Man, time sure flies by, doesn't it ? I neglected to come online this Jan. 29th (which was two Fridays ago) to properly commemorate the day (January 29, 2007 3:21 PM PT) that my unfinished Felghana patch was leaked... How annoying! It's become a tradition for me curiously enough and I almost didn't make time for it. *sniff* Better late than never as I always say!
Well, there she is in action, my preciousss... 3 years and counting, even despite a broken Falcom patch link, and it STILL keeps on patching nearly EVERY DAY for any warez-happy freeloading @sshole (AKA Ys "fan"), the poor thing, but it's got a little attitude problem though, eh? Wonder where it got that from... Heh-heh.
You heard right BTW, ever since it was "released" 3 years ago and continues to make its way around the world, it's installed DAILY (~5-15 installations a day!), a fun fact I'll go into more further down. So even as I'm typing this, right now, some a-hole somewhere just finished his torrent download of Felghana and got done running the patch. I do not exaggerate! Purty awesome, doncha think, it spreading like a virus nonstop ?? I suppose one can consider this a "successful" patch, *THE* most successful patch I produced in fact, that is, if your gauging is purely on the basis of daily, worldwide consumption.
Now, I know a few of you noticed my little message feature but probably weren't aware that I began randomizing different "messages" a few months back. Gotta have at least a little fun with my awesomely spoiled, shitty Ys "fans," ya know ? Incidentally, if you can come up with an "entertaining" (let's say) message, feel free to send it my way - if it's good, I'll add it to the list. It'd have to be 78 characters long so that it fits on one line.
So yeah, it's been 3 years since an unfinished Felghana patch was leaked on GameFAQs in order to "end my greedy donation-ransom scheme" as it were, costing me anywhere from $1000-$1500... Didn't take you lousy fucktards long to go right back to your freeloading once it got loose the way that it did, that's for sure (you know who you are!). Looking back, I'm not sure if it was proper to consider it an ALPHA or BETA now that I think about it (always went with BETA though), but it definitely wasn't a release candidate (RC) - douchebags made that choice for me, sorry to say. Basically, it was almost finished; it needed some script updates, minor improvements for external image loading, and was simply missing some Mural images pertaining to a part of the game in the Abandoned Mine. Nothing major and it was on track to being finished up late February or early March 2007 (a few more weeks, tops), that is, until the leak of course.
Well, I never finished my thoughts here, but suffice to say, I can't believe what a horrible fanbase you turned out to be - 99% freeloading, 99% thanklessness, add in the character attacks, the lies, the extortion threats, etc. this is so utterly outrageous, a word which could never be enough to truly convey the gravity of the situation... Yet, you feel no shame for it, you don't, nothing has changed in all this time. I kind of wish I never got involved in fan translation work; if I had only known your true character beforehand I probably never would've, but oh well, it's too much apart of me now...
Fast forward to about 7 minutes into this video to see. =)
Coincidentally, this is the second time this week I've seen someone get to open and show off an original copy of it in a youtube video. This baby goes back to before I even got the idea of fan-translating PC games... It's ~9 years old or so... Few and far between are those with the privilege and pride of owning it.
Hmm, I'm afraid the Felghana sale is over... The shopping cart button on the Specials page is now red and no longer links to the shop.cgi script, meaning if you were in Japan, you could no longer purchase it. I assume you will also be denied/ignored via email when it comes to international orders so I wouldn't try it... It was supposed to technically be over on the 28th, but I guess they allocated a limited amount of Felghana copies which must've all been purchased...
Aaah, yeah, the name of the red image is ico_soldout-l.gif... SOLD OUT folks, you missed it! Sorry.
*UPDATE* 5-24-09
OH MY GAWWWWD! Falcom is selling Felghana for 10 bucks ?!?! WTF ??
