1 Month has Passed…

Oh man, last time I posted on here seems to be forever ago. So this summer has been quite fun but at the same time most wasteful. I’ve been wasting my time playing games this summer, but I’ve done some studying and a little game-making. So, let’s get started with what’s been happening.

After I got out of school, first there was not much to do. Fiesta’s Cypion Server Release was coming, and I was in action to get ready to play. Me and Dan were going to try to level fast, but we can’t possibly get the 1 million sparkcash, at least we can just grind as fast as possible. Whatever that happens, we were going to get to 105 eventually and not start an alt. However, things have changed recently (which I’ll explain below) and I’ve quit Fiesta again. (I also quitted Drift City not too far back.)

First off, Fiesta is pretty boring. I think eventually it gets old, you just kill monster after monster and nothing really happens after that. You have to grind now 105 levels and it is insanely hard to do. In fact, I don’t think it was meant to be done in less than a month and some people are killing themselves over trying to reach that 1 million, but I’m just giving up in general.

Now, an argument between my friend and I [and previously before] was that why do I always quit games and never stay “committed” to one. Well, here’s my case-and-point:
Games are meant to keep us entertained, right? So when we end up getting bored by them, the game has no purpose anymore. We need a new game that’ll keep you entertained again. So why should you be committed to a game if the whole point of them is to keep you entertained and you’re not being entertained? Yeah, you don’t and you pay more money to get a new game. xD

So then I obviously was bored and needed a new game. I tried to entertain myself with Game Maker, but you know…I really think I need to learn C++ or C and I’m gonna try using OpenGL eventually.

And now I bring myself into the present and past week. My sister and I always get along and sometimes we do stuff together. Well recently, we’ve been playing The Sims: Life Stories together, and even though you may think what the, this isn’t the kind of games Josh would normally play (Or you would) but I swear, it’s very fun. Maybe part of it is because we used to play The Sims on the Gamecube quite often. So I guess now I play The Sims: Life Stories. And we don’t just play it, we have a huge family tree thing we created awhile ago and we’re going to re-enact all the stories in the game. We’ve both almost completed the first family with their kids, and it is very fun. What makes it so fun? I think it’s the depth and complexity of the game yet how simple it is all implemented. I have fun building the houses, gaining relationships, and raising the kids from young babies to teenagers. If you like simulation games and haven’t tried it, The Sims: Life Stories is fun. And not just that, I heard The Sims 3 is going to be real good too.

So, that catches you up on what I’ve been up to. Sorry to my Fiesta people in the Cryptic_Fate guild on Cypion, I decided to give up…Again. So that is all, I am off now.

School’s Out!

I am so happy. School is finally out and summer starts once again! And to think I started this blog only a year and a month ago, I never thought it’s been so long and I’ve gotten so far! But yeah, another 3 months to chill out and work on stuff I’ve been dying to work on!

Summer 2009 Goals:
Finish Fighter’s Field 3D Version 1.0 (An official release!)
Finish Z-Tower Defense
Become more adept at Alto Sax.
Get to Lv80 at least on Drift City
Play through World of Warcraft
Beat Spore on Hard Mode

Well, there might be some more, but I cannot think of anything else. Anyways, so we got out on March 20th, so it’s been a week. Things have been going pretty smoothly. Each day I got to relax and have fun with my brothers and sister. Our family has gone out swimming, we’ve talked about plans to go to places with our Church, and I have been working on games and playing some Final Fantasy 7. So it’s been a pretty good summer so far. Last year, I remembered being into BZFlag and starting Fiesta, but this year, it seems I almost have no game I’m caught on. I mean, I have been playing some Drift City, but…It’s been getting hard to level now but it’s still fun. I’m waiting for more G-Coins to get my Nova V6 to Nova V9, or waiting for a Duel. Either one.

