The One About The Long-Awaited Business Model Announcement

Hi guys,

We arrived at our business model after hearing the views from gamers on the forum over the past few months.

I must say it is a very fair system that advocates to the 3 different schools of thought: a) Item Mall Advocates, b) B2P Advocates, c) P2P Advocates

School Of Thought #1: Item Mall Advocates

First of all, there were several problems in the F2P model which required tweaking. Two gamers, nightbloom and WarForge said it best on the forums:

i) Bots and Farmers

“There is a downside to f2p with item mall, especially in an international game. Bots and gold farmers are the majority of the population and even sporadic mass banning does nothing to stem the tide. There is no real loss for gold farmers or players who bot chars up to max level as the pay items in the item mall can be bought with either credit card fraud or not at all.

F2P DOES mean more people, but it doesn’t mean more players.”

- nightbloom

ii) Freeloaders leeching off supporters game play

iii) Overcrowding of servers by freeloaders

iv) Freeloaders leeching off paying supporters’ customer support

v) Troublemakers who can keep returning since there is no cost involved

“F2P is good to some extent, however if you think about it in a logical point of view it doesn't all fit in. Sure it may be free, and you are free loading... however, think who you are freeloading off? I know in most F2P games, the ratio between supporters to freeloaders are big... there might be a ratio of 3:5 or even less than 1:5. Does it not bother you that a supporter is giving out their money just to support 15-xx freeloading amount of people? - and most of those freeloaders are going to be nuisance makers ( eg: botters, flamers etc)

But hey, what can you do? When everything is free who cares about it, because you won't be the one to supporting the game and when the F2P market runs dry and the F2P supporting the server unexpectedly leaves, guess what's going to happen? There will be a progressive path leading to denial of service.”

- WarForge

These were good points made by the gamers on our forum and are problems that are already being faced in our open beta phase when we conducted a mock trial of the F2P scenario. Ultimately, we would like to have responsible gamers who are truly supportive of the game and are willing to support the game through contributions.

Thus, in order to cater to this group of supporters – we came up with a hybrid system, where you have two options:

1) Free game time whenever you purchase G-points to buy items from the item mall.

Code Types for GVC/Box	G-points Provided with Game Time	(USD)
1 day Unlimited Play GVC	200	USD 0.50
5 days Unlimited Play GVC	650	USD 1.00
10 days Unlimited Play GVC	1600	USD 2.00
30 days Unlimited Play GVC	5000	USD 5.60
90 days Unlimited Play GVC	15000	USD 15.00
180 days Unlimited Play GVC	30000	USD 27.00
1 year Unlimited Play GVC	60000	USD 40.00

Or if you already have tons of game time, you can simply just purchase:

2) More G-points without any game time.

Code Types for GVC/Box	G-points Only (W/O Game time)	(USD)
1 day Unlimited Play GVC	230	USD 0.50
5 days Unlimited Play GVC	750	USD 1.00
10 days Unlimited Play GVC	1800	USD 2.00
30 days Unlimited Play GVC	5800	USD 5.60
90 days Unlimited Play GVC	18000	USD 15.00
180 days Unlimited Play GVC	35000	USD 27.00
1 year Unlimited Play GVC	70000	USD 40.00

We are also planning future schemes whereby if you have purchased an overkill of game time (e.g. 10 years of game time), you can actually covert your game time into G-points.

School Of Thought #2: B2P Advocates

For B2P (Buy To Play) advocates, there will be Granado Espada box sets being released in the near future which are bundled with extensive free game play time and hey, you even get your money’s worth of G-points as well! The following chart is indicative of what is potentially found in the box set:

School Of Thought #3: P2P Advocates

Well, P2P advocates, I’m happy to tell you that this is one of the cheapest P2P games around.

Most other P2P games charge an average of USD15 per month. Granado Espada charges only USD5.60 per month! On top of that, you even get 5000 G-points to go on a shopping spree in the item mall! If you REALLY want your money’s worth, purchase the 1 year plan instead and it will only cost you USD3.40 per month and woot! 60,000 G-points comes along with it as well!

