The coming year will bring new surprises to ChickGeekGames.com readers and subscribers ;)
Aww, so you bothered to click the “read more” link or you’re reading my RSS feed, sweet! :))) Guess what, i will be holding a couple of contests for all regular readers and subscribers – with real prizes and stuff! Oh, what kind of prizes? Games, of course! Stay tuned ;)
Couldn’t keep from throwing my 5 cents in. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Ocean Marketing is a PR “agency” led by Paul Christoforo, the asshole of such an epic proportions that you could fit in Enterprise and Babylon5 both at the same time, and who hanged himself to dry over at Penny Arcade after attacking his own customer AND then Mike Krahulik. The shit storm that rose after is wonderful not only because it’s got a mention at all the main gaming portals, but also because it took the whole business of people in the game industry being assholes towards their customers for many years on a whole new level. Wait, but what the Russian mafia has to do with anything?..
Except from the mails posted at Penny Arcade and everywhere else in the world:
“From: Ocean Marketing
To: Mike Krahulik
Dec 26, 2011 at 9:33 PM
OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW ,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place. If we want to be there we will be there with industry badges or with a booth you think I can’t team up with turtle beach , Callibur or Koy Christmas , I can’t get Kevin Kelly to pull some strings or G4 , Paul Eibler Ex CEO of take 2 , Rich Larocco Konami , Cliff Blizinski Epic who were working with on a gears version , Activision who were working with on a MW3 and Spider man Bundle , The Convention Center Owners themselves , Mayor of Boston come on Bud you run a show that’s all you do and lease a center in Cities you have no pull in its all about who you know not what you do. I’ll see space where ever I want , with who I want when I want and where I want so many ways around you and so many connections in this industry its silly. Anyway , I have no issue with you Sean Buckley Engadget, Scott Lowe IGN and the list goes on and on. Little kids unhappy with a PRE ORDER starting trouble and you email that to us , he’s a customer unless you’re his boyfriend then you should side with the company not the customer. Be Careful”
This guys is obviously in a Top 10 Douchebags of 2011 list. He’s an absolutely illiterate asshole, with a brain of 6 year old and an attitude of a thug, the same kind that waits with a pocket knife in a dark alley to jump on your wallet. So, the first question is, how the fuck this guy managed to crawl into a gaming business? Actually, how did he managed to crawl into ANY business at all besides selling drugs at a local school, is way beyond me. But he’s all over YouTube, showing that poor avenger controller at Pax 2011 East and other videos:
The second question is, and i specifically paint it with this bright color as a token of its vast importance – do you think he’s the only one of a kind?
Okay, now, you may be wondering what the Russian mafia from this post’s header has to do with anything? I’m now almost getting to the point. You see, when USSR went under in the beginning of 1990’s, Russian society crashed like a plane with no pilot and all kinds of thugs and criminals began to emerge as fast as cockroaches in a dirty kitchen. It was called a “wild market” and people happily sold alcohol with poisonous fractions and sausages with cellulose pulp instead of meat. Many of these sellers/thugs were just like Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing – they’d take your money, kick your guts out and call it a day. Law enforcement wasn’t working at all, because the old laws were already not functioning and the new ones were not made yet, and the law structures' employees like police were engaged in the same activity as these thugs.
Gaming industry is just as wild as Russia in 1992. Games and devices were made and sold for decades now, but there are no laws to defend buyers from new-age thugs, and the premises are still reminds of the Wild Wild West. What, no one never EVER saw this Ocean Marketing guy before? With an attitude like that he should have been out of the business long time ago, with the only connection to the gaming industry left is a boot print on his ass. But he is not. Even if you live in a country with an extensive law-enforcement system like USA or EU countries, you probably can sue Paul Christoforo because he deals with real-life, physical goods, but... The outcome of that case would be unknown. He could go out and bribe a judge, for all we know, and even if he didn’t – he’d just get back to business right away.
The worst part is that, let’s face it – he’s not even the only one of a kind out there, and they all can do whatever they want. There are many people acting the same towards their customer base, including not only customer service, but software developers and high-positioned “thugs” in big MMO companies. And these people were treating their buyers with the same amount of “love” and “caring” for years and years. This particular asshole just got exposed in the most loud manner, while others are still lingering in shadows.
