The One About Granado Espada Gamer Girls
So I've gotten to know quite a couple of girls within the Granado Espada community and upon learning from Philippines [CM]Veya that she was planning to set up a Granado Espada Gamer Girl site in the near future, I thought that this might be the right time to bring the female community to the next level - of bringing them into the spotlight, holding various events and promotions specially for them, as well as to perhaps, cater to their needs as a female gamer.
I'm currently working on a proposal to pitch to beauty product companies for a weekly feature in September of the various gamer girls in our community from all walks of life and countries. Hopefully the pitch works out so that our charming featured ladies can each walk away with a little something for their beauty regime.
In any case, I've started up a Granado Espada Gamer Girls group on Facebook here and a Friendster version over here. If you're a Granado Espada Gamer Girl, do join up and share a bit about yourself in the group. I think it'll be pretty darn awesome to share various tips & experiences about our lives - whether it is about our virtual lives in GE or our real life ones.
I'm sorry dudes, but ONLY dolls (read: chicks, females, girls, women) are allowed into this group. I'll be kicking out all other male population on a periodic basis. Nothing personal, it's just... gender. Both guys and dolls can join up the Official Granado Espada Group on Facebook over here.
In the meantime, if you have any ideas on what kinds of contests, events, promotions you hope to see for the Granado Espada Gamer Girl Group, do drop me an email or post it on the Facebook/Friendster message boards. I'll be happy to hear your ideas!
Credits: Above picture created by [CM] Veya
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The One About More Fashionista Boxes!
Fairy Wings. Katana Sword. Horn of Baphomet. Nadachi Sword.
More random boxes scheduled to come out tomorrow! Knight's Cache, Fashionista's Chest, Najib's Weapon Box and Artist's Trove have random drops of the above items, amidst other consumable items. The Katana and Nadachi swords have an awesome winrAR of 30! I guess this pretty much puts it in the same family of Elite 92 weapons. These weapons are veteran exclusive though.
Here's a sneak preview:
Nadachi Sword
Katana Sword - Pretty amazing the snow hasn't melted yet...
Fairy Wing
The perfect combination: La Ventisca + Corona La Ventisca (Hat) + Fairy Wings
Fairy Wing - Back View
Horn of Baphomet - Back Costume
Fashion To Die For: Samurai Costume + Samurai Hat + Horn of Baphomet + Katana Sword
Before I end off, another piece of potential good news. I received an email from a GE gamer requesting an extension of the Vicente costume event since there were some gamers who were affected by barracks slot bug for a while. Which I thought was very good feedback. We've requested IMC to extend the event by 2 weeks, till 14 August 2008, Thursday. If we get the green light, we'll be announcing it to the community shortly.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The One About EA SPORTS FIFA Online 2 Press Conference
I just returned from a trip to Perth on Sunday, and was just in time for our EA SPORTS FIFA Online 2 Press Conference which was held yesterday, on Monday. The game will be available in English and Thai for the Singapore and Thailand markets respectively. Our Singapore press conference was simultaneously held with our partners, True Digital Entertainment (TDE) in Thailand.
In addition to Singapore and Thailand, EA and us (IAHGames) will also be launching EA SPORTS FIFA Online 2 in other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines at a later date. EA SPORTS FIFA Online 2 is slated to be available in the Vietnamese language as well in the near future.
Partners and friends of the media gathered together at Boulevard for the press conference:
Mr Roland Ong (CEO of IAHGames) kicked off the press conference with a welcome speech, followed by Mr Thiravid Thanapadungkiat (Assistant Director of TDE) and Mr Chris Thompson (Vice President and General Manager, Electronic Arts Asia Pacific Pte Ltd):
IAHGames Product Management Team then gave a presentation of the features of the game and screened the unreleased trailer:
The main highlight of the day came in a match between Singapore National Goalkeeper Lionel Lewis and WCG champion gamer Mohamed Phirkan! As the two of them prepared themselves for the showdown match, there were excited murmurings within the crowd, with all kinds of speculations as to who would win. Would real life soccer skills make a virtual difference on the pitch?
