Cav's Place

As every year, all I’m going to do now, all I can do now, is just point out that, back in 2005, she was leaving right about now. Managed to struggle along so far, but there’s little else I could say at this point and even less that I’d care to. Had to drop the daily quota for my story this month because I couldn’t make it anymore, post ideas get dropped more and more, tried to start reading Tongues of Serpents last week but gave up after 40 pages, this month’s magazines are still largely untouched despite the month being almost over, debates that’d greatly energize me back in the day now merely make me hope that the other side will quickly decide not to continue them because I’m too drained to do much other than express an initial opinion myself…
There’s no turning back from this path, there never has been, and its destination is just as obvious now as it was seven years ago. I just hoped all along that some miracle will happen along the way… Or that at least it won’t take nearly as long to get to that unavoidable destination if it doesn’t, because actually ending up getting there became a terribly disappointing prospect after the first two years, so imagine how it looks now, after five more.

Of course, things have happened since last year, most of them right around that time, but while it at first appeared to be the first improvement, or at least the first decent chance of improvement, in more than three and a half years, it quickly became the first time in said three and a half years that things have gotten worse, which also means that they’re the worst they’ve ever been since she left. But, as always, that changes nothing when it comes to what I feel, hope or fear.
It does make my fears even worse, however. I mean, I can’t readily see much of anything anymore, I’m too afraid of what I may find to sustain the effort required to look some things up more or less fairly, and at the same time I’m still determined to not resort to, shall we say, dirtier methods or even accept the help offered by the one or two friends who I’m sure mean very well but are at times willing or even determined to “help” even with things that I keep stressing I don’t want done. As such, I basically don’t know anything anymore and I tend to assume the worst whenever this is the case when it comes to anything I’m interested in and which may take a sharp turn for the worse, so you can imagine that it’s even worse when it comes to her.

But there’s no point in saying anything else now. Or at least nothing other than what I’ve been saying all along: I love you and I always will, and unless that one completely unacceptable thing that’s also my worst fear will happen, I’ll always be here for you, no matter what… Maybe someday that’ll count for something… And maybe that day won’t come far too late.

Yesterday was the Global Frackdown day of action, so a protest was organized here as well and I decided to take part. After all, it certainly didn’t sound like there would be any problems, as the whole thing was organized by the Green Institute, which is sort of the NGO branch of the Green Party, and it also had the approvals that may be required for such events. In addition, seeing as the Green Party itself promoted it rather heavily, I was expecting them to also bring some people there to add to the numbers, so there won’t just be the 20 or so people who generally gather at such protests.
The approval was valid between 11 AM and 1 PM, so I made sure I woke up at 9 AM, ate something, checked once more to make sure that I knew how to get there on foot and was out the door at 10 AM, wearing just a t-shirt when pretty much everyone else I saw at the time had jackets on. The sky was admittedly completely overcast and it was quite chilly, but the forecast was for a maximum of 23°C and mostly clear skies later, so I thought I might as well stick to what I had in my room, expecially since I wasn’t quite sure that I’ll get there in one hour at a normal pace and therefore planned to go as fast as I possibly could.
The problem with that was that I rather felt the chill on the way and I already had a slight cold, so I woke up at 8:45 AM today with a very stuffy nose and eventually had to get up because otherwise I couldn’t seem to stop sneezing, but that got better after I made and drank a cup of lime (or linden) tea. Still feeling slightly feverish, so those who had jackets on, which were all but a few even at the protest, probably made the better choice, but the clouds did clear completely right when the protest was starting and it was perfectly sunny and quite warm after that.
Unfortunately, that sun apparently turned out to be a problem as well, because I seem to have managed to get a rather serious sunburn. Yes, I somehow got the right side of my face, my nose, the back and right side of my neck and an area around my right elbow quite badly sunburned on a late September day with a temperature in the low 20s. It didn’t even cross my mind that it’d happen, but after I got back at 2 PM I started to feel it and when I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror I was left staring in surprise for a moment. Perhaps the fence that had been erected around the protest area and some of the banners had something to do with it by reflecting the sunlight, and in fact a cameraman who was there kept asking people to move certain banners away while he filmed because they reflected too much light into the camera, but it’s quite weird either way you look at it…

