Growing Nostalgia - Vanguardian Axis

Well, it's great that I'm starting to write things again as I did years back, but there's still so much more of me that is left to be written; so much more inspiration left to wither as time passes on without being acknowledged. Namely my fictional stories I've written for the use of role playing back when that was big on forums and chatrooms, such as Vanguardian Axis and Crescent Legends. Being that they were plot lines used in a role play, I left some details open for the participants to fill in, but that being said, they were never really completed either way. It was definitely something I enjoyed, but simply could not find any worthy participants to cooperate. Perhaps looking in such a casual forum as Gaia Online was at fault, but at the time, it felt like home to me. In fact, one of the first things I did in Gaia Online was start my Vanguardian Axis role play there, and it has seen its successes and the entertainment it provided to the readers. I miss those days...

Vanguardian Axis is a sci-fi story inspired by several things. First being the Escape Velocity series for its role playing aspects and the made some base structures to the map of its galaxy and systems. Another being the Super Robot Wars series for its amazing ability to combine several different stories from mecha anime into one (or rather several, considering how many SRW games there are now) giant story, and I was definitely fond of many Real-type robots in the game. My personal favorite being Huckebein Mk-III.

And... who knows what else I was inspired by. @_@ I could just as easily say any Sci-Fi games I've played, like the Star Ocean series, Xenogears, as well as mecha anime, but that's a given since I already mentioned Super Robot Wars.

The setting of Vanguardian Axis takes place in Grand Vanguard, a large space colony specializing in artificial gravity technology, explaining the rather abnormal construct for a space station.

The city visible through the translucent layer of Solar-Trance Electro Panels (STEP) is simply known as Vanguard City. The role play started off mostly within the city to enjoy a futuristic lifestyle, partially to get people used to the advanced technology that the story setting would commonly revolve around. At the center is the Axis Tower which extends all the way down through the starbase, which is the main energy generator. During war, this tower can double as a devastating energy cannon through means of amplifying the destructive power through a rare gem nicknamed the "Black Diamond" which would become a quest for explorers to find in unexplored worlds.

Skipping ahead, I was planning on having a much larger and stronger force that knows the dangers of a force that utilizes artificial gravity technology to come and wage war to destroy Grand Vanguard. Don't get me wrong, I love my starbase and the amount of thought and detail I had put into the design and background of the colony. However, I found much more potential for character development and even a change for the better with a new design for a Neo Grand Vanguard in the future. Unfortunately, that plan had never finished, as the role play had halted to a stop after participation grew thin. Whenever I feel inspired enough, I am thinking of designing a more complex starbase than Grand Vanguard.

Do keep in mind, I skipped out on a lot of detail in the explanation of this story, such as a possible prequel of sorts, to gather a new audience, starting with the creation of Grand Vanguard through what would be known as Meteos Wars. And yes, this time I was inspired by the game Meteos on the Nintendo DS, seeing it as a fun way to start a new story in the open world of outer space. Not to mention that I hadn't even mentioned any of my characters that were involved in all this.. Might be faster to just link to where all the role play had taken place, I guess. Where it all began.

I'll probably talk about Crescent Legends next, or more so, probably my favorite character in the story, Clarine Faye Lirshell.

Also... I seriously lack consistency in topics in my blog so far. @_@ Where am I going with all this?! Hopefully I can organize all this in the future.

Reminiscence

It's about time I start things off with what I used to do with my journals on Gaia Online. I missed keeping a log of all my progresses, as short as they are, to help me keep track of what I'm working on at the moment.

So lately, I've been playing PC games a lot more than anything else. Mostly things on Steam, and a few that aren't on Steam. Might as well start with the things on Steam first.

Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2: Beat'em. Skipped out on achievement whoring though. Was kind of in a rush to uninstall them to make room for other games on my C: drive. It was fun though. Good thing I have plenty of other games to keep me occupied while I wait for Episode 3. >_>

Frozen Synapse: I got this game for free thanks to Gamer who sent his extra copy to me. I finished the first two chapters with a few retries... I sort of got the hang of the game, but knowing the reaction times of certain units like how much faster the Shotgun user is compared to the Sniper, and the maximum range at which the Shotgun user would actually shoot at instead of just staring at the enemy while he shoots at him and stuff. @_@ Until I get used to him, I might just use him to camp doorways or something.