Recently, I’ve had a flash drive go dead. It was because of bad sectors which probably happened while I was transferring files and after pulling it out and plugging it in, I lost all my flash drive data. It wasn’t too major, but it was definitely a disappointment. The biggest file I lost, was my Fighter’s Field 3D file. So, what was I to do? Well, me and my 5-year-old bro Jonathan are always playing/working on the game, and I remembered that I gave him an “alpha” testing executable just 2 days ago. And I thought, I needed it. Using my backup flash drive (with only 128 MB instead of my original 2GB), I got it on my computer and downloaded the Game Maker EXE Decompiler. Now, I know what you may be thinking if you know what I mean. I’m a bad person now. No, not really. Because I am using it for first off, a very legitimate purpose. I needed to decompile my Fighter’s Field 3D exe file so I could get all my months of typed codes and all my objects and sprites back! And I promise you. Once I have decompiled the game, I have permanantly removed the decompiler from my computer. If some legal dude or anybody wanted to inspect my hard drive for any signs of the decompiler (or my flash drives/CDs/any media storage device) I assure you there is no trace of it anymore! Therefore, I have no possibility of decompiling any of your games, got it? So don’t go commenting on here “You suck, you loser decompiling others’ games.” or anything of that sort. Also, it is my game, and if you don’t believe me, you can read previous posts that go months back about the development of it, you can read about it at http://z-gamers.net, find it on GMC, and you can ask one of the members on Z-Gamers about it, they’ll tell you, so there’s plenty of proof it’s mine along with my full name being in the executables of the Fighter’s Field 3D games.

Sorry about going on and on about that, it’s just I don’t want anybody thinking I’m doing anything bad in particular, and I have plenty of proof to make sure nothing bad can be thought of me. (Sorry, keeping rep is a thing for me xD.)

Fighter’s Field 3D development if going well. Mining system is complete, PvE system is completed, and I’m now working on the new skills. There are 8 skills per class, making it 32 skills, but you can only get a new skill once every 10 levels. You get your first one after the Class Upgrade 3 at lv60, and you get one every 10 levels. This patch goes up to lv100, so you get 5 total. So you can get 5/8 skills from the skill shop for your new class, and each one does different things. If you are interested in seeing what they are, I will be posting up a Word file with a list of them in a later post.

That’s all I got for now. Stay tuned.

Icosikaiterahedron! (Or 24-gon)

So on the 11th of May, Monday, I got 12 pieces of posterboard that were of 4 different colors and I started creating what is called an Icosikaiterahedron, also known as a 24-sided tessalated figure. (At least I’m pretty sure, I could use some clarity on it.)

But yeah, it took about 3 hours to build, and now that it is complete and I’ve turned it in for extra credit, I brought it home to take pics. So you can click the images below to view them!

Yeah, it’s really large. I could’ve used regular white paper and made it normal sized, but I decided to go large. It is about 16″x16″ from end to end so it is very large, about up to your knees if you stand. It is also heavier than it looks too. About 3~5 pounds which is quite alot for paper.

Windows XP is Back!

So I’m finally back to good old Windows XP. I know you might be thinking that Windows XP is outdated with Windows 7 coming in and Vista being sold in stores everywhere, but I plan to stick with XP for a few more years. I couldn’t believe that I went from 800 MB of free RAM from boot up on Vista, to 1.5~1.6 GB of free RAM everytime I started up on Windows XP. Pretty neat.

I noticed the big difference in speed and I am quite happy with the results. I ran into one little snag earlier which is explained below.

So I first tried to install XP next to Vista, but I couldn’t because the drive was protected with SATA ACPI I think it was? (Not sure since my memory isn’t serving me well right now so, sorry if I’m wrong) So of course, my first source of reference was the internet. I read a few articles and found one where I have to switch the SATA/RAID setting (I forgot which one it was so I list both) to ATA. Then I was able to visibly see my drive, but by that time I forgot about the putting XP with Vista and just moving stuff from Vista and decided to wipe about 110 GB of my 140 GB hard drive. Took awhile for it to go through the NTFS file system setup process, but after that it was pretty simple.

Watched the Windows XP install screens, let it run through for about half an hour, then we go into the Windows XP screen with surprise surprise no drivers (as usual). So I pull out my Dell drivers disk I got and put it in. Used Inspiron 1525 model drivers with Windows XP drivers (Kind of glad they had those) and got my wireless card, graphics enhancement, webcam, touchpad, and a few other drivers placed on. It wouldn’t install my Sigmatel sound card driver for some reason which is where I got kind of frustrated. Everytime I ran the installer, it’d start up, scan my audio hardware configuration, then just mysteriously disappear.

