Consider Opera Dropped

So for a long time I've been using a rather ancient version of Opera, 12.17, as a part of testing the various web pages I make.  As of today, I will no longer be doing any testing in Opera, nor will I support Opera in future things I make.  The sad part about that is Opera is now almost indistinguishable from Chromium, which makes it harder to specifically avoid having things work in it.  To further this, I have uninstalled Opera 12.17 and Opera 21 from my computer.

What was the straw that broke the camel's back?  Well, the previous paragraph kind of foreshadowed it.  Opera 21.

Opera 21 is basically a re-skin of Chromium, with fewer features, and an auto-updater that can't be disabled.  It went so far as to completely avoid having nearly the range of features that Opera 12.17 had.  What it calls "themes" are really just background images for the speed dial.  You're unable to change the window border/title bar color away from the default Chromium blue, and it adopts the standard Chromium "let's ignore the user's OS theme settings entirely" school of thought.  At least 12.17 respected my theme.

Development-wise, Opera has always been a pain in the dick to work with.  I know it pushed for 100% standards-compliance, supposedly, but things that all other browsers I test in agreed upon, including Firefox which is fairly well standards-compliant, Opera would do differently.  Things would break in the most subtle, inexplicable, or unpredictable ways, often without any warning whatsoever, and finding workarounds was nigh impossible most of the time.

At least with Chromium, I can use SRWare Iron, which removes all of Google's fancy information collecting and privacy-compromising features from Chromium, almost making it not a toy browser.

"New" StreetPass Games

They're not exactly new anymore, but they're newer than Puzzle Swap and Find Mii.  A fair amount of people haven't even bothered to get them simply because they're paid DLC for the StreetPass Mii Plaza, and I suspect people generally want to put their money towards bigger titles.  But man, they're missing out.

Available for purchase are Mii Force, Flower Town, Warrior's Way, and Monster Manor.  They're $4.99 each, or you can get all four of them in a bundle for $14.99.  I grabbed the bundle.

Mii Force

In Mii Force, you're galactic police going after space pirates.  It's a sidescrolling shooter, and an interesting one at that.  The people you streetpass give you different weapons based on the color of their shirt, and you can attach them in one of four places on your ship (three front, one back).  In addition, you can stick other people behind them to power their weapons up.  This game plays best when you get a lot of streetpasses.  The Special Miis that Nintendo sends out periodically have an extra gold pod that fires additional shots.

It has the interesting mechanic of being able to rotate your weapons around your ship with the L and R buttons during the stage.  The stages themselves will change direction from time to time, from horizontal to vertical and back, thus necessitating rotating your weapons.  The variety of weapons is amazing and it's incredibly fun to play.  The goal?  Complete all the stages and wipe out the pirates!

You can also spend play coins to recruit troops (including the ability to hire old allies!) and get extra weapon pods, if you don't have a lot of streetpasses available.  The game is fairly challenging with just one pod, enough so that some gamers may want to try it that way and see how far they get.

Worth it?  Definitely.

Flower Town

In Flower Town, you grow flowers, breed new flowers, and expand your garden on your quest to become a master gardener.  This game is full of bright colors and is fairly relaxing to play.  You can also buy decorations for your garden plots, and even take jobs from the local mall to breed specific plants for people.  You can use play coins to invite people you've previously met back to your garden.

Every streetpass you get will help your current flower grow, and once it's fully grown, will help you get seeds that can potentially grow entirely new flowers.  The goal is to get 20 breeds of flowers.

It's definitely not for everyone, but I find it to be interesting.

Worth it?  If you like flowers or want a nice relaxing game, sure.  Otherwise, you may want to hold off, unless you really really want to get the most out of every streetpass.

Warrior's Way

In Warrior's Way, you're a monarch building your army and trying to take over the world.  This is simplified into a rock-paper-scissors strategy game where each troop type is strong against one other and weak against one other.  Every few countries you take over will give you building materials you can use to upgrade your castle to get the ability to spy, or simply even the ability to hire more mercenaries with play coins.  The ability to spy in battle is useful for your strategy, as it tells you what troop type your enemy will attack with next.

This game is unique in that it depends on a portion of the world's owners of 3DSes not purchasing it.  When you streetpass someone who hasn't bought it, they're a general with an army (based on their StreetPass Plaza size), and they ally with you and boost your numbers.  If you streetpass someone who plays the game, though, they're a monarch and you have a choice between greeting them peacefully or fighting their army.  You want to have a fair number of streetpasses for this game, because more streetpasses = more troops.  The Special Miis that Nintendo sends out periodically add a nice chunk of troops.

The goal is simple enough that I've already stated it: take over the world!

Worth it?  Definitely.

