Game Review #1 - Silkroad Online

So I have decided to write reviews of games which I played and enjoyed for a time period. I figure this is also another great usage of the blog =P

So the first post will be a mmorpg known as Silkroad Online, created by Joymax. I first started playing this game because Alex Sun, my good friend, invited me to play along with his other friends. I had a blast with this game for nearly a year, until I can no longer take the bots population in game. However, the beautiful scenary of SRO is undeniably one of the best among mmorpg.

The game is currently divided into two factions: European and Asian. According to rumor, there will soon be an Arabian faction, but I already quit the game so I can care less =P.

All characters will otain stat points when leveled. Players can choose to invest into either the int stat or the str stat. The higher the int stat, the higher the magical damage and defense. Similarly, the higher the str stat, the higher the physical damage and physical defense.

The Asian faction is a very versatile and flexible race. With no potion usage delay, the Asian faction has noticeable advantage over the European race in terms of solo capability. For players following the int route, players will choose to use sword, spear, and bow. Players following the str route, however, mainly uses blade, glaive, and bow. Bow is an unique weapon that can truly bring out the potential of both int and str players. Hence, many hybrids choose the path of Pacheon, or bow.

The European faction, on the other hand, is extremely systematic and very organized. Although the capability of soloing is clearly no match to the Asian race due to the huge potion usage delay, the European race can easily out damage the Asian faction. However, the true strength of the European race lies not within the individual damage, but within the strength of team play. As mentioned before, the European race is very systematic and organized. That is because each class has a very distinguish role in a party and is specifically designed to for party play. Warriors are made to be tanks of the party while dishing out moderate amount of damage; healers are there for buffs and healing spells; and mages/rogues are designed to dish out extreme damage. An European party that includes every European class is truly an efficient and unstoppable party.

Now, in order for a character to learn or upgrade a skill, it must have sufficient amount of skill points. The only way to earn skill points is to kill monsters in game. Thus, the grinding part of this game became involved. Not only will you grind for money and items, you will also grind for enough skill points in order to upgrade or learn a skill. In other words, this game requires INTENSE amount of grinding.

Now the unique part about this game is the job system. To obtain the occupation, one must join the job league of that occupation. You are allowed to join only ONE job league. If you want to join another job league, you must leave the current league in order to do so. In this game, there are three occupations: Traders, thieves, and hunters.

Traders obtain job experiences by, well, doing trade runs. Trade runs involve players buying goods from local merchant and travel to distance towns and sell those goods for net profit. The longer the distance, the better the profit. Needless to say, also higher the risk. Traders will encounter both npc and player thieves that will attempt to steal the goods. Hence, player thieves are usually high level players. However, the hunter job is here to save the traders from complete annihilation. Hunters are usually high level players that protect traders on a trade run. They gain job experiences by killing both player and npc thieves. Of course, most player hunters would refuse to accompany player traders unless high rewards are involved.

There is one additional feature of this game that has been recently implemented into the game. The castle war. I do not know the detail because I have never experienced it, but as far as I know, it's basically a massive guild vs guild battle for the control of a town. The winner will be able to set taxes and gain glory as well as obtain some awesome armory/weapon award.

Overall, the only thing that turned me away from this game is the high population of bots. Generally speaking, it would take YEARS to hand grind your way to level 100, currently the highest level possible in game. However, the beautiful scenary and great pvp combat makes this game one of the best mmorpg I have experienced.

Rating: 7.5/10
Grind: 9.5/10 - very grindy
Fun: 7/10

One down, two more to go

At last, with the final ACT score displayed, I am officially done with the ACT business. It was quite surprising, for I felt absolutely devastated about it two weeks ago. I guess God finally gave me his smile for once.

Nonetheless, the joy is only temporarily. Why? Because I still have to cram for the coming up SAT II subject tests for biology and chemistry, which is happening next Saturday. Biology shouldn't be much of a problem due to my very recent exposure to the materials as well as the amount of practice I have had via variable resources. However, chemistry is a completely different story. I am not in a chemistry class, nor was I exceptionally good at it when I was in it sophomore year. I barely got my A- in that class at the end of my sophomore year.

