Prepping for Pattaya

Recap: I won a trip to Thailand! I joined a contest in Granado Espada, which is an online game.

Hi everyone, I just read Gracex's blog and now I'm making mine ^_^

First of all, thank you to Hrin, Granado Espada IAHGames, Linksys, IMCGames, Hanbitsoft, E-Games CM Aethrin and all the sponsors ^_^

My family is exebolt in Rembrandt (exe from the filename and bolt from firebolt, Harry Potter's broom). Recently, I've been joining Undertaker raids since I became an All Stars recruit. And I've also have been AFK in the Bahama Marshlands frequently. So if you see me there, and you are from the formidable E M I N E N C E faction, please don't kill me lol hehehe I know it's PK so I understand. It's all part of the game.

I'm going on a trip to Pattaya! It's on the 18th! At 10:30 am! I must not forget hehehe

I have prepared a lot of things but I still need to make sure that I am really prepared.

Initially, I bought new clothes, new socks, sandals, boardshorts and a T-shirt. And then I asked my Dad to get my passport from the safe so that I won't ask for it at the last minute.

I printed out the emails. It contains the e-ticket, the printout for the shuttle and the one for Hard Rock. I will make photocopies for my family so that they know what's going to happen. They want to go to Thailand too, but they decided not to hehehe I'll be in Thailand with fellow GE friends.

I bought a new phone. It's a basic one, and I will set it to roaming. Thailand has GSM 900/1800. My phone will work there, I hope. I've also given my phone number (+639073192002) to my whole family because it's a new number. I just lost my phone, so that's kinda sad. I miss my Moto SLVR. Tremendously!

I'm afraid to be lost in a foreign place :-)

What else did I prepare?

I dusted off my luggage. And then I did some walking and chin ups. We might go swimming at the beach in Pattaya. But I'm not really fond of the sun! Maybe if I will go swimming, it's during the morning when the sun isn't so hot.

And I will also bring a set of formal clothes. These are slacks, leather shoes, black socks, a belt, a long-sleeved shirt and a tie. I don't know if we need to wear formal clothes during the AdFest. CM Aethrin advised me to bring them. I'm worried the shirt will be wrinkled.

I will also bring a camera and rechargeable batteries plus the charger. Ooh, must not forget the charger for the phone too.

I'll put them all in the bag. I want to pack light. I'll just bring 5 sets of clothes since the trip is for 5 days.

Plus my pocket money. I'll bring extra just in case there's an emergency. And the terminal fee too. I don't know how much the fee is in Suvarnabhumi airport.

I need to know basic Thai too. I don't know how to say hello or how to greet in Thai.

Computer. Well, I don't have a laptop. That's going to be a problem.

Thinking of what to get for the Granado Espada delegates. Maybe I'll bring food and a little trinket.

Online friend Markdavid gave me tips about Thailand. I think he has been to Thailand. Thanks, Mark. Oh my gosh, you won again!? A new phone! Incredible ^_^ (This guy always wins something, from MTV goodies to a Nintendo DSi to movie theater advance screening tickets to cellphones!)

I want to give shout outs to my in-game friends rachmaninof, xRiskbreakerx, Bonita, All Stars Yogen, ReiZeiTei, MonkeyInc, and everyone in my new faction, All Stars.

To MarcyDarcy, I wanted to text take care going back home to California. I lost my phone, and I lost your number too.

Hi to Jetzen, Josh ^_^ Please watch my video hehehe: link that leads to Granado Espada's webpage featuring me and Gracex

I read this, thanks to Fiksdotter family for the feature.

And this, from Ge-Trianna. Thanks for featuring my Boyfriend Girlfriend machinima.

Patronus and DeSanggria, thanks for the interviews.

Le Conquistador UT raid, thanks.

Fellow constellation weapon winner, MizunoSan, thanks for the ST squad.

All constellation weapons and Elite Le Noir and Adelina's Booty Search winners, congrats.

lol I just made an acceptance speech, I've always wanted to do that ^_^

Something exciting and similar: Granado Espada has another all-expense paid trip promotion. This time, it's a trip to Singapore! Read more.

There's no much news about Granado Espada

There aren't that many new blog entries lately from the bloggers.

There has been an increase of sellers, that's what I've noticed. A lot of people seems to be starting to unload their virtual items.

One GE player even has Aion Youtube favorites.

Aion seems to be getting all the players to think of leaving the games that they are playing. But that's just my speculation.