Gratuitous Space Battles: I got the Galactic Conquest DLC and it sure makes the game a lot more interesting. Having a campaign mode with limited resources and what not certainly adds a whole new element to the game as opposed to the main game where you are supplied enough resources for the whole fleet right before you go into combat. I mean, that's good that you get to send out a fully armed fleet and watch them kick ass, but a little build-up towards that isn't too bad IMO. ... Just a little. As long as it isn't too grindy.

League of Legends: Well, speaking of grindy.. LoL. It's nice that in-game, your Champions level up quickly and able to reach the max level of 18 in like 20 minutes. Challenging RTS with teamwork being a key factor. Now on the other hand, your Summoner level .. well, it isn't necessarily the worst case of grinding, but it's beginning to feel like I need to level up to the max level of 30 ASAP to gain advantage of some stat increases that I can get with runes and masteries. Well, I'm level 26 right now, so it shouldn't be too long before I hit level 30. Just that you need to dedicate half an hour to possibly a whole hour to play a game with no pauses nor interference.. >_<
 Getting more into detail, just recently bought Akali and I am enjoying how she plays for sure. Been building her rune page as well so that the runes and the masteries will activate her passive skill for having 10 Attack Damage, giving her Spell Vamp, since the way I play her, I don't bother too much with getting items that increase her AD. I focus more on rushing Rylai's Scepter for the slow effect, maybe the Hextech Gunblade for more Spell Vamp and Life Steal while the active skill is pretty nice with the built-in exhaust. After that, Lich's Bane seems pretty good for increasing the burst damage she does, and by then, having an increased movement speed sure helps a lot too. Anyway, I'm still looking for more people to play with since Solo Queue can screw you over with leavers leaving your team in mid-game, and... what not.

Guild Wars: So I started playing Guild Wars again. o_o I really missed the game from several years back when I first got the first game. On top of that, I was able to get the Complete Collection with all 3 campaigns with the Eye of the North bonus campaign as well for .. well, $30 was it? Something like that, at Walmart. It was the only place that had a copy of it, and I'm not sure if they were supposed to be selling this either, since all the other places were trying to sell EotN separately, costing a lot more for the whole bundle, even on Steam. I'm content with the amount of money I saved by doing this. >_> I mean, even Amazon didn't have this in stock at the time.
So anyway, I have 8 characters now. Profecies characters are E/Me, Me/N, W/R.. I think?, and R/Mo in pre-searing for the Defender of Ascalon title. Factions characters are A/D and a Rt/N I think. Haven't played the Ritualist very much yet. And for Night Fall, a D/W, and a ... Paragon. I don't even know what secondary class I chose for that char. ._.'
What I've been doing most of the time is just doing the Daily Quest on my pre-searing Ranger/Monk, trying to get to max level 20 for that title. I'm level 14 now with Phoenik who's also going for the Defender of Ascalon title. Other than that, I'm just working on going through the campaign on more characters, mostly my Elementalist for some reason. Currently going through Night Fall, then plan on completing Eye of the North after that. I need to work on filling up my Hall of Monuments for Guild Wars 2 quickly. I still only have like 5 points since I haven't done much on EotN yet.

Just Cause 2: Holy crap, such a huge world with so many things to collect and destroy. @_@ Took me... 42 hours? To get 30% of the game done on Normal difficulty. It's definitely a fun game, and personally, it's my sandbox game of choice over Grand Theft Auto anyway. Senseless destruction FTW.

Magicka: In the middle of campaign with Phoenik and his friends. Haven't finished any campaigns yet, so.. it's still a new and learning experience for me. Also, playing solo sure can be hard for a newb. >_<

Mass Effect: Damn, I haven't touched this game in a while. Mostly because I don't want to expose Vicki to any spoilers, I guess, but still. I ... forget what mission I was on, in fact. I think I'm either on, or finished the 3 initial missions that you were given. Did a lot of side quests for some probably unneeded EXP and equips, since I am cruising through most of the combats anyway. Forgot what class I chose now though. The one with Combat and Biotics, I believe. This is a game that I really need to get back to whenever possible.. especially since I have Mass Effect 2 waiting in my Steam account. >_<

Portal 2: Whoo, great single player. o_o Valve sure knows how to tell stories in their FPS games. I think I got all the achievements in the single player as well. I just need to play the Co-op mode, but I've been waiting for Vicki to finish single player first. D= And that has been taking forever as it is. I can't even mention anything in the latter half of the game without spoiling her, and I really don't want to do that. @_@ I might go ahead and play Co-op with either Taco or Cranky Crab though.