Anyhow, only two more weeks of studying hell then things will bright up a little. With all the testing done, only the college application process is left. Senior year is starting to get a little better...at least...in this aspect of it...

I wish I have a choice

As many of you who are acquainted with me already, you would know that I am a little...well...what people think as "emo". Not that I am extremely emotionally depressed, it's just that my thinking is not exactly the most positive out there. Of course, my friends and I already have several inside jokes relating to the general emo connotations...fun times ^_^

As I was saying earlier in my very first post, I try to find time every now and then to write about my thoughts and feelings as ways to unload some baggage in my life. Well, today is one of those days. With my final SAT II subject tests coming up in two weeks and barely prepared for it, I am pretty much screwed. Ya, I know what you are thinking. I should have started earlier. Well, as matter of fact, I did. It's just that I did not find the time to sit down and review the materials which I supposedly revisited my first time around. So here I am, extremely stressed about the upcoming tests and college applications as well as school grades. As if that is not enough, I have another problem that is giving me some very painful times: Girls.

Ya, I admit that I went overboard. I fell too deep for this girl who is only a year younger than me. When we finally broke up nearly 6 months ago, I didn't know what to do when she was crying. I wanted to cry too, but that wouldn't help the situation. We didn't break up because we lost the feelings, but we broke up due to some external reasons which shall remain confidential.
However, my mind became even more attached to her than before. Even now, whenever I see her during school hours, I would feel a little sore in my chest. It has been freaking 6 months, yet I still cannot dismiss my feelings. I really wish I have a choice to tell my heart to stop the nonsense and move on, as many of my friends have suggested. The problem is, I simply can't, I do not know the reason.

We continued to talk on the phone until school started again. As a senior, I have many college applications and many other stuff to deal with. As a junior, her life will be really stressful due to the workload of typical juniors in Hinsdale Central have. She stopped calling a week into school, which is understandable. Since we ended our relationship, I didn't expect her to call me. However, what I cannot tolerate or endure is the fact that she acts very cold to me. I don't know what I have done to deserve the treatment. She knows very well that I still want to be by her side, she knows it. But she acts as if she no longer cares and starts treating me with coldness so cold that could penetrate the warmth of a jacket.

I am just being a paranoid you might say? Ya, I guess I am being a paranoid. However, that doesn't change the fact that it bothers me to no end. Her bright and hopeful smile will suddenly be replaced with a blank face whenever she notices my presence. Such action itself is extremely painful to me. I really don't know what I have done to deserve such treatment. Even though I confronted her about it, she merely dismisses it using homework and stress as excuses. I don't think stress can turn someone's smile into a cold stare in a matter of seconds. What have I done?

*sigh* I really wish I can move on, but my heart simply won't let me. Why? I have plenty of potential girls to choose from, yet my heart is set on this one. What is so special about her? Why can't I stop thinking about her so much? If only I know the answer....

As mentioned, this post mainly serves to unload my baggage because a misunderstanding just happened between her and I. I tried to amend it immediately but she signed off before I could. I don't know how to climb out of this emotional torture anymore...may God be with me.

-Joe Peng

TAF 2008 Reflection

Due to the awesomeness and meaningful blog made by Eric Kao, I decided to give it a try. Why? Well, honestly writing is never really a big thing to me. However, I see it as a way for me to better reminisce the past week I spent at TAF.

What is TAF? TAF stands for Taiwanese American Foundation and it gathered younger generation Taiwanese American people from all over the United States annually. It is a camp which allows the Taiwanese American people to share their past experiences as well as opinions while learn more about the theme of each year. The themes of TAF revolved around four topics: Identity, ethics & values, leadership, and communication. This year, the theme was IDENTITY.

I like Eric's way of dividing his blog, so I will also do the same. Honestly, I would absolutely love to do a play-by-play reflection, but that would take forever and I don't have that much time because of my workload. With that said, let's get started!

POST TAF THOUGHTS

I honestly think that this past week was the best week of my life. Being a first year camper at TAF, I was very nervous that I would be left out. I felt very uneasy on the bus and started to worry about the image and dominant impression that I wanted to give to people. However, these immature thoughts got obliterated in my mind almost instantaneously when I stepped into the Youth dorm. I saw a group of Taiwanese American stood in a gigantic circle playing some sort of shouting game which consists of WHAT, OK, and YEAH. The point of the game being to be able to say those three words in the most exaggerated way possible. My first thought was, "What the hell? This is stupid."