About the protest itself, it had some 50 participants and was a generally sedate affair, with the exception of the times when Alex, as in the leader of the “hardcore” protesters from the University Square, took up the loudspeaker, the second time in particular, seeing as by then he was quite angry because people were largely just sitting around and perhaps gathering in small groups and taking to each other instead chanting or visibly protesting in any other way. It would need to be said, however, that those most guilty of simply sitting around and talking to each other were the members of the Green Party. There were a few notable exceptions, including a couple of people from the Green Institute, also Green Party members, who have been very active throughout this year’s protests, and even the party’s president, who made a short speech “as a simple citizen” at one point despite some grumbles from the “activist” side and also tried to take part in what little chanting there was, but nearly all the others simply gathered in one place and chatted away, apparently very unhappy with the recent merger, until Alex’s second speech made them come closer and stay silent.
As such, it could have been much better, but at the same time it could have been much worse, so I’m certainly not going to complain. If you exclude the Green Party members and a few others who came as representatives of other NGOs or action groups, there were perhaps some 25 or so people who came on their own, as simple activists, and most of them were regulars to this sort of events. And when you organize a protest in a city of two million and only have this many people who even bother to show up, I don’t think it’s a good move to demand that they get even more involved when they don’t appear comfortable with that idea, or at least certainly not with the sort of anger and ferocity that Alex musters when he notices that he’s more or less the only one making more of an effort. I mean, it’s probably in good part thanks to him that this core group stayed together, but it’s probably also because of him that many potentially occasional participants decided to stop attending any such events long ago.
As for the politicians, as far as I could tell they made up about a third of those who attended. Now the regular activists wouldn’t have taken well to them even if they’d have actually participated instead of staying well out of it as most of them did, and in fact most speakers did make sure to trash all politicians indiscriminately, but personally I only hold such a grudge against those from the three major parties and their long-term allies, so I can actually see it as a good thing that members of a party that should support such a protest at least bothered to show up and think that the activists should try to work with them to find solutions to the problems at hand. Obviously purely on a case-by-case basis, not implying any long-term agreement whatsoever, but if we can be allies on a certain number of issues, why shouldn’t we be?

Anyway, the race is about to start, so I’ll leave it at that. It was only supposed to be a personal post, after all, so that rant I started above would perhaps better be saved for another time. Should make note of the fact that the id number of this post is 1000, though. It’s far from the 1000th post, actually being only the 693rd, but the id numbers will have four digits from now on, so it’s something to note either way.

In a very surprising and perhaps downright shocking turn of events, three of the parties known to have a green or ecologist doctrine in Romania have organized a press conference yesterday to announce their merger, with the Romanian Ecologist Party (PER) also mentioning in passing that they had merged with the Romanian Ecologist Union (UER), which was the fourth and smallest party with such a doctrine, last week. This was preceded by a brief notice about the merger of the Greens’ Movement (MV) and the Green Party (PV), but not even that notice mentioned anything about PER and nothing was ever made public about any negotiations taking place. Before the announcement regarding press conference, which was only made a couple of hours before the scheduled time, none of the parties had offered any information whatsoever about any of this other than the simple statement regarding the merger between MV and PV, which also lacked any sort of details.
Considering this complete lack of transparency and some of the reactions I’ve seen, I’m led to believe that even many of the members of the three parties were kept in the dark about it and some may still not know any more than I do. Still, after going through all the news posted or linked to by the parties involved and also watching a full recording of the press conference, I assume I’ve gathered as much information as they’re willing to allow people to gather at the moment and I’m going to base my comments and conclusions on it.

Seeing as the merger talks between PV and PER had clearly failed and both of these parties were openly hostile towards MV, whose leaders had also repeatedly stated that they want nothing to do with either of them, it’s actually rather amusing to see how quickly these differences were set aside after MV appeared to have secured a rather lucrative arrangement with the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which appeared to more or less guarantee a few seats in the Parliament after this year’s elections. Both PER and PV had taken the correct stance of blaming all the major parties for the country’s problems during recent years and trying to present themselves as an alternative, but as soon as the president of PSD stated that there will be a few eligible positions made available for their “green allies” and invited them to negotiations, they couldn’t throw all of that behind them fast enough.
What’s more difficult to understand, however, is what made PV and, more notably, MV practically allow themselves to be absorbed into PER. I mean, it may officially be a merger, but the fact that, according to a statement released by PV, PER will hold seven of the 13 seats in the new party’s ruling council quite clearly shows that they in fact took over the other parties, and that’s made even more obvious by the fact that only PER will appear on the ballot at the next elections, if admittedly fielding candidates from all of these parties. I really can’t understand what happened there and what did they hold over the others in order to obtain this result, which is even more shocking when you see that MV, despite holding on to the goods they all coveted, appears to have drawn the shortest stick, having only two members in said council, even if one of them will be the new party’s president.

