Do not watch Cloverfield

I repeat. Do not watch Cloverfield. Go ahead, click that link and watch the trailer there. Feeling nauseated yet? For those who cannot stand FPS games or are prone to "digicam-motion sickness", do not watch this movie. Keep the contents of your wallet in your wallet, and you'll keep the contents of your stomach in your stomach.

I made another mistake of trusting the advertisement as shown on TV - never ever trust those on movies you don't really hear about much, at least not in Malaysia. According to this reviewer, a lot of hype has been generated by this movie, produced by J. J. "Lost" Abrams.

Too bad. The concept of a huge alien attacking New York (as usual, it's in the US - Malaysia is very safe) is nothing new but can certainly have a lot of potential if carried out right. Unfortunately, it sucks big time. It's a really obvious attempt to ape the Blair Witch Project (I didn't like that one too) but falls flat in terms of execution. First off, the Blair Witch Project is a known budget movie, so the less-than-stellar work is understandable. Cloverfield (the name is apparently a government code name) on the other hand, has a much bigger budget.

It's one thing to use the "digicam style" for effect. It's extremely unwise to use it throughout the whole movie, especially when the whole movie is more about monster effect than suspense (except that one tunnel scene where it was actually decent). What's worse? It took a whole 20 minutes or so for even a hint of a monster. What's in the first 20 minutes? A whole lot of silly and rather poorly executed "character development", which coupled with the dizzying effect, made me totally unable to empathize with the characters. The gist of it? A bunch of friends decides to tromp right into monster avenue to rescue another friend whom one of them had slept with... once apparently. Yes, it sounds silly. The dialogue doesn't even make it seem like it's a true love lost thing - felt much more like infatuation or fling rather.

And the monster? Yea, it's pretty interesting, and the monster kinda looked cool - the few glimpses I've had of it. Where did it come from? Apparently, nobody knows. Yep, I looked around for reviews to see what I missed but apparently, the monster is just an arbitrary monster who decided arbitrarily to stop at New York and arbitrarily start destroying things arbitrarily... even the Statue of Liberty headshot felt really weak - an effect for the sake of making an effect. It seems not to make sense for a monster to surface next to the Statue of Liberty, give it a thwack on the head, and then get back into the water and continue swimming towards the city proper... And oh, the monster likes to chase fleeing unarmed civilians even though soldiers nearby are emptying their ammunition and rockets into its body. *shrugs*

Perhaps refreshingly, unlike Transformers and the previous Americanised Godzilla, the US military portrayed in this movie appears to be quite useless, using rather "mundane" weaponry compared to all the high-tech equipment we've been seeing in many other recent movies.

Anyway, I've drubbed it enough. Enough ranting from me. Just read other reviews if you need more convincing that this is a "sucky" movie. Tolerable when not considering the digicam style; plainly sucks when taken together.

I'll end with one last kick: (SPOILER WARNING - for what it's worth) If I was a dull-witted man who isn't really familiar with a digicam in the first place, I wouldn't be holding it up and trying to film every single second of running around while scared silly. I most especially would not bother to when I'm walking along a very dark tunnel, or when trying to run from creepy crawly spider things, or when the woman I love is in danger, or when climbing tall crumbly buildings, or when the helicopter I'm in is about to drop out of the sky.

Java Swing Layout made extremely easy

If you're a Java developer working on desktop applications that require you to code the interfaces (especially the really complex ones), you'll love what I found.

First, take a look at this page. See that complex looking list? It's made with a custom ListCellRenderer which was created using GroupLayout. Really nice-looking doesn't it? (see the layout tutorial here)

GroupLayout was specifically designed for use with Project Matisse, the GUI builder for the Netbeans IDE, which by the way, is extremely impressive.

Unfortunately, GroupLayout is complex to use and difficult to read if you do not have access to Netbeans and do not wish to use/learn Netbeans solely for the purpose of designing the GUIs. Or maybe you're just old school and prefer to build GUIs by hand (I know, some of the generated code can be icky). What do you do?

