The One About The Birthday Sword

Well... it's my birthday today! Woohoo! 1 year less young! (Argh!)

And soooo... I'm gonna share a little sneak peek of the in-game event coming up tomorrow, otherwise known as Hrin & Lorenza's birthday bash! More like belated birthday though. This event had been previously scheduled for the beginning of the month but due to some refining to the system, it had to be postponed till now.

The birthday bash is an enhancement type of contest where active users (mule/invalid accounts have been filtered out) will be given a birthday sword to enhance. Different level of enhancements will give you different rewards at the end of the event. Tentatively, the event is scheduled to end on 24 September 2009 and the birthday sword will be removed from your inventory.

More details will be out tomorrow on the website, but here's the chart of rewards that the birthday sword wields:

On top of that, to supplement this event, there will also be a 30% discount on imperviums and enhancement boosters during this period!

Item Name Current Price Promotion Price
Enhancement Booster 550 GP 385 GP
+5 Impervium: Normal 9,900 GP 6,930 GP
+6 Impervium: Normal 11,000 GP 7,700 GP
+5 Impervium: Veteran 13,200 GP 9,240 GP
+6 Impervium: Veteran 16,500 GP 11,550 GP
+5 Impervium: Expert 14,300 GP 10,010 GP
+6 Impervium: Expert 17,600 GP 12,320 GP

Birthdays aside, I have something else to announce as well. I will be leaving IAHGames this 11 September 2009 to pursue my Master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) full-time in Glasgow, Scotland. It's gonna be pretty hectic since 11 Sept is my last day in Singapore as well - will be catching the night flight on that same last day of work!

With my departure, Lorenza will be taking over one of my roles - that of Granado Espada Regional Community Manager. The handover process is still in the works and once it's official, there will be a proper announcement etc. So stay tuned for that!

Frankly speaking, I've never been great at goodbyes. Despite being relatively articulate, I truly find myself at a loss of words as to what I will say in my last blog entry on Sept 11. So much to say, yet... some things are best left unsaid. Guess I will think about it over the next 2 weeks and try not to cry me a river when I type that last entry.

Take care, you guys. :)

The One About Thinking Out Of The Box

It's been yet another hectic week since our V2.4.16 client just arrived from IMC.

Amidst the intensive testing and bug fixing sessions we've been having, KingKongJon, DG and I did our traditional 'patchly' thing with the localization team - that of Item Mallization.

Since the 3 of us were always stuck in our various meetings and differing schedules during the day, the only time all 3 of us actually have the time to really sit down together with the localization team to finalize the proper naming conventions of all the new items from the new patch is always at night, after office hours.

So we would do our traditional thing of ordering pizza as we brainstorm the night away for appropriate names for the items in the item mall. Usually, whenever we receive the newly updated list of items in the premium item mall, it is almost always a direct translation from Korean. Sometimes, the direct translation turns out fine - Like Lucifer's Wings were a direct translation. Other times, it turned out not-so-fine due to conflicts with local dialects.

For example the wizard costume below was originally named 'Rosa Canina'.

Which is actually a pretty name and in reality, the species of a rose. But in one of the S.E.A dialects, Hokkien, the Canina term would actually mean something along the lines of doing something really dettol-inducing to yo' mama.

We renamed it to 'The Scarlet Belle' instead, since it looked like a costume from 'Gone with the wind'.

We also wanted to use modern references where possible and so when we spotted this, DG, who was the ultimate Iron Maiden fan, had the perfect name for it - '2 Minutes To Midnight'!


More movie references came our way with The Sound of Music. Lorch's costume which reminded us of that of a yodeler, inspired the name 'The Lonely Goatherd':


As the night droned on, we started to set even higher standards for ourselves.

"Finally! We are down to the last package. This package gives 3 Lucifer Wings at the 14,300 G-Points. What shall we name it?" DG asked.

"Dante's Package?"

"Oh, how about Hellgate: Granado Espada?"

"Hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned package?"

More suggestions bounced off the walls but none of them seemed to really 'click' into place.

"Wait guys, we are thinking too much of Lucifer and hell. Let's backtrack from that and try to think out of the box a bit. Now, let's think of it from a gamer's perspective. If you had 3 Lucifer Wings, what state of mind would you be in?"

Pause. Contemplative Silence.

"Pwnage!" I replied as we all burst out laughing.

And so. Pwnage Package, it is. ;)

The One About Barbie World

Since we are on the topic of summoners, the ever-so-popular Catherine and Viki will be getting some new costumes in V2.4 as well!