I came online moments ago only to find some sort of close out sale for Felghana! It would appear you have up until the 28th to buy it for a mere 980 YEN which amounts to $10.39 USD!!! Yeah, THAT'S RIGHT, a little over 10 bucks!!! I dunno what's going on, but that's what it says!!! You'd better learn how to use my FWS feature to place an order for this if you'd like to have the real thing! The Item ID you need to use is 866A and the title is 'イース -フェルガナの誓い- 普及版' along with the price 980 Y. You simply change those values on the FWS feature page, fill out all the other info, press the Create button and that would result in the proper email you would need to do this.
If you haven't already been examining my little automated Falcom Weekly Special feature, this is worth a mention right quick since there is an unusual sale going on... I'm afraid I haven't been around too much lately and my attention was placed elsewhere last time I was, otherwise I would've posted it sooner. At any rate, yeah, this is your best chance to buy the game new if you'd like to own the real thing. *hint hint* $34 USD is the cheapest I've ever seen it!
So anyhow, what is this FWS feature at the bottom left of the site? Well, I wanted to use this chance to give you a quick rundown of it as well as to get some feedback for improvements (though I'm sure that'll be yet another futile request). Its purpose is simply to a) help you construct a proper email to place an international order with Falcom in general, and b) keep you instantly updated as to the current weekly (sometimes longer) sale that Falcom offers.
The automated aspect works like this:
1) Every 6 hours the server downloads the official page:
2) Using the cached local copy, the HTML image tag for the Weekly Special is parsed out, saved, and I use that to create the FWS block you see at the bottom left every time this site is viewed. Thus, if you see a new/different image, you know that Falcom just put up a new sale (Totally automated, I usually won't ever have to do anything unless Falcom changes the original page enough to break the parsing PHP code) and by clicking said image, you'll be taken to the page to access the feature in full.
Alright, now if you click the image, you'll be taken to the first link I pasted. This is a form-based and javascript run feature to help you in creating the proper email needed. Using the data from the current special, the main output textbox is defaulted to what you would need to order the current special as you'll see. Should become self-explanatory once you play around with it... It is by no means finished: it needs 1) a tips section, with info like how to use the receipt number so you don't have to keep emailing your CC number per order, etc., 2) a better appearance formatting which perhaps you can help out with, 3) any other relevant information to help get the job done right, etc...
Well, check the feature out, play around with it, and lemme know what you think on how I could possibly improve it. We need as many folks who have successfully placed orders with Falcom using this method to provide feedback.
OK, so I get a drive-by IM today with this link (dwellingofduels.net) and I'm like WTF is this ? What do I see here ?? Actual, productive Ys fans creating, contributing something as opposed to the usual run-of-the-mill bottom-feeding variety that I'm so used to that pretty much only know how to do one thing (besides bitch): pirate download... I must be dreaming I thought... Heh. How refreshing! These fans are actually uploading something, yesss, uploading, and what are they uploading? Something they created: Fanmade music arrangements from various Ys soundtracks!
For background, here's an explanation of this site verbatim from their FAQ since I was very unfamiliar with this sort of activity: "This is Dwelling of Duels - a monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) competition for VG cover artists who play live instruments. It is hosted by VGmix, a site dedicated to fan arrangements of video game music. The purpose of Dwelling of Duels is to provide impetus for artists to make songs by hosting friendly competitions with other artists, and to motivate artists to complete and release songs by having regular deadlines and monthly themes."
Well, the month of March apparently was Ys month and it has yielded wonderful results (in my view) that were a fine, pleasant distraction for the day! As such, I thought I'd host some of my favorite tracks here before that page and its links get moved around. Check out the other tracks, by all means, though.
(While I placed Winged Boy last, I have to note though that I absolutely love the original Ryo arrangement that was used for the Ys III Turbo-CD, and the Felghana version is alright too.)
Falcom made official its plans for Ys 7 last Saturday (March 7th) at an event in Akihabara, Japan. According to 4gamer.net, it's slated for a fall release.
Update: Further information, sadly, reveals that both Ys VII and the Ys I&II Chronicles remake are targeted for the PSP platform... not PC. That rules out my interest... *sniff*
Well, this'll be my new home when it's ready. What's the hold up? My limited time, I had a lot of code patching to do in order to get the forum and CMS software to work together, and the fact that I need web design help to come up with an Ys oriented theme. If you can simply do graphical mockups, think of color schemes, come up with an "Ys Utopia.net" logo, etc. lemme know if you're willing to help.
