任是无情也动人

I just finished the main storyline mission last night, and have been still excited about it since then!

Ok, the first half of the story was boring and tedious. I get they were necessary as setup for the later parts. But it felt like a bunch of monologues one after the other. But! The last...1/3-1/4 of the story, just, wow! The climax this time was excellent! I would even say it's the best one so far: 3.3 > 3.0 > 3.2 > 3.1.

I know some people complained about how Aglaea's death almost completely took place off screen. We don't even get a cinematic about her dead body or whatever. But eh, I feel like we already got a glimpse of that during previous cinematics about the prophesized end of all the heroes involved in the Flame Chase quest. What I did like was that the story used the short segment related to her death to further develop her character. At first the audience is led to believe it as caused by the remnants of her humanity, ie. her mortal weakness and soft heart (which we'd all thought had been worn away). But then we find out that nope, there was no soft heart involved, it was a PR plot she masterminded herself, using her predicted impending death as a tool to destroy her political enemies and a catalyst to spur the growth of her protege. So yeah, still the same old Aglaea.

As for the slow unravelling about the truth history of the Sky people and Hyacine's lineage was paced fairly well, in retrospect, even if the first half was slow. The "twist" in the story was of course not unexpected, because we all know there was gonna be a twist and most likely, the good/evil bits of the legend is not gonna be the truth. However the actual true history that did came out wasn't too cliched (I was honestly half expecting the hero of legend to be more of a villain, or maybe even completely unrelated to the plight of the Sky people), but it holds up to its internal logic and is quite understandable, and very thematically appropriate for a (Greek) tragedy.

The climax boss fight was very well animated. I brought what I thought was a pretty good team, but still got stomped in Phase 3. I am not even sure if I hit all the major animation/story dialogue triggers in that fight... might need to search up some videos of it online to make sure I didn't miss any cool sequences.

Then came the story-side climax of Cipher's death. OMG! Here all this time I thought she was just the catgirl fanservice and gag character. And looking at reddit, I was not the only one who thought this. But as it turns out, she is the actual MVP of Amphoreus. Forget AtlasKephale. It was a f*cking thief who held together the world for the last 700+ years with her f*cking lies.

Looking back, the previous depictions of Cipher takes on a whole new meaning. She was chided by her fellow heroes for disregarding her duties as a demigod and fleeing all conflict... but now we know that's because she was already literally carrying the world on her shoulders, and her death would cause it all to fall apart, so of course she wouldn't risk conflict when she can run. Aglaea couldn't understand why Cipher suddenly turned her back on their friendship and couldn't stand to live in the same city anymore... but now we know it's precisely because of their friendship that Cipher couldn't run the risk of anyone getting to close to her to realize the Grand Con she was running, because the world must believe her Lie for it to remain Truth, and so she had to go into self-exile to minimize anyone getting close to her.

And now, at the end of the Grand Quest, when all the other coreflames of the old gods have been claimed and the heroes are so close to resetting things into a brand new world... Now, finally, Cipher choses to enter the conflict, set herself as bait for the Flame Reaver, and essentially sacrifice herself for one last gambit. She dies alone, with almost no one to know the truth that it was her who truly protected Ohkema up to this time. But she still bought enough time for Hyacine to take up the mantle of the sky and bring down the protection of her rainbow, and protected the last coreflame for our heroes to finish their task when we get back to the city.

Like, I was previously thinking of pulling for Cipher because I really like her art design. But now, I am totally all for Cipher as our catgirl woobie goddess!! *squee~~*

Ahem, other stuff I liked about the story... my boy Dan Heng finally remembered his dragon form!! LOL. It's like the first time since the original Xianzhou arc (the brief showing in Penacony climax turned out to be a dream, after all). We also get to see him sync with the waters of Amphoreus, study with the priests of the local sea god, and learn how to use the magic waters to open travel gates (like, whoa?). I wished we got to see more of his fight as DHIL against the Flame Reaver, but at least we know he's probably not gonna die like the other local heroes did, what with him rumored on getting a new 5 star banner up next patch. Looking forward for that as well.

Had fun yesterday. There is definitely a reason people want to hear LIVE performances in person. Though, I have to say that to me, Zhou Shen's voice is still very much him, and recognizably alike to his studio recordings. (I know this sounds like a non-sequitor, but I have heard claims from other fans who go to his concerts that hearing him in person is a lot different/better than digital recordings in many ways.) I do feel the extra energy coming from his live performance, and from the ambience in general, not to mention the extra volume due to the state of the art sound system plus his (pretty powerful) voice. Like, if he ever has another tour stop in California, I would definitely try to attend again. But, that said, I do still think studio recordings have their own charm, mostly in the area of repeated or relaxed enjoyment. Just sayin'.

