OU suspect tests done and over with?

Ever since Deoxys-E was banned in early December, absolutely nothing happened on that front, meaning for the first time since this generation began we now get to play around in a stable metagame that's never threatened by changes in the immediate future. To be honest, it's not that much of a surprise to me, as Dragonite and Volcarona were the two that were allegedly next in line according to many. And any prospect of a ban on them was brutally shot down by JabbaTheGriffin in his explanation of the Deoxys-E ban, as he explicitly said these two were considered excellent at their job, but by no means OP. And if the "council" doesn't even consider them to be even remotely close to a problem, don't expect them to go any time soon.

This newfound stability comes at the best of times, as if you remember, when Excadrill and Thundurus were banned I said that if even one additional ban occured as a result of weather, they should really start looking at the inducers as the major problem, and not the abusers. So for those who favor keeping weather in the game to increase the number of viable team builds (hi2u Aldaron), this seems to be a close call that ended up in their favor.

Now, a question worth asking is, with Gray almost certainly coming out later this year, how will tiers be handled, not just in OU, but across the board? Clearly tutors are going to shake up the metagame, not only with weak Pokémon becoming better, which can just be banned from their respective tier, but also with Pokémon previously banned from their given metagame becoming much less of a problem. The latter is more interesting, as it's much harder to gauge when no one gets to use said Pokémon. To be continued...

Apparently I'm not alone...

Seems like I'm not the only one to get emotional over the end of the Pokémon LP series (which hopefully is just a temporary hiatus). The response I've had so far suggests some actual tears were dropped. I'd say it's overkill because I'm not worth it, but at the same time I really appreciate you guys getting into my work.

Something else that I feel the need to point out: as someone in the comments to the finale told me, Something Awful has a rule where no game under three months old may be LPed, which at first glance ruins my plans for starting Gray the moment I can get everything to work. When it comes to that, I would like to point out three things:

1. Gray will be nothing more than a revamped version of a game that will have been out for over two years by then.

2. Main series games' international releases happen about six months after the Japanese releases, so maybe that counts?

3. I'm a freelance LPer, with no link to Something Awful or any other group, and I intend to keep it that way. Proper etiquette can go screw itself. If someone wants to whine about me supposedly "jumping the gun", they'll find me ready.

10000 sub special update

Unfortunately, due to technical gremlins, the 10000 subscriber special as I first envisioned it is not going to happen. Maybe I'll get a genius idea in the meantime, but for now don't expect anything special.

On another note, I have a few things to take care of, then I'll get to work on the Soul Silver finale. Don't worry, Australians, Belgians and Luxembourgers, you'll get a special video so you don't miss anything.

It's almost over...

Almost three years and a half ago I started Let's Playing Pokémon games, not knowing where that would take me, how long I would last, or how successful I'd be at it. When I think about it, I'm really happy with how far I've come. It provided me with a great hobby, as well as an opportunity to improve my spoken English. And it appears it also entertained a lot of you guys. This is why it's difficult to let go... but I'm going to have to, I've run out of games. One more video (no way Groudon takes more than ten minutes, not with Heavy Balls), and that's going to be all she wrote.

That doesn't mean it's the end of my LPing career, though. Banjo-Kazooie is still underway, and S3&K after that, and hopefully more games afterwards. It's just my main thing that's coming to an end. It feels awkward, because these Pokémon LPs are what I'm known for, and in a few days they'll be done and over with (at least until Gray's international release). It's like if McDonald's stopped selling their Big Mac, except on a smaller scale of course. I'm hoping I can pull off what DeliciousCinnamon managed to do (in a lot less time than I did, admittedly) - come for the Pokeymanz, stay for everything else.

As I write this, it's tough to avoid getting emotional, and I admit I'm sort of sad, but at the same time I can't afford to go downhill. Many people would like me to move on to spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon, but it's just impossible for me to do them justice. Especially since Mystery Dungeon technically has no end to speak of, and is mighty frustrating just playing. Imagine recording at the same time. So I'll stick with the evils I know, thank you very much.

See you back on Freezeezy Peak!

Pokémon gamebreaking glitches I wasn't aware of

The Japanese Red and Green have one of the oddest glitches ever: if you evolve your starter before getting the Pokédex, you can't get the Pokédex at all, meaning you can't get Pokéballs either, and as a result you can't get past Viridian City. The one question I have is, how the hell does that work?