Singapore National Goalkeeper Lionel Lewis jokes with WCG champion gamer Mohamed Phirkan before their exhibition match at the EA SPORTS™ FIFA Online 2 press conference in Singapore.
... And it was such an exciting match! The thing I absolutely love about virtual soccer matches is how action packed and fast paced it all is. Never a dull moment of bringing the ball from one end of the pitch to the other end and vice versa. The audience was enthralled. You could feel the tension and excitement in the air with cheers and laughter, especially during epic moments like red cards and when someone scored an own goal!
In the end, real world expertise overthrew virtual champion in a score of 2-1.
Real world expertise meets a virtual champion as Singapore National Goalkeeper Lionel Lewis faces off against WCG champion gamer Mohamed Phirkanin an exhibition match at the EA SPORTS™ FIFA Online 2 press conference in Singapore. Lewis won the match 2-1.
VIPs Roland Ong (right) CEO of IAHGames, Chris Thompson (center) VP & GM of EA Asia Pacific and Thiravid Thanapadungkiat (left) Assistant Director of True Digital Entertainment applaud a shift in the action as EA SPORTS™ FIFA Online 2 is displayed for the crowd.
A Q&A session followed and refreshments came after. Guests and friends of the media also had an opportunity to try out the game at the various test stations available:
All guests were given a token of appreciation, a goodie bag consisting of an IAHGames sports pouch, sports towel, sports water bottle and an EA notebook for their attendance:
Over at Thailand press conference, things were in full swing as well. You can check out the article over here, if you can read Thai that is... If you can't, then just simply let the peektures do the talkin':
More photos found here.
Official press release found here.
Sign up for EA SPORTS FIFA Online 2 Closed Beta Testing here.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The One About Singapore Cosfest 2008
Singapore's Cosfest 2008 was held recently over the first weekend of July. As always, a huge event with thousands of cosplayers all over the island coming together. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the event due to Top Speed's maiden CBT launch that same weekend. Nevertheless, I'll still try to piece together a poem of what happened that weekend based on pictures, courtesy of Singapore Community Manager, [CM]Rohnaga.
IAHGames had a booth onsite...
With a mysterious counterman as dark as night...
Game trailers played on into the night...
The registration queue numbers were just aight...
But then, it grew when people saw the light...
In the midst of Espada's fight...
And even with Naruto's sorry plight...
The time was now for fighter's good fight...
And Scouts were indeed a welcome sight...
With a charming elementalist on their right...
And on the left, a templar knight ...
Their final photo shoot was indeed dynamite!
Phew! That was close. The only rhyming words I had left on my list were 'eat vegemite' and 'go fly a kite'. I certainly don't see a career switch to 'Full Time Poet' in the near future. Or ever...Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The One About V2.6 Downloads & Important Announcements!
Since this is gonna be up on the website later on, I'm just gonna emphasize the most important points:
Remove All Your Items from Market Manager & Cabinet!
Players are advised to remove all their items in the market manager and cabinet prior to the maintenance. Items in the Market Manager and Cabinet will be wiped out when we upgrade to the next version.
V2.6 Manual Patch / Full Client Download Links
You can download the manual patch from these following links.
IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE ONLY EXECUTE THIS MANUAL PATCH ON/AFTER 3 JULY 2008, THURSDAY, OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG INTO THE CURRENT V2.4 VERSION.
Manual Patch Download (To patch from Version 2.4 to Version 2.6) - Size: 219MB
For existing V2.4 Granado Espada gamers, please download the V2.6 The Requiem manual patch to update to your current client:
Full Client Download (Version 2.6) - Size: 4.18GB
IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE ONLY EXECUTE THIS FULL CLIENT ON/AFTER 3 JULY 2008, THURSDAY, OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG INTO THE CURRENT V2.4 VERSION.
For new gamers, please download the full V2.6 client from any of these sites:
Full Client – Segmented into 7 components
AusGamers
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36875
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36876
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36877
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36878
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36879
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36880
http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/36881
Family Reputation Reset
Family reputation plays an important role in V2.6, thus there will be a family reputation reset for the upcoming expansion. All family reputation points accumulated prior to V2.6 will be converted into Nutrition Potions. Every 1,000 family reputation points will be converted into 1 Nutrition potion.