I wish you can control 3 characters in Aion at the same time, and then make the gameplay frantic and have many monsters that are killable at the same time.

Granado Espada seems to be left for the bots.

The new pet, the panda, is a legal bot.

The panda would help you to get all 7th barracks to be filled with veterans.

I wish Granado Espada would make changes to save their game.

Everything in MM will probably be sold for fesos only.

This Feso buisness is ruining my vis!
I'm stuck with 40k vis for 3 days now and 0 Feso.

Can't buy/sell anything on MM coz everything is for Feso.
And to top it off, I don't even know the feso/vis exchange ratio at all.
My Calyce is so badly equipped!

So how can you prepare for it? Fesos will be released when v2.9 is released. That's next week.

People who can understand Korean or Japanese know what will be upcoming. People who don't know how to read Korean and Japanese are at a disadvantage.

Maybe in the future, I will want to play a game that is at the same release as the original version so that I'm not at a disadvantage.

Game behaviors of players

There were several gaming behaviors that I have noticed from players.

I found that the people who want to be the most powerful, they will bot and buy gpoints, buy vis, and have more than one account and do everything they can to become the most powerful.

Another observation is what I have exhibited myself. I was afraid of buying godly equips, or even most high level market manager items, because what if they are dupes or what if they came from botters, then if I bought them, I would be supporting the botters and dupers who I am against.

I also didn't want to sell my premium items to other players because what if they got their vis via botting or they bought it from granadomart, or they got their vis through duping, then I would be giving them more reason to bot more and to buy more from garandomart and to dupe more.

I didn't want to sell my premium items but I sold them anyway. I had thought, what if these buyers aren't botters or dupers, so maybe it's ok if I sell them my cash shop items.

I also thought, what if I spent my real cash in this game? Same as the reason above, I don't want to spend my money to buy mystery powders and sell it gamers, because I think these players who can afford my mystery powders got their vis through duping, buying from seagamergold or through botting.

I can see myself spending real money to buy combat manuals, but then, the other players are getting higher than me because they are botting, and the management didn't even stop them, so it's really hard for me to support the company.

Well, there is now legal botting. It's the pets and then you AFK. The pets are cute though.

Also, I'd like to go back to buying godly weapons. If I buy their item, then it means I am an accomplice to real money trade because that seller will sell the vis he got from me for real cash.

And I also don't want to buy experts and veterans, because what if that expert or veteran was made through botting? And if I buy the character card, the seller will then again sell his vis for real cash. I am an accomplice to real money trade again if that happens.

There's an argument that through botters, there are many items being sold in Market Manager, thus driving prices down and getting the players progress through the game. I think that's true, because I tried myself to get the rare books of magic and those are so few. So that's one benefits of the bots. Well, if that's the case, I feel like I should have just been bad and just botted. It's so frustrating. The rules says you can't bot. But I might as well bot because the management seems to see botting as actually benefiting the progress of gamers going to expert.

Heck, even the underground prison has fantastic music that GE is known for. I thought prison was supposed to be punishment.

My GE account is Up for grabs

Here it is, free for all:

username is rjkhao
password is G62kiaH

nope.

Carracci is gone. It's now Rembrandt!

Forum changes implemented were all traces of Carraci, Vivaldi, Cervantes, Pachelbel and Carravaggio are gone. There are no more subforums for these old servers.

Only two remain: Bach and Rembrandt.

The main website is down. I wonder what changes we'll see once it's up.

Maybe a Halloween announcement?

I just had another thought. Are the developers of the game against botting? It doesn't seem like it, because they did put the AFK spacebar as a feature of the game.

And then the pets are also like botters.

Thus, the game is for, not against, botting, right?

So maybe GE crazy is related to the makers of the game.

What about the people who are against AFKers? I read a faction before that didn't like their faction members to AFK.

Well, the pets now give them a license to AFK.

Granado Espada Server merge

So I had a chat with my online friend and he said the servers are about to close. It will stay switched off for two days.

In-game, players were saying farewell to Carracci.

I assume other players in their respective servers of Pachelbel, Vivaldi, Cervantes and Carravaggio are also saying their goodbyes.

People in the know have been mentioning that there will be a merger in September. And now, it has actually happened in October. They knew about it, so I guess they had informants from within IAH games.

Over at Sword of the New World, they are planning monthly payments.

Some thoughts about enhancement:
Over time, one server will increasingly get more +6 weapons and armor.
So, to prevent too much powerful weapons, there has to be a method of control. Getting +6 will become harder and harder to get.