Another odd Japan-only glitch, which is reportedly only in very early copies of the game, is that when you go to the second floor of the Pokémon League's Pokémon Center, you can't get back down because of a glitch. And guess what? If you have any business at all there, odds are you WILL be saving there. Meaning you're permanently stuck. BRILLIANT.

So next time you get mad at the localization teams for taking their sweet time, remember that all those bugs are usually weeded out in the process, which will make things much less frustrating in the long run.

Hey everybody, it's an influx of new viewers!

As you-know-who's Emerald LP carries on, my own LP shows up in the related videos every now and then, and Analytics data proves that I'm enjoying a spike in viewership, as well as subscriptions. Note that it's nowhere near as out of control as when he did his Crystal LP all the way back then, but you can still see the surge very well on the graphs. Perhaps the most startling thing is how eerily silent those new viewers are. Outside of two or three legendary haters (SCIZOR IS T3H SUXX0RS ND ARTIC00NO IS TOO OP), I haven't seen any utter dumbasses that were clearly led here from Chugga's channel, not even on part 1... maybe the mocking from longtime viewers in the comments to that video were a major turn-off? Nah, that would be implying that these... people... have an intellect superior to that of an amoeba.

On a related note, the saga of the mysterious mass Canadian unsubs carries on, as I'm now below 250 subs in Canada. We're going to get an answer as to whether all those bans I've done count for Canada because I caused these unsubs pretty soon... if that number plummets into the negatives we'll have our answer. (As I said before, I somehow have negative subs in four countries, so Analytics is obviously far from bulletproof.)

Censorship Havoc

First things first, remember when part 148 of my Crystal LP was blocked in 215 countries? Well apparently that's been scaled back, and it's only blocked in the Pacific Islands now. But I'm not sure whether that's accurate, so I'd like you to check it out and see if it's still blocked for you or not. Then tell me in the comments, along with which country you're from. This especially goes for Americans, since I know for a fact that it was blocked in America not long ago.

Then there's the issue of the song that I was planning on using for the LP-ending credits. Without spoiling what it is, it seems like it's going to be blocked in Australia, Belgium and Luxembourg. For the sake of the people within these countries, if the credits don't end up as their own video I'll make another version of the video without the credits.

Edit: I meant in the comments here on the blog, but it doesn't really matter. America and England have access to the video now, whereas they didn't earlier on, so this update is probably for real. I went and re-edited the playlist for the Crystal LP.

V-Create Rayquaza distributed in Japan

While we were busy with our own popularity poll, Japan had one pitting the version mascots against each other. As it turns out, Rayquaza won, ahead of Pikachu and Reshiram. Now of course they needed to make this Rayquaza special, so they decided to tack on V-Create for kicks. Interesting... Rayquaza is actually capable of making use of this, especially given the obvious synergy with Outrage, so I'm curious to see how it'll turn out.

Now there are two questions I need to ask. Did they decide to go with V-Create because Rayquaza has no DW ability, and were they planning to give the winner its DW ability if it had one? If so, HUGE opportunity missed to make Lugia or Ho-Oh godly. Secondly, how does Rayquaza have that much of a following in Asia? First it won the "befriend a Pokémon" poll in Korea, now this. In the West it's just about considered "just another Pokémon", at least as far as I know. I have never once encountered an actual dedicated Rayquaza fan. So what's the deal?

Diablo 3 massively overhauled still?

At first glance, it seems like the devs know what they want themselves. They made a big deal about the artisans, now one of them (namely the Mystic) is getting the axe. To be fair, I'm sort of wondering why they didn't think of that sooner, because it always seemed to me like the same thing as gems, but with a different name. Hopefully that'll allow them to add some depth to gems, and judging by a screenshot provided in the article it looks like that might be the case - correct me if I'm wrong, but were weapons NOT socketable before?

As glaringly obvious is the fact that they removed the Nephalem Cube and the Cauldron of Jordan, and re-mapped their functions to town merchants. I thought the whole point of having these things was that they wanted players to spend more time in dungeons and less in town... so that's another thing they backtracked on. There might be a reasonable explanation in the fact that they find the current iteration of town portals to solve the main problem with the way things were in D2, so they don't mind people using it as much.