Still, I’ve been asking for such a merger for quite some time, so in itself it’s certainly good news. The problem is that it happened in probably the worst way possible, so the end result is clearly negative. If MV’s current leader, Remus Cernea, would have been removed in the process and the new party’s stance regarding the major parties would have been the complete rejection advocated in recent years by PV and PER, but otherwise the doctrine would largely follow that of MV, it’d have probably been the best news coming from the Romanian political scene since 1990. As it is, however, Remus Cernea will quite obviously be the new party’s president, MV’s collaboration with PSD will be a clear policy for the new party, but PER, known for being socially conservative and right-wing on the economic scale, so exactly the opposite of how a Green party should be, will most likely determine the doctrine in most other aspects.
What this means is that all options that were so far available to those who desire to put the environment first but also oppose the major parties have been removed and, perhaps unless some independent candidate will run in my area and provide me with a tolerable option, I for one will probably need to take something against nausea before going to vote in December, considering what I’ll be forced to pick. At the same time, I can’t be against this party in the least, because they do appear to put the environment first and that’s certainly my top concern, so it’s a very awkward situation, clearly supporting them ideologically but firmly opposing them politically.

What’s left to do in the next few months is keep a close eye on the developments and continue to support most of their projects that deal with the environment, animal rights and welfare, minority rights, individual rights and freedoms and other such issues even after voting against them, and therefore also against my own interests, in December, while at the same time continuing to oppose their political choices at least as vehemently as I have been opposing those made by MV so far. Afterwards, I can only hope that they’ll manage to avoid the 2008 scenario, when PV and PER ran together in the parliamentary elections and seemed set to merge shortly afterwards but then dropped the whole idea almost without a word and went their separate ways once again, somehow manage to stay together until 2016 and decide at some point between now and then to get back to being the true political alternative they actually should be by opposing all the major parties equally.
If and when that will happen, you can certainly count on me to offer them whatever support I can even on the political side of things, as I have back in 2009 for example. However, the current leaders of these parties have proven once again, through this utterly inexcusable lack of transparency, that they’re not to be trusted in any way, shape or form, so the sooner they’re removed from power, the better. I’d be tempted to say that managing to remove Remus Cernea from power but somehow still keeping him in the party would be the first priority from this point of view, seeing as this complete lack of transparency is becoming the norm for MV and his attitude in many other situations makes it perfectly obvious that he may well have abilities that make him very useful for any such efforts but is highly toxic if allowed to make any decisions, but at the same time I know I’m rather biased here, seeing as I haven’t followed the others to be able to accurately compare and I’m also quite set against him personally ever since he banned me from his Facebook page, so I’ll just say that it’d be a huge improvement if all the current leaders would be replaced and leave it at that.

Yesterday, I happened to glance at Rick Falkvinge‘s site again, looking for an article I had stumbled into at some point, but instead my eyes fell on a recent post titled “Three Reasons Possession of Child Porn Must Be Re-Legalized in the Coming Decade” and I went on to read that, being increasingly surprised that what he was writing was so close to my own views on the issue, only better written and with far more hard facts to support them than I’d have been able to produce. However, people who would normally be bothered by the very mention of the issue, which unfortunately means the vast majority, would probably be better off reading the follow-up post first, because the comments seem to largely agree that it’s even better written and the choice of words doesn’t immediately prompt a knee jerk reaction nearly as much as the original one does.

