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Sunday, February 13, 2022

RENDY'S BLOG, I have returned.

And so I shall begin this from zero once more...


I'm pretty sure you readers are wondering why I haven't posted since awhile. If I were to continue to where I was, it'd be another set of KOF ALL STAR posts, especially dealing with a lot of events (which I didn't get to write as time went sadly). Unfortunately, I wasn't at a capacity where I could blog once more and still focused on real life, but most particular my focus was to find the job, something I didn't get until last year where I actually landed one. 2020 was a tough road to traverse especially dealing with the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic which has affected a lot of lives, mine included, and things kinda topped off with the loss of my father who had to succumb to his sickness days before his passing.


However, even despite of that sad story weeks later, I became more determined than ever in searching for jobs, and eventually I hit one; a friend of mine recommended me to a Jakarta-based brand consultation office as a freelance graphic designer and after an interview, the HRD accepted me to be employed as so, ending what I can dub as a year-long and a half drought of job search. To be frank, I had a hard time in traversing the steep learning curves of my job description, but over time I developed more in designing contents despite adversities. Sadly it only lasted until the end of February, but it was a pleasant experience, plus definitely something to expect when working on the creative design field; copywriting, drafting, designing, plus pending revisions before leaving with a final design.


However, things don't stop there as I was called to be a staff in a regency office nearby by my late father's friend. As much as I insisted that the graphic design job was a main one, I took this office offer anyway which meant that in addition of office works I gotta have time for designs, and depending on the copywriting of a particular post, designs can be worked as quick as less than an hour or probably less than a day due to the complexity plus illustrations. Back to the office work though, this has been turns and tides for my first year, and the second year should be as exciting.


As such, what became a continuation of the dark saga has turned into a brave new, positivity-ridden arc, a new chapter in which I've finally obtained some of the privileges I wanted in the past, like an internet subscription for starters. Gone were the days when I had to trust my phone's tethering connection and limited data at home which, granted, was also the same case for my brothers. This also allowed me to buy a cooling fan, RAM upgrades, and a new PC monitor, plus finally fix one of my laptop's broken monitors. While both of these 2012-2013 spec lappies still stand up to this date, I do have plans on buying the new one in order to keep up with more modern specs. Outside of this, I also get to discover a lot more of new games, of which there'll be a topic of its own later on, and get to discover more communities as time went by.


But even with those, there are things I still can't beat even with the new spirit, particularly my Creator's Block. Even with Wi-Fi already in place, I still couldn't able to come up with an interesting topic and perform some research on things within the topic, even can't think about either "will this thing generate a lot of views?" or "will this hold well amidst the era where video essays or vlogs are even more powerful tools than convenient blogging?" This doesn't just affect this blog, it also affects my other blog Fandom Warrior which has been on an infinite hiatus since 2019, and even worse with the  aforementioned circumstances going forward which led me drift away from covering fandom competitions and later TV fandoms, even I don't feel like current TV shows do have this particular fandom energy that would be established years back.


This isn't limited to just blogging and the fandom stuff though, even this also affected all my WIPs. You see, the WIPs you've seen years back still haven't see their light of day in terms of release, and the worst part is that my mind wasn't on the game(s) I actually love due to the life circumstances. I did try my best at a new car last year, got their physics done, graphics partially done with shadings, and that's it. However, I haven't been able to get my hands on further revisions, but someday I'll get those in line. The problem with my cars is that I often go extra on small details, even though it'd be scaled down in-game anyway. It's due to my influence on other cars from another top-down games which made their presence known with their shadings and details, although some are actually taken from 3D models with appropriate lighting.


Despite all of those things, fast forward to this year in which my current life gives me a small advantage to fight the Creator's Block outright. In fact, this is finally where I want to take action; I am not the type of person who wants to have "New Year's Resolutions," especially if you refer to my past blog posts from years back, but I'd like to make an exception for this year because all I want is to fight Creator's Block and become who I was years ago while fusing it with my present self. I just want to get things done and free some of my perpetual WIPs into their rightful state: their release. Additionally, I want to tick off my perpetual to-do list of all sorts, of which some has been done this year, but it's 5% overall, and I expect myself to go ham with it sooner or later.


Hopefully I can keep this blog alive and well once more, like in the past, and that I am able to find some content ideas to make this page fresh. While waiting for my next post, please do not forget to hydrate yourself, it's the most important thing.


~[R]

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Rendy's Battle Report 04: IT'S A NEW RUMBLE! YES IT IS!

