Ken: Addendum

Yes, I know why any of the past few posts have been confusing to you. When you read the intro it's basically said that myself and Chi wanted to review games, and really that IS the meant intent of why we're here...Although a grand total of 1 post has even remotely game related. Which wasn't even a review, but a walk through to get the game to work if you could'nt.

I do plan on doing more than just idiotic banter and ranting about anything and everything, because if I kept that up I'd just make a new blog for that. I can't help myself sometimes...I will however come out and say that aside from working, I'm working on writing reviews out before I post them.

Most of these reviews are mostly dated games as is, and the movies been out for months, but I will get to them. I obviously can't speak for Chi at all for when he has content ready, or when we'll have any form of video (or the podcast that was supposed to be out over a month ago ::twitch::), but we'll do what we can to actually get to it. Sorry for all the idiotic ranting guys, GG!

Ken: Magic the Gathering, breaking the planes of just "fad"

I'll start this out by simply saying that , no, I am not nor was NOR ever will be a hardcore Magic the Gathering player. I will however say that MtG has managed to surprise me in about every way without really shocking me!

How? Quite easy really, I want to play it again. See, the story here being I haven't actually played Magic in around 4 - 5 years... whether that's due to friends leaving, work, school ... the group I'd played with just stopped hanging out outside of like 2 - 3 of us and we never really played again. Besides...I can't ask Chi to play since he probably wouldn't give a shit if I offered to show him how to play by letting him borrow a deck of mine. Anyways, the other day I was going through stuff to get rid of...trying to make some room, maybe sell something...I dunno, and I spotted my Magic cards laying dormant on my dresser. The minute I opened up that box, a flood of awesome memories opened up about how my group of friends would play after school, Friday nights, hell even lunch time AT school. Sure, it was dorky, but why the fuck should I give a shit if I'm having fun?

Normally with an old fad , you'd look at it, remember the good times then just get ready to rid yourself of it. I, however, did not do that. I stopped any form of progress and looked through my old decks and my random assorted cards. Ok , I lied...I DID finish piling up the worthless shit, and the fad stuff...then immediately started looking through my collection.

I didn't understand it , but in no time I really started to get into it. I actually spotted inconsistencies in my favorite deck , even after organizing my collection I made a new deck! Exclamation point indeed! I normally wouldn't be so ecstatic about doing something normal players could do on an average basis, but that was just it. I was doing it and kinda having fun coming up with theories...and then it hit me why I enjoyed the game so much. Aside from hanging out with friends and such, it was the level of customization, the luck of the draw, and the rare moments of nuking the fuck out of someone to win that one time I won my first match xD..and almost more than that, it was the analytical skills in seeing what to do in the situation. Y'know, like a good Dungeons and Dragons sessions and so on and so forth.

I realized then thats why Magic hadn't really gone away, although I know why I was burned out on it for the 4 years I haven't touched it. It's like the minute you're a casual player in an mmo and going straight to hardcore raid content. The game starts being more of a 2nd job than just to go in to have a good time, which is such a shame that sometimes I even considered being a hardcore raider. The ladder half of playing Magic with my group we started to try and step up our game, even at one point talking about entering a tournament....which I know none of us would have won, even if we weren't all that bad of players. The fucking second we decided to take it to the next level, it stopped being any form of fun and we never really played together again.

Well this story does get slightly more intriguing when this morning I got on, and I got a message from my one friend from that group of pals who had JUST got a new deck of magic cards (He'd sold his cards before had left to go cross the country the year before hand). We talked about the good times, even talked about playing again over a webcam for lulz. The joy of playing the game hadn't really gone away at all and I just find it funny. The Pokemon card game was easily a fad...and the countless other fads (because I can't really off the top of my head remember most of the fads that came and went ) that have been and just then forgotten. I know that Magic has a stupid reputation for nerds, which I'd agree with because theyre some of the douchiest people I've ever heard talk. For whatever reason they feed people reasons to hate them....but the game itself I absolutely have a blast with, regardless of age.

Ken: Trolls-- even when you can ignore them, they still hurt.

It's a well known fact that as soon as the first forums were formed on the internet, that the first person who decided to post their view of something on a blog...there was the birth of trolling. Whether this being just for complete lulz or for far weirder reasons, trolling on the internet has been as common as other forms of hate and rage in the world (I PROMISE I'm not a pacifist -_-;;).

Well, just this past evening I went to a complete community in a wiki site dedicated to the hate of others on the internet. It WAS a spicific page but, just for the sake of avoiding any form of being involved in it, wont name the page ( a wiki page..of course). This ENTIRE sites premise was a horribly but yet "official" looking put together page and ensued for several SEVERAL long paragraphs talking about how -x- people sold out, are unfunny, "fags" and even dropping several fat jokes and racial slurs to sound "cool" (even in one of the posts saying that one of the people affiliated with said post was 'trying to sound cool by making fun of something else'...oh the irony).