You go and download MigLayout of course! Why? Well, go back and look at that fancy list above again and try to estimate how many nested panels you might need should you use the standard layouts, or how many lines of code and the calculations you need for GridBagLayout. Finished? Guess how many lines it takes for MigLayout... seven. Yes, you read it right, just seven simple lines:

cell.setLayout(new MigLayout("nogrid, fillx"));
cell.add(pic,   "dock west");
cell.add(title, "growx");
cell.add(count, "wrap");
cell.add(line1, "growx, wrap");
cell.add(line2, "growx");
cell.add(email);

Impressive, no? Check out the website for guides and Java Web Start demos.

Kongregate

I'm currently quite involved in playing Flash games on Kongregate. Let me be your referral.

It is still in development since last year but much of the site and its features are already up and running very smoothly. What is it? It's a outlet for both players and game designers. A place where you can play games and upload your own Flash games for others to play. If your games get rated 3 stars and above, you're entitled to some of the revenue earned from advertisements.

What's different about this Flash games website and numerous others out there are three things (for me anyway). One is that the interface is clean. I don't like cluttered webpages that put in too many obstrusive links too close together, and not enough clear space.

The second is they have both a system for points and a system for achievements. While nothing concrete on how to use points yet, the achievements are pretty fine. Some of the more popular games get badges that are awarded to you when you achieve a certain objective. It makes it a nice target to play towards. Oh sure, it has the usual high score tables and such but those are usually too huge, too dynamic, and too impersonal. I dunno, I just like the idea of having a objectives to a game rather just playing for the sake of playing.

And thirdly, the most compelling reason, is that they're developing a card game for their site. By completing game challenges (special objectives for certain games), players (i.e. accounts) are rewarded with access to a game for the upcoming card game (yea, it's not ready yet). so far there have been like about 30 challenges. I have 3 cards, so yea, I joined pretty late and missed alot. I hope there'll be a challenge that allows latecomers to obtain the older bonus cards. The card game system itself sounds pretty interesting and I'm definitely eager to try it out.

You can also check some blogs on the games or the site in general. COCAK is a good start. And remember, use this link to join :P Being your referral gives me a small number of points, heheh.

Media collection organizer

Libra is a free collection organizer software does tracks your books, audio CDs, movies, and games (for now apparently). It is only free for non-commercial use of course.

It hooks up to the Amazon database for its searches, although there's nothing stopping you from adding you own stuff.

The features highlighted on its website are:

• Turn your webcam into a barcode scanner (sounds impressive! no webcam to try...)
  
• Lightning speed database (not exactly lightning, but fast nonetheless)
  
• Track who borrowed your stuff (nice! provided I remember who borrowed what prior to this...)
  
• Print beautiful catalogs (interesting, those I prefer to save on ink ;)
  
• Share your collection online (I'll have to get some friends to try this)
  
• Attention to detail (yes, it looks prefer good, supports custom skins too)
  
• Import existing collection (from a couple of applications, most notably MS Excel)
  
• Extensible & Flexible (claims it is designed to support any collection)

Other stuff not mentioned include a built-in browser for their forums and the ability to edit item details (and reset, based on Amazon) as well as adding your own notes. A feature I found to be very very useful is being able to specify custom actions to items, such as creating a command that automatically fires up a playlist or opens up the PDF of a book. Another thing I like is that I actually like the cheeky tone they used for their website. Nice touch, hehe.

All-in-all, I'm quite impressed. I'm gonna keep it around and catalogue my collection of stuffs using it. I'll probably merge all my other mechanisms for keeping track of stuff into this!

The mourning of Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan has sadly succumbed to his illness and died 2 days ago. He was the author of many well-known books including some on Conan the Barbarian and the famous the Wheel of Time series. The final book of that 12-part series remains unfinished. A moment of silence for an author whose books I thoroughly enjoy reading.

Online Games Galore

It seems that there's a whole slew of online games that got me piqued have been released and will soon be released these days.

Ever since I chose Guild Wars over D&D Online, I've been pretty watchful of new massively-multiplayer online games (MMOG). I have not regretted my choice, despite D&D Online shaping up to be something that seems to be pretty impressive (doubtless due to me being a D&D fan). Guild Wars is still keeping me stuck to it, no less thanks to the impending release of Guild Wars: Eye of the North (the first true expansion) at the end of this coming August and Guild Wars 2 around 2009 - 2010.