There was a scandal on Aeria Games forums several years ago after they kicked out one of the Game Sages and she hanged her former employers to dry, telling of their immense douchebagery in great details. Did anyone lose their jobs? Nope. Did anything changed at Aeria’s customer service? Nope. They continue to offer horrible customer service and even more, Aeria Games bans players because they are successful in their games. Several years ago Eve Online’s employees were exposed in helping certain players to gain wealth and control in-game. Did they got fired? Nope. Did anything changed? CCP are the same old assholes they always were. Usually people just quit playing assholes’ games or stop buying assholes’ goods, but new people – unaware of they’re getting themselves into – are coming in to replace them.
The only positive change I've seen so far is Final Fantasy XIV old development team being kicked in the nuts for delivering utter crap and Square Enix covering under their very own shit storm and trying to salvage the game for over a year now. The moral here? Expose the assholes everywhere you can, call out for “big guys” like Penny Arcade who can expose them better, and let’s hope something changes.
The Gamer Cat is usually very busy with sleeping, eating and clawing at stuff, but still finds some time for his gamer activities. Some time ago he was into FPS games, this particular picture shows him playing Call of Duty: Black Ops with my husband. The kitty seems to be really engrossed in the game. This picture isn’t very recent, he’s a lot bigger than that now but still likes watching games :)
Actually, he gets very interested each time there is a game running and won’t act the same when I’m watching movies (except for Simon’s Cat, which is our favorite), so he must be seeing some difference between them.
More Alicia Online videos ;) This video shows how to use horse toys in Alicia Online to play with your horse. I'm sure many of you are able to do it better than me, but still ;) I couldn't find a video about this, only a piece of other video where the author showed horse feeding, tending and playing with a bow, but not with a carrot. If you just started playing and the toys are blocked (grayed out) for you, don't worry, they will unlock after some time. I think it happens when your horse is happy enough (the top meter should be of some size and also pink, which means the horse is happy). This video shows in-game tutorials for game controls in Alicia Online, the horse racing MMORPG we all love so much ;) They weren’t full-screen so i enlarged that part of the video so the keys pressed during the tutorials would be more clear to see.
Liked the video? Subscribe to Chick Geek Games YouTube channel ;)
A list of other posts about Alicia Online can be found here
Read more...I’m playing ARGO Online today so i made a couple of videos in the newbie zone. You can find them at freshly-made Chick Geek Games YouTube channel here ;) This one shows a tip on Shinbad’s Journal quest, which almost drove me nuts before i figured that the quest objective was up on that platform:
For all my male readers ;) Beautiful South Korean cosplayer Tasha and her amazing sexy outfit of Sheryl Nome (a singer from “Macross Frontier” anime and PS3 game) in her scenic image of “Universal Bunny”. You can compare the likeness of characters with an image of Sheryl Nome’s statuette that is sold in Japan, i included it under the cut with other photos. Click to see larger pictures. Tasha is a member of Spiral Cats – a group of Korean cosplayers – and she is really wonderful. Have a Merry Christmas, guys ;)
Hello to all Alicia Online fans! I have started playing a new character and intent to post helpful stuff from now on for those who have just started playing. This post will help you finish Alicia Online quests (those that aren’t 100% obvious on what you need to do to complete them) and will be upgraded with more quests until i make a second post. Feel free to share your own information regarding quests in the comment section, I’m sure everyone will appreciate it!
As i can’t read Korean and can’t just copy-paste text from inside the game, i will post screenshots of the quest objectives, so you can compare them to what you see. The quests are shown as the game progresses from the very beginning.
You need to gather 20 pieces of sheep wool, they can be found during the races. Pick them up as usual items and bonuses used in the races.
Finish 5 races.
Comb and clean your horse:
Clean your horse again, using the soft cloth.
Take part in 3 races.
Take part in 8 races.
Take part in 10 races.
Complete a jump tutorial.