Normally, this is where any one of us on the internet that's been around the block would go "Hey Ken just forget about that page, Trolls will be trolls...cant change it dude!". Well...this somehow got to me. I know this is EXACTLY what trolling is supposed to do--get you worked up about something that should be clearly shrugged off and just an anecdote of your day-- but...it seemed more than just random trolls.

No, really. I actually felt like they were internet terrorists, which is a quite BOLD statement ...I know.... but this site had 2 thousand or so followers in its community, and basically night and day watch -x- site that they target for hatred 24/7 and ANY personal information they can get on to post, they post. That's downright near a level of ignorance and stalking that makes me feel iffy about just thinking about it, and it feels like a somehow more threatening version of the tabloids.

What happened to the old days or casual trolls who would tell you "you have a tiny wiener and you live in your parents basement WoWfag!" ? Or comments on youtube that say "fuck -x- band, they sold out theyre pussies!" just to get that fan base worked up. No, it had to get to a point where it'd down right feel illegal. I realize this was most likely around and I wasnt seeing it before, doesn't stop me from getting bothered by it.

I kinda realize that this entire post is most likely useless, but I can't help but think that other people who might have interests that they'd want to post on the web would be marauded by these up and coming next gen trolls who will do absolutely anything to make themselves feel good, even if it means telling someone their idea's are worthless and that they're so un wanted that they'll do anything short of camping by your site just to keep track of what a "failure" you are.

I suppose about the only remedy is to act like this is your every day life, and ignore the people that tell you differently, cause in the end I suppose...no matter how many people tell you that you're worthless, what really do they know? I didn't really mean to go all after school special on you, but really....what is this world really coming to? I hardly see how any hate of that level is even worth it , especially when its over something so petty (just trust me on this one..). Welp, I'm about done on this one.

I have more blogs on the way being written, until then...don't be a douche bag and keep trolling to the bare minimum, and GG.

Ken : FFXIV Port Forwarding, because -_-.

So, for any of you lovable peoples out there who got into the FF XIV beta, and are noticing the horrendous download times...I felt your pain. Really , though D: !

For about 3 days , I was pretty clueless, if only because apparently ...I wasn't correctly port forwarding. See, Port forwarding in technologically declined terms, is opening up specific application ports for a specific program so you can speed up the download stuff. I'm not technically declined, I've been around computers for a long time now and have taken time to learn quite a bit from how I was years ago and pretty much in the dark. One thing has always puzzled me, which was networking. I guess that's primarily because I didn't have to deal with it much at all up to this point.

Now before I go on, this is an open letter to anyone on the internet who goes "Yeah, its easy just go to port forward dot com and it has answers". No, it really doesn't, not for new people. For the few hours i was incorrectly trying to do this I was fed a bunch of numbers and expected to just put it into my routers "application and gaming" section and things would be okay. They were not. You pretty much have to set up a static IP for the thing to work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp-R-eHiQco --> Is pretty much what I used as the refference, since its straight to the point. WARNING: Vista users (maybe 7 users, not 100% sure, I might have to check in with Chi on this) when hes telling you to go to the "Internet Protocol: TCP/IP" properties , basically for Vista and up its "Internet Protocol version 4 :TCP/IP". I know not much different, but theres 2 versions, at least that I have, version 6 and version 4.

For those of you that feel overwhelmed, please don't. The command prompt line is ALL you have to do with the command prompt. Its basically only a reference tool to use for your DNS gateways and such.

The last part, at least for me, was the easiest since all you're doing at this point is putting in FF XIV's port numbers. Which it seems the common ports are 55296 , 10217 and 10277. Which As ports I just put 55296 as both (theres the option by the IP you set up for yourself that asks whether or not you want the port you want to open is TCP or UDP.) and the other 2 numbers you put 10217 at the start, and 10277 at the end. You're gonna be, in essence , doing this twice and making one TCP and the other UDP......but, as I said, I'm a noob. You might only have to put the "both" option on and be done with it.

I do realize those numbers might not be the same for you as they were for me, you can search up the file that has the FF XIV info in "C:\Users\-usernamehere-\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Version\downloads" in a file called "upnp_port_mapping.log".

After I knew, y'know, how to CORRECTLY port forward, I didn't have to do anything else at all. Yes, and once again , I do know everyone has a different set up so it could amp up on someone else's network setting what they have to do. Just trying to add an extra walk through for people who are basically in the dark for how any of the port forwarding stuff works...and now all I have to do is play the waiting game.

Well thats about all I got, I hope that this in some way helps someone that was in the same position I was in. Always glad to help other nublets out insteada just expecting them to know everythin'. Later guys and gals !