And to think I haven't actually tried World of Warcraft yet... I really wanted to but after registering for the trial, the huge download put me off. But I have seen friends playing it before and I can certainly understand the addiction there. Something I'd rather not get into.

Of late, I've tried the beta of the newly-released Sword of the New World (called Granada Espada in Korea), and while the graphics is certainly very impressive, the gameplay falls quite short of other recently-released and soon-to-be-released games.

I keep getting tempted to try all those new and impressive games but being pampered with the business model adopted for Guild Wars (not monthly access fees!), I'm slightly abhorrent of having to actually pay monthly. Games like Lord of the Rings Online is certainly at the top of my tempted-to-play list. Other upcoming and definitely promising MMOGs like Age of Conan (a unique and involved combat system), Hellgate: London (FPS), Fury (PvP CORPG), Tabula Rasa (futuristic action RPG), Aion (RvR), Warhammer Online (you don't know Warhammer?!), Vanguard (traditional style), Gods & Heroes (squad-based), and Dungeon Runners (free-to-play business model) all look soooo delicious. Too bad I'd probably have only enough time and money to just play one or two or them at most. Life is about choices indeed, heh. I wonder if I'll get around to previewing each of them...

PDF Reader

Goodbye Adobe Acrobat Reader..... and a wonderful good riddance. What have I got against that oh-so-pervasive PDF reader software? I installed Adobe Reader 8. The following is a rant.

Huh? Why? Two words: It sucks. Why does it suck? Well, first off, Reader 7 adds something called the "Adobe Speed Launch" into your Windows startup folder. Reader 8 does that too in addition to also add something called "Adobe Reader Synchronizer". What does that do? It's supposed to synchronised shared documents or collaborative documents... uh... right... but I only use Reader to read PDF files, I don't care about these features. And I'm not alone seeing all the comments in this blog post.

For those of you who didn't even realise that Reader has "Adobe Speed Launch", here's a primer: It pre-loads part of Reader into your memory... regardless of whether you'd actually use Reader or not. As such, it hogs memory that it doesn't use and slows down Windows startup. What's worse is that the so-called "speed launch" gives an almost negligible improvement given the processing capabilities of even an "average" computer these days.

If Adobe really thinks that these are useful, it should be an option. How hard is it to make a little checkbox on the installer to ask whether people want to use it or not? A forceful approach is almost always a bad idea.

Do you know what's even worse about Reader 8? For some reason, it's check-for-update keeps creating weird directory names like "Updater5" on my hard disk. I was worried that my computer got infected by some kind of trojan or virus because I recently reinstalled it and was slow in getting an anti-virus software in place. Luckily for me, another commentor in the above blog post link confirmed that it Reader 8's problem. I'm beginning to think that strange slowdowns and unresponsiveness on my PC might be Reader 8-related... only one way to find out.... uninstall it!

End rant.

How am I gonna read PDF files? Well, I found Foxit Reader. It's afree PDF reader from another PDF software company. According to this and this, it sounded too good to be true, so I just downloaded it, installed it, and whoa! Finally! A PDF reader that does just what I want it to do: read PDF files!

The latest version 2.0 is only 1.67 MB, compared to the 21 MB Reader 8 installer. It installs easily and very quickly. It doesn't have a tonne of so-called features that I almost will never ever use. The interface is simple. And most importantly, it opens all the PDF files I tested on (from tiny to huge) very very quickly. I should have looked for PDF reader alternatives even before Reader 7.

Launchy

Do you find yourself going the same routine of traversing the Start menu of Windows daily? Go to Start, go to All Programs, go to some company name that provided you with the tool, and finally the launcher for the tool or application you want to execute. I found that pretty tedious and plain sucks.

Which is why I use the Windows XP Start menu pin-up, recent documents, the quick launch taskbar, and the desktop alot. I also use RK Launcher, a little docking program where you add shortcuts to it. But these shortcuts had shortcomings too. I have to manually set up all the shortcuts, for each computer that I use regularly.

