Sombre December

It's been a pretty scary start to the Christmas Holidays really. For a short period of time, I stopped caring about my internship because I kept getting rejected. Sometime last Tuesday, I went for an interview with Ksatria Gameworks. They are currently working on a single-player FPS RPG based on the world renowned gamebook Lonewolf. You can actually read the gamebook for free at ProjectAon.



Basically, my lecturer said they were looking for a Level Designer to replace someone who "quit" a while ago. So whoever gets the job not only needs to be as good as the previous guy, needs to pick-up from where the guy dropped and deal with easing into the production team. Very stressful situation there. It didn't take more than 10mins into the interview (including introduction) to realize that I was something they might not be looking for at all. But I played along with the interview nonetheless, tried to be as verbal as possible and tried to be creative. Well, after the interview I thought I did pretty well but the truth remains that I wasn't cut out to be a level designer for the industry, in part because Hubertus did not cover the necessary module components... As a note, I've been informed that Ksatria wasn't looking for level design interns *flame from Chi Yong inc.*

So I went to Jack's Place with Mike, Wei Song and Kang Ning that night and had a $180 meal that pretty much ate through all our pockets. During the meal Yitting SMSed us to check our emails. So I went to the nearest McDonalds to check my email (woo wireless@sg) and there it was, the undoable test. I wouldn't be surprised if people start asking me how I got the job, seeing that I was probably incapable of doing the test in every shape and form. No cocksucking was involved alright, just pure documentation. I love Microsoft Word tables, period. Fortunately, I've been contacted by Ksatria and I wouldn't be in the level design department. I haven't been told what design area I would be placed in, but I'm sure I have a lot to offer. Maybe I'll get to do lots of documentation, because I'm really good at that ;) Anyway, I do expect a lot of hard work to be put in because the company though being relatively new, aims to be a top game developer in Singapore.



I know this a long post, I've been trying to insert images here and there to excite your tired eyes. But can you please pity paladins? They are so bad for 3v3. I mean, playing warrior/lock/pal against RMP and RWP was an absolute nightmare. Granted the setup is considered to be above average, it simply accentuates the fact that Paladins are HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, did I say HORRIBLE oh my god. Do not even start about me being bad. I have 304 days played, 148k HKs and probably more duelling experience than ym. Let's just say, if you replace the Paladin with a Druid, not only are the problems with getting CCed solved it immediately makes the team one of the 2 best setups known to humankind. It's that gamebreaking; that much of a difference, that much contrast.

A lot can be done to fix Paladins in a situation like that. Being immune to most CC because of being able to bosac spam was overpowered at times, but look at Druids? 1min CD on bosac is ridiculous, 30s might still be bad bad. Put it this way, I usually haves mages on Focus. If they start casting poly on me I bosac a team member. That takes skill. In fact I've done it for so many years that I still bosac subconsciously even though I just casted it 10s ago and seeing it getting dispelled by a dwarf priest who has a cc called IF****YourCastWithARacial.

I could go on in melodramatic fashion, but I'll prolly put all my suggestions on a new upcoming post. I get some inspiration from the Paladin forums. Tbh it contains some good suggestions in its deep recesses. Like most forums, it's filled with holy tears. But hey I don't hate retribution paladins, in fact I've done quite a bit of research regarding the possibility of running ret. It's a huge transition in terms of playstyle if I do make a switch, but gear and talent wise it's actually quite playable now. Spell damage was poo, I still don't get why Deviate liked the Avenger 5/5 set bonus back in the AQ40 days. Either way, right now it's easy to get 430 or so resilience as Ret, and with Divine Purpose you can stack 30% crit damage mitigation.

Anyway I'm trying to setup Facebook. Myspace and its likes have certainly made significant contributions to social experimentation in the 21st century, and will very likely continue to do so. Having said that, virtual networks such as online games have and will continue to outperform web-based social networks.