Monster Manor

In Monster Manor, you're exploring a haunted mansion.  Each person you streetpass gives you pieces that you can use to reveal parts of the current floor of the mansion.  Join enough pieces of the same color together to make a room with chests (containing items, of course!) in it.  Throughout the mansion you'll encounter ghosts and have to fight them off.

This game has a nice blend of puzzles, exploration, combat, and supernatural horror.  You can use play coins to hire extra investigators to help with the exploration of the mansion.  The goal is to get to the top of the mansion and defeat everything that stands in your way.

Worth it?  Sure!

Overall

The newer streetpass games give you a lot more to do with each streetpass, as well as a lot of new and good uses for play coins.  If you've finished all the puzzles and Find Mii 1 and 2, definitely give them a shot.  Heck, give them a shot even if you haven't.  If you have to choose just one, I would say pick either Mii Force or Warrior's Way.

Price-wise, it appears at first glance like it's a whole two cents cheaper to buy only three of the games ($4.99 * 3 = $14.97) than to buy the bundle ($14.99), but the bundle makes all the games $3.75 each instead of $4.99 each.  This means you effectively end up spending more by buying three games at the full price than buying the bundle!  The difference?  $3.75 * 3 = $11.25, $14.97 - $11.25 = $3.72.  With buying three games costing almost an entire game more than simply buying the bundle, it makes no sense to buy anything other than the bundle.

Also, there's a hidden ranking in my "Worth it?" lines above.  Definitely > Sure! > Flower Town.  Flower Town isn't bad, it's just not for everyone.  All the games are good enough to be worth the price, so if you're not going to grab the bundle, it all comes down to your gaming preferences.

Bravely Default Nemesis Strategy: Tax on the Cupid

The Japanese version of this nemesis has the name ３％ゾーゼー.  It's level 30, standard.  This is a re-fight of the Merchant and Spell Fencer asterisk battle, except here they have 54k HP each, and the merchant constantly uses BP boosts on the Spell Fencer, so he can constantly Brave.  You also can't run from this fight, so save before starting it.  What truly makes this fight difficult, though, is that Khint will use Sword Magic Death and bring a swift end to your party.

Recommended party:

• 3 Black Mages, 1 White Mage.
• Black Mages at least job level 7 for the level 3 Black Magic spells.
• White Mage at least job level 8 for Angelic Ward
• White Mage should have Black Magic at level 7
• Black Mages should have White Magic at level 8
• Angelic Ward on everyone
• Set Miscellany as the job command on one black mage, Black Magic as the job command on your white mage, and then whatever for the others.
• I would recommend that you be at least level 44 for this fight, so you can have over 2000 health.

Special Moves:

• On your White Mage, set up Rejuvenate to have Cure K.O. and your best available HP/MP/BP boosts.
• On your Black Mages, set up their Withering Ripples to have a mixture of useful things such as M.DEF Down, Speed Down, Accuracy Down, Poison Res Down, and Sleep Res Down.  Additionally, put Fire Res Down on all of them.

Strategy:

• Brave with whoever has Examine, and examine both of them.
• Build up to 3 BP on your white mage while you wait to be able to use the character that Examined again.
• Withering Ripple go (use all three)
• Use Sleep on Khint, and use Posion on Tax on the Cupid
• Focus-Fira Tax on the Cupid, who will be uselessly tossing BP potions at the sleepy Khint
• Keep Khint slept until he leaves the fight
• Once Khint leaves, Tax on the Cupid starts spamming Takedown for 2000 armor-ignoring damage a pop, but the poison should be adding a fair amount of damage per turn, and Angelic Ward should reduce enough incoming damage to matter.
• Pop Rejuvenate when needed
• For me, Tax on the Cupid died from poison damage and I didn't react quickly enough to Bravely Second and toss a Phoenix Down at Tiz :(

Up next will be Mammon.  I keep getting the ones that you steal Ethers from instead of Elixirs, regardless of their level or whether or not they're Japanese.  This might take a while, as I have two more Tax on the Cupid fights to do.

Bravely Default Nemesis Strategy: Working Overtime

The Japanese version of this one has the name 五月病ナヅット.  If that third kanji is correct (reading incredibly pixellated kanji off of a 3DS screen FTL), then according to Google Translate, the name romanizes to "Satsukibyou nadzutto", and translates to "May disease Nadzutto".  I therefore went into the battle expecting to be on the receiving end of poison, though this ended up not being the case.  This nemesis was level 30.

Essentially, it's an HP-boosted revisit to the Thief asterisk fight.  Khint still leaves partway through, and doesn't take much damage here, so our strategy will just ignore him and focus on the thief.