Another big change is YET ANOTHER overhaul of the attribute system... which happens four months into the beta. Wait, what? This version focuses on the fact that damage runs off a different stat depending on your class. Each stat does something different that's not related to damage: strength gives more armor, dexterity gives a dodge chance, intelligence increases healing from health globes, and vitality increases max HP. Meanwhile, damage for the Barbarian depends on strength, whereas the Monk and Demon Hunter rely on dexterity for that, and the two caster classes use intelligence. This emphasizes the role of each class even more, as while all five classes are meant to be DPS classes, the Barbarian is supposed to be a tank, the Monk and DH are swift, agile fighters, while the Wizard and Witch Doctor are spellcasting glass cannons. I like that fact... but I also liked their attempt, with the previous system, to make every stat relevant for every character. Unfortunately, in-depth analysis showed that Precision did diddly squat compared to the rest, so that's a way of solving things. But I'm pretty certain no one's going to bother equipping +strength or +dex gear on a Wizard... oh well, with manual stat allocation around, this clearly shows that the design direction is less focused on stats and more on gear and skillset. Some people complain that Blizzard is all over the place, but if you just take off the D2 nostalgia goggles you'll see they're relatively consistent in their design goals.

Overall, I like these changes, except maybe for the return of the need to go to town. Does it delay the game that much more? Apparently not, because all the changes mentioned, except for the dedicated potion button, are already done and ready to be rolled out in the next beta patch. Here's to hoping this works well, I'm going to break down if the prospect of a summer release rears its ugly head.

Random, unrelated thoughts.

- Am I the only one mildly disturbed by the fact that Jewel Man looks like he's about to propose to Roll in the Megaman 9 credits?

- In Tales of Symphonia, text bubbles continue referring to Rodyle as "???" for a while even after he's introduced by name. Look Namco, just because his goals are shady at that point because he's had only three lines doesn't mean we don't know his name even after Magnius told us.

- In Starcraft 2, it's cheaper to take a dead Dark Templar and shove him inside a machine powered by the spirit of a fallen warrior than to make a live Dark Templar. Mind = blown.

- Nobunaga press conference yielded exactly what I didn't want to see: fifty-six two-second snippets of the game. Continuous footage is sooooo overrated, after all. Don't let me down now, Jay Wilson.

Where's my ?%$/"ing beta key, Blizzard?

Diablo Incgamers news item title: Wave 4 of Beta Keys issued

First comment on that item: Wave of 4 Beta Keys issued, rather.

And that seems accurate. I'm still waiting for a beta key, as are many many many others! But I'm a big boy, I won't fall for the elitism trap that claimed so many so-called "longtime fans". "I've been playing Diablo for 15 years, I should get in before some random WoW twit!" If I had a penny for every time I saw something like that, I'd be set for life.

Speaking of which, the much-anticipated game system update from Jay Wilson will happen tomorrow. Between this and the Nobunaga press conference, this is going to be a hectic day for me. Fingers crossed that the word "delay" won't appear anywhere in that report. Best thing that can happen is that they've settled on a final iteration of the runestone system, and are heading towards a release date announcement in the upcoming weeks.

As a side note, I'm so glad the idiots who were so convinced that the Korea RMAH rating fiasco was the only thing holding the game back were shut up so hard. For anyone actually paying attention instead of succumbing to wishful thinking, just listening to any sentence from the developers gave you a very good idea that the game just wasn't done yet, despite their initial resolve to get the game out by the end of 2011. Major props to them for NOT rushing an unfinished project out the door.

Why is Kellogg's distributing driver's licenses?

...what do you mean, they don't? Could've fooled me.

So I went to the bank for a quick withdrawal, and the parking area was completely full. With one twist: some idiot parked so badly he/she was taking two spots. And I'm not talking about two spots next to each other, like is usually the case, but rather two spots IN FRONT OF EACH OTHER. That left basically nothing but two parking spot halves over the entire area. Now I have a small car (not a Smart though, these things are anything but), so I was able to cram most of it in there so that I'd block off as little of the way as possible for passing cars. I go inside, do my thing, and come out to find out that someone else did the same thing on the other side. That meant the original asshat's car was completely surrounded on all sides, with no way out of there at all until either I or the car that had just arrived left. Which I promptly did before whoever this idiot was returned, because I didn't want to deal with a potential case of road rage. In the end nothing came out of it for anyone (unless someone else took the spot I was at immediately afterwards), but I have never, EVER seen anything like it. By the way, just so you know, I probably would've waited until a real spot opened up had I not gone in there for a one-minute job, as I don't like the idea of the back of my car being gone when I come back.

