my blog.  But I guess I can say that I think I’ve gotten much worse at these games and have lost most of my motivation to play.  The charm is just not there anymore.

KyotoAni (FMP, Kanon, Lucky Star, Clannad, K-On)

1. The first character I liked:
   FMP is the first anime I watched out of all of the above, soo…
   Female character: Tessa.  Cute girl who is one of the commanding officers of an elite army, designed her own submarine and has a cool-sounding name taken from a Ferrari.  What’s not to like?
   Male character: Sousuke from FMP.  It’s rare to see a male lead that is both a badass and funny as hell at the same time.
2. The character I unexpectedly ended up liking:
   Tsukasa from Lucky Star.  I usually don’t like the token dumb girl, but Tsukasa was a strange exception.
3. The character that everyone likes but I don’t:
   Konata from Lucky Star.  Again, not that I dislike her, but it’s just that I don’t find her particularly remarkable.
4. The character that I like but no one else does:
   I’m fairly sure everyone I like in this list has his or her own fan following.  But I suppose Kotomi seems relatively unpopular compared to the others.
5. The character that I think is the best looking:
   Akiko from Kanon.
6. The character I’d want to be like:
   Akiko again.  She’s a background character who is impossibly good at everything, knows everything, but is happy to let people figure things out for themselves.
7. The character I’d slap:
   Gaul from FMP.  Bastard deserves a good beating.  With a mech.
8. A pairing that I like:
   Non-romantic again.  Probably Kagami and Konata.  Jokes bounce easily between them and they have some “daww” moments when they drop the comedy and actually be nice to each other.
9. A pairing that I dislike:
   The comedy duo in Lucky Channel.  They weren’t really funny most of the time, and it was always kind of annoying to see them pop up because it meant you were about to get another 5-10 minutes of filler.
10. Favorite character:
    Probably Akiko.
11. Five most favorite characters:
    Akiko, Sayuri, Tessa, Kagami, Mio.
12. Five least favorite characters:
    Random antagonistic people from Kanon/Clannad, like student council guy in Kanon or the soccer club guys in Clannad After Story.  There are at least five of them across the two series.
13. Which character I am most like:
    Yukine from Clannad, maybe.  If you ask for help, I’ll help in any way I can, but you can also walk right past my room and finish the entire series without ever knowing I was there.
14. My deep, dark fandom secret:
    I didn’t like Clannad After Story so much.  The whole thing was so relentlessly depressing that it eventually broke any emotional connection there was between me and what was happening on screen.

Ragnarok Online

(Questions modified to fit classes rather than characters)

1. The first class I liked:
   Priest.  Was the first 2^nd class that I made.  He sucked, but my later priests got better as I learned more about the class and various builds.
2. The class I unexpectedly ended up liking:
   Wizard/Hwiz.  The server I “grew up” on was full of people who either went Soul Strike or relied entirely on FDing everything, so I wasn’t particularly interested in Mages at first.  I only came to like them years later, when I met a very skilled wizard who taught me the finer points of playing a wizard.  It turns out there are all sorts of neat little tricks you can do with wizards that combine certain spells, an excellent sense of spacing and timing, and movement cancels to make it all flow together better.  It made me realize how rare it was to see a good wizard, and how skill-based the class really was.
3. The class that everyone likes but I don’t:
   SinX.  They are very strong, but ease of use, clear favoritism from Gravity and high killing power means that this class strongly amplifies the Internet Fuckwad rule.  The power gets to the heads of most people and then all of a sudden those players can’t stop waving around their e-peen.   Most of the assholes I’ve met on any server main a SinX.
   Secondary and far less venomous choice: Pally.  I acknowledge their strength and worth in a party, but I just don’t like playing one.  It’s not my style.
4. The class that I like but no one else does:
   Gunslinger.  I admit that they are terrible (worse than useless in most builds) and inferior to Snipers in almost every way.  But a lot of people don’t seem to realize that a properly built and equipped Desperado Gunslinger turns a precast portal into a meat grinder more effectively than any melee class.
5. The character that I think is the best looking:
   I like the brunette kafra with the ponytail. Best looking class is probably female Priest or HP.
6. The class I’d want to be like:
   I suppose I’d go with High Priest.  Not for the religious stuff but because they are extremely versatile and helpful in any situation.
7. The class I’d slap:
   SinX for obvious reasons.  Biochemists with Vanilmirths are second for similar reasons.
8. A pairing that I like (not romantic):
   Knight with Priest: Not particularly special, but this setup has nostalgic value to me because I spent many hours leveling with a good friend this way.
   Bard/Clown with Taekwon Ranker: Maybe it’s just an eAthena thing, but Magic Strings-boosted kickspam = awesome.
   Taekwon Ranker with Priest: Another nostalgia thing.  This is how I met the aforementioned wizard player.  My TK partied with his priestess and we just intuitively worked together incredibly well, usually without any need to say anything.  We were each so pleasantly surprised at the other’s play that we spent a good while after the party trying to push some of the better drops we found towards the other person as thanks.
9. A pairing that I dislike:
   Biochemist/Creator with Lex Priest: Now I know how useful this is (I’ve mained Creators on several servers and I definitely try to tape a Priest to me) because of the power and cost of Acid Demo, but this setup is not much fun for the Priest because you are only a slave that is expected to press one button and nothing more.
10. Favorite class:
    High Priest.  Like I said, useful in any situation, absolutely vital in tougher ones, and lots of fun in parties because you always have something to do.
11. Five most favorite classes:
    High Priest, Sniper, Biochemist (preferably a Lif), Lord Knight, Scholar.
12. Five least favorite classes:
    SinX, Biochemist (Vanil), Champion, Paladin, Ninja.
13. Which class I am most like:
    Archer, I suppose.  I do know how to use a bow, and I tend to be the random guy in the background.
14. My deep, dark fandom secret:
    Every now and then I feel vaguely like playing RO again.  But that never lasts long because I’ve been fooled too many times.