Recommended party:

• Three Black Mages, one White Mage.
• Black Mages at least job level 7 for the level 3 Black Magic spells.
• White Mage at least job level 8 for Angelic Ward.
• Grind the Black Mages up to level 8 White Mage so they too can have Angelic Ward.
• Grind the White Mage up to level 7 Black Mage so they can take Black Magic as a Job Command.
• Standard "one Black Mage has Miscellany so they can Examine" comment.
• Because of all the job level grinding I've done in the past, I was level 42 for the fight.

Special moves:

• Rejuvenate (White Mage): best available HP/MP/BP boosts, and Cure K.O. (is there a better way to set up Rejuvenate?)
• Withering Ripple (Black Mages):
• Your best available consecutive turn boost.
• Accuracy Down, M.DEF Down, and Speed Down.
• Poison Res Down, Sleep Res Down, and one of your choice (i.e. doesn't matter).  I typically leave the third one on Silence Res Down, just in case I need to throw out some Silence.
• Fire Res Down on all three.

Strategy:

• Beware, the thief will Brave a fair amount, and use Godspeed Strike, which can deal a large chunk of damage to a single character.  Fortunately, Godspeed Strike costs 2 BP, so you get a built-in break to heal.
• On the first turn, Examine the thief if you want to see his HP drop, and default on everyone else.
• Use all three Withering Ripples as soon as possible.
• Default whenever possible on your White Mage, until they're at 3 BP.  Once there, they can then join in on the Fira spam and only take a break to heal.
• Once the Withering Ripples have been used, cast Poison on the thief, Sleep on Khint, and throw all available Fira at the thief.
• Re-sleep Khint if he wakes up, re-poison the thief if it wears off, spam Fira on the thief, and heal as necessary.  Your White Mage has 3 BP and Rejuvenate available to use as needed.

Now that I've figured these fights out, next time for sure will be Tax on the Cupid.  Just as soon as I get Rejuvenate and the Withering Ripples ready again.

Also, thanks to the Microsoft IME Pad for helping me type the kanji (it lets you draw it and it narrows it down as you do so), since I can't read kanji lol.

Plot Points for Jungle Planet

Remember back to over two years ago when I posted a story about colonists on a jungle planet that I'd experienced as a dream, and said "I might post the plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them at some point, but not now."?

Well, I happened to be reading back through old posts, ended up on the dreams tag, and re-read the entire thing.  Searched my hard drive and found the file where that same exact story text is, as well as the plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them that I'd typed over two years ago.  In fact, I haven't even touched it since then, the last modified date on the file is still the same as the date of the post.

Anyway, enough is enough.  Plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them, go!  The only editing I've done to this is adding formatting, all of the text is verbatim from the text file from which it came.  There is some stuff that's mentioned multiple times, deal with it.

The staff

• Mary and the old man can do with the staff what it took the chanting of the entire rest of the tribe to do
• The staff was responsible for the desolate area (hence why the old man was exiled)
• And that the person who did this was Mary, on the first test of the staff
• And that she's still upset about it
• Rather than fearing the staff because of its power she has the mindset that it needs to be kept out of the hands of those who would misuse it
• And for that reason decides to wield it herself

The old man in the store

• Jack and Audrey don't discuss him with the other colonists until after the first time he comes to their colony
• Over time he should instruct Mary in the use of the staff
• He is the one that uncovers that Mary is responsible for the desolate area being desolate
• Jack and Audrey, after consulting the rest of the colonists, decide to invite him to live in the colony

Mary

• The tribe wanted her alive and well because of her ability to use the staff, and so they took care of her
• Her clothes are tattered due to age and her growth, but she refused to wear the tribal dress anyway
• Jack and Audrey take her in after bringing her back to the colony
• She was 12 when she arrived and therefore 13 when Jack and Audrey rescue her
• Plenty of opportunity for flashbacks to explain her backstory

Jack and Audrey

• They're supposed to be adults, late 20s/early 30s.
• Jack is a marksman and Audrey prefers melee weapons
• This is the small bit of myself that's making it into Jack.  Basically I'm tired of how the ranged support characters in RPGs/movies/anime/manga/etc. are always female.
• Also I tend to like sword-wielding female characters, so it works double.
• At some point they take Mary to the charred remains of the old colony, because she wants to go and they'd never actually seen the area before

The colony/colonization effort

• Unclear how far away their home planet is
• Close enough that the news of what happened to the first colony (emergency transmissions) arrived before the second batch of colonists arrived, but far enough away that the news arrived after they left.
• The previous colonists arrived about 13 months earlier, bringing Mary and her parents with them
• Obviously from a much more technologically-advanced planet/society
• Modern weaponry, essentially.
• Mary wasn't the user of the staff in most of the tribe's rituals that involved it, and that it took the entire tribe chanting to make the staff do what Mary and the old man can do with it by themselves
• Mary was abducted, the colony razed, and the colonists killed
• Just to make it plainly obvious, she's the only remaining survivor from the first colonization effort
• Current colony not built at the same site as the razed one

The desolate area

• redundant points listed above
• was once jungle, much like the rest of the planet
• became desolate in the first test of the staff due to Mary's hatred of the tribe for killing her parents and abducting her
• after the tribe is defeated it should be restored
• automatically since the staff's effects end either after a certain amount of time or when a specific condition is met

The tribe

• Wakes up and finds the snow and related footprints
• Notices that both Mary and the staff are gone
• follows footprints to the store
• discovers colony at some point
• main antagonists?  would make the full story shorter and simpler...  could be good or bad.

