Saturday, November 30, 2013

Are they done trivializing cover legendaries yet?

Serebii added catch and hatch rates for the new Pokémon in his Pokédex, and the big news regarding this is Xerneas' and Yveltal's catch rates of 70. I understand that the catch rate needs to be higher for legendaries that are needed to advance the story, but am I the only one who thinks 70 is way too high? First we had Dialga and Palkia at 30, then Reshiram and Zekrom at 45, and now this. Heck, Reshiram and Zekrom were already a guaranteed catch with a Dusk Ball when in the red and asleep, it didn't need to be any easier! I would've really liked it if they kept it somewhat of a struggle... they ARE some of the most powerful Pokémon in existence after all. Oh well, this goes along with this game handing over everything like candy, from shinies to experience to perfect IVs.

As a side note, Serebii also added pages for the three event legendaries, and oddly enough they have species names, heights and weights for them. Were they discovered beforehand by the hacker, or did Serebii just fudge everything up again? What I'd heard was that the hacker was only able to get them to appear in battles, not catch them or fight with them or anything.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Old news of the day: Blaziken and Deoxys-RS emergency-banned

Yes, it totally went over my head because I was busy with other things.

Anyway, I hope no one is surprised at this development. Yes, it happened much faster than in gen 5, but with all the things that were tested before Blaziken back then either nerfed to oblivion or already banned from the word go, it was the natural target, and even with the sun nerf Blaziken is still too much to handle, which shows how scary strong it was last gen (when Talonflame didn't exist and Azumarill was mono-Water, too). And speaking of scary, keep in mind that the ban applies to Blaziken as a species, and has nothing to do with the fact that it megavolves. Meaning that Mega Blaziken is EVEN MORE BROKEN THAN THAT. Good grief, what was Gamefreak thinking?

As for Deoxys-RS... at least it got a fair chance this time around, unlike last gen when it was banned at the exact same time as Deoxys-FR, which always made the whole thing fishy to me. Still, that movepool combined with such speed and firepower is crazy enough to justify such a move.

Currently under the microscope is Mega Gengar, once again to no one's surprise. An informal poll on Smogon about this particular issue ended up being split right down the middle, though it was open to everyone... something to keep in mind. Typically Smogon's policies go along the lines of "if it's not a decisive result in favor of a ban, we keep it", so Mega Gengar may yet survive, at least for a bit longer. More info on this as it comes.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Greg Sestero tears Tommy Wiseau apart

So the man behind the Mark character wrote a tell-all book, The Disaster Artist, about his strange relationship with the equally strange Tommy Wiseau. Unfortunately I don't have a copy on hand (hmm, my parents always complain that I never have enough Christmas gift suggestions... this gives me an idea), but you can check out its TVTropes page for some of the juicy tidbits it contains. (Don't forget the Awesome and Funny pages, either.) No one familiar with the movie should be surprised at any of this, because we should all have an inkling that Wiseau is just as out of touch with the real world as The Room let us in on. Then there's this piece, which elaborates a bit more on some aspects... and makes Wiseau look even more disturbing somehow. Now I really, really want that book, if only out of morbid curiosity.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Strangely suboptimal shipping shenanigans

A few days ago I bought a new graphics card on Amazon, and, well... let's just say the package tracking shows the postal system could do with some improvement. My package arrived at the nearest major city this morning, 50 kilometers away from here (not giving names for obvious reasons), so logically the next destination should be my town, right? Nope. It got sent all the way back to Montreal, which is over three times as far. Brilliant job, guys.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Scumbag Slowflake: Quits LPing, gets new controller immediately afterwards

Yeah, now I wish I'd done that a while ago, for all the times I complained about my old POS. I grabbed a wired 360 controller to replace my dying Logitech Dual Action. Well, the word "dying" may be an exaggeration, but it definitely wasn't working perfectly anymore either. I'm playing through Sonic Generations for the first time, and this is the time it chose to give me headaches with unwanted quickstep shenaningans.