Here's lil' Viki's new look:

























And here's Catherine's new wardrobe:
























There's something disturbingly wrong about Catherine's outfits. I mean... c'mon - look at it! It's blasphemy! Catherine is a doll, Frankenstein-ed into life by Dr Torsche! She's supposed to have this gothic, creepy, chucky-from-childplay aura.

But now... She has sold out to the Barbie Doll entourage!

Oh what has this cruel world come to...?

"I'm a barbie girl in a barbie world. Life is plastic... its fantazzztic!"
- Reclusion Family (Aqua's No. 1 Fan)

The One About Lucifer Wings

I've got some pretty exciting news about My Bellem's Box Item Of The Month for November!

Only for November's Item Of The Month will there be a special edition Lucifer Wings which will last all the way up to 20 December 2007, rather than its usual 30 day time period! Yes, that's a less than subtle hint. If all goes well and no major obstacles crop up, we'll be going into V2.4 on 20 December 2007! ;)

Some people have been asking on the forums what will happen to the Lucifer Wings once the time period has expired. From what I have heard from IMC, it will disappear from your inventory.

I've also gotten some emails from Pinoy gamers asking me if My Bellem's Box will be coming to the Philippines. This will very much be dependent on your local distributor, which in this case, is E-games. Alternatively, you can also purchase from the online shop located here.

Here's some pictures of the upcoming Lucifer's Wings:

The One About Enhancement Boosters

Someone emailed me asking me what are the statistics and success ratings for enhancement boosters. This data doesn't come officially from IMC or from IAHGames, but just some tinkering and testing done on my own in the test server.

Enhancement boosters have a maximum cap for the various AR/DR of equipment, meaning to say that the enhancement NPC will only accept up to a maximum number of enhancement boosters for the different base AR/DR of equipment. The table below shows this relationship:

Base AR / DR of equipment	Max amount of Boosters required
1 ~ 8	1
9 ~ 13	2
14 ~ 17	3
18 ~ 20	4
21	9
22	11
23	13
24	15
25	17
26 +	20

Then there is the enhancement level success rate, which I'm sure all of you are much more interested in knowing! Ok, the important point to note is that ONLY when you use the maximum number of boosters allowed for that particular equipment, do your chances of success double. So say, I wanna enhance a +10 weapon, the chances are like... 1.56%. If I use 20 enhancement boosters, which is the maximum allowed, my chances are doubled. If I use less than the maximum number of boosters allowed, my chances increases slightly, but do not double. (Gee, I hope I am making sense here.)

1.56% X 2 = 3.13%

Enhancement Level	Success Rate	When max amount of boosters are used
1	100%	Unable to use boosters
2	100%	Unable to use boosters
3	100%	Unable to use boosters
4	100%	Unable to use boosters
5	50%	100%
6	25%	50%
7	12.50%	25%
8	6.25%	12.50%
9	3.13%	6.25%
10	1.56%	3.13%

Yep, hope this is of use to you folks out there.

Oh wait, before I end, thanks for answering all those previous comments on my behalf, Leonson. I couldn't have said it any better myself. I've said it before and I'll say it again - You're my blog hero! (:

I was feeling a lil' philosophical on my way home earlier and it just occurred to me that buying a virtual item is akin to buying shares on a volatile stocks exchange market. You never know when the index will go up or down. It is a risk we all take and alas, it is something that we have no control over.

I was having a chat with one of the IMC guys, Sam about Emilia The Sage and he was telling me that the reason was Emilia The Sage was immediately taken out off the cash shop RNPC listing in kGE merely a few weeks after she was released was because once she reached veteran and was able to increase her INT, she was undefeatable. 3 Emilia The Sages levitating during colony war, 3 Emilia The Sages taking turns healing and reviving one another, 3 Emilia The Sages Proton Splashing Together. One hit K.O. No one could even get near them. Melee classes were totally useless against them. No saving throws whatsoever for the enemy. kGE gamers were outraged and raised such a huge outcry that she was immediately removed.

Never underestimate the power of a proton splash.

Did you know that a proton splash has around the same damage as Elemental Strife (Lord Of Elements Stance)? Not to mention proton splash has a longer range and shorter cooldown: 7 seconds as compared to Elemental Strife's 60 seconds!

I'm closing the chapter of Emilia The Sage after this entry. After all, we all have to move on. Yes, me and my 5 Emilia The Sages will get by just fine... :)