I'm currently running SMF forums which is enhanced by the latest MKPortal CMS. If you're familiar with SMF themes, that'd be even better. But if not, simply doing a mockup of your idea(s) in Paint/Photoshop and/or basic HTML would be fine. I'd take care of implementation afterwards if I like your design, etc.
Anyhow, don't bother to mention this site's existence to anyone just yet if you are here - It won't be ready for months and I'll handle that when the time comes. When it is ready, the announcement and redirects from the http://nick.serveblog.net and http://nightwolve.web.officelive.com/standby.aspx sites will be activated.
The facts are in: Ys "fans" are teh greatest! (read: Ys "fans" can suck on deez nutz)
** Thursday January 29, 2009
*cracks knuckles*
Greetings my cheap, stingy, thuggish, spoiled-rotten, free-for-me bottom-feeding, something-for-nothing, warez butt-pirating degenerates a.k.a. "fans" (Gosh Mr. NightWolve, that litany just keeps getting longer & longer... must think you're funny or something, huh?)! Well, what do you say we have a little heart-to-heart today, huh?? I know, it'll be rather difficult since I'm not very diplomatic and tend to be bombastic for my own personal amusement at times and yesss, yesss, I AM an arrogant, egotistical, GREEDY son-of-a-bitch, it's ALL true, while on the other hand, ~98% of you are INSANELY generous, humble, polite, friendly, show no signs of arrogance in any way, shape or form, basically are all around wonderful little angels, pure as the wind-driven snow that never butt-pirated a damn thing in your otherwise miserable fucking lives, but what the hell...
The fact is, you're the REAL Falcom fans, the unsung heroes and I see that now, while I'm just a profiteer, an impostor looking to make a quick buck! As a result, I could never truly love Falcom and Ys the way you fine folks do because I've made money an issue (or lack thereof) while most of you would NEVER dream of doing so (and, haha, 98% of you NEVER did, go figure!)... Thus, I've had you pegged all wrong from the get-go! It is my greed, not your appearance of warezy stinginess that is the problem! It is my attitude, not yours that is the problem! For failing to recognize who really is at fault in all of this, namely me, I am truly sorry! I really hope we can bury the hatchet and ALL UNITE, butt-pirate and Falcom owner alike, under the banner of Ys, cause after all, that's what this is all about, isn't it ? Well, isn't it ?? The unifying power of Ysssssssssss! <Howard Head>Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!</Howard Dean>
So right about now you might be wondering what prompted this drive-by rant and why did I deviate back into this subject matter when I was doing just fine dealing with the neo-Marxist Prezident BabyKiller...? Well, do ya know what today is?? Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the Felghana patch leak... Yessssss, that's right! Many of you fucks little darlings remember that day, I'm sure, cause you scored the patch early without having to donate anything for it, right?? January 29, 2007 3:21 PM PT, a day of infamy, when a warez thug decided to create an account named "GF_Alt" on the decidedly uncivilized website union of GayFAQs/GaySpot in order to short-circuit my donate-for-early-access program, pretty much the ONLY technique that ever gets you prickly, freeloading, miserable fucks to open your damn wallets (at least, for those of you outside of the teenage warez crowd that have a wallet)...
The leaker's exact words were, "Enjoy. Here's an alternate link in case he removes that directory. His greedy donation scheme has gone far enough." which show his motivations and in his treachery, he was quite successful as a warez hero since once word spread of the patch's leak, the donation frequency to obtain it from me dropped from 3-4 per day, to 3-4 per week, etc. only to exponentially decline further in the following weeks... I estimate the damages/losses to have been anywhere from $1000-$1500 which certainly isn't easy to forget... It is interesting in some respects how it took only one little degenerate to fuck things up pretty good, a degenerate that to this day continues to remain anonymous/unidentified unfortunately... Oh, I've had theories such as one zmonkey/boilerplate, a raging militant psycho, but I was unable to go forward with a means for 100% identification, thus whoever he is, he continues to remain in my email list of donators, and no doubt he occasionally lurks about to this day, cackling away with a prickly smile on his face at his accomplishment. I figured by now he would've bragged to me directly about it, but he's been completely silent ever since...