The King of all updates is here!
The first time a Developer's Note about a future collaboration in The King of Fighters ALL STAR surfaced, nobody would guess what the next one will be. People have been pointing on Gintama, an anime series whose collaboration in the game was established in the Japanese version, as the next collaboration. However, this is a "special collaboration that no one would have expected" as the game's Chief Producer said, ruling out what could've been an established collaboration coming to Global. The next couple of days, the collaboration teaser gave hints of wrestling, and eventually the deal was made: it is, without a doubt the one and only, the WWE, the World Wrestling Entertainment, bringing six of wrestling's well-known superstars to the game where fighters who "shot fires, lightnings, and all kinds of things" (if you actually paid attention to Kofi Kingston's dialogue) battle.

Along with the three-week collaboration full of moments and challenges comes a new gameplay system as well, with Unified System, New Infinite Repeat Summon, and others, as well as new gameplay mechanics.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Rendy's Battle Report 03: Keeping Up with the Power Creeps

This post contains spoilers for the storyline of The King of Fighters ALL STAR


First of all, Eid Mubarak to all readers of the blog! We went on a different Ramadan in which things worked out differently due to the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown, but after all it's the same 'ol fasting month. Happy Eid Mubarak to everyone except to those people who had the nerve to populate several places despite being advised to stay at home already. I don't care if it's nostalgia or not, you all suck, and you should've deserved some Attitude Adjustment.

In the last post, I purposely skipped one thing that was happening during the False Halloween entirety because this topic needs its own section since the last post was also long, a fruit of my posting absence: The Platinum Battle Card Summon. It is the banner that gave player a chance to obtain any of the six-star Battle Cards at a rate of 2%:, be it a fighter-specific 3PG Special Card, a fighter-specific option card, or even the first six-star set in the Global: Light and Shadow, featuring Noah. However, it's not just the Noah set that's got a spotlight, the False Halloween set is this too; Time for Medical Checkup offers more balanced buffs and damage galore useful for those who have Strike skills, with CP buffs worth more than the existing 5-tier cards, even the Tekken set.

Obviously mobile games are subject to Power Creeps where, every update, there's always either a better unit and/or a better item obtainable in some way, but with the caveat that the player will go extra mile to get any of them, be it in events that would require an amount of upgrades (like in the case of Real Racing 3's events, whether it's Track Day, Special Event, or Limited Time Series) or perhaps a gacha where the drop rate is generally less than one percent, like what we're talking about right now...

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Facing the Outbreak



As we all know, the Coronavirus (Covid-19) disease kept claiming its victims throughout the world and we still do our best to flatten the progressively-climbing curve. So many things have been postponed or even canceled to an extent, all to avoid potential spreading of the virus. However, not all hope is lost as a slew of new events, mostly e-Sports series. To this day, the pandemic still continues until God knows when, hopefully that this can be over soon although it won't be that soon.

As for myself, well, the past couple of months have been, if I can say so myself, just like last year, only with a couple of differences here and there. Last year, I just completed distributing my Bachelor's thesis and prepared myself for the road towards graduation which was at the end of June and searched for jobs in-between. This year, I stay home with my family still and went to zero destination due to the pandemic (except for buying necessities) and a month ago I am finally employed in a social organization after no luck in numerous interviews. Apart from that, I spent my time more on mobile gaming than doing anything on PC.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Rendy's Battle Report 02: The N Word

Disclaimer: No offensive remarks were made at the making of this post.


While I've been absent on writing for the past couple of weeks due to job search (and eventually landed on one, thankfully), I've been getting a lot of great stuffs in The King of Fighters ALL STAR. Initially, this post would detail the Wonderland and Valentine events plus all the roulette fighters and new summon systems, then proceeded with Samurai Shodown collaboration in the next one, since, at the time of this post, we're in the last stretch of the False Halloween event. However, I feel like given the lack of Wonderland and Valentine fighters I have and having no roulette characters won, plus my absence, things will go a little bit lengthy here.

Basically, the first quarter of 2020, despite the current affairs happening right now, was an eventful one for KOF AS. Athena in Wonderland and Valentine events were ran in the Global server, and the second collaboration with Samurai Shodown went pass by with a great success. Aside from them, lots of fighters were offered in different ways: '99 Krizalid, '03 Terry Bogard, NESTS Style Kyo from XIII, '03 Mukai, XIV Nakoruru, and 2001 Igniz were obtainable via their respective gacha while NESTS fighters make their way to the spotlight in their respective roulette events, with Whip, Kula Diamond, Angel, and Leona make their original series debut after making their debut in ALL STAR costumes, and even '98 Mai and 2001 May Lee joined the roulette fun. Past FES fighters are also offered via the new Summon System which I will detail within the next set of paragraphs...