It got especially bad in that one challenge in Green Hill Zone where you have a triple boost gauge. There's a 3D part with spikes that you have to quickstep around (or jump over, either or), and every single time Sonic would gravitate toward the left, totally unable to do anything else, even jump, and I'd smack into spikes every single time, release everything on the controller, then watch as Sonic would quickstep into the fence on the left for five seconds DESPITE ME NOT PRESSING ANYTHING. So I tested this with my brother's controller which was very similar (the only difference was that it had a rumble feature), and although he did have some issues too, they were nowhere near as severe. So after over three years, I caved in and bought a 360 controller, and it worked so flawlessly that I nailed an S rank on the challenge on my first try (in fact it wasn't even close). And the best part is, NO MORE SQUARE ANALOG STICK SOCKETS. I prefer the octagons found on the N64, Gamecube and Wii controllers, but circles are great too. Infinitely better than squares! (And yes, I suggested that my brother buy one too, since he had issues as well.)

The annoying part, though, was disabling the rumble feature (I hate it, it messes with my concentration and reflexes). There's no feature for that anywhere, so I had to find a specially made DLL file and put it in the Sonic Generations folder. Oddly enough it wouldn't work in the System32 folder, so this basically means I'd have to add it to the folder of any game I want to use the controller on. Not that it's that big of a problem, mind you. Oh no, I have to make multiple copies of an 80 kb file! Whatever shall I do?

Kind of ironic that a console controller functions better on a PC than a dedicated PC controller. Master race my ass. (As if the general demeanor of PC elitists didn't give you that impression already.)

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Wow, I totally believe in the Bible now!

After getting back from work, I found a leaflet from Jehovah's Witnesses in my mail, which was about life after death. One part of the leaflet asks "Can we believe what the Bible says?", and of course it says yes, for three reasons that basically amount to "because the Bible says so". Well I'm totally convinced now! Is that really the best they can come up with? That kind of circular logic wouldn't fool a kindergartener. It's like if all Charles Darwin came up with while writing On The Origin Of Species was, "look at my beard! Would a man with such an epic beard ever lie to you?" (Yes, I know he didn't have the beard yet when he wrote it, it's just for the sake of example.) And this is why I'm not a fan of organized religion (among other reasons). Too much suspension of disbelief involved.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Some poor German kid got robbed so hard

I lied, turns out every shiny has some sort of value. I put up the aforementioned shiny male Combee on the GTS for funsies, asking for a Xerneas in return but not expecting to get one... AND I GOT ONE.  It goes without saying that the nature is crap (Lonely), but hey, I can try using a mixed one in-game, at least.

The thing I want to know is if the guy (or girl, whatever) freaked out so hard at the sight of a shiny Combee that he/she didn't notice it was male and just forked over the Xerneas, and it was afterwards that he/she saw that it was male, and as a result fell for the robbery of the century.

The most worthless sparkles of all time

Yes, even worse than Twilight.

So I just found my first shiny in Y today. Unfortunately... it's... A MALE COMBEE. Feel free to laugh at my misfortune.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Censors gone wild

If you thought last gen's Cofagrigus controversy was going to cause Nintendo to listen to reason... tough luck. If anything, they've taken nickname censorship to new heights. Many bad words that are only used in specific parts of the world or even a certain country were banned worldwide, even when the nickname itself is perfectly okay. For example, good luck naming a Pokémon after Kakashi from Naruto. As it turns out, "kak" is South African slang for feces. Are you serious? Banning a potentially common three-letter string just because of slang USED ONLY IN SOUTH AFRICA? Forget about "Thanks Obama" too, you can see "SOB" in there. Yep, even if there's a space the censor is triggered. The word "kill" is also out of the question. "Penelope"? Tough luck, "pene" is Spanish for PINGAS. Then again, what else did you expect from the company that shut down Swapnote instead of adding a special notice about online content not being rated like every other company?

So I tried having some fun with French Canadian swear words, and believe it or not, they cracked down on these too. "Tabarnak" is a no-go, and neither are "tabarnacle" and the proper spelling of "tabernacle". "Crisse" doesn't work, as does "criss". So if nicknaming something "criss-cross" is your thing, blame Quebec. "Calisse" doesn't work either, but oddly enough "calvaire" does. And finally, although it has nothing to do with Quebec swear words, Hitler spelled normally doesn't pass, but replacing the L with an uppercase i works. Something to keep in mind when using Wonder Trade.

Finally, there IS one silver lining: "fag" is still forbidden, EXCEPT when the nickname used is Cofagrigus. Progress!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The "World Connector" achievement is bullshit.

This is the one where you have to have a full friend list (100), for the record. However, the problem lies in the fine print. Not only do you need to swap friend codes with 100 people, but they also all have to have Pokémon X or Y (and have checked in online at least once, of course). Every. Last. One. Of. Them. What if there's one friend you have that doesn't have it, and isn't interested in it? And "one of them" will be a low estimate in most situations. So unless you're willing to go through the effort of deleting them, adding other people who do have the game, getting the achievement, then deleting those guys to add your friends back, you are SO fucked. This achievement is a gluttonous hog that devours your friend list just to make sure that everyone you know has the game too. The only silver lining is that it doesn't require Google-. Other than that... yeah, this achievement is garbage, good luck getting it. It worked in BW2 because it had an independent friend list that was just for it, but this relies on a friend system shared by all 3DS games. That's the key word. SHARED. This game doesn't want to share, it's all or nothing! So who thought doing this was a good idea, again?

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

I am no longer taking friend codes

Just a heads-up: my friend list is now full, so I can't take any more friend codes. Thanks to all those who helped!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Storytelling in X/Y: one step forward, two steps back

I've already showered the game with praise regarding the gameplay element, and didn't hesitate to refer to it as the definitive Pokémon game. Kalos did away with everything Unova did wrong, it's just a blast all around. One thing gen 5 excelled at, though (at least by Pokémon standards), was the storytelling aspect. Most of the characters (the Plasma sages notwithstanding) were given enough screentime for the player to understand them, and Ghetsis especially shone with the portrayal he was given over the course of both games. But I've already explained all that, so here's the question: how do X and Y compare?

Sunday, November 10, 2013

I need more friend codes!

I'm still missing a lot of Friend Safari Pokémon, and I've pretty much exhausted all the friend codes I currently have. My FC's 2191-7707-3661, if you're interested. My Friend Safari contains Nuzleaf, Sandile and Liepard, and my Battle Maison team is PorygonZ and Heatran. Of course, feel free to ignore this if we already added each other - though please let me know if you added me but I didn't add you back.

Edit: I also recommend that you add each other for the extra safaris, though naturally that's up to you.

Edit 2: Sweet baby Jesus, I never expected to get this many. Thank you all so much, this really patched a lot of holes in my Pokédex. 536 seen and 470 owned so far, if anyone happens to feel like asking.

Edit 3: Just so we're clear, I'm still taking friend codes. I still have 20 or so slots left, and apparently there's an achievement for filling up the friend list completely.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Event-only O-Powers + No Zygarde in official tournaments

This post on Bulbagarden gives details on both of these things. Level Max O-Powers are only obtainable via events, with Experience and Bargain being distributed at Jump Festa. The interesting thing is, instead of just having an even bigger effect than level 3, they have the same effect, but last for a full hour! Remember, it takes 40 minutes at most to go from empty to full, so you could potentially use this for permanent double experience, among other things. If it sounds broken... well that's why they're event-only, right?

On the other hand, we have something far less interesting. As it turns out, despite a paltry BST of 600, Zygarde will be banned from official tournaments. Three words: ARE YOU SERIOUS? I can sort of understand why they banned Kyurem-N last gen, even though Zygarde will probably turn out to be MUCH better (I'm referring to Kyurem-N's actually impressive BST here), but Zygarde? What do they think is so exceptional about it? Sure, it has Dragon Dance and Extremespeed when Garchomp could only ever dream of having them, but it definitely doesn't have "game breaker" written all over it like some of the mega evolutions do. Furthermore, its ability does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in OU. So, I ask again, WHY?

Oh, and Item Clause is still on, even though it's been over a decade since it stopped being a good idea. Brilliant, guys. Just brilliant.

Some more thoughts on the YouTube comment fiasco

I think we've all heard the rumors about people getting suspended from YouTube for linking to a petition to change the whole thing back to the way it was. I'm not about to figure it out for myself for fear of getting 1200+ videos wiped out, especially after I promised everyone I'd keep them online, but if true, this is an example of corporate douchebagginess even the likes of Monsanto would be envious of. I mean, I have no words for this. Even Microsoft, after the uproar over the initial "features" of the Xbox One, knew better than to stand their ground. Of course, as I said recently, just the fact that they thought this was a good idea makes the changes pointless in swaying the mind of any responsible consumer, but at least they acknowledged that they fucked up big time (kind of). Google is taking the opposite approach: they are so confident that they own us, and there's nothing we can do about it, that we're not even allowed to have a different opinion from the corporate suits that run the thing despite making graying politicians look like a credible authority on the internet. We ARE going to line their pockets by inflating the amount of Google- users, whether we like it or not.

In a way, this reminds me of EA requiring Origin to play some games, most notably SimCity 5, but also others. This isn't just restrictive DRM, this is also a way for them to artificially inflate the amount of people with Origin accounts, just so they can boldly claim "with all these users, we are a real alternative to Steam". In fact, didn't they say that very thing in a press release while desperately trying to argue in favor of SimCity 5's online-only aspect? Either way, these are both cases of companies strong-arming consumers into using products they don't want to use just so they can play games/comment on videos/whatever, just so they can look good compared to their vastly superior counterparts (in Google-'s case, Facebook). In sheer numbers, at least, because if they think this is going to make people use Google-, then they have another thing coming. After all, their previous scheme to do so failed miserably. You know how YouTube would ask you, every few days, if you wanted to use your real name, and every "no" would be met with "OK, we'll ask you again later"? You know how you were often given a choice of whether you wanted to be known by your YouTube name or your Google name, and clicking either would end up with you having a Google- account merged with your YouTube account, and you had to go on Google- and close the whole thing down (unless you clicked on the X in the corner, which you would never think the first time around)? Well, clearly YouTube noticed that EVERYONE was doing that, because here we are today.

Oh, and you gotta hear some of the crazy stuff I've seen in defense of this stuff. The worst offender: "you're given something for free, why complain?" Two things: 1. Unless I'm mistaken, Google- was always free from the get-go, so you effectively DON'T get something extra for free, and 2. Not only that, but something's being TAKEN from you, namely YouTube's ease of use (or what was left of it after the ceaseless channel overhauls). There are also people who (accurately) point out that YouTube comment sections are a worse cesspool of stupidity than the GameFAQs forums, so it's no loss to them. Maybe, but it's possible to make YouTube comment sections work - as all of you should be aware *wink*. So to take that away from the people who made the effort to do just that? No thanks.

Speaking of which, quite frankly, would I still be using YouTube if I decided to continue LPing? To be honest, probably not. This horrendous overhaul combined with the petition situation would've ensured that I would've taken my business elsewhere. Of course, this wouldn't have meant anything to Google because they didn't make money off of me, and I didn't make money off of them. Still, of course I wasn't going to stand by and let my viewers get trampled by money-hungry suits. Now I know I'm playing the coulda-shoulda-woulda game, but me staying on board with this crap would've been unlikelyé

Bottom line, YouTube is for watching videos. IT'S NOT A GODDAMN SOCIAL NETWORK. So if Google is so desperate to enlarge its tiny shriveled carrot dick to try and compete with Facebook's magnum dong, give people a legitimate reason to use Google- BY MAKING A BETTER PRODUCT THAN FACEBOOK. Not through this crap. It's like they've given up on making Google- compete through any means not called brute-forcing everyone into doing so. The people who were so enthusiastic years ago about Google potentially being a Microsoft killer must be crying themselves to sleep.

Edit: Take a look at this, if you will. This, believe it or not, is the co-creator of YouTube, and maker of YouTube's very first video. There's something inherently hilarious about the whole situation.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

I chose the perfect moment to call it quits!

Seems like Google wasn't happy with just messing with the YouTube channels, now it's the comment sections that get it, forcing us to use Google- in order to use that. What they really need as a wake-up call is a couple big YouTubers to pull the plug, which is unlikely to happen because their loyalty is pretty much bought with fat wads o' cash. But hey, a guy can dream, right?

Meet the shiny-o-matic!

Remember when I said I wasn't too fond of consecutive fishing? Well, just to prove me right, someone made an entirely automated device meant to find shinies this way without any human input. You know your method of making shinies easier to obtain crosses the line when a machine can do it. I hope Gamefreak's going back to the drawing board after this.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Gen 6 simulator stats, because why not

Can be found here. The Pokébank data is what you really want to see, since it's far more popular than the regular OU tier, and it's what our metagame will look like in two months anyway. Of course, reading into this is a bad idea, because it's just a week worth of data, and we're still in this phase where we want to try all our new toys. Not surprised by Aegislash being the most popular, of all the new Pokémon it's easily the one that shows the most potential, partly because there aren't many new Pokémon to start with, partly because they're nowhere near as brutal as the gen 5 Pokémon.

Also, note that many Pokémon were unbanned with the start of this new generation. They are: Blaziken, Deoxys-RS/LG/E, Excadrill, Genesect, Landorus-I, Manaphy, Thundurus-I and Tornadus-T. No complaints there, I would've done the exact same thing. This leaves Mewtwo, Darkrai, Shaymin-S, Arceus, Deoxys-FR, and the cover legendaries except for Kyurem-N, Kyurem-B and Zygarde. In addition, Sand Veil, Snow Cloak and Swift Swim are once again fully usable.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Serebii's Pokédex updated with egg moves for gen 6 Pokémon

The first thing everyone will notice is how few moves there is for everything bar the one Pokémon that evolved from an old one. Right now I'm really hoping that these lists are incomplete, because well, there are barely any damaging moves on there, aside from the obvious fang moves on Tyrantrum (definitely one of the big winners, especially with Dragon Dance being there as well). Sure, there's some stuff that could be interesting, like Spikes Chesnaught, Toxic Spikes Greninja or Discharge Aurorus, but nothing truly amazing.

Edit: Contrary to what I said earlier, Smogon confirmed Serebii was wrong in that EEVEE DOES NOT GET PLAY ROUGH AS AN EGG MOVE. It was also posted on Serebii's forums, so it should be fixed momentarily.

The Xbox One is almost here...

...and lately I've been seeing a lot of "it's not so bad now that Microsoft reversed their controversial policies". And honestly, I'm surprised. I mean, sure, the Xbox One absolutely looks like a better product than back when it was first announced, but... am I the only one who's concerned with the way Microsoft approached the whole thing? And by that I mean the fact that Microsoft saw absolutely nothing wrong with the always-online, anti-used games, mandatory Kinect aspects of the console, and didn't mind spilling the beans before anyone had any idea what Sony's approach was going to be. That is some scary shit when you stop and think about it. They honestly thought they were great ideas. Please tell me I'm not the only one who has issues with that.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Just a quick reminder

Because it seems making your own fake mega evolution lists that are just too good to be true is all the rage these days, I wanted to make it clear that the hacker who unearthed Mega Lati@s confirmed that these were the last ones. I wonder why making these up becomes so popular just as it becomes clear that there are no more? Oh, right, people are just that stupid.

Of course, I have more faith than this in you guys, but you can never be too sure.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Latias and Latios round out the mega evolution tally

I'm sure you all know that by now, so I'm not going to go into great detail. However, I will admit that these were about the last Pokémon I expected to have a mega evolution, because they already have their species-specific item with the Soul Dew, which grants stat boosts that add up to around 150 base stat points, compared to mega evolution's flat 100. What they intend (or intended, rather, since their code is already written) to do with these remains a mystery, though. Three major possibilities spring to mind, though: a typing change, an ability change (that would radically change the way they're played), or something to differentiate the two more than they are now, like what the Therian forms did for the genie trio. Or any combination of these three, really, since they're not mutually exclusive. Or maybe it's an attempt at spicing up OU play with them, which may well backfire considering that they're huge powerhouses from the start, and their Mega Stones can possibly join the Soul Dew on the banned item list.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that we'll find out any of this any time soon, because I've been told by a few people that... well, I'm utterly inept with technology, so I couldn't make out jack, but what I can gather from what little English these paragraphs contained is that we can literally only know the appearances of the event Pokémon and Mega Lati@s. There's no way to chuck Master Balls at them and stuff them with Rare Candies to see their base stats, abilities and so on. So as it turns out, actual datamining is still a long way away. But hey, that's a start, I guess.