So... here we are, 2 years and 10,000+ Felghana patch installations later (yeah, that's right, patch version-checking counts your freeloading asses), the donation frequency/ratio stands at just about 2 donators per every 98 freeloaders, or ~2% (+1%), meaning that ~9,800 out of 10,000+ (98%) of you wonderful little angels chose to do the usual, that is, to freeload! Essentially, 2 years more time has changed very little since you've remained VERY impressive freeloaders! Very "conservative" of you, yesss? You dug in and stuck to your "it's supposed to be 100% free" guns, eh? Well, good job cheap, stingy, degenerate fucks my "fans!" Good job! My hats off to you! Heh, you know, I look at these statistics from over the years and I occasionally just scratch my head wondering, man, how good would somebody have to make a patch for you fucks people to ever consider donating at a respectable rate? What would it take to get that donator ratio up to say 10% at least, I've asked myself? Perhaps my patches must not good enough for you, eh? They come close, but not close enough, yeah? They just don't cross past that line between "I'm not paying shit for this!" versus "Hey, this IS worth paying something for!", right ? Well, apparently so...
Seriously though, you are some really amazing fucks "fans..." On one hand, you can be found at various places whining about how the US never gets enough Ys localizations, but on the other, as is now so evident, you ARE NOT willing to put your money where your mouth is when it gets down to it, are you?? Heh. In my case, you've done nearly everything possible, given me so many reasons to quit, I mean, indirectly with your rampant, carefree freeloading, and others, directly with the demonstration of your so very very intimidating "flame master of disaster" skillz... I do wonder what the sales figures were exactly of Konami's Ys VI PS2 port with warez butt-pirating maniacs "fans" like you on the loose... I can't imagine that did very well (as far as what I heard, it didn't). PLEASE BRING US MORE YS GAMES OFFICIALLY BUT KNOW THAT WE AIN'T PAYIN' SHIT FOR 'EM IF WE CAN HELP IT!!!! HEHEHHEHEHEHE!
It really does amaze me to this day given that you could lift a masterpiece of a game like Felghana off a torrent network or whatever, saving yourself, goodness, anywhere from $60 to $100 bucks and import taxes in some cases, but yet donating $5+ bucks for my translation project efforts was just SO out of the question for your freeloading degenerate minds... REALLY, WHAT is THAT all about? It fascinates me, it does! You couldn't handle mere chump change, the average cost of a beer, really...?? You were asked essentially to trade ONE of your minimum wage working hours ($5 before the increase to $7) for thousands of my programming hours across several years... Hardly unreasonable by any rational, logical standard... BUT NOOOOOOOOOO, CAN'T FUCKING DO THAT!!! That warez free-for-me mind of yours couldn't process the VERY concept... What was it you told me, hmmm? $5 was "greedy," a "scam," right? And was this before or after you pirated the game? Of course, there's nothing "greedy" about butt-pirating, filling your warez coffers, freeloading, stinginess, cheapness, etc. right?? Man, if I didn't have a sense of humor considering your antics I'd have gone crazy long time ago trying to figure you out....