Now I don't have to anymore. Check out Launchy, an application launcher for Windows. It automatically indexes your Start menu by default and all you need to do is hit ALT-Space to bring up its window, type in some combination of characters that match the application you want, and it'll find the application you want. Useful no? Especially so for a "keyboarder" like me. It's pretty too, with its own site for user-submitted skins. And it doesn't just indexes your Start menu. By default it supports the Firefox keywords I mentioned in my previous post! It also has it's own quick search for several useful sites plus a simple built-in calculator. Hate the daily digging down into your personal directory of files that's over 5 levels deep? Well, Launchy can browse directly to the directory you want; all you need to do is type out c: and use the tab key for auto-completion. That's not all! You can have Launchy index whatever directory you want, for whatever file extension you want. No more having to locate that one particular ebook or mp3 or movie that you have among thousands of similar files. And finally, you can even install Launchy on your pendrive and have it work (once you rebuild the index, which is fast) on any computer!

See also:

• Add the Run Command to Launchy
• Tweaking Launchy
  

Firefox Tips

Are you a Firefox user? If not, you might want to give it a try. Are you comfortable and content with using your mouse for everything? If yes, then I think you can stop reading. For those of you, like me, who prefer to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible, read on. We use shortcuts for two reasons I think, either we just want to do things quicker or we are just lazy to take our hands off the keyboard and move it to the mouse to move cursor.

For starters, here are two very useful shortcuts:

• CTRL-L - this focuses on the location bar, or the URL address bar.
• CTRL-K - this goes to the little search bar on the top right.

Not using these yet? You should, it's faster than mousing over and selecting it and then going back to the keyboard to type.

That's it? That's the tip? Of course not. Next up is... bookmarks. We all know what browser bookmarks are. But did you notice a little field labeled "Keyword" when you add a new bookmark or open up the properties of a bookmark? (see image on the right)

Take a wild guess what it's for. And no, it's not for tagging the bookmark. If you create a bookmark like the one shown (or add a short keyword to a bookmark you already have), do the following and be pleasantly surprised:

Press CTRL-L, type gm, hit ENTER

Tada! Gmail login screen! (Replace "gm" with whatever keyword you decided on). Sheer convenience. Obviously you shouldn't add keywords to all your shortcuts, just add them to sites that you visit daily.

One last tip is about something called a "Quick Search". Give it a try first, press CTRL-L again and this time type "google (something)". Replace "(something)" with whatever you want. Hit enter for search results. You might think this is useless given you already have a search bar. But, if you have several search engines added to your search bar, you need to mouse over and manually selected it rather than just CTRL-K-ing to go up there.

Another thing is, it's not limited to search engines. You can add whatever quick search you want. See the image on the right for the dictionary quick search. A quick CTRL-L and "dict (word)" and I get an explanation on the "(word)". Where do I add that bookmark? Anywhere actually. But if you open up your Bookmarks Manager (under Bookmarks -> Organise bookmarks...) you'll notice a convenient "Quick Searches" folder.

See also:

• Fifteen Firefox Quick Searches
• Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking
• Firefox's Most Underutilized Feature
  

Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet has announced the upcoming Guild Wars: Eye of the North, Guild War's first expansion (note: not standalone). Information regarding Guild Wars 2 were also announced. Exclusive interviews:

• Kotaku
  
• Wired Blog

Much more details can be found in the PC Gamer May Issue #161, which has an exclusive article on the upcoming plans for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. A summary and lively discussion can be found here.

I'd rather not summarise all that I've read (I haven't got my hands on the magazine yet though) but I'm both excited and sad at the same time. Excited because the new promises ArenaNet is making all sound wonderful. Sad that I'm unable to transfer stuff over. But at least they're designing a feature in the upcoming GW: Eye of the North (GWEN! GW players would know the significance of that ;) will make sure that veterans get recognised for the time they spent in Guild Wars. I hope they get more details out soon. I'm dying to know more!

Audition

Seeing that I'm kinda taking a break from Guild Wars, I actually started playing other games. Why did I break from Guild Wars? No Internet access for over a week. Why? Because lightning fried my modem, my router, and the network card socket on my motherboard... poor oh wallet of mine.

Anyway, about the only good thing about that is that I actually started playing other games :p Aside from continuing the campaign in Dragonshard that I started over a year ago and abandoned, and doing a little practicing on DotA, I actually registered for and tried out Audition.