Anyway, I recorded almost all of the performances except for the 邓丽君组曲, because my phone was throwing overheating warnings at me, and I had to give it a long-ish break. Ended up with over 25 GB of video files. I've uploaded them all to bilibili, because youtube and other US apps are much stricter with copyright.

Fair warning: Several of them involve sing-along bits, where you can probably hear my off-key screeching. =P During the performance, I couldn't actually hear myself due to the projection of the sound system (and hence didn't know how awfully I was singing :p). But my phone, being much closer to my mouth than the sound system, apparently picked it up just fine. At a cursory recall: 若梦, 小美满, 花开忘忧, 望, 灯火里的中国, Wala li longla, 好运来 all have bits of singalong.


Also, when recording 达拉崩吧 and 不想睡, I panned a lot into the audience, because I found that scene to be very interesting.

I didn't recording any of the talking and bridge sections, mostly to give my phone a bit of time to rest and cool. The talking bits were all really funny though, and I will probably look into collecting the full recap from other people's recordings.


On a different note, this trip to Las Vegas brought back deja vu from my trip there last year...

The hotel (Excalibur) was still pretty good. I had an even better time with it, because I figured out their app, and could do check-in/check-out remotely without having to get in the long lines at the lobby. Also, the app provides a digital room key, so I didn't have to hassle with physical keys that can lose their magnetism at the most inconvenient times. A recommend for anyone who is traveling to LV.

On the other hand, food and drink is still horrendously expensive for the portions offered. A small soda or juice charges like $6...ugh. In the future, I would like to check out the Chinatown in Vegas, because that's something I've only heard of this time when doing research on travel plans. Unfortunately, it was too far to visit this time, but I guess in the future, I'd like to check it out.

Finally finished both the main Hoolay storyline, and the subsequent Wardance event quest. Jotting down some first impressions...

The storytelling I think is pretty stable and in line with the quality of the other 2.x chapters. That is, nothing egregrious stood out while playing, and the progression from segment to segment flowed ok. Focus characters of the patch got their moments to shine. The most obvious whys and wherefores were covered for. So, it was pretty good, IMO.

It's a short and straightforward story. We're shown the stuff happening, even where our protagonists are not present. So none of that mysterious speaking in riddles stuff that may or may not pay off shtick from Luofu 1.x or Penacony arcs.

The general online response I've seen so far (aside from the obvious haters and nitpickers), have generally been positive too. The only criticism I've seen from both the EN and CN side is that it's illogical for Jiaoqiu to have come out of the whole thing alive and "merely" blind.

I have to wonder if originally they meant for Jiaoqiu to be a 4 star character and die during this story. But when he became a 5 star, they had to write him to survive. (Because having a limited banner char who gets killed off, and thus no further appearances in future stories, after the banner ends would probably cause the people who pulled him for the design/backstory to riot.)

Now, it's obviously not a great piece of literature or anything like that. And if you want to nitpick, there are a lot of problems that can be found. But then, that could be said about any and all of HSR's stories.

Especially, the details that interact with the worldbuilding and setting setup, especially for what appears to be a complex "work-in-progress" as the Xianzhou Alliance, is an obvious problem area. I am still no clearer as to how the various government departments/factions/titles interact. Huaiyan seems to imply that Jing Yuan does have some sort of "command" over the 6 charioteer departments. But 6 divisions imply that Cloud Knight is one of them, so I guess he's referring to the Arbiter-General position being above them? But then he also seems to imply that this role can also be temporarily handed off to another Arbiter-General, as he was sitting in for Jing Yuan in that role while the 3 generals were splitting their work. Isn't this like the equivalent making the head of state of another kingdom your imperial regent? Bwah?

And then there's the whole stuff with Vidyadhara and Preceptor Taoran. Mentioned that stuff in the comment here.


What I didn't like about the main story is actually the constant switching of POV characters. It was fine in Penacony, because it only happened a few times. But here, it seemed like we're constantly switching POV, and then doing just a few fights, and then switching again. It's annoying, because each time it replaces the first slot of my team, and then I have to change the rest of my team setup. This also results in me losing any technique buffs I had up previously, which leads to using up a lot of technique point consumables. I mean, sure, it's not like I ever run low on this... but it just feels annoying after a while.

Like, I can get behind the fact that it's a good mechanism to let people try out new banner characters in overworld combat. But there's only 2 characters you need to do that for: Feixiao and Lingsha. There's absolutely no reason to force us to slot Yanqing, Yunli, or Jiaoqiu in the team, considering the former sucks and the latter two aren't up to be pulled. -_-

That said, playing Lingsha has confirmed my initial plans not to pull for her (not that I will have the tickets to pull for her next banner). She seems only good for superbreak teams with Firefly (which I don't have). As a generic healer, she can't even match my ancient 1.x Luocha.