This post isn’t supposed to be about the issue itself. I have briefly mentioned my views on this a few times in the past, when the topic had to do with censorship or even with catching criminals, seeing as banning the images clearly makes it a whole lot harder to do so, but I probably never actually picked up on the issue itself, and certainly not like this, so such a post should come if I’ll somehow manage to get myself to write something so serious and important again. However, I’m currently in an argument with someone over it, so you can say that I’m gathering some additional material which will probably end up helping.
All I’m trying to do now is add to the growing number of “balls of steel” awards that Rick Falkvinge seems to be getting for writing something like this, especially considering his position as more or less the voice of Pirate Parties everywhere. Both posts are very good reads for anyone who actually takes the time to do so without reacting as soon as the topic is even mentioned and touch on issues that truly need to be discussed, so I highly recommend them to anyone who believes they can actually think logically about the matter for a moment and am happy to say that, after reading all the comments from the follow-up post, there do appear to be a fair number of such people.

Admittedly, the original article does focus quite a lot on Swedish laws, which are extremely strict, but the entire world seems to be heading down that path, so they can apply everywhere, regardless of whether your country already has similar laws in place or, most probably, will soon try to enact them. And all such laws do is make it harder to catch the true criminals, by making it next to impossible to obtain and submit evidence, while at the same time turning perhaps the large majority of teenagers and even a fair number of children into criminals for absolutely no good reason and providing an excuse for increased censorship and control. That’s what it’s all about; it has next to nothing to do with protecting children and the sooner people realize that, the better.

Thankfully, it didn’t take nearly as long for me to start playing this game as I thought it would when I finished the first one. It actually took me longer to write the review after finishing it, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the game itself, seeing as it is, and I’ll say it right away, an absolutely outstanding effort for something created by a single person, including elements which’d put even a fair number of well-known titles to shame.
I should also mention that the two games in the series have nothing in common as far as the story and characters go, so you can certainly play this one without ever knowing anything about the first. I would, however, advise against doing so unless you’re sure you want to skip the other, because so many improvements have been made and so many flaws have been fixed that you’ll most probably find it very frustrating to play the first game after this one. So either only play this one or play them in the right order, without letting any frustration caused by the first prevent you from playing the second, unless of course the cause of that frustration is this entire concept of gameplay.

Once again, I’ll start by pointing out the pretty complex and complicated calculations used to determine skill effects or even character attributes, though now the formula used for all but three active skills, and also for health, has a set form. That form, if you’re curious, is ((XS + YPS) * (82 – S)) / 82 + ZP + N, where S is skill level, P is party level, X, Y and Z are the factors, which vary from skill to skill, by which these values are multiplied, and N is a number, which again varies from skill to skill, added to the result. In case of active offensive skills which use a weapon, the weapon damage, multiplied by a number which again varies from skill to skill, is added at the end of the calculation as well. Passive skills have a much simpler formula, though along the same lines, while the three active skills that do not follow the same pattern as the rest may be expressed as N + XS – ZP. And no, I didn’t get any signs wrong, so this is all very interesting once you realize what it means.
With me so far? Good, because there are also five different damage types and the corresponding defensive values associated with each of them, which values are split into resistances, expressed as a percentage, and armor, expressed as a set value deducted from the portion of the damage that makes it past the resistance. And then you have chi, which acts as a shield against all physical damage until it is depleted, aurora, which does the same for magical damage, and dodge chance.

Thankfully, this time around, health and, if applicable, chi are constantly displayed for enemies as well and all other attributes will be shown to you in a popup whenever you hover your mouse over a character or enemy. And knowing your enemies is crucial, since nearly every creature you’ll face will differ from the others, not only in appearance but also in attributes and tactics, so you’ll need to correctly choose the skills to use in every situation. And the choices aren’t limited to the up to 24 different skills you’ll have available at any one moment, but also include the ability to have the characters wait, individually or as a group, either for the right time to strike or for their energy bar to charge enough for them to enter overdrive, which grants massive bonuses for the next action.
The skill chains have also been improved from the first game, as now you’ll be allowed to create a much greater number of them, the number of actions in each chain may vary greatly and you may also create party chains, which may or may not include all characters, allowing individual chains to be combined with party chains as needed. What’s more, and perhaps most notably, you can now easily select single skills to use at any moment, so you can do without actual chains altogether if you so wish, though selecting a skill in such a way will essentially make the character in question start a chain containing only one skill.