My sister was pretty addicted to it so I got curious. Boy was it addictive. It's a dancing MMORPG where you compete with others in sort of dancing stage. How you dance is basically by hitting the direction keys in the sequence shown on the screen and being able to finish on the correct beat. So it's a game where finger-eye coordination is extremely important. After playing it for several hours (!), my fingers were pretty tired. Apparently, it's not as boring as I thought as I watched my sister play. Not a whole lot of play styles and content, but still pretty addictive. The forum for it is here.

Aside from not having much content, keyboard longevity is affected, not to mention finger-aches. The number of songs available isn't really that large. I keep hearing the same songs over and over on random mode. The patching software sucks. Each patch averages around 30-40 MBs! And they expect you to download all available patches in one go. Something fails while you downloading the last one of the set? Too bad, you have to start all over.

The game is being distributed and maintained by AsiaSoft. They utilize a sort passport system that gives you a master account for all AsiaSoft games (you still need to create individual game accounts). That's another of my peeves with it. Just to create my Audition account, I've suddenly increased the things I need to remember by 4 - the password to the passport account, an authentication PIN number to that account, a password to a playing account for AsiaSoft games, and a password for my Audition account... Crazy. It's worse than my banking accounts.

From Eclipse to Netbeans... and back

After a bit more use of Netbeans...

• There doesn't seem to be any window that shows all errors and warnings currently in the project. Which means any problems introduced from refactorings won't show up until I actually manually build the project.
  
• Maybe I'm just blind but the wizard for creating a new interface doesn't seem to allow me to specify a parent interface to extend from...
  
• Configuration for the autoformatting of code is very, very, limited. Taking my current company's code style, Netbeans is unable to produce a format that conforms to it.
  
• There doesn't seem to be any "quick fix" option for unrecognised classes that allows me to jump to the create class wizard with a simple shortcut.
  
• Trivial, but I can't collapse the empty packages in the hierarchy view. It's just a little unfamiliar I suppose, given that I'm used to the more space-conserving collapsible package tree in Eclipse.

On the other hand, I did like several of the managers provided in Netbeans, particularly the Template Manager. Very useful and flexible. But on the whole, I think Netbeans is not for me, as it does not have features that I've come to expect when I'm working on something. I'll think wait for the much touted Netbeans 6 before trying out Netbeans again.

From Eclipse to Netbeans

I've been using Eclipse as my IDE of choice ever since I switch over from Netbeans version 3. But after attending the Sun Tech Days 2007 Kuala Lumpur, I can see that the latest release version, Netbeans 5.5, has been tremendously improved. I daresay that I think it's coming on par with the capabilities of Eclipse, even if you take MyEclipse into consideration. I'm actually giving Netbeans 5.5 a go with my current development work and first impressions are both good and bad. I'm not really attempting a critical and in-depth comparison of both IDEs (since I just started on using Netbeans) but just presenting how Netbeans impressed on me when compared to my experience on Eclipse.

I'll start with the negative impressions:

• Personalization and syntax coloring is something I'm particular about. Netbeans has very few customisation options and syntax coloring is very limited. But the good thing over Eclipse is that you can save the colour scheme as a profile, so that's a small plus.
  
• There's no easy way to change look-and-feel; have to much command line parameters. Although projects like this makes things much better.
  
• Seeing what compile errors I have is a pain in Netbeans. Code errors don't show up in the project or file hierarchy trees. I can only see errors in the current file I'm looking at and if I rebuild the project. Eclipse shows errors in the project tree and traces it from the offending file all the way to the root project container.
  
• "Find Usages" is very limited compared to the similar search references function in Eclipse. It also forces me to still have to click on "Next" before the search actually takes place. Why can't it search by default?
  
• There's no shortcut to jumping quickly to methods in a class. You have to either use the standard find text or use the navigator window. No biggie, but one gets used to being able to jump directly to a method from anywhere else in a class.
  
• I don't like the fact code errors don't show up immediately. Maybe it only checks for errors while you've slowed down your typing for better performance but it does mean I have to move my cursor back. The slight pause before the error appears is sometimes disruptive.
  
• I find the configuration options window baffling. Is it really necessary to separate basic and advanced? The basic version is much easier to use and navigate, but mostly useless. The options that really help with personalisation and customisation are all in the advanced. Can't better forms and dialogs be designed for the so-called advanced options?