Well, let's elaborate on that attitude further, shall we??? I'm not an expert, but I'd say it goes something like this: "PAY YOU? HAH! NEVER! NEVER, I SAY! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING FREE, DAMMIT!! DO YOU GET ME??? IF I HAVE TO GIVE YOU MONEY, IT WOULD BE IMMORAL! I'M SPECIAL!! I'M SUPPOSED TO GET THE PATCH HANDED TO ME FOR FREE CAUSE THAT'S HOW THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK!! THAT IS THE ONLY MORAL OUTCOME HERE: I GET THE PATCH, YOU GET THE MIDDLE FINGER, AND NEARLY EVERYBODY'S HAPPY (SAY EXCEPT FOR YOU OBVIOUSLY, BUT WHO GIVES A SHIT!)! HAHAHAHAHAHA! SERIOUSLY, GET WITH THE PROGRAM MR. NIGHTWOLVE AND STOP YOUR GODDAMN BITCHING, BIOTCH!!! IT'S GETTING TIRING ALREADY!!! AND WHEN OH WHEN ARE YOU GONNA FINISH SOMETHING ELSE SO I CAN GET MY GREEDY FREELOADING HANDS ON THAT TOO??? WHEN, I SAY? MAYBE I'LL THINK ABOUT DONATING THEN.... YOU NEVER KNOW, RIGHT??? HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YEAH, LET'S GO WITH THAT MR. NIGHTWOLVE... FINISH FELGHANA OR ANOTHER PROJECT LIKE YS ORIGIN AND THEN I'LL THINK ABOUT DONATING!!!! HONEST, I SWEAR! I CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE!!!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAA!"
Does that about your capture your thought process, you miserable, freeloading spoiled fucks? Hmmmmm? How accurate am I? How close am I?
Let's wrap this up and get to what the main purpose of this post was all about... By now, that short-tempered warez mind of yours has no doubt been wondering what's with that newly added download to a Felghana patch...? Is this a trick? What's going on here? What the fuck is he up to this time? Did this @sshole NightWolve finally add the completed Mural images and actually finish the damn thing?? Or, did he stuff a virus in it?? How can the big, bad, evil NightWolve ever be trusted again after what he said he was gonna do? Well, first observe that the link says BETA... Awwwwww, I know how seeing that must've been a huge disappointment for ya... Were you by chance hoping for "change?" Something different, something new after ALL this time? A reward for all your patient waiting (as well as pirating, but I digress)? Heh-heh. I'm afraid that day is NOT today... Sorry, my fabulouso "fans"... I let ya down didn't I ??
Alrighty, well, you know where we're going with this... I had decided it'd be rather amusing to commemorate the 2 year anniversary by giving you MORE of the SAME!! That's right! I've "preserved" the patch 100% FOR YOU, the "fan," (get it, get it? I'm presenting inaction as action) just as it was when GF_Alt decided to get into the patch distribution business and leak it 2 years ago to the day! No need to throw your email address around in posts anymore, lie about owning the game (word of advice: you sorry fucks aren't any good at lying, so just stick to what you ARE good at: pirating), and then expect another fellow warez degenerate to email you the patch in his leisurely.... No no no no no no, that nonsense will no longer be necessary you silly, embarrassing, thieving fucks! As of today, it's official, you can get the VERY SAME patch from the source, right here... And you can trust me cause, yeah, I wouldn't fuck you..... NOT YOU!!!! You've all been so good to me and I have no reason whatsoever to hate/detest you.... Rrrright? You are the overwhelming, near-unanimous majority of my "fans" after all... ;-) No matter what I do when it comes to the fan translation gig, aside from permanently retiring, I'll always be stuck with you, much like you'll always be stuck on stupid. This is the sad, inescapable reality...
Looks like I have a few more days after all which might let the transition go smoother. What I need though AND FAST is to come up with a new domain name! HELP! Gimme suggestions! The .serveblog.net domain was a freely provided ready-to-use type and I didn't put a lot thought into choosing it. I was mostly a blog when I chose it having set up a new site using wordpress, but then I switched to this portal software, so I'm not exactly running just a blog anymore. It stopped being applicable.
Anyhow, what is the site now? What speaks to ME? And so what would your suggestion be?? Should "plight of the fan translator" be incorporated into it somehow? Psycho DeuceBag suggested "www.thecrankyhacker.com" but I wasn't sold on the idea... THINK FAST!