Code Types for GVC/Box	G-points Provided with Game Time	(USD)
1 year Unlimited Play GVC	60000	USD 40.00

IAHGames Thanks The Open Beta Testers: 90 Days Free Gameplay For All

We will be going into our commercial phase on 30^th August 2007, 0000hrs (GMT+8).

In order to show our deep appreciation for the open beta testers who have supported us all this while, we will be rewarding ALL open beta gamers who have at least one Level 20 character with 90 days of free game play. This means to say, anyone who signs up for Granado Espada from the start of POBT till 29^th August 2007, 2359hrs (GMT+8) AND has at least one Level 20 character, will get to enjoy 90 days of free game play after the commercialization date on 30^th August 2007.

P/S: I heard that these 90 days of free game play may be extendable, but this is very much dependent on community enthusiasm and response. ;)

The One About Granado Espada's School Uniforms

I've been exploring the new features and items on V2.1.18 and I must say the school uniforms look especially hawt. I think the main reason of its appeal is that it is the only fashion line that has a standard theme across all the stock classes. They all manage to retain their own fashion sense of individuality pertaining to their own class and yet when they stand together, despite being different classes, they look so alike since the style is the same:


























Individuality in uniformity.

And yes, the pun was intended. ;)

Hi guys!

For Singaporeans out there, Happy National Day!

1. Shopping Mall Catalogue

The last episode of the ‘Days of our speculative lives’ a.k.a the business model announcement will be out tomorrow! One thing’s for sure though. There will be an item merchant within the game itself and she is one hawt babe! Meet my new best friend who I've been spending a lot of time with lately getting to know her (or rather her catalogue) better:

And hey, since it’s national day and all, I have convinced her to let you have a sneak preview of her goods. You can check them out over here.

Discuss this here.

2. September: Ladies Week & School Uniform Week

Well, Granado Espada ladies, not to fret. The item mall may have a limited number of femme wear now but we’ll be having a Ladies Week next month with more female costumes to be made available then! With September comes the end of school holidays for some. School uniform week boasts school uniforms for all the stock classes ��" Fighter, Elementalist, Scout, Musketeer and Wizard! You can look forward to various events and promotions for the month of September!

Discuss this here.

3. Forum Quests

Weekly forum quests are still ongoing:

Forum Quest #2: Selwyn’s Challenge

Inspired by our weekly Granado Espada in-house comics, Malaysia’s Community Manager, Selwyn, challenges you to create your very own comic! His challenge ends on 14^th August 2007. More details can be found here.

Forum Quest #3: Veya’s Challenge

Philippines Community Manager, Veya, wants you to showcase your aspects of love and challenges you to do so through a Granado Espada signature creation with the theme of love. Take part in her challenge over here.

The prize for each of these quests will be the event-exclusive Angel Wings.

4. Reminder: Download V2.1.18 Patch

Do remember to download the 200MB V2.1.18 patch as soon as possible. There are two options of downloads for you over here - the full game client of V2.1.18 or the manual patch of V2.1.18. Just a quick reminder though, it has been password protected because the server side V2.1.18 patch has not yet been installed. Any attempts to install the patch to your current client will result in game client corruption and your current Granado Espada client will be unable to run. We will release the password on 16^th August 2007, after we patch the servers during server maintenance. V2.1.18 of Granado Espada will only be playable after 16^th August 2007, when server maintenance is over. From that time on, V2.0.9 (the current version) will no longer be usable.

Discuss this topic here.

The One About Granado Espada... Trading Card Game?

So. The new mercenary contract V2.1.18 feature update of being able to convert your character into a character card was not all that popular with some members of the community, largely due to botting and RMT issues. When we brought this concern up during our weekly teleconference with Hakkyu Kim and the IMC team, what we learnt from them was that after the implementation of this feature in kGE and jGE, it actually helped in reducing such RMT issues.

Firstly, IMC told us that the RMT traders actually do not use the mercenary card feature in part of their RMT schemes as this makes it easier for the in-game system to track them down.

