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Monday, 30 May 2016

Mabinogi

Today I have found a game I haven't heard of before called Mabinogi. I have decided to give it a chance. I like how they advertise the game by saying that "welcome to a world where anything is possible",  "Be anything.. - be a rock star , a fighter, a master chef, a party animal, fashionista, an adventurer"..."Live your fantasy life".The game looks a bit old but fun at the same time. Initial release was in 2004, so quite a while ago now. The game takes 6.53 GB.


Character customization is definitely unique. There are 3 races - Humans, elf and giants. Human can develop all stats equally and can choose any talent.Elves specialise in dexterity, mana and intelligence and they can have any talent apart from lancer combat. While giant specialises in strength, will and health and can use any talent apart from archery. I decided to choose human since it's my first time playing.( You gain 25%+ of the stats you have for every level up)



It also surprisingly has age too, your starting age can be from age 10 to 17. Higher age - Better stats. I found out that ageing proccess can even go beyond 100+ years. I will go with 17 years old character. ( 1 day in Mabingi is 36 minutes in real )



You can choose hairstyle, hair colour, eye shape, eye colour and mouth shape.





*Important note - Characters are being created on a "character card". At the beginning you have 6 cards. What is quite a lot for a game. It's important to know this because if you delete your character you will lose your card too. Of course after you delete your last card you will receive one free. Later you can also get "pet card", "partner card" which can only exist on one server. Choose your servers carefully ^^.









First you choose your "active talent". "Life Talent" , "Combat talent" and "Hero talent" are the main categories. It also advises to start with fighting combat either ninja, material arts or close combat.

I will go with the advised one and specialise in material arts. Since it sounds a bit more unique to me :).

Also it says that if you don't like the talent you have chosen you can change it once you learn how to "rebirth".










I'm annoyed with Naruto Shippuden

Alright first of all don't get me wrong, I like Naruto itself. For the characters, humour, plot, it has everything that a shounen is supposed to have. I loved first season a lot, and i expected a lot from the continuation. 

Naruto Shippuden had better and worse times, sometimes it was tiring but not to the point of giving up on it. A small break from it always gave me energy to go back to watching. I never skipped any episode of Naruto I watched everything.

When war arc first came out I was pretty excited. Battle on a huge scale sounded promising. But it started to get annoying once fillers started interrupting the story line. At first I tried to be forgiving and understanding since animes with long episodes need fillers when it's close to manga in order to make the gap bigger. But wait a minute...manga has already finished by now. 

Still till now there can be 13+ fillers in a row. It's getting frustrating especially that most of the anime fans know how the series will end already, and the spoiler traps are everywhere even in the Naruto Movie! Getting to know the ending is pretty unavoidable. Naruto Shippuden has been aired since 2007 and if you ask me it should end the series by leaving good impression on fans instead of making them turn away.

I regret that I have wasted time on the anime instead of reading the manga. Still I don't like leaving things unfinished, I will wait till Naruto ends and I will watch all episodes then I will read the manga. I don't want to feel negative emotions when I hear of Naruto Shippuuden :).

Sunday, 29 May 2016

Nostale - act 6

Act 6 has came out quite recently in 21/04/2016.

How to enter act 6 = Entrance to act 6 is in the middle of Nosville. You have to talk to NPC called Crusader Graham and choose "Great holy stone". Then Graham will teleport you to a new map. The requirement to enter act 6 is to be lvl 88+.





New act has a blue floor and loads of NPCs looking like Graham scattered around, which are called Crusaders. Act 6 town Cylloan is a reflection of Nosville.

At nosville you can see invisible players running, flying and sitting around which are actually in citadel, and the other way around.

Also while you are in Cylloan you can see what people in Nosville are writing in General chat. It will say [ From Nosville ]. And the other way around (people in Nosville can see players in Cylloan chatting)

Also there are only 2 NPCs with shops opened.







First NPC shop is called "Supply Centre".












Supply centre offers: Crossbow bolts, short bows, nosmate food, pet trainer and firework. Some essential and some useless items.













2nd NPC offers "Material Conversion"

You can combine materials here that drop from act 6 monsters. (Materials are needed to create new equipments)















Maps are mainly split into 2 sections. Hell's Gate and Heaven's gate.
There's Hell's Gate 1, Hell's Gate 2, Hell's Gate 3, Hell's Gate 4.
Heaven's Gate 1, Heaven's Gate 2, Heaven's Gate 3, Heaven's Gate 4.

Hell's Gate consist of fire and dark elemental monsters. While Heaven's Gate has water and light elemental monsters.

Levels of monsters scattered around the maps are mixed. They are all 88 lvl +.

Zaelot - Water elemental malee attack monster lvl 96. (Heaven's Gate 1)












Angel looking monster called Sentinel. lvl 88 light elemental with a holy weapon buff. (Heaven's Gate 1)










Mysticaron lvl 92 light elemental monster. With 2 buffs Aura and Holy weapon.















Level 90 Mystic Knight monster with light element.
















Ghastly spearman lvl 93 dark elemental monster. Ranged attack.( Hell's Gate 1)











Bacoom lvl 94 melee ranged monster with fire element.















Rement a lvl 95 dark elemental ranged monster.















It's just an example of what monsters you might encounter in act 6. When I have been mobbing on my lvl 94 archer with my lvl 90 mage. I can say that it's pretty much easy to kill monsters, but monsters deal high damage. I advise having a pet and a healer in party.


Raids

New act has brought us new raids, Zenas and Erenia. Raids themselves are a bit time consuming but they are rather easy to complete with a decent team. You can get seals from "Time-space map" monsters. You can check out how the raid looks like on youtube. I would reccomend this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC2cynaJaB8.

-You can enter zenas raid at Heaven's gate 4 by the statue of zenas. You can host a raid when angel's bar has been filled in demons vs angels pvp. ( max players 20)

-You can enter Erenia raid at Hell's gate 4 by the statue of Erenia. You can host a raid when devil's bar has been in filled in angels vs demons  pvp ( Max 15 players)


"Time-space map"

The portal will open once the portals to the raids in FC close. Benefits of joining Time-space is increased experience and monster drop, you can obtain zenas/erenia seals from there. It also serves as an PVP ground, it will allow you to get plenty of reputation from killing. Angels vs Devils battle. It will be announced on the screen where time-space has opened.

In my opinion pvp ground mixed with mobbing ground doesn't work too well. It's a bit too messy event.






Passive skills

Throughout the archipelago you can collect skill books which can permanently increase your defence and attack status or hp and mp, the amount of exp and gold earned. Sounds promising although champion level is needed to use a book. I saw a skillbook rising defence status which required 25 champion level, pretty high if you ask me but I still think it's a good idea since act 6 is for end game.

R mode

Also known as rage mode, can be obtained when you are killed or hit at Glaceron. You get a pvp bonus once you are fully enraged. Rage bar will restart back to 0 once you get killed after it has been full.

[08] Phenomenal rarity


It's a new rarity specifically created for champion gear. I took a screenshot to show the difference between r7 weapons and r8 weapon, also i took the screenshot to show how it looks like. Phenomenal sealed hellord sword has a damage of 851~943, hit rate : 540, 12% chance of 210% critical. Those stats are amazing compared to r7 weapons. R7 magmaro's fire sword has a damage of 658~738, hit rate : 512 , 12% chance of 200% critical.



Items


New champion gear is available in angel and demon design.You can find phenomenal champion gear in raidbox or craft it yourself. On the sword that I found for sale required champion level was 25, it doesn't seem to have any combat level requirements.

Partner


New partner crusader Graham came out.

Quests


New act 6 quests came out. To do new quests you have to complete all the previous main quests. I did few quests and they give decent exp reward for completing them. It would be better to do quests in pair or in group as quests will ask you to kill monsters and collect items from them.

Important note about champion level: Leveling champion bar isn't super easy. Gaining exp goes rather slow. You can get champion exp by killing act 6 monsters. You also have to remember that if you die at general map or a raid your champion exp will drop drastically. Because "champions don't die"


How would I rate new update?

I would say that I'm happy that developers tried to attempt creating new act. Many high levels have been bored and it has brought some refreshment.

Quests - I'm very very grateful that new quests have been added. I haven't completed all of them yet so I can't rate the quality of the quests properly. Although it's nice that lvls 90+ who had completed all the main quests can challenge harder quests with more powerful monsters :). For the idea itself I would say 10/10!

Monsters - I would say they are less tanky than act 5 monsters, but instead they have high attack damage. Complaining that monsters are too hard would be stupid since it's an endgame map. I would say 7/10. I didn't give it a full score because I don't like the arrangement of the monsters on maps. There's no pattern, all monsters and elements are mixed. Because of that there's no space for strategy to make mobbing more enjoyable. I have to give credit for buffs and de-buffs of monsters I think that developers did a good job of arranging them. When it comes to look of monsters all of them are rather original apart form ghastly spear-man and sentinel which already existed in weaker form.

Time-Space- Personally I think it's a big fail. I expected completely something else and it surprised me in a negative way. It's not something I would wish to participate in regularly. I think it would have been much better if there have been actual time-spaces either individual or group ones for people who want to mob for seals, items, exp. While there could be pvp ground all around without monsters interrupting. Most players get most damage from monsters instead from other players. It's not fun at all :/ . I would rate it as 2/10. Because another pvp ground and dropping seals has been a good idea but mixing it together not really. It would be even fine if items were dropping from defeated players. I simply don't like it the way it is >.<.

Maps - Maps themselves look rather simple and similar to each other, I would say that out of all the maps they are the least developed and they are the least functional grounds. Hills, dead ends, it's hard to run away and move around because of how wobbly the ground is. I also don't like that there's no actual safe spot to sit at, because monsters can practically get anywhere. Maps are like a copy of each other with very slight differences. Overall meh, it could fascinate the player who was in shock and was excited to explore the new grounds, but the longer you are there the more flows you notice. I would rate it 2/10. Only because I like the idea of 2 sides - Heaven and hell.

In the end I will give 5/10 rate to the new act. Everyone should find something in it that they like and don't like.


Saturday, 28 May 2016

My favourite anime - Spring 2016



Sakamoto desu ga? ( Haven't you heard I'm sakamoto). Without a doubt is my favourite anime of this season. I fell in love with it since episode 1, I find the humour in it hilarious. For me there's nothing better than a funny anime that improves your mood instantly and gets you hooked up to see what happens next. So many ridiculous things happen, it's like school life Gintama with only one leading character, and sakamoto himself resembles Sebastian from kuroshitusji in some ways. He is skilled in everything, he does everything in classy ways, although he is only extra handsome once he takes off his glasses. Apart from main character all the side characters are likeable, their interaction with main character leads to more funny situations. I would recommend it as a type of relaxing anime. There's no real plot just normal everyday life of Sakamoto. Soundtrack is alright and the graphic fits perfectly with anime. Overall I would rate it as 8/10 because of how much I enjoy watching it and look forward towards next episode :).       

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Of course not everyone might like it as well, it depends on the sense of humour ^^