To To do so, open the menu from where you usually start a race and open the 2nd item, where tutorials are, then the second tab. Select and complete the following tutorial:
More training – complete jump and spur tutorials.
Open the same tutorial window, but the first tab and complete tutorials on jumping and spurring (when you gather 3 bonus items and then run really fast).
A list of other posts about Alicia Online can be found here:
Alicia Online: Fresh News, Tips and All You Wanted to Know
Yesterday, as you probably know, Star Wars: The Old Republic was finally and officially launched. The early access allowed many players to start as long as a week before the official launch (and many are said to reach the level cap in such a short time), still the swarm of players attacking Bioware servers is almost unprecedented. With as many 200 servers, players are to spend up to 2 hours (!!) waiting in a line to login! Bioware is saying they’re treating the problem very seriously, but can’t guarantee the lack of lines just yet. To try and control the flow of new players the sales of SW:TOR at Origin were ceased for some time. With such an influx of players, would Star Wars: The Old Republic be a real competitor for World of Warcraft?
When the amount of SW:TOR servers were 140, some analyst guy from Cowen & Company assessed the measure of server load and claimed that the number of players is already past one million, and probably is reaching 1,5 million players. He also predicts that in the coming year Star Wars: The Old Republic will reach as many as 2 million subscribers. For a “free to play” game it might be a normal situation when such a big number of players is coming to see what’s up, for a “pay to play” each person means a copy sold. At this point it’s unknown if all these hordes of players will stay and subscribe, or will get disappointed and leave after a couple of months like it happened to RIFT. Whatever happens, Bioware is getting its hands on a lot of income about right now.
Also, is 2 million subscriptions a big number or not? Comparing to 10 million World of Warcraft fans – maybe not, but let’s not forget that SW:TOR is reaching only to Western auditory right now. Most of its servers are based in USA, with the rest being distributed around Europe. If to count only the WoW players from these regions only, the number of subscriptions is around 4-4,5 millions. And now things are looking a lot different, aren’t they? 4 millions of elves and taurens comparing to 2 millions of jedi and sith is a whole new story. I think Blizzard might be feeling disturbance in the Force right now.
This is a header post – one of those that i use to keep stuff in one place. Since ChickGeekGames.com (yeah, i just like mentioning my new domain ;) is used as a source of info about Alicia Online, and the number of posts on it is only going to grow, i decided to get them all in one place. Oh, and if you stumbled upon this post not knowing what Alicia Online is – it’s a fantasy horse racing MMORPG released in Korea and Japan.Chosen by MMOsite – top 10 cosplayers of 2011. Sure as hell they’re cool!
Click for larger images.
More posts about cosplay:
Lineage 2: Beautiful Girls Cosplaying Lineage II
Wonderful Cosplay of Cabal Online Character Yuan by Giorgia
ARGO Online is a hybrid MMORPG where steampunk meets fantasy settings. Each account can play either for Noblian faction (the steampunk guys) or for Floresslah (the tree huggers). Since my beta account falls under IP restriction (“let’s ban all Russians, they have their own version!”) i made a new one, and since I’m playing with Bandicam, i made a couple of videos. This is how Floresslah and Noblian are introduced in the game. Feel free to subscribe to the new ChickGeekGames YouTube channel, i will be posting stuff there ;)
That’s right – the blog has own domain from now on! You’ve been clicking the ads so the blog can “support itself” to afford a very own domain name – ChickGeekGames.com! I needed a couple of days to set things straight and working, but now everything is fine and here it is ;) Don’t worry, all the content linked to old address will be automatically redirected to the new one, so if you gave someone a link to one of my pages – it will work just fine. On the other news: Google+, Twitter and other stats behind the cut…
First, i am considering posting stuff to Google+, just not fully figured out how to post it to the blog’s page instead of my own. Would appreciate a little help here ;)
Second, ChickGeekGames Twitter account is blooming - Followers 4,759 and counting! Feel free to join ;) Of course, there are a lot of bots and spam accounts following me, but i try to keep them at bay.
And some stats from the Blogger:
Top 10 posts of the last 30 days (Alicia Online still beats everything):
And some audience stats:
