Asian Horror Movies...For Your Face!?

If you haven't gotten a chance to watch "Ichi the Killer" (which is more guro than horror), "Audition," "Shutter" and anything with a Chinese Hopping Ghost in it, now's your chance!

I found this website that streams a shit ton of asian horror with sub titles (some of them not done very well, but I think they may be fan made.)

Anyhoo, the site is:

http://www.thedollmaster.tk

You have to register to watch the latest movies, but if you go to the section marked "Old Forums," you can watch the old links they have up there (which I don't believe will be updated once broken.)

But make sure you have a lot of time to waste since the first time I visited I got sucked into watching some movie about a green baby ghost in a coin locker wrecking havoc on Tokyo......and the sequel.

Ugh (But I Got A New Fake Hair Cut!)

Yesterday I made a billion cookies for a "corporate event."

So naturally, after that was all done, I treated myself to a facial!! (In PW of course--since I had gotten a transfiguration scroll from some quest taking up valuable loot space in my inventory.)


No mores stylish mullet!

A Little Down Time

Curse you PW and your 3 hour Emergency Maintenance! I worked all day today so I could play. And curse you Patriots vs Eagles for making me yell at you so loudly that my cats hated me for a week straight.

So here is some gaming culture.

p.s. If I had been limited to an hour of games a day, I might have been working for Goldman Sachs instead of translating comic books!

Games content 'concerns parents'

Many games are designed for children

More than 75% of parents are concerned about the content of video games played by their children, a survey found.

Almost half of the 4,000 parents surveyed across the UK, France, Italy and Germany said that one hour of gaming each day should be the limit.

Some 43% of the surveyed parents said they were not aware of ratings systems for games to determine suitability.

The results are likely to provoke unease in the UK industry as it awaits the conclusions of the Byron Review.

Dr Tanya Byron is conducting a review of the internet and video games and their impact on children in the UK.

She will publish her findings in 2008 and recently closed her submissions for evidence. One of her areas of focus will be the ratings systems in the UK - which currently involves a pan-European system and a UK-only rating from the British Board of Film Classification.

The games industry has gone to great lengths to stress the educational and social aspects of gaming, while emphasising that games are regulated and appeal to all ages, with mature titles for mature gamers.

A spokesperson for Elspa, the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association, said videogame playing was "part of a balanced mix of leisure activities for all ages".

Elspa added: "We welcome the opportunity to highlight the range of devises such as age content suitability ratings and parental controls that support parents in exercising their responsibilities."

The association said it was committed to educating parents "around sensible and appropriate game play". It has established a website - www.askaboutgames.com - to help parents become better informed about games.

The survey was carried on behalf of Microsoft.

Games writer and consultant Margaret Robertson said the findings around ratings were not a surprise.

"This is a well-known issue in the UK that while the ratings system is quite good, both parental awareness and understanding of it is quite poor.

"The industry has tried a number of initiatives and game specific retailers tend to be fairly responsible about trying to enforce these things."

The survey found that more than half of children played games on consoles, 32% on PCs, 9% played games online and 4% played on a mobile phone.

It also revealed that for the majority of children, playing games was a solitary activity.

Sixty four percent of children played games alone, less than 1 in 10 children play video games with family members and 12% played with friends, the survey found.

The online space is a growing sector of the games industry but the survey found only 5% played mainly online.

Parents saw themselves as the key decision makers for which games should be played by their children, rather than regulators or the video games industry, according to the survey.

"There should be parental concern about some games," said Margaret Robertson.

"The survey shows that there is parental curiosity about content and a desire for the ability to have more control and insight into what their children are doing.

"There are games that not suitable, games which are sinister, dark and thought-provoking; parents instincts to be concerned are right.

"There are games that should be out of the hands of the children. The industry needs to be telling people that and giving them the information they need."

Pirates of the Burning Seas: NDA Lifted & OB Dates!

Woot, I can finally comment on this thanks to the NDA being lifted. I've been in this closed beta for some time now and I must say, if you enjoyed "Horatio Hornblower," love saying, "YARRR," and beating people with peg legs, this is something you definitely want to try.

The first week starting 12/7/08 will be open to File Planet Subscribers only, and after a week or so, it will be opened up to the peons.

I hope I remember my login...I got side tracked by COD4 and forgot to re-download it after I got my new gaming rig.

It's Official: The NDA is Lifted!

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Waiting is never easy, and we’d like to take this time to thank everyone for their patience during this time. Below you will find the latest information on the Pirates of the Burning Sea Open Beta plan, information on the status of the NDA and the status of EU/AU PotBS pre-orders. We’ll update this thread with more information and any potential adjustments to the following plan just as soon as we know more. Read on for more!

PotBS Open Beta:
The first four days of the Pirates of the Burning Sea open beta will be reserved for our invited beta testers and members of the FilePlanet Founders Club. Open Beta is scheduled to begin worldwide on Friday, December 7th, 2007, at which point FilePlanet subscribers can get in. After that it’ll be open for everyone within a week.

You'll find our Open Beta forum here: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=60

On December 7th, North American players that aren't currently beta testers will have a chance to give Pirates of the Burning Sea a spin. Please visit this link for download information.

The NDA is Lifted:
Monday, December 3rd signals the end of the Pirates of the Burning Sea Non-Disclosure Agreement. This means that as of today, individuals are welcome to share their Pirates of the Burning Sea experiences with people around the world! We hope you will take this opportunity to draft a blog entry, forum post, or anything else in which you share your experiences as a captain of the Burning Sea.

Regarding Australian and European Pre-Orders
We are still in negotiations with potential partners in Australia and can’t announce anything until a deal is done. This is a very high priority for us and we’ll share the news as soon as we get it. Rest assured that we haven’t forgotten about our Aussie friends!

We will be sharing information specific to European Pre-Orders as soon as we recieve the go-ahead from our partners in the UK. In addition, we are working with our friends at SOE to gather a list of retail locations and will publish that information just as soon as we receive it.

Thank You!
We started our closed beta in December of 2005. As we reach our second year and turn this into an open beta, we want to take a moment to thank you. As our beta veterans can attest, we have come a long, long way together since December of 2005. Even the last six months have seen momentous and continuous (and sometimes controversial!) changes. Your support and feedback throughout all these years has been a tremendous asset and very truly appreciated. We are looking forward to what the future will bring, and we can’t thank you enough for being here with us!

Best,
Aether

Christian Bale = T4000!?

Just kiddin', he's gonna' be John Conner!

Yup, after I got done with work today I visited my daily news publication (aka, PerezHilton) and was greeted by a half nekkid picture of Christian Bale. HELLOOOOOOOOO.



Oh, and then there were like, words to accompany the picture that went like this as well:

Christian Bale to star in 'Terminator'

Dec 1, 2007, 10:37 AM | by Nicole Sperling

Categories: Movie Biz

The rumors have raged for the past few weeks but Hollywood Insider can now confirm that Christian Bale is set to star in the Terminator reboot...Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. Bale will take on the John Connor role with McG directing and Halcyon producing for Warner Bros. One source tells HI that the story line is a big departure from the originals starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Details are being kept so close to the vest that only a very few people have read the last ten pages of the script. All we know is that Bale is one valuable commodity to those folks at Warners. (A studio spokesperson had no comment, other than to say that Salvation isn't set yet, meaning it has not been officially greenlit.)

Hurray!

But don't worry Jabba, you're still #1!

Mail Call: Other Random Shit

According to my mail,

1) 2Moons is doing a Winter Event where GMs will randomly spawn treasure chests in hidden areas.

2) FURY has announced a FREE content update.

3) COD:4 MV is a smash hit with the critics!!

4) I can extend my penis by 8 inches!!

Whoops.

I also got invited to the Shaiya Closed Beta through AeriaGames of TwelveSky fame so if anyone's on the market for a new F2P head over there.

Me? I'll stick to PW for now. Just a few more levels to my SnowBear!

Mail Call: WAR Beta News

I finally got to reading my WAR newsletter.

It's long so don't fall asleep. There's actually more, but I'm nice and read it and highlighted the good parts that at least I cared about:

We're almost ready to re-open the WAR Beta, and I know that our Beta Community has been gnashing their teeth in anticipation. Guess what? They should be giddy with excitement because we'll have an amazing amount of new features and enhancements in the game for them to test, as well as brand new Elf content for them to experience.

Before getting into content specifics, I wanted to share a quick word about our testing process as we'll be doing things a little differently in this next phase of Beta II. Instead of bringing up the Beta server and leaving it up 24/7 for free play, we'll be moving forward with a series of focused Beta events set around a specific concept or two. These events will last anywhere from 3-10 days and will enable us to gather specific, detailed feedback from our Beta Community in regards to specific features and locations. We'll be bringing the server down between each event for a day or two in order to prepare for the next focused event. This will also give us time to process the feedback we receive and incorporate it in future events.

When Beta reopens, players will be treated to what we're calling our "Dark Elf Sneak Peek". During the first weekend, the Beta Community will be able to play through the Dark Elf starting and Tier 1 areas with two new careers. We are going to ease players back into the Beta to spend some quality time with the Dark Elves, as well as with many newly updated UI elements, such as the Tome of Knowledge. We are looking forward to hearing the community's thoughts on these areas of the game.

Much of the testing over the next three months will be focused on RvR and the enhancements we are implementing to this system. The team has been diligently working on the Open Field RvR experience while the beta has been closed and they are anxious to debut the expanded Battlefield Objectives with ... wait for it ... new RvR Keeps.

While we aren't ready to publicly discuss Keeps and their siege mechanics in great detail at this time, anyone that has taken part in a Keep battle in Dark Age of Camelot® will have an idea of what we have in store for WAR (though it should be noted that this new Keeps system will differ from the one found in DAoC). The addition of Keeps will bring focus and meaning to Open Field RvR and beta participants should be able to experience this new system in its early stages by the end of the year.

Player Careers have also received a lot of love and attention these past couple of months. One of the biggest issues raised during the beta was the perceived lack of differentiation between characters of the same career and same level. Why should every level 30 Warrior Priest look and play the same way?

We are actually approaching this issue from two different angles:

First, we're introducing the concept of Career Mastery to better differentiate character abilities. This new system allows a player to customize their character's skills to suit their desired play style. It allows an archetype career (Tank, Ranged DPS, etc.) to stay true to its role, while giving the player the flexibility to pursue specialized skills to make their character more unique. To learn more about Career Mastery, please read this week's Beta Update posted on the WAR Herald.

Second, we are implementing our Trophy system which will allow players to visually differentiation their characters from others of the same career. This system has always been planned and is now being introduced into the game for the first time. In a nutshell, players are awarded visual bits, or Trophies, that they are then allowed to place on their character in pre-determined slots (the number of slots is determined by a characters level). Over the course of the game, you'll literally be able to earn hundreds of these Trophies, way more than you'll be able to equip at any one time, and display them in thousands of unique combinations.

This combination of the Trophy and Career Mastery systems, combined with our player creation options, numerous available armor sets, armor tinting system, and weapon variety will ensure that no two players will ever look the same on the field of battle in WAR.

One final system to discuss and that is Public Quests. PQs are an exciting aspect of the PvE side of WAR, and they are something new and completely unique to our game. They have been very well received in beta, but we've been tweaking and enhancing them to make them even more engaging and fun. One of the biggest changes to PQs are the way we divvy up loot. We've implemented a new and improved loot system and we'll be very interested to hear what the testers think of it.

With all of these new additions and exciting new Elf content, we're certainly going to be keeping the Beta Community busy well into the new year.

Speaking of the new year, you'll be happy to know that we'll be *finally* inviting a few thousand guild members (from specific guilds chosen in our Guild Beta contest) into the Beta in early '08. They will be helping us test the newly implemented "Living Guild" features. Believe it when we say that guilds won't just be a glorified chat channel in our game. They will have their own personality that the guild members can craft as they play WAR, and some significant new ideas make them a vital part of our game.

That is all for now from the Beta. For those of you still waiting to get in, keep checking your inboxes because we'll continually be bringing new participants into the game as we ramp up our testing efforts in the new year.

In other words, despite setting my Inbox to refresh every 20s, I won't be getting in, but some SOB who wears their pants chest high will. :(

Also, the other highlight of the newsletter had to be the Ale Power Dwarven Mount. That is the win right there because the other chumps have to ride stupid wolves and horses:


Unfortunately, despite being the coolest conceptually, they have the worst "gas-mileage." If you get my drift.

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Giggity giggity?