Danmaku Shooter Guide

As a final project for one of my courses, I wrote a guide that explains basic patterns and strategies for danmaku shooters. I picked the subject because I’ve been meaning to put together something like this for a while now, and also because I know a few people online who would be interested in reading something like this. I’ve repackaged a copy of it to be put up here. It’s in PDF format.

Link is here.

It didn’t come out as well as I would’ve liked, but hopefully some people will still find it helpful.

I spend a lot of time on silly things.

Crysis
Incredible graphics combined with the cheesiest, most craptacular writing I’ve ever seen in a game. Started out rather underwhelming but turned out pretty decent. Kinda funny, since apparently most other people seemed to like the first half more than the second. CoD4 apparently spoiled me – it really bugged me how you could shoot someone in the chest repeatedly without killing him, until I figured they were probably wearing bulletproof vests or something (you could also shoot the helmets clean off of soldiers without killing them). Last boss fight crashed on me twice for no good reason.

There’s also some silly fun to be had throwing heavy objects through fully destructable houses.

Crysis Warhead
The first game done right. Everything seems to have been improved in this game; writing, gameplay, pacing, level design, etc. The game even runs better without sacrificing visual quality, so I assume they’ve optimized the code. The aiming issue was still there, but it was quickly solved with a newfound respect for shotguns and Gauss rifles.

TH12 demo
Pretty impressive. Typical of what you’d expect of newer Touhou games these days – good music, improved look, somewhat quirky new system, and early levels that are considerably harder than their counterparts in TH6/7/8.

I particularly like the UFO mechanic. The UFOs encourage you to break rank from standard bullet streaming to chase after them, whereas in SA the autocollection on graze made the game feel like it locked you down into the same movement patterns. In other words, the UFOs make the gameplay feel less confined, and the design of the bullet patterns reflect that.

I like how the playable Sanae handles, and finally, this is very true.

Clannad After Story
Finally got around to watching this. I didn’t like it as much as the first season. While the first few story arcs that covered some of the optional side arcs in the original game were good, the later arc that focused on Tomoya felt too bleak to me. I’m sure that was intentional, but I feel that I simply wasn’t in the right mindset to appreciate it.

That’s actually something that I feel is very common with Key’s work. Their style is very distinct, and requires a certain mindset and mood to be enjoyed properly.

FRAPS
What the hell.

1) System SATA drive is too busy with other tasks to record properly, and separate physical IDE hard drive is too slow to create a new video file after the 4 gig file limit is reached.
2) Get new, faster SATA drive. Ghosted system drive onto new drive, and rearranged things so that the new drive is now the system drive. Old SATA is cleared and used for extended storage.
3) FRAPS doesn’t like recording to the separate physical SATA drive. It randomly freezes for extended periods of time, and then when the game finally starts running again, the recording had stopped on its own.
4) I finally try recording to the physical IDE drive again for the heck of it (which has had no changes aside from being moved to a new physical drive mount). It works perfectly – it even creates those new video files without a hitch.

Anyway it somehow works now, and I’ve uploaded some gaming related silliness on my Youtube.

L4D Custom Maps
The influx of custom maps has been great. All of the ones I’ve played so far have been pretty awesome. They’re not perfect, but their overall quality has been very impressive.

Sanae-ness.