However, as time passed, I gradually understand why people acted the way they did at TAF, and eventually conformed myself to follow the way of the TAF community. After all, TAF is a place for us to relax rather than another source of external pressure. By doing so, I feel like this past week of bliss went by almost too fast. The schedule consisted of a series of serious speaker sessions and physical activities all the way from 8:30 am to around 10:00 pm. With the curfew at 11:00pm, that allowed only one hour of free time. However, usually I would be so tired at the end of the day to care too much about free time anyhow. Nonetheless, the exhausted feeling was refreshing and satisfying. Why? Because I know that the exhaustion that I felt was because I had too much fun.

SPEAKER SESSIONS/WORKSHOPS

This year, the speaker was Vivian Hsu. To be honest, the speaker session turned out to be a little bit disappointing because I learned little about myself from her. One would expect that an hour and a half each day from Tuesday to Friday would be acquainted with some, if not more, understanding of oneself. But I didn't. The speaker basically was simply imposing her own believes on us rather than attempting to help us reveal our own identities. Nonetheless, I don't see her as a bad person. Just that she is teaching the wrong crowd.

SMALL GROUP

So, this is something new. Each year, campers at TAF would be divided into several small groups which will be led by two counselors. My small group consists of Eric Kao, Andrew Kuo, Alison Yang, Chelsea Liu, Jessica Shen, Travis Overton, myself, and two awesome counselors: Godwin Chen and Jing Wang.

As a first group camper, I went in without knowing what I had gotten myself into. I only expected that small group time would be spending into reinforcing the speaker's daily lessons. O boy, I had never been so wrong in my life.

Yes, we did discuss a lot about the lessons that the speaker had to offer, but most of the time we played games and shared our life experiences while creating a group name and group representation. Interestingly enough, our group this year is named “Zodemon in the time of Opium War”. How we got to that point? I forgot. All I remember was the fun time we had thinking of a skit for it. Special thanks to the baby powder which Godwin owns…without it, the skit would be incomplete….lololololololo

lol.

It was also like a baggage dumpster. And I have to say, it felt good to let it out. I honestly don't think I can ask for a better group!

ROOMMATE

This was another thing I was nervous about. I feared the possible awkwardness which may occur, but never did. I was roomed with Jason Lai from Ohio. He was an outgoing person with many personality traits which resemble my own. We would often talk to each other about our days at TAF and our lives back at home. It was quite a mind-opening experience.

Just a side note. On the very first day we arrived at Manchester College, it was tradition for people to be tied with random people for the first meal. I think it was to force you to learn teamwork and force you to be acquainted with new people. Coincidentally, Jason and I were tied together

Ever since the Tea House party on Wednesday, Jason was dying to learn how to rave after seeing Mark Chen and I rocked the house that night. So, as a token of friendship, I decided to teach him what I know. I have to say I was shocked by his potential. In the a few hours, he learned butterfly, weave, and almost a complete set of arm-wraps. Quite good if you ask me.

LITTLE SIB

Some background information is needed before I can go any further for this. So basically, people in the Youth and College programs will each be assigned to one or two "little siblings" from the Junior or Junior High programs. Throughout the week, the siblings will interact with each other in several programs and have time to bond with each other to establish a good “sibling-like” relationship.

My very first sib is Kyleen Jan. She is very sweet and was very patient with me when I had to take care of some stuff. She expressed intense interest in raving after the demonstration given by Mark Chen and me. So I spent about 90% of the time of Wednesday night’s party teaching her like Alex Sun taught me. Although the music and the atmosphere were calling for me to join the rest of the crowd, the simple smile of self-satisfaction on Kyleen’s face was enough for me that night. It was time well-invested. We also had a blast during the annual water fight, which was a massive free-for-all, anything-goes water festival and it was simply the most wonderful thing ever. If there was one regret, it would be that I wore a white shirt to that….anyhow; I hope that she had a good time with me because I was very scared to have a little sib….