Secondly, you are now giving gamers other options rather than real life money to get other characters - they can trade their own character cards, they can use in-game vis, they can trade their equipment and various in-game items to get other character cards. With all gamers being able to trade and exchange their characters in-game, supply goes up and when supply goes up, price decreases, which forces RMT traders to lower their prices so much to the extent that it is no longer profitable.

Characters have now become objectified to be seen as an in-game item rather than a character. I mean, if you think about it, ask yourself - why is it that I have no problem trading my in-game items which I have taken a long and tough time to acquire and not my characters?

Which leads me to the next point. The other reason why some people object to this system is the hard work being put into training a character up to Level 100, only to have someone who did not put in as much time and effort getting the same character. The thing is, when Hakkyu Kim first created this game, this 'trading characters' function was what he had in mind from the very start. In light of this, this is why there are so many RNPCs to collect and this is the reason why getting to level 100 takes merely a few weeks in comparison to other games that take many months even, years to max out a character.

Unlike the conventional type of MMORPG, the focus of Granado Espada has never been about the pride of grinding a high level character - but rather the collection and showcasing of many characters. It focuses on quantity and the mastery of how you manage this quantity. This is a different concept that needs getting used to, and a certain sense of open-mindedness is required to move away from the mindset of traditional MMORPGs and appreciate such a system of objectifying the character.

Not sure if any of you have ever play TCGs, but this reminds me of a Trading Card Game (TCG) - the building of different types of decks, which in the context of GE, your MCC team of 3 actually constitutes of your 'deck' where you pit your 'deck' against monsters or against other players.

Or you can look at it like Pokemon. You defeat the Pokemon (RNPCs) you meet along the way, you capture them in a Pokeball (RNPCs join your family), you challenge other Pokemon trainers (PvP), you fight against Team Rocket (PvE) and you trade Pokemon (converting your characters into cards) with fellow Pokemon trainers (fellow GE players).

And the tagline never changes.

Gotta collect 'em all! ;)

[Sidenote: I was looking through an old diary of mine and found this entry. Thought I would share it with you guys to further encourage the community service efforts. (: ]

The One About Their World Through The Lens

A picture paints a thousand words.

I've always believed in the power of a camera. What super powers does a camera have? It grants an insight into someone's mind. When I want to know more about a person, I casually give them my camera and ask them to take as many photos as they like. The way a person takes a photograph says a lot about a person. It takes you deeper into their minds, their subconcious even. The subjects they choose to photograph, the angle, the moments they choose to press that trigger. All these are decisions. And in every decision we make, even the most minor and seemingly insignificant ones, like that of taking a photograph - it reflects a part of our personality.

A close friend of mine was dating this guy recently and so I was absolutely dying with curiosity to meet this guy since I had never seen her glowing and so alive ever since she started dating him. But he was a rather quiet guy so it was not easy to get a good feel about what he was really like, despite my bubbly attempts to dig information about him. Oh well. I guess not everyone is like me who will tell their life stories to people they have met for the first time...

So when the night droned on and I still couldn't get a feel of what he was like, I decided that time was running out and it was time for drastic measures. So I innocently gave him my camera and asked him to take some photos. And when he gave me back my camera and I scrolled to the first photo he took (first photo is most important since it reflects the most importance. Or so I say.), I immediately shuddered with goosebumps.

The photo he took was of the woman he was crazy about. The angle and moment he chose to take the picture was when she was not aware of it. To me, that photo reflected his quiet affections for her, his quiet observation of her as she laughed and talked with the people around her. It reminded me of the strong, silent type of romance novel hero who watched over his woman from afar.







* * *
One of those days when I was on leave and playing teacher at Katong Special School.

And I look at this kids and wonder to myself, What is the world like inside their minds?