Well, I've managed to get the site working again, but not exactly as before... A different server configuration is no longer allowing me to add-on my free NO-IP domain 'nick.serveblog.net' for use in conjunction with the main domain this web space is configured for (arrowsmash.com) - all the result of sharing space from somebody else and not owning it yourself. The only thing I could do was create a subdomain 'nick.arrowsmash.com' and map it to my home directory, then configure the NO-IP domain to at least redirect to that. That's the best I can do in the meantime to keep the site going till the deadline. Note: you'll have to relogin, but most things should still work.
It appears the server owners went ahead and upgraded to a new server, something my friend didn't mention was going to happen so soon after contacting me (I guess it occured on Jan 30th). I'm not sure when it happened exactly though, but after coming back online today, I noticed the site was down. I thought I had until March 1st to do something, so I got a bit worried files may have been removed. Fortunately, the problems were just DNS related, and I got things going again, somewhat at least. Some data after Jan. 29th was lost, but it looks like it was only 3 posts, one of which I was able to restore.
Anyhow, this is all related to the March 1st deadline. As my previous post requests, if you have any hosting suggestions/ideas, let me know as soon as possible! I'll try to search for hosting options myself, but if I don't find any by March, I'll likely stay offline until further notice. I can't devote that much time to it.
WHY would @XSEEDGames insult me by calling me "Hitler" when I would NEVER call them "Stalinists?" Oh well, I try so hard to be their friend - and maybe someday that will happen! twitter.com/realDona
Just got blocked by @XSEEDGames on Twitter a second ago.. I just wanted to express glee to the jerks for having kept their divisive, poisonous, criminal hands off of the new Ys VIII title & Gurumin, well, they had no choice, NISA poached everything out from under them! Live by the sword, perish by it... It took another ruthless ugly competitor to bring them to justice by taking the Ys series away, that sweet Falcom partnership, which they NEVER deserved!
Psycho Kirsten "omgfloofy" Miller called me a "f@gg0t" on Reddit by proxy with an animated meme! In a recent exchange, she spammed me with this: https://imgur.com/wA Who is Kirsten ? She did work for X.X.XSEED on Ys Celceta and is credited in the Special Thanks section... Don't they get more embarrassing the more you learn ? In the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub where 50 people were executed, does dropping "f@gg0t" still fly in so a nonchalant fashion ? Source Link.
Is XSEED [Lame] "Games" waging a "war on women," specifically "little women" ? Do they pander to animated ped0philia-loving perverts ? Man, these headlines write themselves! Hah! Attaboy Tom, thanks for the lulz at least in the midst of all your criminality!
It's been 11 years since I managed a new PC Engine project, but I have indeed returned to the retro console platform I first started the ole fan translation gig with! Finally took the time to mention it here, >> Emerald Dragon <<.
1) Kinda funny, but Ken Berry, Director of Publishing of XSEED Games, did a Facebook block on me some time back... Heh-heh. Guess I should feel honored! That's in addition to Thomas "WyrdWad" Lipschultz of course after I sent him a PM. 2) OK, REALLY LOLOLOL FUNNY, X.X.XSEED Games is under fire by HuffingtonPuffington for what "may be one of the most despicable video games of all time!!!" HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Lipschultz is on the Comments section defending his two-bit, perv, criminal cheat of a company against the author of the blog article to boot, so is even the X.X.XSEED Cock-Flasher, it's a full-on freakshow! More of my thoughts here! Oh lordy, the delicious irony and glee here, I can't contain expressing it!
Gotta have at least a little fun with my awesomely spoiled, shitty Ys "fans," ya know ? Incidentally, if you can come up with an "entertaining" (let's say) message, feel free to send it my way - if it's good, I'll add it to the list. It'd have to be 78 characters long so that it fits on one line.
?? WHEN, I SAY? MAYBE I'LL THINK ABOUT DONATING THEN.... YOU NEVER KNOW, RIGHT??? HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YEAH, LET'S GO WITH THAT MR. NIGHTWOLVE... FINISH FELGHANA OR ANOTHER PROJECT LIKE YS ORIGIN AND THEN I'LL THINK ABOUT DONATING!!!! HONEST, I SWEAR! I CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE!!!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAA!"