So I reboot my computer, then when I start up, Sigmatel installation window pops up. I’m like, interesting…When it finishes I’m happy because it successfully installs my sound card in and I am done. I immediately get the SP3 update from XP (By now they have fixed all the bugs compared to my last test if you read about 4 or 5 months back with me testing SP3 in its early stages. I get avast! antivirus again, and start reinstalling items. SCWebcam3, Pidgin, WinSCP, Spore, Drift City, Diablo 2, Microsoft Office 2007, Firefox, and a few other programs that I often used. So I’m happy now, my computer’s officially Windows XP. I save RAM, I still have all my programs, and I get to do stuff super fast now.

That’s about it for today, we’ll see what happens later.

Back To Activity

So it’s been about a month since I have made another new post on here, but now I am making one. What I have been up to I’ll explain in a second. I named today’s post “Back to Activity” because I have been doing lots of things lately and I plan to share them below.

First off, I am planning to go back to Windows XP pretty soon. Why? Mostly because I want a fast computer. I admit that Vista is great, and has things we all love, but I think Vista is getting a little annoying as I boot up each day, wait 30 seconds, type in a password, then wait 30 more seconds before I can finally begin working. It adds up and I just want it to be more responsive and active. So, today I officially make the switch. I have backed up Documents and Pictures, and am starting it as soon as I finish this blog post. I know it’ll take a few hours, but it’ll be worth it. So how am I doing it? I’m using PC Magazine’s May 2008 “Return to Windows XP” as a guide, and am using the first tip they provide which is installing XP over Vista without wiping the hard drive. Then from there, I just transfer my old files, reinstall applications, and delete the Vista junk left behind. I was thinking about a reformat, but it’s not really much of something in my head to do right now. Actually, now that I think about it, it may just be easier to reformat…Hmm, either way I want to get it done. I have burned a few disks containing all of my document files in .rar format and have them separated by 700 MB archives.

So, now my second topic is basically about my gaming life. First off, I want to say that I am Lv49 on Drift City. Pretty neat. I’ve quit Fiesta so I won’t be talking about that anymore by the way. I have chosen some nice cars now, sold off my older version cars. I have pics of each one on the next page. Just click More to go through them. The post continues on the More link after the images and I included some older images while driving so you can see what cars I used earlier along with some nice scenery and such. (I chose to stick with OMD.)

Lots of Things To Do!

So, I’m back. I know I was going to post like the next day after my previous post, but I never got to it, ha. So now here’s a big summary post about everything that’s going on. Got some key topics to talk about today and got them written down so let’s get started.

So how did we do at NHD? We failed. Like literally though. We got 4th place…Out of 4 competitors for our website. Mostly because we did not have good primary sources and also because we probably didn’t do enough research to branch beyond the state level. So I guess next year we have alot to do if we expect to even have a chance for Nationals. We also need to tie in more historical stuff instead of just the facts, and the 1200 word limit made that very hard even though we wanted to. So now from experience we know what to do, we’ll try better next year. Anyways, good job to all three of you guys that helped out in our NHD team, we did great for us, and it was fun.

Alright, so the Dragon Delasangre book series has me psyched up. I swear, I’ve never read a book series that is so omg amazing! I just cannot believe there were books out there that were so amazing! I just finished the fourth book in the series and now I shall wait for that darn fifth book to come out. Also, I have a problem now. I’ve tried reading three other books and I cannot! The problem is, none of them have the same tone, style, and fun that Alan F. Troop has provided. I don’t know, I can’t find a good book. If someone could recommend a really good book, and I mean a good one, I’ll read it. I just cannot find a better book that can keep my attention, the Dragon Delasangre series just keeps my reading level up top compared to everything else… Anyways, time for the third and fourth book reviews!

Seadragon’s Daughter (9.5/10) -
You might be thinking whoa, there’s a 9.5 out of 10 this time, well, hehe, there is some reasoning behind it. I think out of all the books, this one lacks a good baseline to build from from the beginning. That’s pretty much it. All the action that happens with the Pelk afterward, the cave stuff, the escaping, the fight, and the antidote, that was all perfect. I just didn’t find the business story stuff at the beginning quite as exciting. I think it was cool Peter was able to transform into a dolphin. I would so love to be a dolphin one time, seems so cool to be free in the water, to swim super fast, and enjoy the water. Still, giving it 9.5 means it’s very great! I just loved all the action from the middle through the end of this book.