Yet, regretfully, I do not have that enlightened state of mind to understand them or communicate with them on such an artistic level as theirs. Which leaves me with only one option. To attempt, in my own way, to see through their eyes... via the lens of my camera. So during recess time, I give some of them my camera and teach them how to take photos. And I am proud to present their world, through their eyes:







These 2 photos are my all-time favourites. There is something just so artistic and fetching about them:





I felt a little emotional after scrolling through those photos. Suddenly, it made me feel ashamed and immature. To even think that I could decipher their psychology by looking through their eyes in those brief moments. What I saw was beauty without aesthetics. Beauty in its most innocent, naive and pure form. Aesthetics is but a man-made concept, the 1/3 'rules' and conventions we abide by that a picture may look complete. We make use of certain guidelines and principles to get that perfect shot. Yet in those aesthetically 'beautiful' photos we take, lacks a certain sense of genuinity and sincerity.

I switched off my camera and smiled to myself. Perhaps there are some things in this world that are not meant to be analyzed and concluded. Because that would be trivializing it down to a simple scientific experiment. There are some things in this world that are meant to be admired from afar, respecting its distance, just as it is, without any agenda.

And this is one of them.

Hrin’s Updates: Last Episode Of ‘Days Of Our Speculating Lives’ Approaches!

Hi guys,

1. Start Your Download Now!

Woot! The V2.1.18 patch is available for download now! There are two options of downloads for you over here - the full game client of V2.1.18 or the manual patch of V2.1.18. Just a quick reminder though, it has been password protected because the server side V2.1.18 patch has not yet been installed. Any attempts to install the patch to your current client will result in game client corruption and your current Granado Espada client will be unable to run. We will release the password on 16^th August 2007, after we patch the servers during server maintenance.

Discuss this topic here.

2. Latency Issue Updates

We have conducted in-depth investigations into recent feedback of latency issues faced by GE gamers. By escalating the feedback to telecommunication companies and our appointed data centre, we were able to isolate a couple of issues related to the matter. While it will take more time to resolve all issues immediately, we have managed to work together with related companies in solving peering problems and routing inefficiencies.

We are very appreciative of the communities’ assistance in sending in trace route results to assist us in the investigation. We have provided an FAQ related to connectivity issue here.

It is our critical mission to provide a seamless gaming experience and we thank you for your patience over the past weeks.

Discuss this topic here.

3. Business Model Announcement Date: 10^th August 2007, Friday

I must say it has been an interesting experience. Reading the 1190 replies in the “sgGE P2P/B2P/F2P/ETC All Encompassing Thread” which has been viewed 49,607 times in the forum, that is. So, the wildly speculated business model will be released on 10^th August 2007, Friday. The suspense will finally be over, so stay tuned for the last episode of this long-running soap opera of ‘Days Of Our Speculating Lives’. Will we reach 50,000 views before the last episode of this hit series?

Discuss this topic here for the last 10 days!

4. Weekly In-Game Events In August: National Heroes Month

Many of the countries in our region are celebrating their National Day for the month of August. In light of this, we will be hosting weekly in-game events for the entire month of August! The very first National Heroes Month event will kick off on Singapore’s National Day, 9^th August, 2007, Thursday. More details will be out over the next few days. Server maintenance for that week will be changed to 8^th August 2007, Wednesday, instead of the routine weekly Thursday, originally scheduled on 9^th August 2007.

Discuss this topic here.

5. X-Trap Conflict With AVG

Our game protection software, X-trap, encountered a conflict with the free anti-virus software, AVG Anti-virus. The X-trap patching executable was wrongly identified as a Trojan.

Having provided this feedback to the X-Trap developer, they have provided a patch and have also updated the X-trap to the latest version available.

We have tested and the said issue has been resolved. We are continuing to monitor the feedbacks and let us know if you still encounter issues related to X-Trap.

Discuss this topic here.

6. {LFFCC}: Looking For Forum Community Crew

We’re on the lookout for a community crew for our Granado Espada forums. Community crew is made up of members of the community who would like to help up with activities on the forum. This can be things like helping out newbies on the forum, organizing little forum events, starting interesting threads or replying others' questions etc.

Hence, we need helpful, friendly players and who are active on the forum. Humor is of course a plus point! If you possess all these things, you are the one we are looking for!

Discuss this topic here.

The One About The East Coast Park BBQ

So. The BBQ at East Coast Park last Saturday was a blast! With about 40 plus people attending, all of us had such great fun making new friends, joking, laughing and just getting to know one another. It was nice seeing the different people from different servers coming together as one.

A reminder that despite all of us living in different worlds (servers), when we meet up in real life together, we are all united by the one thing we so love - Granado Espada. There were no 'clicks' or grouping of any sort. Everyone interacted with one another on an equal level, despite any sort of level differences.

A reminder that despite being in rival factions, all online disputes were null and void. These seem to be small and insignificant when real life comes into play. It was an endearing sight seeing members of rival factions joking and laughing together like old friends despite meeting each other for the first time.

It truly surprised me the amount of diversity there was that existed within our Granado Espada community. Our youngest comrade was 14 years old while our most senior was 36. No matter what hobbies, interests or personality type, there was such a good mix of diversity that you could always find someone you could you hit it off with there!

Having said that... No peekture, no talk!

Here are the floodgate of peektures from the event. First there was the setting up of the BBQ pit and the early birds that came to socialize...





The cooked food was hungrily gobbled up first since the BBQ pit was taking some time to heat up. Meanwhile, I was pretty glad to say that no one was poisoned by my curry chicken and mashed potatoes ;)

As the evening progressed on, more and more people arrived and the BBQ was in full steam.







One of our dear Cervantes players brought his laptop to the BBQ... to play GE of course...



We took some mass photos together:







And then broke into server-photo shoots. Here are the folks from Cervantes:



And here are the Caravaggians...



Pachelbel had the highest turnout. PWNage!



The Carraccians were too busy eating to gather together for a photoshoot. Not to mention it started raining halfway through the BBQ. With tons of food still left and the night still being young at 9.30pm, I invited the whole gang of 40 plus people over to my house nearby. It felt like a scene from Fast and Furious (the more unglam version that is) as everyone started scrambling to pack up. So we managed to squeeze everyone into bicycles, motorbikes, cars, taxis and the most hilarious sight of all - a pick up truck!



The eating session continued on at my house. Most people left just before midnight but a couple of them stayed overnight. Some played mahjong, others played cards, some watched T.V:

One read the latest Harry Potter installment which just arrived on my doorstep that morning at 8am:



Naturally there were those who were unable to resist the lure of GE:

And some who played my collection of board games. The one they are playing is one of my all-time faves, 'Betrayal of House on The Hill'



Another played with my bunny rabbit:



The fun and games continued all night till the next morning at 10am, at which I introduced them to my weekly Sunday routine - Macdonald Breakfast delivery!

More talking, laughing, joking till they left after breakfast at 1pm. The rest of my Sunday was spent on a flurry of household chores - vacuuming, mopping, trashing, cleaning up after my beloved GE community. Gee no wonder my favourite wizard costume is the Maid Costume! ;)

Hrin’s Updates: Weekly Colony Wars and V2.1.18 Patch Release Date!

Hi guys,

1) Weekly Colony Wars: Sunday Nights

There will be a weekly colony war held every Sunday, 2000hrs-2200hrs (GMT+8) starting from 29^th July 2007, Sunday onwards.

The colony maps will NOT be reset until the start of our commercial phase. On the first day of commercial launch, the world map will be wiped clean of all faction names and colonies will be reset to free for all. This is in consideration for some factions who are still affected by the ‘Declaration of war’ bug.

For the factions who are still affected by the Declaration of war bug, please report it here. This is the final call to all the factions who are still affected by the Faction leaders, please note that in the Declaration Of War Document, you will need to type in the name of the Faction you wish to declare war on and not the family name of the faction leader.

Discuss this here.

2) Latency Issue

Our technical team has been investigating the recent spate of latency issues and they suspect that the problem lies with the routing path of data packets since our bandwidth usage reports do not reflect any abnormal behavior.