Recettear: Well, I finished the campaign. Kinda wanted to check out all the dungeons and all the characters you can get in it, but I haven't really bothered to do much in them lately. Maybe I'll get around to it one day.

Spiral Knights: Played it. A bit too simple for my tastes. Sort of fun with friends, but when you get to building 3 star equips, forget it. D= You need to buy energy with cash to alchemize the stuff. Otherwise, you'd have to buy 3 star + equips from the marketplace for lots of crowns, and grinding for cash without getting any EXP for your already maxed out equips isn't fun. So.. I'm probably not gonna touch this anymore unless Steam does another Treasure Hunt/Summer Camp event with an achievement for this or something.

Team Fortress 2: o_o It's fun. Got some stuff. Need more stuff. Hats hats hats. <3

Terraria: So I got this game when Terraria was in version 1.04, and managed to get most stuff during then. Max health, molten equips and drops, etc. Then 1.05 came. Decided to make a new world more focused on building things, so I did. Started off with an apartment building that was off the floor so that I don't have to hear zombies knocking on the door every night. Basement includes obsidian generator, mushroom and herb gardens, and a Hellevator. To the west is a crappy Dirt Tower I made with the excess dirt I had, which is used to AFK farm Harpies using lava and stuff. Too bad the version 1.06 update changed the Harpies' AI so they don't go in the lava as easily as they did before. ._. At least the AFK farm for sharks at the ocean still works. And my current project in this world is a Castle in the Sky, on a floating island. It's a lot of work and resources, but it's a long-term project so I just do whatever I can when I have the time. Turning out okay so far. I'm sure I'll post screenshots here in the future.

Man, this is like... over a year's worth of updates from my last Gaia journal entry. I guess I can take a look at that once more to see if there's any updates I've missed. *Checks*

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume: Wow, I haven't touched this in a while either, but I finished my second run of the game. Started my 3rd to get the third ending, as well as the bad one, while I'm at it, I guess. But who knows when I'll get to that now with all that I'm juggling right now. >_<

The World Ends With You: I mentioned an added ending.. ? I don't think I ever got around to checking that out, really.. Been using a guide to help me get some pins that I missed out on, mostly due to the weird ways of evolving them, I guess. I also need to fight that ridiculous bonus boss as well, and with my Japanese version not having the Hollowed Leg, it's such a pain raising my stats with the fullness system getting in the way. >_<

Pokemon Platinum: I think Taco pushed me to finishing it. And by finishing it, the most I did was beat the Elite 4. I was disappointed by that crazy world. There wasn't much done with it other than flat exploration of a small area.

Pokemon Soul Silver: What gym am I in?

Pokemon White: What gym am I in? Oh, I JUST got to that huge city. And when Vicki was playing, she kept her DS on while she did other stuff in that city, and that repetitive BGM got... a bit annoying, and when I finally got there, I was just.. -_- Bleh. I'dno. I guess the BGM composers are running out of musical ideas for these new games.. D= They're just not very memorable compared to the first and second generation songs. Speaking of which, I have a VERY kickass medley of in mp3. I'd post it on here, but I think the filesize may me too big for me to host for everyone to listen to here. I guess just ask me if you're interested, I guess.

Mario Kart Wii: ... Well, being that I'm currently in Vicki's house, her save file could use some more stuff in Mario Kart Wii, since I don't have access to my save file at the moment anyway. Except no one seems to be interested anymore. D= Kinda disappointed considering how it has the best Wi-Fi experience the Wii has.