Playing the game when it started really has an advantage.

What is Fesos and how do you get it? Plus Jewels.

In the next patch, Fesos would be introduced. It might not be released immediately after announcement of v2.9. It might be released later as part of a trickle of new things in v2.9.

As such, we can only speculate what fesos would be in the Singapore Granado Espada version of the game.

As by my understanding, you can get fesos by exchanging stones. I don't know what these stones are called yet.

There are several ways of getting stones.

Well, here is my first assumption. A way of getting fesos would be through paying 100 reputation points as entrance fee to enter super fights organized by Andre. I'm not sure what this super fight is. Maybe it's player versus player inside. Or maybe it's like a mission lobby. Or it could be both. There was mention, though, that even if your family is low level, you can still participate in super fights.

Inside, you can get stones that in turn can be exchanged for fesos.

I assume that even if you pay 100 reputation points to enter, you are not assured of getting the stones. Maybe whoever the winner is, that's the one who will get the stones.

Another way of getting stones would be inside the Forgotten Territory and the Ancient Territory. This is where you can get stones stones more. As a bit more speculation, there was also mention of a new premium dungeon. It could be a Bahamas dungeon.

And a third way would be to buy G-Points and convert it to fesos.

Aside from that, stones could be given away in events.

So, if you are a free to play player, it would be in your interest to start gaining reputation points so that you can join super fights.

But I think what you would get from the super fights would be a few stones only. Thus, few fesos.

Well, it is still a way of spending reputation points.

Might I also mention that before, you can also get reputation by clicking RNPC's, who were allegedly Panfilo, Diego, the Queen and so on.

And then you can change 1500 reputation points to get mission 4 stones. This was exploited by players. I don't know if the management did this on purpose. It was a way of getting good equipment allegedly.

But now, you can't click RNPC's anymore to get reputation points.

What provides reputation points now are quests and pioneering memorials.

Another way of spending reputation is through the socketing system. The socketing system involves getting ores that you can get from monsters. What these monsters are, are yet to be revealed. I have an inkling that the recently opened rooms in Reboldeaux and Coimbra, where there are soldiers inside who give quests, have something to do with this.

Once you get the ores, you can refine them. You can spend 1 mystery powder to refine it, or you can spend 200 reputation points. Both approaches do not guarantee getting the best jewels, though. They just give an avenue of how to get them.

There are other ways of refining, but they would yield jewels that are less powerful. I my opinion, I think these less powerful jewels are next to worthless because what you would want are the great jewels.

Among the great jewels, a friend mentioned he wants the one with Critical +7. That's the great bloodstone. It's refined from a red ore. So, we have to know which monsters to kill in which maps to get red ores.

I assume getting the great bloodtsone, and all the other great jewels, will be hard.

Jewels are called Rumins. So I guess a jewel is a rumin in the game.

Great rumins will be sought after when the socketing system will be released.

In other news, I'm waiting what halloween event there will be for Sword of the New World: Granado Espada

Fesos update: Exchange rate

Fesos is the new currency in Sword of the New World: Granado Espada.

Since Granado Espada has a spanish theme, the new currency is aptly named fesos. It's like Peso.

In Sword of the New World, there are mentions of cash shop items such as combat manuals and premium dungeons being included in the Feso shop.

The combat manual may be 40%.

And the premium dungeon may be the Forgotten Territory and the Ancient Territory. But this is still unconfirmed. I merely read about it in AM-Neume's forum post. It was still under negotiation with the Korean bosses.

Feso exchange rate will be US$1 = 100 Gold = 100,000 fesos

Will vis drop in value?

Will vis drop in value? I think yes.
So, if you sell your character or equipment now for vis, you better use that vis before feso comes out, or else your vis will drop in value.

But players would still buy weapons and armors using vis.

I want to play GE again!

YouTube video of the Feso Shop

Well, the rings are interesting. They are stance rings. There's a temporal Marionette ring! The sunglasses seem good too, even though it's only +ATK 5%. The costumes with stats maybe are worthwhile.
Once you max out all of your character's weapons and armor's stats, there's no where else to improve on except wearing these temporal rings and costumes.

Hmm... but it seems like when you kill a treasure monster, it will only give either 1 peso or 10 pesos. Few! Wait. It's 1,000 and 10,000 fesos. So, one stance ring is 300,000 fesos. That's equal to 300 or 30 kills...

Hmm... so let's see... RMT players who buy vis, they need feso instead to buy the stance rings and the numerous temporary costumes with stats. So, to get feso in large amounts, you need to buy GPoints and then convert it to feso. Or, trade your items for other people's fesos.