SWING CHOIR and CHOIR

So each program, except for the college program, had to dance a choreographed routine each year in TAF Night. TAF Night was basically a mini talent show for the parents and other programs. Although the dance was definitely weird, it was really fun to learn and dance along with the peers. I do have to say that the routine demonstrated by the staff members were definitely the BEST lololololol…goodness how many times did I lololololol? Lololololol is my small group’s group chant =P

As for Choir, every program will choose a song to sing while modify the lyrics to make it somehow related to TAF. This year, the Youth program chose “The World’s Greatest” by R. Kelly. I am not really a big fan of R. Kelly, but this song was extremely touching and very very very good. It’s one of my favorite songs now. With many musical talents in the Youth program, the song was implemented with extra-crispy melodious sensation that is very hard to describe. Joshua Lin, perhaps the most talented musician I have ever met in my life yet, grasped the tunes of the song on piano without a music sheet by simply hearing it a few times; Kevin Tang and Bronson’s finger-breaking guitar skills never ceased to amaze me; and Alison’s solid beat boxing skills guided the rest of the crew with well-timed beat and gave a formidable taste of modern touch definitely made the song the world’s best.

OTHER FUN STUFF

TAF also has two or three parties each year. Those parties took place in the Union Room, or the cafeteria of Manchester College. With Jason Hsu, my stepbrother-in-law as DJ, Mark Chen and I raved our hearts out while having a blast with other bboys at TAF. It felt great to rave next to Mark Chen because it reminded me of all the good times we had when he was still part of Midnight Rave. He still is and always will be, even though he won’t be physically performing with us in the Hinsdale Central Variety Show.

So there are several other traditions of TAF that I have not mentioned until now. I will start with the last day of TAF. Apparently if anyone dares to sleep on the night before departure, be prepared for a ton of scrubbing on your face the moment u wake up. Because people will doodle on you if you sleep! On the very last night of TAF, my small group moved our own bad mattresses into a small staff resident room. Although not the entire group was there because Alison had to leave that night for softball tryouts, we had a great time discussing about TCs and other stuff and were definitely stuffed with pizzas and other junk food.

Oh right, I haven’t explained what TCs are. TC stands for TAF crush. It’s another one of those traditions of TAF. Basically you are expected to have a crush on someone at TAF. Yes, even if you don’t have one, you WILL have one by last night of TAF. Interestingly enough, I turn out to be my TC’s TC. As for who, I won’t tell. If you really wanna know, make me.

FINAL THOUGHTS

At long last, this blog has come to an end. I really don’t have a final thoughts or wrap-ups for this blog simply because I don’t want this memory to have a period mark at the end of it. To me, this TAF experience is very valuable and will always be treasured deep in my memory bank. And I want it to continue to flow back to me until TAF 2009. From now on, I will always be labeled as TAFer, and I am damn proud of it.

I am a blogger now!

I have been thinking about making an online blog for a long time, but never really had the time to do it until now. There are simply too much going on in my life that I think I should put into words in attempt to soothe my emotions. Whether it's school, college applications, girls, and whatnot, it all brings about tremendous amount of stress to my senior year in high school. Honestly, I find it awkward and embarrassed to talk about some of the matters mentioned. However, I see it as a way for me to dump the internal pressure through an external mean. Thus, I finally decided to make a blog.

There is so much to say, yet so little time to do it... >.<

I will mainly write my blog entries on weekends due to the impossible daily schedule of weekdays. However, I doubt my chance to write another journal entry until after October 4th, which is when I will be taking my last two standarized tests: SAT II for biology and chemistry. God...I really don't have a good feeling about this....mainly because I honestly think I did way worse on the ACT which I took last weekend....gahhhhh I hate this time of my life....

Anyhow, I just finished writing my epic paper for my AP World Literature class. The paper was assigned today and due tommorrow...ya..kinda ridiculous. Nonetheless, I finally managed to finish it and here I am blogging...lololololol. For starters, I will start transferring some notes I wrote on my facebook to here as a blog entry.

Hope you guys will enjoy my blog! Thank you for taking your time to read my blog!

^_^

~Joe Peng