Sunday, August 2, 2009

FTW


So there I am, minding my own business, playing some Aion (more on that awesomeness in a minute), when my cell rings. I answer it and...wait, wait, wait. For this story to make any sense, we need a little flashback action *Does the Wayne's World wriggly finger motion* Doodle-loo! Doodle-loo! Doodle-loo!

[Two Weeks Ago]
So I'm browsing through Craigslist for jobs, and lo and behold, amongst the innumerable job scams and work-from-home pyramid schemes, I spy a well-written, readable ad. And it's for a company I recognize and love, Half-Price Books. Ad says: Want moneys? Come fill out application and get jobzored. (Ok, ok, so I paraphrased a teensy bit) So I roll up to the Round Rock HPB, completed application in hand and drop it off. The cutie behind the counter smiling coquettishly at me and promising to let the manager know I stopped by. A few days later I get a phone call; the assistant manager at HPB wants to know if I'm available the next day to come by for an interview, "But of course, good sir." I replied. 24-ish hours later, I'm sitting in a comfortable chair in HPB, reading a bit of tasty Halo fiction when I'm called to the office. Sitting down with the managers to have a lovely discussion about Books, Comics, Role-playing games and steampunk. Oh yeah, and we talked about hiring me too *grins*. "We'll call you Monday about the position" they gladly inform me. Well monday comes and goes without a call. A little let down, I shrug and continue my until-now, fruitless searching. Thursday rolls up, all angry and in-your-face; and after an extremely depressing let-down from NCSoft about the job there, I get a call. It's the assistant mangager from HPB, letting me know that he was really pushing for me to get hired, due to my literary experience and tastes (that's right kiddos, people want to hire me because I read cyber- and steampunk), but was overruled by the store manager in favor of another applicant. Thanking him for his honesty, I hang up, returning my now-bloody nose to the perpetual grindstone.

[Meanwhile, back at the Ranch (I mean the present)]
So there I am, minding my own business, playing some Aion (man, I just got the weirdest feeling of deja vu), when my cell rings. I answer it and its the store manager from Half-Price Books. "Is Isaac there?" she asks. "Right here, baby. Wha-chu want?" is my sultry reply. (ok so now I'm just taking gross artistic license with the actual facts) "Well, I was wondering if you might still be interested in the position at HPB, we liked your interview so much, we were very disappointed we didn't have enough positions. I petitioned the district manager, and she authorized us to hire an additional employee, and were wondering if you could come in Tuesday @ 11am to start training?"

Hell.
Fucking.
Yeah.

So, the job hunt is over, the training begins. So does teh leet moneys and all that.

[Next topic]
Aion. Dizzam, what can't I say about this game. Yeah, so I didn't get the Game Master position for Aion, or the Paid Beta Tester position either. I'm not holding a grudge against the game over that though.
Awesomely Appropriate Acts of Alliteration Aside, this is really the most beautiful MMO I've seen. Starting right from character creation, NCSoft continues the exceptionally detailed character generator it debuted in City of Heroes/Villains, taking it to the next level with 22 Facial presets, 6 body presets and 4 voice presets. Once the basics are finalized, players have 38 hairstyles, 17 face shapes, 18 facial decorations and 13 tattoo/scar/piercing choices, not to mention the full RGB color selection for hair color, and faction-appropriate RGB tables for lip and skin colors. (By the way, that's just male characters. Females have their own complete set up) As long as I'm doing my math correctly, that's 1,567,268,352 character design combinations, assuming you only use the hair/lip/skin color presets and don't delve into the RGB tables at all. Holy crap you say? But wait there's more! Now that you've chiseled out the main look of your character, there's an "Advanced" settings tab. 0.0! Face and Body are separated into two categories, with 25 sliders to tweak facial shape and 12 sliders for the body (Females have 13 because they have a booby size slider too). Add all this to the 2 factions, male or female character choice, 4 basic character classes, each with 2 subclasses, and you have an overflowing cornucopia of character creation goodness!

I'm too tired to go into the actual game (besides, I want to get back to playing ^.^) so I'll type another blog tomorrow about the gameplay.

(For the curious, Females have 23 facial presets, 6 body presets, 4 voices, 44 hairstyles, 20 face shapes, 7 facial decorations, 18 tattoo/scars, 25 face sliders, 13 body sliders and the same color choices, for a final possible combination total of 1,149,603,840 choices).

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