Vicente Rio Event
The Vicente Rio event that I described will be taking place from 3 July 2008-31 July 2008! Start prep-ing yourself for a major power level session! And be prepared to see an army of Vicente clones everywhere in the first week! The costume will be given by IMC on 31 July 2008, Thursday, during maintenance.
Ok. Back to work now. Busy busy. Too many things to do, too little time!
Monday, June 23, 2008
The One About V2.6.3 Vincente Rio
Oh my... I can't believe we are just 2 weeks away from the launch of V2.6 The Requiem! Still so much to do and the premium item mall is still in a pretty messy state... But one step at a time.
Just a heads up - we won't be opening up the V2.6 Chaos Requiem maps immediately on the first day of launch, since we are planning to do a gradual content release over the next 3 months. Likely Chaos Requiem will be released in late July/early August. It's pretty tough at this point in time for the majority to tackle that map since the advised level is Lvl 118~130! It might be a good idea to continue where you last left off in regard to the training of your expert characters...
When V2.6 releases on 3 July 2008, Thursday (almost confirmed but better to be safe than sorry so i am still gonna use the term 'tentative'), we are planning to have a special Vincente Rio event: All gamers who manage to level Vincente Rio to Level 100 within a month will receive a Vincente Rio exclusive costume! Currently awaiting IMC approval for it, but it is should be good to go since they had a similar event in kGE as well.
Vincente Rio is a little closer to my heart since my buddy, Runner (GE Comic Creator), was the voice actor for Vincente. Which made my time at the sound studio particularly entertaining since I was his producer. Before we went down to the sound studio, we discussed a few ideas for the type of voice Vincente would be, especially since he is the very first bard type class in GE. Some sessions went like...
"Hey Hrin! I have this awesome idea! Vincente will form a band with Gracielo in his 2 minutes to midnight costume and they could be like Iron Maiden!"
"What?! Heavy Metal? ...next idea?"
"What's wrong with Iron Maiden?! blah blah blah"
"Ooo... you know what? Let's make him like one of those boy band types! He looks like the boy band type, don't you think?"
"BOYBAND?! NO WAY! Vincente's cooler than that! We can't subject him to a life of boyband-hood!"
And so back and forth we went thinking about the various genre of singers and what voice would be best suited for Vincente. We finally compromised on something that amused us both - a laidback Mexican singer with his guitar.
At the sound studio...
Setting Up
Producer's Console Setup"Domination" he would say.
I burst out laughing,"That sounds Italian! Not Mexican!"
"DomiNAtion" he tries again.
"Oh hi, God father. You sound like the mafia boss now."
"DOmiNation" he makes yet another attempt.
"Are you thinking of Domino's Pizza or something? How comes you keep sounding so Italian!?"
Domination gone wrong...After we got all the voiceover clips we needed, then came the editing of each sound clip in order to fit them into the 1-3 secs time length of the original voiceover:
Editing the soundtracks with the help of sound editorsSpeedy Gonzales, anyone?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The One About IAHGames Carnival
Great news for GTA4 fans! There's gonna be an IAHGames Carnival event taking place at Funan DigitaLife Mall Atrium and the first 2000 who turn up get to redeem a set of not-1-but-8 Limited Edition GTA4 posters.
The dates of the carnival are: 10 June 2008, Tues, 1pm-8pm and 11 June 2008, Wed, 11am-8pm.
Now, besides GTA IV and Top Spin, we will be featuring upcoming games Top Speed and Dragonica at the IAHGames Carnival. Register free on the spot for direct CBT access to both games!
There will also be a sneak preview of upcoming Granado Espada Patch 2.6 content, as well as an hour of free-play at IAH iCafe.
Don't miss out!
Date and Time : 10th June 2008 (1pm to 8pm) /11th June 2008 (11am to 8pm)
Venue : Funan DigitalLife Mall, Level 1, Main Atrium
Available Games : Top Spin 2, GTA IV, Top Speed, Dragonica, etc.