In the meantime, our technical team has written a batch file to monitor this routing of data packets. For those still experiencing bad latency, please follow the instructions found here to submit your traceroute findings to them such that they may investigate where the problem could potentially be and execute the necessary follow-up action.

Discuss this here.

3) V2.1.18 Patch Release Date: 16^th August 2007

The patch for V2.1.18 is approximately 200MB and will be available soon for download. However, it has been password protected for the time being because the server side V2.1.18 patch has not yet been installed. Please do not attempt to crack the password and install the patch to your current client as this would result in game client corruption and will result in your current Granado Espada client being unable to run. The password will be released on 16^th August 2007 for users to install the patch.

P/S: This is not the date that we are going into commercial phase, so please remain calm. :)

Discuss this here.

4) Forum Quest #1: RohNaga’s Challenge

From Granado Espada’s in-game quests to RAID party real life quests and now… to Forum Quests! We will be having a series of weekly quests on the forum. Each week will bring forth a new challenge issued by each of the Community Managers and the Gamemasters on a rotational basis.

This week’s Forum Quest #1 is issued by Singapore Community Manager, RohNaga. His challenge comes in the form of Creative Captions which can be found here.

The prize for each of these quests will be the event-exclusive Angel Wings.

Hrin's Updates: Examining The B-Files

Hi guys,

1. Revisiting The Botting Issue: The 3 Stages

Quite a few people have been asking in the forum about how we have been catching bots. After some internal discussion, we decided to reveal a little in regard to the ‘behind the scenes’ operations.

There are three stages which botting is detected. The first stage is an in-built technical system. Although the in-built technical system is highly accurate, we still activate a second stage of investigation – the human factor. This is where the [GM] team does their whole ‘invisible stalker’ thing in-game to verify if the player is indeed botting.

Upon the first two stages of detection, players gets banned. The third stage also known as log checking by the log team is activated at a later time as a means of review. This third stage takes about a week or so to investigate and it is a very tedious process by which the suspect is confirmed to be botting. In the event that players appeal their case through our ticketing system, we escalate their case from the review queue in order to deal with their cases first. We have indeed unbanned a few players who, when upon submitting their appeal via the ticketing system with their evidence why they were not botting, were cleared of all charges. For these few players, when we activated the 3rd stage of investigation, we discovered that they were indeed not botting and have unbanned them ever since. Nevertheless, there are still some players who were reported as botting. They remain on our 'Suspects List' which we are still closely monitoring.

Please note that we ONLY entertain appeal cases via the ticketing system found here. We do realize that bots will keep making a comeback via new accounts within 15 minutes of our banning their accounts and will continue this policing as much as possible.

Discuss this topic here.

2. The Ad-Hoc Colony Wars…

IMC (Granado Espada’s game developer) handles all the server side applications. This includes all the Colony War functions such as switching on and off the activation times as well as the resetting or wiping of colony maps etc.

Unfortunately, due to their hectic schedule lately in the past month having to fix various bugs amongst other new back end developments, they forgot to switch it off. The Colony Wars caught us all by surprise as well! Nonetheless it was a rather amusing experience which resulted in us converting it into a trial ad hoc war to test for any colony war bugs. It reminded me of Sun Tzu’s Art Of War whereby real wars always come with the elements of surprise and unpredictability. At the same time, it tested the ‘operational-readiness’ of everyone in IAHgames as well as every faction in Granado Espada.

Having said that, the real colony wars are usually automated by the system to activate itself once the timings are set. Due to this period of trial wars which requires manual restarts and manual clearing of maps, this is a new process to IMC themselves which needs some kinks to be worked out. So do let's give them some time to work things out amidst this hectic period. :)

Discuss this topic here.

3. Upcoming Events

[Malaysia] Roadshow @ Johor Bahru: SMM will be holding a Leveling competition during this event. Participants will have to level a team of 3 newly created Level 1 characters for 45 minutes. The person with the highest leveled characters at the end of the 45 minutes wins! Read more here.

Discuss this topic here.