Now I’ll have to apologize for focusing on the skills and battles so much, but you’ll probably be in combat most of the time and that’s actually a good thing in this game. To give a few examples, you’ll face enemies that can’t be hit while they attack and others that can’t be hit unless they’re attacking, enemies that constantly regenerate and others that constantly lose health but heal themselves whenever they strike, or enemies that attack harder the more they’re hit and enemies that stop attacking to greatly increase their defenses and rapidly regenerate when they’re badly injured. And let’s not even mention normal abilities like being able to stun, poison, charge their attacks, heal themselves or others or reduce your defenses, or the fact that they’ll frequently switch positions to ensure that the first one is the one most capable of taking the next hit. And all of that doesn’t even include the boss fights, which are almost always memorable, require unique tactics and in some cases may well take you about an hour to win, possibly even more on higher difficulty settings.
There are still no consumable items, which is still something that I’m quite fond of, seeing as I always avoid using those anyway, so all you can rely on in order to make it past everything the game will throw at you are your characters, their equipment and your brain, with the latter perhaps being the most important. Tactics and timing are absolutely crucial and the fact that you can pause at any moment to analyze the situation and choose the next skills to use means that your choices make all the difference, reflexes and hand-eye coordination not factoring into the outcome.

And to finally move past the combat, I must say that the story is actually quite interesting and it can at times make you think of quite a few important issues. A game created, as I must remind you, by a single person, which pays so much attention to the combat, includes such diverse equipment that you may be hard pressed to find an item that’s a direct upgrade of another, and features an art style that again proves a great attention to detail, might have been somewhat forgiven for a weaker story, but this is certainly not the case here. The characters are also fleshed out rather well and you’ll actually feel that you get to know and care for them as they develop over the course of the game. In addition, while you’ll no longer see the kind of individual starting cutscenes featured in the first game, the dialogues will be somewhat different and a few events may or may not happen depending on which of the nine available characters you select when you start the game.

As for negative aspects, there aren’t many, but I must start with the same lack of information I made note of when I reviewed the first game. Granted that it’s much better this time, but there are still two problems left: One is that there are a total of nine available active skills for priests and musketeers, so any such character you pick will lack the ability to use one of them but you won’t know which one until all others are unlocked, which may compromise any strategy you might have planned after reading the help file. The other is that, while now you do see a detailed description of each item in game, the exact effects of any special attributes it may have aren’t shown. Yes, there’s a separate utility available which will allow you to view the item database in greater detail, but why couldn’t this be included in the game as well, especially when the amount of money that can be obtained is fixed and far from sufficient to allow you to purchase and try everything?

Besides that, any other complaints are truly minor. I may mention the fact that I still don’t like the concept of save points instead of being able to save whenever and wherever you want, but at least this time around there are plenty of them and they no longer cost money to use. Or I may say that I still find it rather unpleasant that you have to pick one out of each group of three characters instead of three out of all nine, but that’s quite clearly required for the story and ends up working out quite well. Or I may also note that the varied enemies, constantly changing conditions and highly tactical battles quite frankly make skill chains useless, and in fact I never used them past the second chapter, but of course problems appear when useful options don’t exist, not when useless ones do, because they may be useful for others. The fact that you can no longer edit the chains during combat certainly doesn’t help, however.

I tend to focus on the negative aspects even when reviewing games I like, but this time there really was very little I disliked. Granted that it’s not some sprawling game, with branching storylines and a gigantic world to freely explore, so it can’t compare to one of those, but it still took me a passable 15 hours to complete on normal difficulty and I will once again stress that, with the exception of the music, which is also excellent, the entire game was created by a single person. One man designed every area, every enemy, every item, came up with those skill calculations, balanced everything just about perfectly, at least on normal difficulty, worked out the AI, created all the graphics, came up with the story, wrote the dialogues and polished each and every piece of this mechanism to a level that’s very, very rarely seen… And then, even if about a year and a half after the original release, he made it available for free so everyone will be able to enjoy it at will.
With the exception of that note I made about the lack of information, everything this game tries to do, it does just about perfectly. And it does that while also making you think, both about itself and about the world we live in. I may refrain from giving it maximum scores because those are generally reserved for those huge games with sprawling worlds, branching storylines and an atmosphere you can truly immerse yourself in, but for something you can get for free off the developer’s site, you’ll be hard pressed to find any better. So go right ahead and give it a try; you won’t regret it.