Resident Evil 4: So yeah. Gave up on playing through the series before I try this one out. And it's a lot more fun and action-y than the survival and puzzle aspect in the first game, which I also enjoy. Just that I don't enjoy having limited saves with the damned ink cartridges for the type writers. @_@ RE1 is yet another game where I have to dedicate several hours to to get the most out of my damned ink cartridges. Thankfully, not the case with RE4. I'm in Chapter 3 or 4 or something, I think. But then Taco was all, "Don't play RE4 until you play through RE: Darkside Chronicles!" and whatever. I don't care much for the suggestion since the game should explain itself well enough as I play through. Otherwise, I'd be spoiled of any surprises in the plot or something, probably. I've no clue. I just want to enjoy the damned game. ... But yeah. I haven't played since then since I haven't touched the Wii in a while other than for group parties and stuff. Taco's suggestion would be something to consider if I OWNED Darkside Chronicles too. >.> Which I don't.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles: Instead, I have this game. I want to collect all the files first, but it's hard. I was thinking of using a guide to find them all, but haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I'd play the Wii more often if there weren't kittens all over the place distracting me and it smelling like shit out there. Ugh. No wonder I don't bother playing the Wii around here much, which explains why I'm playing so many more PC games./offtopic

Infinite Space: Finished the main story. Haven't bothered too much with the bonus stuff. Gameplay got stale after a while, but the game's best selling point is the story anyway. I'd suggest it for anyone who likes Sci-Fi novels.

Oy. That covers what I left off of on Gaia.. and I'm STILL not done. @_@ I'm getting hungry now..
Anyway, I also got a PSP from Vicki last Christmas. Been playing that a lot more than my DS, which was to be expected, I guess. So here are some of the games I'm working on now.

Disgaea: I'm in Chapter 8. Just leveling stuff in the item worlds right now so that I can cruise through the story levels. Laharl is like.. level 27 now? Still a long way to go, I guess.

Patapon 1: Beat it.
Patapon 2: Beat it. Might collect some more ka-ching before I move onto Patapon 3.

Breath of Fire III: Got distracted from it with some other games. I'm still in McNeil's mansion, so I'm not very far in yet.

Dissidia Duodecim: Working on getting more equips and mastering abilities. Everyone's level 100 already, but.. ugh, the end-game stuff are just annoying more than anything, really. ._.; I'll only bother with this on my Bonus Day now.

Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core: Beat it, 100% missions, not.. much else left to do, really..

I have some other games, but they're just there for fun. Like Castlevania, Soul Calibur, Gradius, etc.

And... finishing off with some Kingdom of Loathing.

Wow. I got in some VERY ascendy-mood lately, so I've been doing lots of Hardcore runs to get lots of skills now. Got quite a bit of skills, having ascended 57 times now. The Valhalla Revamp sure does help with permanenting more skills too. So I've been getting a lot more stronger on there, and I was thinking of doing some more challenging stuff eventually, like Clan Dungeon challenges. I need some help for those though, and our clan has been pretty much dead aside from Taco and a few others.. Too bad I'm the one who ascended the most in our clan, I think. D= It just seems like ascending is the best way for me to play now since if I have EVERYTHING that I've gotten so far on KoL in aftercore, I get waaaaay too many adventures that it takes up a bit too much of my time, it feels like. So I keep ascending so that it's something that I can manage while making progress. Heck, I'm doing Hardcore Oxygenarian runs now. @_@ At least I'm getting the Plexiglass equipments now which is great.

Whew, glad that's done with. A year or two's worth of updates sure can get huge... I'm relieved to think that the next few that I'll do won't be as huge. In the meantime, I might find something else to talk about as well. Just wanted to get this done with.

The Code

So after reading the comment on the first post, I figured the best place to start this blog would be more about myself, and the code that I began to follow about a decade ago; the way of life of never uttering a lie from then on. Of course, it's a long story that starts from my childhood history, so if you just want to know more about the code itself, just skip down to the picture of a sword.