4. Commercial Launch Updates

Commercial launch is soon approaching. The commercial date cannot be confirmed at this time since there are still a few dependencies on the back-end which we are working on currently. The much-speculated business model will be officially announced in a few weeks time once we have finalized the last remaining details with our various partners. Personally, I’m really looking forward to announcing it since it is a business model that takes into account the different advocates of the various models and I find that it is a very fair system as well.

On an even more exciting note, we will be releasing Granado Espada’s V2.1.18 which includes new updates to the game! Think mercenaries! Think baron quests! Think Voting and Elections! We will be releasing weekly previews of the upcoming features so stay tuned for that!

Discuss this topic here.

The One Where I'm BIA (Back In Action)!

Yes... I do realize that it has been eons since I last updated my blog. It has been a hectic past month due to the backlog of work that had to be cleared after the Zouk GE RAID party. The preparations for it had taken my time away from a lot of other matters. Nevertheless, the exhaustion was well worth it and I definitely had a great time with the 40-odd GE members of the community who came to help out for the quest stations.

My senior cum mentor cum work partner cum beloved Product Manager was away on reservist for the last 3 weeks as well which meant... Hello Hectic Schedule 3X Boost. The recent spade of unpleasantries and rants being spammed in my blog's cbox hasn't helped much either. So you can imagine returning home late at night after a long, weary day of work and tough battling of behind-the-scene problems and trying hard to squeeze out a blog entry only to see your cbox spammed with even more problems! Which is why I am seriously considering doing away with that double-edged sword cbox. This GE blog which I once considered a haven and something I enjoyed doing in my leisure has now become a dumping ground for others. Which can only lead to activation of my favourite hotkey - ALT F4. ;)

Quite a lot of people have been asking me why I haven't been updating my blog in a while. Yup, hope this helps shed some light on my silence for the past month. :)

The One About Advertising For Diego (At The GE Raid Party)

The logistics after the GE RAID Party was a nightmare! A warehouse full of merchandise, banners, standees, signages, goodie bags etc to sort out. Only after a month were we able to finish the entire logistical nightmare.

For the GE RAID party, the segment that I was in charge of was the quest stations. I really wanted to bring GE's quests into real life and to stay as true as possible to the original quests in-game so [GM] Lorenza (who was very kindly assisting me in this mission) and I brainstormed often during the planning stage, late into the night.

One of the quest stations, Advertising For Diego, meant that you (the participant at the party) had to look for 2 signboards to post up 2 notices.
























The first signboard was our good ol' Cite De Reboldoeux Noticeboard. Participants had to design a faction emblem and post it up on the notice board. FYI, when your faction level reaches Level 52, your faction can design and upload your very own faction emblem in-game!
























Well, I just got the board back from the warehouse the other day and here are the emblems that were posted up during the party. Click on image to enlarge:



The 2nd notice board was the Port Of Coimbra Notice Board which consisted of our GE forum's all-time fave game... The 3 word game!
























None of the stories really made any sense whatsoever but it certainly shed light on which of the GE factions attended the event and even the sequence of when they came! Just read the stories and you will get the drift of what I am saying...

* * *

1. In the land there was a very large guy. There was also another large guy. His name was Exgalado and basically he live on a land call Cite De Reboldeux he was very happy and felt super. He looks like a very handsome. He might have gone crazy and kissed everyone. Such action may be considered crazy. Therefore, this shall be tolerable in whack by monster like he himself. One fine day, he met the large guy and felt like kissing a toad by the name of Lestat who is from Scarlet Rose.

2. Long time ago, there was a faction called Scarlet Rose who always lost to Destiny Faction. We owned them. However, they were always losing to the Templar-Knights Faction, with love peace. But they train harder and one day, they raged Destiny Faction a lot. Finally, they won the colony war with six forts. Come try us! And finally the world plotted against them. The end.

3. Two separated lovers, separated not by love but by laws of the passed down family’s custom but they miss each other. Sobbing in despair. By the Evening without the other beside him, she was devastated. She thought of him everyday and dreams of him when she slept. However, things changed one day they came up with a brilliant plan. They decided elope together to another country.

