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I touch the sofa, quake and tremble.... Welcome home.I touch the sofa, quake and tremble.... Welcome home.

“If man makes world as construction site
Demolition teams work best at night
(We hunt you down)”
– Daedelus (with Mike Ladd)

Welcome to the 2017 (and hopefully final) relaunch of Wataridori...at least until we have to do it again.

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Awwww, look! Love at first punch.Awwww, look! Love at first punch.

Apparently Ayne had reviewed Final Fantasy XIV for another site, so she finally got around to putting it here.  Sorry that it's not in our usual format. - Rob

So, one of my criticisms about it is no longer applicable, mainly that the demo lasted only 14 days, while now it can be played indefinitely but with a lot of restrictions. Some rabid fans insist that the "game really gets good at 40/50/60" (that probably keeps getting pushed back with the level cap because some seem to think levelling itself has to be a boring grind by default) so if that's the case, 2 weeks was hardly enough to persuade someone on the fence. One of the things that supposedly makes it the BEST MMORPG EVAR OMG is the breathtaking world (and you have to admit the graphics really are amazing) which a player would only have time to maybe explore half of it if they neglect work/school/eating/going to the bathroom/sleep to do nothing but play the game for that time. Those 14 days even for a hardcore player really only add up to a day's worth of game time. Fortunately, lifting the demo's time limit means that you're focusing on whether or not you actually like the game rather than trying to beat the timer and hope you remember whether you liked the game or not after the fact.

Hardcore fans insisted that 2 weeks/a day's worth of in-game time was enough, which at the time I agreed, I simply came to a different conclusion. (It was "enough" for me to judge the game to be overhyped rubbish) Having played the game now for roughly about that time, I changed my mind enough to be on-the-fence about it. So, whomever over at SqEnix who decided 2 weeks/a day's worth of in-game time wasn't enough to form a more informed opinion was definitely right. (Although, I should add that I played the first demo on my PC -- which definitely can't handle those kinds of graphics -- and the current one on my PS4. It really does play a lot smoother; one of the things I hated about it originally was how horribly it played on my PC. Not the game's fault, admittedly, but it was enough for me not to want to play it. Controller play also helps tremendously and makes moving around AoEs considerably less of a pain in the ass.)

Of course, the remaining problem is that the demo's level cap is 35, so the game only gets halfway to supposedly "getting good". But firstly, my thought is that if you have to work at a game like you would a job before it supposedly gets fun, my advice is not to bother. No game is worth that hassle. (And yes, I'd even say that for Destiny. If you're not having fun, play something else. I won't be offended) Secondly, that the game is "admittedly boring" until you don't have to worry about levelling isn't entirely true.

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A convention's fiftieth anniversary. A massively lost opportunityA convention's fiftieth anniversary. A massively lost opportunity

Disclaimer: While I’m a former senior executive at Anime USA and current worker at Katsucon, nothing I say here should be taken as official policy of either convention.  Or, for that matter, seriously.

This was, quite frankly, the most amateur-hour con that I have ever been to...and it was particularly damning, given that it was Balticon's 50th year.

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Okay, maybe not exactly this guy. But you get the idea.(img: Roy Blumenthal)Okay, maybe not exactly this guy. But you get the idea.(img: Roy Blumenthal)

I don't know about you all, but I hate idea guys.  They come in two flavors:

  1. Here's an idea, it'd be great if you did all the work for me but I get a tiny amount of credit so I can claim that I did it all.
  2. I have these great ideas.  I'm not going to do a damn thing with them, but I'm going to constantly tell how great xidea is and how i'd do it if I had the money/time/effort/insert excuse here.

Some of you know these people and know them intimately.  Sadly, for me, one of them is a friend, and Katie (names mentioned aren't real) won't shut up about how wonderful her ideas are if she just had the time to do so.  Granted, not everyone can: my wife has to balance her comic work with taking care of her ill father.  Another relative, Adam has to juggle work and a billion other things as well - he barely has time to himself, much less other pursuits.  I myself have some novels good to go, but don't have the money just yet to get the covers that I would like to my satisfaction.  But it's only the first case where they sit in the morass of "I could, if...."

Those are damnable words.  Evil words.  Words that should be expunged from your dictionary like Sheepa LeBeef shouting "JUST DO IT!"

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  1. Yup, That's About Right
  2. Raiders of the Wayback Machine: Our Interview with TGT