Yeah, I'd thought out that much of it.  Present thoughts want me to change it so rather than Mary being eager to see the charred remains of the old colony, they happen upon it while exploring, entirely unintentionally, and Mary gets some kind of sad reunion when she finds evidence of her parents.  This evidence would of course be small enough to carry with her as a memento.  Also, why was the staff originally created?  For that matter, why are the old man and Mary the only ones who can easily use it?  Also, when razing the colony and killing the colonists, the tribe had to have known Mary could use the staff, or they'd have killed her too.

Also, I do remember that the dream itself at one point had a Skyrim GUI (when they were sneaking into the village, getting Mary, grabbing the staff, and leaving), and in general because this kind of thing happens in my dreams, everything was a bit more sexualized.  Also, something that failed to make it in (maybe I consciously edited it out?) is that Mary's green shirt was actually a hooded sweatshirt at one point.  Perhaps it still technically was a hooded sweatshirt when Jack and Audrey discover her, but it's just been worn down through all the time of wearing it and being a hostage, and therefore losing its insulation value against the snow Mary inadvertently causes after they leave the village?  I realize this makes her receiving the sweatshirt from Jack kind of odd... (but only kind of)

Also, I seem to like beginning sentences with "Also,".

Why do I even bother?

So I went to a job fair today.  I always get my hopes up when going to one of these things.  "Oh, it's going to be great, I'll talk to some potential employers, they'll need someone with my skills, I might even get an interview on the spot!"

Then I go to it.

They're all the same really.  Cramped quarters, you're lucky if they have a sign (or even a printed handout) with their open positions listed, some tables always get swapped around so the map is incorrect, and even more aren't clearly labelled and it just looks like people are hanging out and talking.

I did talk to several potential employers and things did seem positive across the board, but there was a disturbing trend.

"Oh, apply online."

Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of going to a job fair?  I might as well just have looked at the list of everyone who was going to be there, and gone to their websites to apply.  I put on uncomfortable semi-dress clothing, updated and then printed out fifteen copies of my resume, and drove all the way here to talk to you about working for you and "apply online" is all you can say?

Speaking of those fifteen copies of my resume I printed out, guess how many got asked for by the companies I talked to.  Go ahead, take a wild guess.

You ready for the number?

Zero.

What a waste of paper, printer ink, power, and time.

Also, about my skill set.  Apparently, even though I feel fairly well skilled, the only open positions in anything IT or otherwise computer or internet-related are senior staff positions that require a lot more intimate knowledge of approximately everything than I currently have.  Come on, you're coming to a job fair held right next door to the University of Virginia, and you don't have any entry or mid-level positions open?

At least I got three streetpasses.

Dungeon Siege

I've been watching ArchmageMelek's LP of the original Dungeon Siege, and every episode I say the same thing: "Man, this makes me want to play this game again.".

Last night I found my install discs (remember physical install media?) and installed it.

Here's where the problem began: it's an old game and its graphics options max out at 1024x768.  I'm using a 1440x900 monitor.

Thankfully the resolution options are stored in an easily editable file, so I simply changed the width and height to 1440x900.  However, even though it shows up properly in the options, I don't get the feeling it actually worked.

It looks just like it did when I fired it up set to 1024x768.  Now I know that 1440x900 isn't a heck of a lot bigger than 1024x768, but the real indication that something's not right: all the rest of my windows in my dual monitor setup moved around, which only happens when a game changes the display resolution.  So even though it says it's running at 1440x900, it's not really.  And indeed once I re-open DungeonSiege.ini, I can see that the width and height are set to 800 and 600, respectively.  If tweaking DungeonSiege.ini doesn't work, I guess command line options are my only hope.

It's still a really fun game that I hope to get back into.  I never got either of its sequels (and from what I've heard about DS3, it's a lazy console port with no real options or anything of use to a PC gamer), but I do own Legends of Aranna.  In fact, my install discs install both the full game and Legends of Aranna.  I picked up the game at Circuit City before they died a horrible fiery death, for about $30, specifically because it was the full game with the expansion included.

Edit (2014-12-18): The main menu still renders in 800x600, regardless of settings.  When you start a game, it'll bitch at you about the resolution you set, just hit OK and it'll change to the resolution you specified.