4. A beautiful girl comes from GE. She is a fighter level 99 who like to wear new clothes. Every day she fight monster in the rion dungeon. But one day she slept in town next to port of Coimbra. Suddenly it started, a tsunami came and she run away from the Phoebitian Chieftain that appeared that day with the ferocious tsunami. So she ran and ran and finally ran to tetra ruins and rested there, suddenly Gracielo appeared and started to attack the girl. She ran and ran and hide. Gracielo decided to chase and chase. Finally they came to visit Singapore.

5. A rainy day of raid party at the Zouk, a pretty girl, in a pretty dressing wearing a elegant boots meets a guy in long black coat meeting at a corner with grenades which almost explode in their face, severely disfiguring the face, leaving them scarred for life. The pretty girl was crying at the centre of the city square when a hero walks up to the pretty girl and says to her ‘don’t cry’, to which she replied ‘who are you my hero?’

6. Panfilo visited nick and said to him in a friendly and polite manner ‘how are your pet chicken? Can we eat?’ And I started to cry because my pockets were empty of Vis. Therefore I decided to find a place to farm for more vis and more items. I had to go to a boss-hunting at tetra golden road and loot everything that Is on the floor and worth of many vis otherwise wait the item to be yourself to keep. Then one day, sell everything away and earned big cash and assets and be retired.

7. How are you? I am fine. What are you? I am pig, Said Dion the sage. I am hunthing boar for a unique item call angel wing. Where can you find the item? Near Cite De Reboldeaux, somewhere at the stone pit. Suddenly I died.

8. In Granado Espada, I am fighting a pretty frog and I won. Then came a very big dragon, I kill it. We claimed the dragon body parts at tetra hills. I think I can summon it. I tried to summon it but was not able to do so. So I tried summon something else but failed again. So I saying it and say what a bad day I had that the end.

9. On board a ship, Adelina say ‘what a nice rifle it is to be owned. Once in a jungle, Adelina had a locket to unlock. So she decide to look for a head to talk to. Suddenly there was a mob that wanted to kill and smash her. The violent mob was killed after with mu dual saber with two hits.

10. One fateful night, claude ask adelina for a good time at the park in Coimbra to have tea while eating bread. After reaching there, they noticed something. It was a large ugly monster. They had drawn out their weapon to fight it. Seeing the size of the monster, they ran away hectic without thinking. When they looked back, they were slashed and got knocked down on the floor, Claude got a injury so Adelina had no choice but to shoot him in the head. Suddenly, the gun exploded in her head but she survived. The end.

11. Royalists and republicans implosively exciting battle drove the crowd to gather arounf to watch what determine the outcome of the battle. Suddenly a fireball was shot at a Coimbra guard. Yakisoba won it but Blizzard ultimately ahead. Ricardo was being trashed badly too. More soldiers were killed and slaughtered but they move onwards to attack. The attack guards killed them all.

12. Adelina and Grace are best friends, they both love to play games. They met on the lush greens. Then they went to have picnic and with each other suddenly Andre comes. He started attacking them because he drunk and angry. Adelina defended his attack and they started to run. However something happened, a tall and dark blood red, monster with a super pig head and a big body fall down.

13. In Tetra Ruins, there was a evil prohibitain warriors. Who has a very big hand and scaly armor. He Kill people, Chop people, whack people and steal item. He also was ugly, fat and is a hot sexy LvL 20.

14. Once upon a time there was a butt-ugly fighter, he went to the city of Reboldoeux to buy a sword from clued and buy a glass of milk. After which he went to enchant his armor at a person beside who his friend. The friend was his father’s nephew, His nephew was ugly also and his son is a carpenter and his mother is a cook. End of story.

15. Ramiro was bored~ so he went to the playground to play sand, he use the sand to built a big sand castle!. Suddenly a bad wizard came quick and send everyone flying in the direction of bernelli. He proposed to her and she shot his hand. Then idge come repair the head. Claude witnessed everything, si bei buai song, then go baron ran up to idge, wielding silver baron and used already worn on her, But he missed and idge punched him.