And then the positive impressions:

• Speed. I just can't help but notice that Netbeans works much faster than Eclipse. It even exits much faster. This is a huge plus.
  
• I found the wide array of tools that comes with the basic installation very impressive. The additional packs are even better - the web designer, the mobility pack, the Java EE designers, the profiler... very nice.
  
• Built-in mapping for Eclipse shortcuts. Which really helps transition from Eclipse to Netbeans, although I'm using my own slightly-tweaked Eclipse keymap.
  

Biased? Yea, looks like it, since I'm way more familiar with Eclipse than Netbeans. But looking at the features list of Netbeans 6, it looks like those are just the polish Netbeans needs to make it much more persuasive for me.

EDIT: 15/3/07 Fixed the subversion issue on Netbeans.

Focus...

I am unfocused, unable to focus, fail to focus. How do I focus?

I learn

Commitment and sacrifice. I learned the hard way; had to have it hammered into me. But I learn and in learning, I shall change. I will change. I must change.

Monsters Game

Interested? Try this: Bite me!

Be at ease. It will neither cause the spread of any viruses, worms, or trojans nor cause the installation of adware and spyware. Nothing malicious. It's just a link to a fun little website.

The Essence of Love

I recently received forward email that contains something akin to chicken soup. As I do not recall signing up for it, after receiving it a couple of times, I almost replied to be removed. For some reason, I didn't, and proceeded to actually read it. What I read suddenly became the very answer that I had been looking for in all my previous posts regarding my own time.

While the topic of the forwarded email was "Spending Time with our young children is Love", the very last paragraph in it applies to everyone around us:

"Your most precious gift is your time. Only when you give up your (leisure, computer, game, social, TV, etc.) time, do you truly prove your love for your children (read: loved ones). Whenever you give your time, you are making a sacrifice, and sacrifice is the essence of love. Thus, you show your love in action and not in words only."

Sounds pretty obvious doesn't it? But I was blinded to that simple explanation for so long. I have given my loved ones a lot of pain, frustration, and disappointment. Words are not enough. I know what to do now Lord. Thank you God.

Hardcore Gamer

According to this research, the general belief that the more hardcore gamers are young working adults who have more spending power is false. Apparently, true hardcore gamers are mainly those between age 6 and 17. Wow, I'm kinda... quite out of that range now...

Oh well, time passes, and we age. As highlighted here, as we move from a generally distraction- and commitment-free life of a teenager to that of a working, married, and/or in-a-relationship life, the amount of time that we can spend on gaming gets sliced off to the other more realistic and practical parts of life. I really miss those days school, college, and university days when I can just sit down in front of the computer and let everything else just fade away until I'm fully into the game.

Times like these are getting lesser and lesser, although I'm not saying I'm no longer doing that, just less often and shorter (relative to the good-old-days of course). But if you ask my wife-to-be, she'll definitely say I'm still playing too much. Oh well, I try not to play too much, but it kinda feels like I'm missing out on soooo many things these days; work life eats up a lot of personal time. Even after around 4 years of working (yes, only 4, i'm still young!), I'm still rueing the fact that my personal hours have been shortened considerably and still trying to get used to it. Ah, time, the creator of nostalgia.

Confidence

You know what I hate about advice from family? They don't give it when you ask; they give it after the time you could've used it. It's a really frustrating and confidence-denting time for me, juggling work problems, wedding preparations, house preparations, and, of course, leisure time (you think I'd leave it out? ;) ). What's so frustrating? Here's a summary of how I feel:

• Me: How should I do this?
  
• Family: You decide loh, whatever you like.
  
• Me: Ok, I'll do it this way.
  
• Family: No, no, you shouldn't do that, do this instead.
  
• Me: ... but why not my way?
  
• Family: Cos of this and that and those. Do it my way.
  
• Me: ...