I’m part of -⑨- on Steam, which is a clan where everyone chooses a Touhou character and makes a name in relation to that character. A bunch of people I hang out with on IRC are in this clan, so I joined, and it’s been pretty awesome so far.

I went with Sanae, and eventually settled on the name Only Human. Story-wise, Sanae is a character that was vaunted for having god-like powers in the “real” world, but quickly found out that was pretty average in Gensokyo, after being beaten through the floor in Mountain of Faith by resident crazy people Reimu and Marisa.

I like that name not only because it suits Sanae, but also because I think it’s useful as a reminder to myself. One of the reasons why I like Sanae as a character is because I feel I identify with her. Obviously it’s not on the same magnitude, but I’ve repeatedly been in similar situations throughout my life. Time and time again, I would find something I was talented at and quickly outstrip everyone around me, only to later step onto a larger stage and quickly realize that my skill level is actually downright pedestrian. Being humbled like this over and over again was pretty grueling, but I think the experience eventually forged a few very valuable personality traits that I doubt I would have gotten in any other way.

Touhou character list.

So Hourai linked me this, and this is the result. The top bit is solid enough, but it makes less and less sense as the list goes on. I think it’s partly because I’m clicking through these choices at 4 am.

I’ve been meaning to write out a lot of various thoughts here, but this would be a bad time to do it. Another day, maybe.

FRAPS and Youtube

With this computer, FRAPS and video recording is finally doable for me.  Yay.

As a way to figure out how to use FRAPS and VirtualDub and all that, I’ve uploaded a video of my complete fluke 1/1 capture of Mokou’s Last Word.  It turned out okay, though I wish I knew why the framerate was so bad.

Irrational and Mistaken Positioning

I’ve been trying to get back into IaMP for no particular reason (after well over a year’s hiatus), and played a few games with mauve today in the #iamp IRC channel.  I’m player 2 here.

Clearly, I favor the boot camp approach.

Despite the above track record being the norm, I’ve been enjoying myself more now than I did back when I first tried to play IaMP back during the channel’s infancy (back when there were less players than there were characters in the game).  You see, IaMP is one of the most unforgiving versus games that I’ve ever played, and the continued activity of the playerbase means the game has grown to ridiculously high levels over the years.  Many people have given up and stopped playing the game due to its unforgiving nature, but a select few have managed to gain some serious skill after literally years of practice.

The biggest reason why I like playing these people is their maturity.  The most advanced players remember the days when they were noobs, and the amount of perseverance and effort that was required to take them to where they are now.  As a result, they show no trace of condescension as long as you show intelligence and a willingness to learn, and make a genuine effort to help you improve.  So even though I lose almost all the time, I really respect that attitude, so it’s not discouraging at all.

I wish I could get below 5 delay, though.

Fandom.

Meme/chain thing.

Comment to this entry and I’ll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you’ll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

Thomas chose Touhou, Fate/Stay Night, and Planetarian.

Danmaku.

I seem to be bouncing from game to game these days with no real focus on any single one.  I want to get those 1ccs in on SA and the like, but there isn’t much motivation since no one around me really cares about danmaku games.  I suppose that means I’m becoming more of a “social” gamer; I stick with games that I’m somewhat lukewarm with if I know enough people playing it, and I will slowly drop games that I like if no one else plays it.

Right now I’m just killing time in a coffee shop,  so I’m going to take this opportunity to geek out a little and write something that’s been bouncing around in my head for a good while.

I think overall dodging skill in danmaku shooters is a combination of several things:

• The ability to focus past the intimidation of seeing an overwhelming spread of bullets and be able to think/act accordingly
• The ability to identify each bullet grid in a pattern and comprehend the rules behind how each grid moves
• The ability to perceive a given bullet pattern and understand exactly where it is threatening and where it is not
• The ability to come up with a movement solution that allows you to navigate through every grid in a given pattern unscathed
• The dexterity and timing to carry out this solution

Speed is a large factor in all of this, as you will need to be able to track and react to threats very quickly while executing whatever strategy you’ve come up with.  A strategy towards any bullet pattern is almost always just a guideline that makes things more managable; you still need to use your basic dodging skill in combination with it.  Scope is also important, because the number of threats and grids that one can perceive and track at any given moment also varies from person to person.  

All of this can be combined into what I call “capacity” for danmaku, which is a way to gauge one’s skill level in terms of basic dodging ability.  Everyone’s is different to begin with, and to an extent it can be trained.  I’d say my current capacity is above average but not particularly good, considering that I can usually 1cc Hard and clear Extra in a Touhou game without too much trouble, but have to put in some serious practice time when challenging Lunatic. 