A Host of Dragons (10.5/10)-
OK, I cannot believe this book. It was SO amazing I had to give it an extra .5 points! I cannot believe how great this currently last book in the series was. Like, I’ve never seen such a great book in my life. The beginning with the kidnapping of Elizabeth, the hurt relationship between Peter and Chloe, the various schemes that the Host of Dragons were planning on Peter and Derek, Derek finding his new mate, the hunts, the selling of the farm, the trek to stay in business, the epic fights against the host. Oh, and I couldn’t believe how stupid that host of dragons were. They got pwned. I mean come on, Peter and Derek were way outnumbered yet eventually they all died (Well, most of them, some ran like scaredy cats xD) but yeah, that was amazing! Especially the ending fight, gotta love it. I was so freaking scared when Peter almost died. And how Chloe thought she lost her dearly loved husband forever. Poor Chloe, she went into heat and Aric took her. That jerk! Loved the ending, best ending ever, most exciting, most dramatic, and most loving. GREATEST BOOK and SERIES EVER!!!

Whoo, what a great book series that was. Again, if you have anymore book suggestions, please do share. Click the More… button to continue reading my post if you’d like to read more about what’s been going on.

National History Day – State Competition

Tomorrow’s a big day for Michael, Robert, Devin and I as we prepare to enter the state competition tomorrow morning. We’re hoping that we do well and go to nationals. If you never heard of National History Day, it’s a big event that includes alot if not all of the states involved with each state having a select number of competitors to go to nationals. I think nationals will be held in Washington D.C. so that’s a big trip for us if we’re planning to win.

Our project is a website project because I love making websites and this would be a perfect time to do so. Our Project’s called Sir Isaac Newton, and obviously it’s about him. We have local copies of the site, but just so you can see what we’re submitting, check out http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/nhdstate to take a look at our website. If you compare it with http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/nhd, the one we submitted for local competition to get into state, you may notice some small changes. Heh, we did quite a bit of research to get some primary sources and learn more about our person before submitting our project to state.

I never thought I’d get so involved in World History, but I think it’s pretty neat that I get to use my computer skills in a way that allows me to learn and research at the same time! Anyways, wish us luck, we’ll be leaving at a very early time in the morning to reach Flowing Wells by 8am or so.

Dragon Moon

Amazingly enough, I’m making a consecutive day post today. Hasn’t happened in a long time, but why? Because I have just finished the second book in the amazing The Dragon Delasangre series called Dragon Moon both by author Alan F. Troop. If you haven’t read my first review of the first book in the series, you can click here to read it: http://sigonasr2.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/the-dragon-delasangre/

Dragon Moon: 10/10

Yep, Dragon Moon deserves a 10 too. I don’t know why, but these books are just so amazing in so many levels. The first book which got a 10 also was a fabulous read and brought in all the concepts that bind with the second book. I thought it was really neat that alot of events happened in similar scopes as in the first book. Like for example, a lot of waiting happens at the beginning again for Peter, and then he meets human females even though he’s not tempted by them as much in the second book, he still desires love soon if he cannot meet Chloe. And the concept that Peter wants to love Chloe in the future is now becoming closer and closer and is kind of the building point for this second book which is very neat. I was shocked when I read the words Chloe speaks at the bottom of page 109 at the end of Chapter 12, I felt so shocked, like my heart missed a beat. I swear that this book is so suspenseful I’ve never felt so much feeling from one little book before! I got so scared and freaked out on page 149~150, I was scared as heck and couldn’t believe what was unfolding through the Blood family right before my very eyes! I had to stop reading after the end of that to take in what just happened. So scary. Then we reach the hard hitting points near the end of the book and the book resolves very nicely. I think if you compared the first book’s ending to the second one you will like it so much.

As you can see, I was able to reference page numbers so easily because I just enjoyed the book that much that I can remember exactly which events happened at which spots! (I thought the final battle part and the various things revealed about the characters near the end was a very intense part of the book too.)

I don’t know, I’m just so swallowed into these books and I loooove them! Now I start my third book tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even finish it in one day too! I’ve never read a book this fast!!!

The Dragon Delasangre

Yes, this is what I’m talking about today. This is a book called The Dragon Delasangre by Alan F. Troop.

Now, I just want to say, this book is the most amazing fiction fantasy book I could possibly find. I could argue Pendragon, but once I read this, now I am seeing even more greater fantasy.