How is this frustrating? (Nay, it can even be disgusting sometimes depending on how many times it happens in a day). Sure, I'm probably being too harsh and unfair to my family who are most assuredly saying what they think is best for me. But can't they be more tacit or subtle about it? Or better yet, let me know before I do it instead of refuting and denying and naysaying me. The above sample is not exactly an exaggeration. It happens quite often. Each time something needs to be decided, and I defer my decision, I get pushed into making one. Each time I make one, I get all sorts of objections and opinions on why my decision sucks. I hate it. If you have an opinion, say it. If you have a decision in mind, make it. Why should make the final say? Because it's my stuff? Oh ok... yet my decision gets battered and bashed into an unrecognisable lump of worthless crap. Over-reacting? Yes, I am. But I feel that way. I don't have alot of self-confidence, I admit that; and I know it's a bad thing for a guy. That's why I don't like making decisions, but I do make them anyway, because I know I have to. Sure, let me know if I'm making the wrong decisions. But can't the problems be highlighted to me before I make my decision? It really steps on my confidence. I choose A. Suddenly, I get several reasons why it's a bad idea, and I should choose B. Right... and those reasons couldn't have been mentioned earlier because I haven't decided yet. I had to be made to feel stupid and useless because I should have thought of those myself. How come you didn't think of those? How come you didn't ask this? How come you didn't do that? Right. Here's my response: How come you didn't tell me earlier? Why didn't you make that decision? Why didn't you tell me directly what you're thinking instead of hinting it? Why must you wait until after the event to let me know and then force me to go rectify it? And then act like it's all my fault for letting it come to pass. Sigh. And they're all my loved ones and closest people. This is all so frustrating. I haven't been out working for very long. I've been pretty sheltered (yea, really, I know) my life and I'm still learning how to stand on my own two feet. Can't I get some slack and support and encouragement instead of demoralising negative responses? But then, what am I complaining about? It's been like the whole of my life. I'm used to it already. Didn't speak out about it; I know all were done with the best of intentions, if not the best of methods. Terribly sorry. I'm just ranting. But I just want to let it out. Sure, let the whole world know. A colleagues says blogs are too public. Yea, true, but it's a kind of therapy I think. It's been a good long while since I've ranted on something personal on this blog anyway. Great, now I'm sounding like an emo wimp.

Hmm... I wonder if my sister feels the way with some of the things I said to her... if I did, I'm sorry sis.

Guild Wars Nightfall World Preview Event

This is turning into a Guild Wars news blog... oh well.

The World Preview Event is starting on the weekend of September 22nd to the 24th. For that period, anyone can log on and get a preview play for Guild Wars Nightfall, the 3rd chapter in the series. I wonder which of the two new profession (Dervish and Paragon) that I'll try out first... hmmm... I invite EVERYONE who has not played Guild Wars to give it a try. The client software is free to download.

For those who don't know, Guild Wars is rather unique in the world of MMORPG in that it does not have any monthly subscription fees. Its business model is such that the developers (ArenaNet) aim to make new content releases every half-year. These releases have come to be commonly known as chapters. Some still refer to them as expansions, but they're aren't really expansion, since the normal meaning of expansion usually implies that the original is needed. Each Guild Wars chapter is completely standalone. You do not need all of them to play. You buy whichever chapter, and you get all the content in the core set plus the content of the chapter you bought. How wonderful is that? Plus, you're not excluded from playing with other people who have bought all. As long as you have access to a particular content or area, you can play with anyone else with access to that as well.

It's a trick? You still paying the same? Nope. Chapter 2 was released late. Chapter 3 appears to be scheduled on time. Assuming they keep to 6-month cycles, every half-year, you pay around... say RM200. It's actually around RM160 - RM180 for the standard editions, but for the sake of easier calculation, let's round up. For those with monthly subscriptions, including popular MMORPGs like World of Warcraft requires you to both buy the box and pay subscription. Let's just standardise that these also cost RM200 per box. And you pay RM50 per month (for some, this is actually cheap). Cost progression...

Month	GW	Subscription
1	200	250
2	200	300
3	200	350
4	200	400
5	200	450
6	200	500
7	400	550
8	400	600
9	400	650
10	400	700
11	400	750
12	400	800

See the huge difference after 1 year of gaming? And this is only assuming that the subscription-based MMORPG does not release any new expansion packs. Most of these expansion packs will cost more money. And these are usually required purchases or you won't get to play with those who upgraded.

Why do I love Guild Wars? Maybe I'll use that as a subject for my next post. ^-^

PS: The prerelease event for Nightfall is in Cititel Mid Valley (Malaysia) just 2 days from now at 1pm.