It might actually stop vis sellers a little.

So let's see... what will granadomart do... their sales of vis will be dropping because their usual customers want fesos instead. So how does granadomart provide fesos... Hmmm... maybe I'm not thinking right

So let's say a new player comes and buys G-Points. The newbie wants to get good armors and weapons. So, he buys premium items and sells them for vis. Or, he converts the G-Points to fesos.

What would make the newbie choose to convert it to fesos instead of vis?

Maybe if the high level players sell their unwanted items for fesos...

Deflation of armor and weapon prices?

Well, it could be the other way around. Old players might demand more fesos instead of selling their gears cheaply.

There's something wrong. I am assuming there's a conversion of G-Points to fesos. What if G-Points can't be converted to fesos? I have to research more on this.

Well, it seems like you need to buy FT and AT passes because there are more treasure monsters in those areas that give the stones that are exchangeable for fesos.

And according to what I read, there will be another premium dungeon. I wonder what it is.

+5 Lacquer with free 20 Upgrade Accelerators

" Starting today, any player that purchases a +5 Lacquer from the Bazaar in game will also receive 20 Upgrade Accelerators FREE (no limit)!

Act quickly, the sale will end at 12:00 PST on Monday, October 13, so take advantage of this while you can!"

Wow, one +5 Impervium and you get 20 free enhancement boosters.

V2.9: Exciting is what's to come

I found this, and maybe they'll release each one every week. So, Secret Guard will be first. It'll probably be a worthless gimmick since the reputation that will be gained by the higher family is so few. And then, the Pet System. It's probably going to be released early because it is an income generator. And then, the Feso. I am anxious about this. This is probably interesting and fun. Next are the Cinderella Equipment. I thought Cinderella was Disney's copyright, so I guess that's not the case. It's not really enticing if the AR and DR are just 30. Oh wait, it's DR 28 or 30! Hmmm, that might be interesting. It's armors, not weapons. So let's see. An Elite 92 is 28 DR. A Le Blanc is 27. An Elite Le Blanc or Le Noir, I think it's 30 and 29. But wait. Since the Cinderella equipment expires after 12 hours, there's no point enhancing it. So Maybe the 30 DR is worth looking at. But then, it's not retained. So it might not be good anyway. Maybe. Next is Garim's Nest V2. Too way out of my league. The next one is intriguing. It says System changes. I wonder what changes they are. Might be about reputation? Or maybe it's just about the Mini Map Navigator. If that's it, then it's boring. The next update is Claire. Well, I'm not really much of an RNPC fan. And then, it's Fight Club Week. This must be Andre's ultimate fight tournaments. So, that means, you can't gain free feso until this update comes out? And it seems to be related to the next update, which is the Secret Room. That's probably the place where you can get items for fesos. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe that's the place where you get jewels for socketing. The next one is Romina's Discovery. I have no clue what this involves. I also have no clue about the next one, The Other Bernelli. Maybe they're putting Calyce here. And then, there's going to be the Warehouse Sale. Maybe this is like the 20% discount in gold prices in Sword of the New World. Hmm, so that means, prices will drop. Could it be that they are already anticipating fewer members to warrant a marketing move that would hopefully keep players playing? Well, the next one is the Button Eyed Buppet. So that means the scarecrow pet is going to be released at a much later date than Grabbermon. I suppose that's going to be done so that players have something to look forward to. And the second to the last is the Faction Week. It's probably an event. Same concept as the girl gamer week, but instead of girls, it's factions. Lastly, the Gosammer and Grime. What's Gosammer? Is it shiny? Hmm, it's spelled as gossamer in Google. Two S's, one m. Oh, gossamer is that spider's single thread of web that's floating in the air. Gossamer could also be fabric that's soft and delicate. From the definition, it must be about costumes. New costumes must be released during this update.

There are 15 updates. That equals almost 4 months.

V3.0 must be going to be released on February 2009?

V2.9 Secret of the Culverts Expansion Features:

V2.9 Feature: Gosammer & Grime
V2.9 Feature: Faction Week
V2.9 Feature: Button Eyed Buppet
V2.9 Feature: Warehouse Sale
V2.9 Feature: The Other Bernelli
V2.9 Feature: Romina's Discovery
V2.9 Feature: The Secret Mission
V2.9 Feature: Fight Club Week
V2.9 Feature: All About Claire
V2.9 Feature: System Changes
V2.9 Feature: Garim's Nest V2
V2.9 Feature: Cinderella Equipments
V2.9 Feature: The third Currency, Feso
V2.9 Feature: Pet System
V2.9 Feature: Secret Guard

Tried Yahoo Messenger the other day

So I logged in Yahoo Messenger the other day. I don't usually chat. So I tried it to see what the fuss is all about, and I switched the webcam on too.