Feixiao, OTOH, is pretty nice as a DPS. She's going to be the one I concentrate on building next.


Eh... back to story. The Wardance event story I feel dragged on, even though I think it is probably the same length as March's training event. Most likely the reason I feel this is because... who the fuck cares about Luca? I mean, out of all the Belobog characters, he's probably at the bottom of the list of recognizable names. He doesn't even show up in the main Belobog story, just one side quest. So why is he getting a whole event that might as well be Luca Companion Quest v2? >_<

Yes, I get that his backstory as a fighting ring guy fits with the whole martial arts tournament setup of the Wardance. Yes, I get that Hoyo is trying to tell the story of the ultimate underdog climbing their way up the ranks, and it's hard to cast someone like Seele or Gepard as that much of an underdog competitor, even if they are a whole lot more popular as characters that people likely prefer to see. But. But. Why do you chose now of all times to use logic rather than marketing statistics?

There are a few parts of the Wardance story that I liked. The bit featuring the Caretwheel Temple. The appearance by Mr. Tails. Even the somewhat friendly/antagonistic relationship with Topaz. Just...not the main part with Luca.

And, like, I get the obvious Olympic memes and stuff in the Wardance. Hoyo overplaying with memes is nothing new. BTW, reading CN player responses to the story... it seems like people are drawing ties with the early day CN participation in the Olympics? Em. Have to wonder if that was what Hoyo was trying to get players to emphasize with? I mean, CN is currently contender for #1 spot in the Olympics. Yes there is discrimination, with regards to drug tests and stuff. But it's really hard to say CN is still the underdog. Do people still see themselves as such? Honestly curious.


Anyways, regarding the tie in between Belobog and the Xianzhou... I realize this was probably set up from the inception, since the coincidence of both places having major crisis events around 700 years ago is too much to be coincidence from a narrative point of view. But, it still gives me the feeling of "what a small world we move in". Though, honestly, I guess I should've been used to this, considering how much a lot of characters get reused all over the place to save designing new NPCs. (Poor Argenti, the brick that keeps getting shoved everywhere that needs a deux ex machina.)

Along with that, specifically regarding Jing Yuan, I feel like the poor guy has been relegated to background exposition tool for the whole update. Yes, this is because this patch is specifically meant to sell Feixiao, and thus she needs to have the limelight, and thus the other two generals, as her only equals, thus must be far from the limelight...

His part in the main story, is understandable, since he is the only one who can give a lot of the backstory and politics on what happened with Hoolay's original capture and incarceration. But at the end of the Wardance event, where he talks about his buddy the ancient hero from Belobog is... eh. Feels a bit shoved in there.

(Also, I want to make a note here. There's nothing in the story that states Igor whatsisname is Luca's ancestor. Jing Yuan used the term "descendant/后代" once, and clearly he's referring to a very general, generational inheritance sense. There's nothing that confirms an actual biological relationship with Luca. They just look similar and both just happen have a bionic arm.)


Anyway, 2.5 ended with us supposedly leaving the Luofu. But earlier in the main story cutscenes, it showed that Ruan Mei had arrived with Tingyun. I am not sure if 2.6 will involve flash backs to what happened there with our protagonist involved. Or if it's going to be just POV change of stuff that happened without our protagonists present. Or maybe we'll come back for them in 2.7?

The limited banner for 2.6 is confirmed to be Rappa, and the setting Penacony. The banners for 2.7 are most likely going to be Sunday and Tingyun (unknown in which order).

Personally, I am waiting for Aventurine to come up for reruns. As well as Dr. Ratio, because I want to get his lightcone. Whether or not I will have enough pulls by then... eh. We'll see.

Available on Amazon Prime here. Currently 9 episodes out so far.

I was actually recommended this show from a Chinese novel rec douban group. The douban group in question is rather feminist oriented, and this show is of course a very feminist show.

The original novel is a feminist novel. Most of the production team, screenwriters and etc, are women. So yes, I think you can tell where this is headed.

Watched 5 episodes so far and I found it very well done. Multiple storylines from different parts of the world slowly intersect together in the formation of a new world order.