Rating – 10/10
I don’t think I’ve given a 10 to anything yet. Well here it is. The Dragon DelaSangre is about an adult dragon (If I recall correctly 57 years old which isn’t too old in dragon years) who is able to change between a human and dragon form. I think this is what made the book the best fantasy book I’ve ever read. This concept right here. I’ve read Eragon before and I thought that was a pretty cool book, but now we have a dragon that can also be a human. The main character in the book, Peter DelaSangre lives with his father and learns about the dragon and human life. Although he is a dragon, his mother encouraged his father to send their son to human school, so he acquires much of his life through a human. (Note, ignore the first chapter of the book if it is boring to you. This describes the scene and his life with his father.) After the first chapter, you start heading into some action. As you will later learn, the dragons go on nightly hunts usually (because they cannot be seen because they are so sparse and will be slayed) to eat people. Yes, human meat. So Peter would bring home some people for his father and himself. It’s not until he meets a waitress at a restaurant who gives him a number, a murder that arouses suspicion, and a closely related death that turns Peter’s life haywire. This is when the story gets juicy and interesting. Peter must meet a female of his kind and now he’s on the ultimate search of his life.

Probably from that passage right there, you could already get some of the feel for the action to the book. I absolutely loved the book. In fact, I finished the book in three days, a record for me! I’ve never read any chapter book > 200 pages in 3 days, that’s just insane. (It’s actually 295 pages now that I think about it.) So as you can tell I LOVED this book! It’s just amazing! You should read it if you love fantasy and need something that will include action, romance, and dragons. No Spoilers, but I swear, during the last 75 pages of the climax, my heart rate started rising because of all the action. I’ve never felt so into a book before, like watching an action scene on TV except even more amazing.

Also the concepts included in that book including dragons becoming humans, eating humans, mindspeak (The private talking with dragon’s minds as you will later found out. The book has those written in italics.), all the romance that happens, and even the dragons interacting with real life. All these concepts kept me reading from page 1 to 295 just like that and guess what? I’m not done! I picked up the sequel, Dragon Moon and I’m going to start reading it soon. Can’t wait. If you really need a new book to read, check out this amazing book.

So in most of my posts, you know that I include more than one topic, and usually the main topic is longer than the rest. So if you clicked the More… button, you will now see the rest of the topics. It’s to keep my main page clear from clutter, and if you’re interested in reading more, the hidden-ness adds to the suspense, heh. Click it and read what else there is!!!

(Read my Dragon Moon review at http://sigonasr2.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/dragon-moon/ [The Second Book in the series])

My March Post

So, here is the start of my March post. I guess I have alot of cleaning up to do from last month, so let’s see how hard this’ll be. I’ll start with the hard and emotional stuff.

First off, I may get my comp taken away due to grades, so this might be my last post for a month (which would suck) but I deserve it…. I guess. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it’s a big amount of grounding for something small.

Second, I think I have a problem with BZFlag. I’ll keep it as simple as that, but my ethics and morals on there have been like wiped out. Some of you that are on BZFlag and have seen me recently can probably relate. I can’t say I’m sorry to you guys, because I’m not…I can’t play BZFlag for fun anymore and now I’m going on just to tease people which is jerkish and bi###y, but I just don’t know…I should probably just uninstall BZFlag, forget it for good before I do something horrible.

Thirdly, I lost the game.  What is the game you ask? Well, the goal of the game is not to think about the game, when you think about the game, you lose the game, and you have to acknowledge that you lost the game by saying “I lost the game” out loud, or in an IM conversation you’re having with someone. You can never win the game because when you try to make someone think about the game to make them lose the game, you think about the game and you lose the game. And now that you know what the game is, you are playing the game, and you have already lost the game. You then have 30 minutes to clear your mind of the game, before you can lose the game again. Today so far, I have lost the game 14 times including just now, which is typical for half the day gone (I keep records of how many times I lose the game each day). You lose the game more when you play the game.

Fourthly, Fighter’s Field 3D is almost out, but if I get grounded, it won’t be released on April 1st, but on May 1st.
Check out http://z-gamers.net and http://forum.z-gamers.net for more info on what’s going on.

Eh, I’ll stop with the starting phrases, but that’s all I can think of. I had alot more to say but I just had a mind sweep. Ugh, writer’s block, now I’m just writing whatever comes to my head. Eh, whatever, I can’t think when I am not in the good mood, so I guess this is it to the post. I can’t believe I can’t think right now, I had this very long post planned out that would take about 10 minutes to read, but now I got nothing. Well, I should stop typing because this is just stupid…Bye.