It all started when I finally decided to start chatting on the internet using America OnLine at the age of 13, when I was invited to by a friend of mine who showed me the convenience and fun of instant messaging. I was definitely late in joining the internet partially because of protective parents, but mostly since I had all of my entertainment from my #1 hobby, video games. So naturally, due to the lack of any worthwhile content that AOL provided on their pages, I went to where most people went to on AOL 4.0 or 5.0, aside from E-mails, the public chatrooms. It was a huge learning experience for me then, that spanned for at least a year, of how people tend to act on the internet. It's not pretty, and things aren't much different now either, I suppose. Perhaps the ratio of the types of users have changed, like there's a lot more trolls now instead of flamers, and spammers are more associated with ads or shock images as opposed to repeated text for the sole purpose of being annoying. Either way, it made me think to myself, "Why are people like this? What do they gain from joining chatrooms just to flame people?" Now, any psychology and sociology majors can tell you peer pressure and other factors, but one thing stood out to me the most about AOL. Anonymity and how easy it was to create new screen names to abandon old ones when those get in trouble, allowing them to put on a new mask to continue what they have been doing fairly unpunished.

Knowing their tricks, I decided to play their game and make multiple screen names of my own to use for contacting certain targets whose actions have been unruly and questionable... so that I can question them. Surprisingly, quite a few of them were compliant in answering the simple questions I had asked, which further allowed me to learn about internet behavior and... people in general, I guess. As I learned, I was able to anticipate certain behaviors, and one of the more common one was lying. Lies that were easy for me to see through by then through all that I have learned, and found that people lie to cover their weaknesses. Whether it be a weakness in their strategy, their emotions, or in many cases, their opinions.

Voicing your opinions is one thing, but going as far as to bash others when your own opinions are weak to the point where simple logic and common sense would disprove their basis for their opinions.. or sometimes completely CHANGE their opinions as well, I just find it sad for many reasons. And yet, it was for these weak opinions why a lot of the people I had found on AOL chats go around flaming people, which is even more sadder. It goes to show that some people have nothing better to do than to intentionally piss people off, or some people are just too judgmental and claim things are "gay, and they suck" when they have never given it a chance to begin with. It's so easy to judge things from what little you see, such as the first impression a person gives when you meet them the first time, but until you get to know them by talking to them and experience a (good or bad) relationship, you simply don't have an opinion with depth.

So it was around then, when I was 14, when I made my current AIM screen name, SwordNamed Truth, as well as making an oath. The oath of never lying from then on.

"The Wielder of the Sword Named Truth.
A double-edged sword that will only remain powerful in the hands of a person of pure honesty.

The Sword Named Truth protects the honest and cleaves through deceit.
For attacks of lies would be parried by the Truth, and pierces those who reveal their weaknesses by lying."

The Code of Truth is just that. The path of never telling a lie for any reason. Not even white lies. As long as you stay clean of any incriminating acts, there are no demerits to simple honesty. In fact, simple honesty can be very rewarding when you put as much devotion to the Code as I have. You would be free of guilt of lying, and your words hold more value to the listeners.

Combined with other skills such as logic, reasoning, and factual knowledge, there is little reason for people to doubt your words in almost any situation.

The Code of Truth is definitely not for everyone, as it is a hardcore lifestyle of good and honesty. But if you are interested in gaining more power for what you have to say, I encourage you all to follow the Code as I have in the past 10 years.

A Rough Start

Welcome to my first blog post. There really isn't much in here at the moment, as this is partially still an experiment for me. However, as I continue working on posting more content here, I do intend on expanding this blog to cover a wide variety of topics of my interest, hopefully ones that will be of interest to the readers as well.


My topics of interest are generally those of modern entertainment, primarily video games. I will also analyze and critique anything else that comes into my attention in this blog in the future. At the moment though, I will leave this blog with this introduction post as today also happens to be my girlfriend's birthday.


As you can see, I am no professional writer, and my format is a bit on the rushed side in this post; particularly because of a technical problem I had earlier today that had kept me from getting things done. My goal with this blog is to continue writing as often as I used to when I was a member of Gaia Online, and get back into writing in general to a regular basis. Details of that will come in the future, most likely.


On another note, I am currently considering whether or not to start a separate blog from this one to use as a journal as well. Whether if that will be necessary or not will become clear to me as I continue writing in this blog.


Perhaps my next entry will be more about what I usually do, and what I could talk about in detail. Hopefully I won't be as rushed as I am today then, giving me ample time to properly format my post. Until then, look forward to many changes here.