So I've finished the main story on my main, and have progressed the masteries a little further. Still haven't gotten seige turtle yet, seems that will require doing the jade sea meta, and I haven't done that yet. This meta right now seems to be in the phase that the HoT Tangled Depths meta was at when that expac was launched, where it's hit and miss for pugs and usually requires a "good" party to defeat. I figure I can wait a while until more the population rank up their masteries/new specs and get used to the mechanics, before I try to leech off a win there. =P

Anyway, current goal right now is just to generically level the existing masteries and run the skill point challenges on my mesmer to fill out the new spec. But sometimes I get tired of playing missions or looking for skill points. Thought back to the discussion about maps in the last post, and then took some time to record just showing off the maps. (Also, sekretly using this to plug my favor singer as BGM. XD)

Full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsZ-OPg1pOw1MqJJtOBhXse_msnbBq8Lf

Embed will only show 1 video at a time though... so just putting New Kaineng 1/3 here.


Right now just got Seitung and Kaineng maps. I might do Jade Sea map next. Not sure if I'll do Echovald, since I don't much like that map... we'll see.

Recently, have been watching 《开端》aka "Reset", a new TV short series that has been surprisingly popular in China lately. Surprisingly popular despite the genre - a looping day akin to "Groundhog Day", though action/suspense rather than comedy. It's also only 15 episodes long, so doesn't require a huge investment of time.

Here's the official eng sub playlist on Youtube. First ep can be found here:


And haha, I'll admit, I was made aware of this show because Zhou Shen sang its closing theme song 《My Only》. The song is also doing surprisingly well on the various music app billboards in China, made #1 both the 1st week of release and the 3rd week of release (that just ended). It's a full english song, which is interesting, since the show has no foreign elements in it. It's also a very clearly romance oriented song, even though romance...it's there but I don't think it's the primary focus of the show.

( Spoilers (not really)? )

EDIT: Seems like LJ crossposting is also not working anymore. -_-

So I've completed the personal story and all 4 of the free mounts mastery tracks. Also did a bit of dabbling with weaver and did the starting personal story on 2 more characters to check out a few things. Also, staked reddit for news and stuff. So I'm ready to do my initial review.

I think in a lot of respects, PoF is the culmination of a lot of learning and feedback taken from the players in response to HoT. It attempts to capitalize on the things people liked, correct what they didn't like, and sometimes go overboard in the attempt.

( Read more... )

There's probably more stuff that I can't remember right now. Ask me and I shall trying to give my thoughts on it.

No I didn't watch this in the theater. And for once I didn't bootleg it either. =P I watched it for $3.99 on Google Movies. After, of course, having already thoroughly spoiled myself on the plot already, so I already knew going in that it was supposed to be more like a normal TOS episode than the previous two.

And, y'know, I actually kinda liked it, as a Star Trek AU. And considering how much fanfic I read, I don't have anything against AUs in an of itself.

( Read more... )

So it's been over a month since the Heart of Thorns expansion came out, and I figured I should write something up on my impressions. I had wanted to wait until I played more of the content, but looking over my progress that's probably going to take a good while, which may not necessarily be a bad thing.

( more... )

So, I, uh, watched this on fast forward. Basically, skipped scenes that didn't have elves in it. I didn't have a lot of expectations going into the film since I've read all the spoilers and know what I was getting into. And yeah, no pleasant surprises. Ugh.

Let's get the really obvious complaints out of the way.

1. Pacing was horrible. As bad as the last one.

Smaug. Dying barely past the opening credits. W. T. F.

No further major battle scenes about 2/3rds of the way through in favor of Thorin's little corner of the field. I thought this thing was supposed to be about armies?

2. Characterization was spotty.

Galadriel. WTF was she supposed to be? Weakling who couldn't bear up under the Nine? Powerful enough to zap off Sauron? Was she going dark or something with all that black-lighting? Cuz that's what the colors give off.

Tauriel. Ugh. Don't shoehorn in a female OC if you don't want her to be scrutinized. She was a horrible disappointment as a female character. She brought *nothing* to the table except a horrible romance that did not belong to this story. Also, threatened regicide (and kinslaying!). WTF. Did everyone forget this is supposed to be a Tolkien elf? Only thing she got right was not to get fridged.

Legolas. Poor boy. Three extra movies and they still couldn't give him a memorable characterization that could stand out beyond the other major characters. *sigh*


Honestly, outside of some moments of coolness, there's not much that this movie has going for it.

Anyways, the few things I liked:

Elrond & Saruman swashbuckling duo. Surprisingly hypnotic dance combo. *cough*

Thranduil. Awww, he's a good daddy; like, total and complete pushover when it comes to his son. Also, a pretty reasonable guy, and a decent king.

Did those eagles airdrop in bear cavalry? Oh, I think that was supposed to be Beorn.

And some of the fight scenes are nice. Too many of those builds up a tolerance unfortunately.


*sigh* I had such high hopes. Back before Hobbit 2 anyway. *shrug*