My username was paulgranadoespada.

And then I realized. Granado Espada. Hmm. Big sword. Whoops, that might give the wrong impression. Wholesome image, I must hehehe.

All the other usernames were like lady_asiangirl27, daring_ian, etc.

Yahoo messenger is also overrun by bots.

It's like getting an insider peek at IAH

From what I remember of what I read, the Singapore online gaming industry isn't going to boom soon.

There's obviously discord happenning in Granado Espada. If things were ok, then there wouldn't have been a server merge.

I have also read that TATA Systems are now being used in Granado Espada's servers, as well as for the FIFA game. I don't really know what that means, and I even research about it, and the wikipedia article gave me a clue that it has something to do about getting things organized in a database, so that there's an increase in speed, and everything's faster. But it's still vague to me, what TATA Systems means. Maybe TATA, as in goodbye...

What's noticeably missing is there aren't much opposition to the server merge as I would have expected it. Or maybe I haven't been reading the forum enough.

I wish this server merge would have happened before, when I was selling game value cards, so that my online broadcasts would have been read by more people.

But then, maybe, the amount of people in Carracci back then would be the same amount of people now in the new server with Pachelbel. Who knows? It's all just speculation.

What's the new name of the server? Is it Rembrandt?

A lot of the info I get when I search for Granado Espada server merge is about the Sword of the New World one.

Today, I saw what I was looking for, but I found it in the bargain bin. It was Sword of the New World's box game. It's $4.99, and that's really the price. It's in the bargain bin even though that that's what it originally costs. Feedback I got when I told someone I found the game I was looking for: no feedback. That means he must have been withholding a possibly hurtful opinion from me. The next thing that happened was we talked about World of Warcraft. It looks interesting, but I still like the polygon designs in Granado Espada.

And then we looked at Spore. The graphics aren't in my liking.

I only play the game if I like the graphics. And if the controls aren't clunky.

end of journal entry.

Requiem - I just found this today

List

Flash game URL

Items:

1. Rufus Reaper and angel beachwear Fighter (conscience)
2. baby cockatrice (small shoulder pet)
   
3. party hat
4. pearl necklace
5. triangle pendant (Granado Espada triquetra logo)
6. flower head band
   
7. several hearts
8. Pets for GE 3.0
   
9. Deprodine rifle, sword, rod, bracelet
10. Thor helmet for Rescue Knight
11. Romina's hip hop sun visor
12. Spike neck choker for Catherine
13. bunny ears
14. Huge sunglasses for Grandma Grandice
15. Gumamela Hibiscus flower
16. kiss marks
17. blue and silver glasses
18. yellow Halo
19. Nurse Cap
20. Batgirl mask
21. Cowboy hat
22. Big hoop earrings
23. Chandelier earrings
24. Electric Sword
25. Bracelet of the Three Kings
26. Tattoo on Angie's shoulder
27. light colored fan
28. necktie
    
29. Moustache!

Attendance:

1. Catherine the summoner
2. Claire
3. Angie
4. Calyce
5. Grace
6. Musk
7. Romina
8. Feng Ling
9. Lisa Lynway
10. Fighter
11. Elementalist
12. Idge Imbruglia
13. Brunie
14. Rescue Knight
15. Wizard
16. Adelina the Pirate
17. Emilia
18. Scout
19. Auch Soldier
20. Grandice
21. Reboldoeux Soldier
22. Karjalainen

Did I miss anyone?
Total file size 956kb
Is a collage copyright infringement or not?

Post blog entries here

This is where blog entries go.

Flash game(797kb): click and drag to move characters. Full screen
Sample gameplay:

Say hello to my wizard Scout.

More items to follow.

May 31, 2008 - Added banjo, Great Sword, bo3k, cellphones

Added: Grace, Brunie and Adelina. Cherlyn, Novia in the background. Weapons too. File size is now 992kb

Still looking for RNPC's to add. Must be similar in art style.

Credits: Images from granadoespada.com
http://doratomo.jp/%7Esannpomiti/
http://idea.xrea.jp/
http://www.swordofthenewworldwiki.com/