This was your daily reminder that unlike what the common perception says, driving competently is definitely NOT overrated.

Late bloomers: are they worth using?

Everyone's favorite zombie overlord picking Lotad as a team member is raising a few eyebrows among my regulars, not because Ludicolo sucks, but rather because of how much you have to wait in order to evolve it. For those of you who haven't learned the game by heart, evolving Lombre can only be achieved after the SEVENTH gym, where Blue Shards become available underwater, and a Water Stone can be found in the Abandoned Ship. And if there's such a thing as fashionably late, that is NOT it.

Which leads right into today's question: how long are you willing to wait before evolving a team member? If you have any pattern recognition at all, I tend to wait until rather late in the game before completing my team, however in the meantime I can still rely on a team of high-leveled, fully evolved Pokémon. Remember how I had a Torterra by the time I got to Jupiter in Platinum? That's a Pokémon I didn't need to wait at all for in order to evolve, but in the same LP I wasn't totally sold on using Togekiss because the earliest I could evolve it was right before the sixth gym, and it eventually made it to level 54 before finally evolving! And that still looks very early when compared with Ludicolo in RSE... as you can imagine, this last one is something I would never ever consider.

The subject became even more relevant with the release of Black and White, where several Pokémon evolve later than previous pseudo-legendaries, including Mienshao, admittedly a favorite of mine. I went ahead and used it despite evolving at level 50 because I was planning for it to stay on my post-game team, which gave it a lot more screentime than if it was merely used up until the E4. But if I wanted to ditch it, would I have gone through the effort of evolving it before Brycen's gym? (Thank Arceus for the Eviolite and Audino!) I'm honestly not sure.

So how about you? Will you stick by a NFE all the way into the late game, or is it just too much of a drawback?

Pokémon x Nobunaga's Ambition press conference

A wild news item appears! And since I crossed the finish line as far as talking about that stuff in LP videos goes, I might as well use my new toy for it!

According to Bulbagarden, it will take place on Thursday afternoon in Japan, which means for us in North America it's something that's going to happen in the middle of the night. Great. Either way, I don't understand a lick of Japanese, so it's not like it's going to make much of a difference for me.

One thing that's becoming obvious, though, is that they seem to be pushing this game harder than any spin-off. What can we expect from that press conference? I honestly have no idea. Knowing the geniuses that are in charge of marketing the Pokémon series it'll just be a repeat of what CoroCoro said, but I'm hoping for more. In a perfect world, we'd have actual footage from the game that'd last long enough for us to get a feel for how it's going to play. Not just trailer-grade two-second snippets, either, I'm talking about a minute or two. THAT would really help me decide whether it looks like it's worth playing (should it ever get an international release, and if it doesn't then at least make me angry about that) or it belongs in the trash can.

One thing's for sure, though... I'm just as intrigued as ever. Pokémon in 16th century Japan, as I said in my column, is the most bizarre mix ever, but it could also work spectacularly well, and it's the knowledge of that fact that leaves me craving for more info.

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

Welcome to my newest insanity outlet! As mentioned in my latest LP video, as my main series Pokémon LPs are coming to an end, I needed another way to talk about stuff, with the added benefit that now I can talk about nearly anything here without being out of place!

You might be wondering what's with the 1601 in the URL, and in case you are I'm going to answer that right away... it's because SOMEONE thought it'd be a good idea to snag the "Slowflake" name just to spite me, and as a result I had to do something about it. And since this is the internet, random numbers are the way to go! In the end I settled on 1601 since that's the random number that got tacked on to my BattleTag (that means when I get Diablo 3 I'll be known as Slowflake#1601 there).

Since this site belongs to Google, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume those of you who already have a YouTube account can use it to reply and such. Feel free to do so, but remember, the same rules that apply on my channel apply here as well...