We'll be handing out freebies and prizes throughout the day!
Meanwhile, I've been recommended to use a Digg function for each of my blog entries. But I have no friggin idea how these things work!? Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that what I have just done is absolutely wrong. Will some kind soul out there give this noob a tutorial walkthrough?
P/S In response to a comment made on my last entry... yes! The loading screens in V2.6 will finally be different!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The One About Top Speed Closed Beta Registration
Murphy's Law.
When it rains, it pours.
I must say that the past month has been nothing short of a Nightmare-on-Elm-Street-I-know-what-you-did-last-summer horror flick. Various issues and problems all happening back to back. Nevertheless, we are in the midst of putting out fires and solving them, one at a time. So please bear with us in the meantime.
With all the recent server issues and bugs, IMC has their hands busy resolving them... which means that, unfortunately, there will be a delay in the schedule for V2.6. We are re-looking at the timelines right now and likely to announce a date pretty soon. On the bright side, the beta version of the V2.6 client is scheduled to be installed on our test servers this Friday, 30 May 2008. Once we have done some initial testing and if the client isn't too buggy, only then can we set a date for the launch of V2.6 The Requiem.
Meanwhile, I do have my hands full with preparation for our upcoming casual racing game, Top Speed! The CBT registration has just been open so sign up early over here: http://topspeed.iahgames.com to avoid disappointment! IAHGames gamers will always have priority for all our CBT signups, so no worries there, if you are a current IAHGames passport holder.
For guaranteed access to the CBT for your other non IAHGames passport holder friends, there are some gaming sites that are giving out CBT keys as well:
MMORPG.com
MMOSITE.com
ONRPG.com
MMOGamez.com
Arenammo.com.br
CGE Network (Many thanks to Daniel Aleksovski for being so supportive and helpful!)
I wanted to end this blog post but it just feels weird and wrong due to my 'no peekture no talk' principle in life. Since I haven't posted a single peekture in this blog entry, and no blog entry is complete without a visual, I'm gonna give you guys a sneak peek of the upcoming new website skin design for V2.6! Enjoy!
P/S: We are gonna get a new V2.6 forum skin as well!
Monday, April 28, 2008
The One About More Upcoming Games!
If you haven't already seen the front page of just about every gaming magazine out there, GTA4 (Grand Theft Auto 4) for Xbox 360 and PS3 is set to hit stores tomorrow.
The 20,000 copies of GTA4 which we are distributing for the region has been completely sold out to various retail stores even before its launch date tomorrow!
What I am most looking forward to is getting my hands on the Limited Edition GTA4 set which is absolutely to die for... Check out the limited edition boxset which comes with a duffel bag, safety deposit box, art book, keychain and the soundtrack which has some very impressive tracks:
Fresh from the warehouse:
I managed to get a chance to test out the game and I was simply blown away by how detailed it was and the AI had definitely improved to an even more stunningly realistic feel compared to the previous versions of GTA. Getting flung and crashing through the windscreen of my car upon major impact was definitely something I need to get used to in Liberty City. This game is an absolute MUST TRY. The cinematics are so well directed that you feel like you are part of an epic movie.
Another upcoming game that is likely to be released pretty soon is a casual racing game called Topspeed. But before you write it off, thinking that you ain't interested in cars or racing games ( like I did ), it's more than just some car racing game. Its kawaii factor is undeniable and one of the hugest draw factor (to me at least) are the various items you can collect along the race track that you can use to sabotage other players to slow them down or to boost yourself to drive at top speed.
Other attractive elements include being able to drift around corners (like InitialD!) and put together your own kart with various parts and even customizing it to be as badass as you like it to be or even as cutesy as a cow!
Batmobile, anyone?
Got Milk?More coverage coming your way soon!
In the meantime, if you haven't already heard by now, V2.6 The Requiem is scheduled to be launched on 12 June 2008. Currently, we are still on schedule - having recently handed over all localization material & new voiceovers for Bai Hu and Vincente Rio to IMC who is working on producing the new V2.6 client and patch. Let's all keep our fingers crossed and hope that nothing major crops up last minute!
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