You can also gauge one’s capacity from watching replays; some people use easier strategies and take less risks even when doing scoring runs, probably because they lack the skill to pull off more effective strategies, even if they would potentially score better.  The Lunatic score runs of Perfect Cherry Blossom reflect this pretty clearly; GIL and I.O easily have the highest capacities out of the top players in this scoreboard, judging by how they look right at home when doing things that look utterly suicidal to mere mortal people like us (It’s a little hard to tell to the untrained eye, but GIL never had an unintentional death in his score run).  ASAPIN (who seems to be using the name Kagamin these days) has a noticeably lower capacity compared to these two, and HASEGA is even further behind.  Also note that HASEGA holds the highest score, showing that it’s possible to make up for lower overall capacity with excellent planning and execution.

Anyway, as I said, one’s capacity can be trained.  Just like how reflexes, memory and the like can be trained, the various skills that contribute to one’s capacity can be developed, too.  Talent also plays a factor, but it’s also possible that a person simply starts out with an unusually high capacity because he or she has been doing things that happened to train certain skills at the same time.  So overall, it’s hard to tell where the talent ends and where the practice effect begins.  The point is that even if your capacity seems low to begin with, it’s possible to overcome it with practice, if you’re willing to put the time into it.

Everyone makes stupid mistakes from time to time – it’s what separates people from bots (Well, bots make stupid mistakes too but that’s something entirely different).  So if you’re trying to improve, don’t dwell on the stupid mistakes, and don’t worry about failing repeatedly – it’s just part of the process of improving, and everyone goes through it.  The pros only make it look easy because they put up replays of the finished product and not the countless practice runs that it took to get to that level.  This is something I keep telling myself, since it’s easy to get discouraged when practice runs feel like bashing your head against a wall repeatedly.  But as long as there is some improvement, you’re making progress, and you should notice your capacity slowly growing over time.  So keep at it.

Eh.

I’m on the last two weeks of my co-op work term and I’ve been kind of gloomy as a result.  It’s not that I’m getting fired or anything but I can’t help but feel like I’m slowly floating my way towards the headsman.  It’s been a nice place and a nice experience, though I’m still not sure if I want to actually make a career there.  But then I wonder if I’ll ever look at something and decide something for certain.  I generally dislike burning bridges.

Up to the end of Stage 4 in SA so far.  After some practice with Stage 3 the other day, I just picked it up today and took a crack at it to see how far I would get.  Ended raking in my share of stupid deaths in the first three stages, so I’m actually pretty surprised I made it through all of stage 4, but then Stage 4 was never really that intimidating at lower difficulties.  It finally started to seem scary at Lunatic but I think I can handle it with some practice.

So far I can’t decide is SA is easier or harder than my previous serious Lunatic running in Imperishable Night.  I tend to gauge difficulty by “life theatening” patterns  – that is, patterns that I am likely to die or bomb in even though I know what’s coming.  Let me explain.

I class bullet pattern difficulty into several categories:

1. Total pushover.  It would take a brain lapse, involuntary muscle twitch, broken gamepad, or poorly timed pop-up MSN message to take a hit during this pattern.
2. No problem.  I have the hang of this pattern and know how to deal with it.  Barring a misexecution of a given strategy or doing something stupid (which happens depressingly often), this pattern doesn’t really pose a threat unless it’s a bad day.
3. Tricky.  I know what I’m doing with this pattern but because there’s very little margin for error, I have a fair chance of taking a hit.
4. Life-threatening.  This pattern is freaking hard and I will almost certainly die or have to bomb.  Definitely need to get better overall, or at least put in more practice to push this down into the easier difficulty levels.
5. Overwhelming.  Too many bullets, too many grids to track, too fast, too tight, etc etc.  Just can’t handle this at all and will possibly have to die/bomb repeatedly before it’s over.
6. Screw you, Cave.

And then there are all the miscellaneous patterns that I haven’t wrapped my head around yet and would eventually put into one of the above categories once I have some idea of what to do in it.

Anyway.  While IN’s first three stages are generally easier than SA’s, the number of scoring tricks that are available in IN ramp up the difficulty considerably until it’s hard to tell which one is harder, especially since each game’s style is so different.  Right now I’m finding them roughly even, though I haven’t really practiced the scoring tricks in SA while I used to spend a lot of time on the IN tricks, so that opinion may change soon.  

To me, for the first three stages, I remember  maybe 4-5 patterns that are in the Tricky/Life-threatening class in IN, if you don’t include Last Words and apply scoring tactics to all cards.  Right now SA has about the 3-4, though patterns seem to be going down in difficulty much more quickly as I’m not trying anything score-oriented just yet.

I should spend more time playing shooters but it’s tiring to do that after working all day.