Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Mabinogi Heroes cartoon strip

Some fan-drawn Mabinogi Heroes cartoon strip for New Year 2010.
Seems like my game is quite popular in Korea... There's so many articles/reports/blog links... but of course I don't read them all so I don't really know how popular it is.

http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=12131&id=326636

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Mabinogi Heroes Premier Open

The game I've been working on, Mabinogi Heroes is finally out. =)
It is in Premier Open, which means you can play it in some "PC Bangs" (LAN shops) in S. Korea. It is a MMORPG game... with gameplay somewhat similar to a 3D Diablo. (MMORPG-hack-slash-FPS)

This is my game's webpage:
http://heroes.nexon.com

They interviewed the developers the other day, and I'm in it. (51% and 90% of the clip)
The guy who edited the video actually put the short segment about me inside. Unedited. lol.
http://heroes.nexon.com/movie/heroes_m[dev_interview].swf
Link above or embedded video below:

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Mabinogi Heroes opening credits

http://cafe.naver.com/mabi7hero.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=16339

with particular attention to:



Translation: "Is Rujongwei a foreigner?" -_-!!!


Saturday, December 5, 2009

Updates

Looking at my (this) blog... it seems that I've been neglecting it for quite some time - like a few months. Sometimes its hard to find exactly what to say... sometimes facebook has taken away the need for this blog. Sometimes I want to hide my inner feelings from everyone, sometimes I don't want to be understood. Sometimes I don't want to admit my mistakes. Sometimes I don't want to admit my weaknesses.

But then it seems like so much has happened, so much has been piling up that I need to communicate with everyone who reads this, or even sometimes I don't get the feeling that people read this, it is a struggle to really define whether I am writing this blog for myself, or for my readers, or even if knowing that there are out there, reading.

Anyway, the blog post. It has been... three months? September 3rd to now (Dec 06)? I've moved office once, moved house twice, and lots of other stuff have happened.

Work wise, I've been learning stuff, but its not enough, at least not according to my expectations. IIS logs, model build scripts, parsing, assembly reflection are some of the stuff that I've worked on, but as Vincent said... it really isn't about gaming. Its more like tools to support the game. Well, I'm in this "special part/section" (where after 3 months my mentor finally bothered to explain to me) that it is a temporary part setup to help ease the programming part. Not say that I have complains about it... I'm thankful that the work I am doing benefits the modelers and some of the programmers, but somehow I feel alienated from the core of the team. They are handling critical sections of the game, and they are so involved that they go back on weekends to work and everything, and OT like until 11pm. But I'm so alienated from them, handling non-critical sections. Good point is that I can just pat my arse and disappear at 5pm/6pm, but the bad thing is that I don't feel that I belong.

Everything is kinda stringed together, also with the language communication problem. For example, lets say I bump into a colleague in the washroom, I just say good morning. He greets a reply, and thats the end of the conversation. Awkward at best, sometimes the conversation doesn't happen. If it were in English, if it were in SG, I would happily try to get to know everyone, talk about their weekends, personal matters, recent sports, whatever. I cannot stand having just a totally "work" relationship with people whom I see everyday, 300+ days a year. I only have 2~3 colleagues that I "really" talk to, and them I talk in English. I can speak Korean, but the conversation ends after maximum 4 sentences. And the conversation barely scrapes the surface of what I want to convey, or inquire. It just doesn't cut it. And don't tell me I can learn Korean like I learnt Japanese, I'm sick of hearing that. I learnt Japanese in JC until University for 3 years before I went Japan for 3 months. And even then, it wasn't enough. I've learnt Korean for maybe 6 months now. And it ain't worth shit, when facts come to facts. But then, like somebody said "its the choice that I made", I gotta stick with it and make the best of it... that much I know. That much I do.

Relationship wise, its been crazy again. There's so much I want to say... but I shall leave it for the next post. later.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Company Press Conference

Had a press conference today about the game that I've been attached to: mabinogi heroes.

Acrofan (with game vids):
http://www.acrofan.com/ko-kr/life/content/20091204/0502030301

Gamespot article:
http://www.gamespot.co.kr/ArticleView.asp?artice_id=20091204145755

zdnet:
http://www.zdnet.co.kr/Contents/2009/12/04/zdnet20091204160101.htm
haha... the modeler for Evy looks just like her... ^_^

http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=12101&id=317336

Game website:
http://heroes.nexon.com/
(too bad they block by IPs... i.e. can't play outside of Korea)

Monday, November 2, 2009

Song

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Lunch in Korea

sidenote first:  Playing around with fb, I wonder if allowing fb notes to import posts from this blog is a wise idea. Hmm. Maybe yes maybe no. Anyway... back to the post.

Lunch in Korea is WEIRD.

Well, its not weird, weird, but it is a different experience. Lunch starts at 12pm in my office/studio. (And this reminds me of the story where I had to explain to a Korean that 12pm is noon, and not 12am. I had to do 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm to her. -_-!!)

Anyway, so like around 1140~1150, somebody would say 식사을 해요 and then we would gather outside the office. (Just walking out of the automatic glass doors) And then there would be groups and group leaders. Group leaders would have different destinations for lunch, and these peeps are rotated. So members would walk out and ask, 어디에 가요. Or leaders would advertise their destination.

So by slowly walking out of the office and off the car park (reminds me of the PARKING joke), groups would have formed and headed their separate directions. So conversation starts in Korean in this group of (normally) 4~8, which is the part I sometimes hate (when they speak rapid Korean and I catch no ball) and sometimes like (when 1~2 speak to me in English/Japanese/simple-Korean).

So 1~3 minutes later, we arrive at our destination (which of course I have no idea WTH I'm eating because I just randomly join groups). And then if its a restaurant I like I go whoopie silently in my mind and if its a restaurant I hate I go f**ks**t no 선배 next time no 선배선배선배.

And so ordering starts. Which is cool if there are photos on the wall so I can just read the label off the photo, otherwise I'll be starting my prayers by nodding along with some recommendation of THE GROUP.

Note: THE GROUP normally nominates a dish, and then the 3~7 peeps nod their head in unison and everybody orders the same dish in the restaurant. This happens 80% of the time. 20% of the time, there are two nominators and two unique declarations saying they will have dish A or B. Seldom you get one person eating dish C by himself, unless of course you are a 의국인 like me. (This portion can totally go into the point in-group out-group behavior of an Introduction to Korean studies)

Next, conversation will start and I will avoid participation by taking cups and pouring water. Note: the most junior staff/youngest person ALWAYS pours water for everyone in his table. A table seats 4 peeps, so if you have 8 peeps, there will be two pour-ers. (junior-senior culture) In accordance with pouring water, its of course not always me (there are other junior staff), and they will try to help out. e.g.: 1. Distribute cutlery, 2. scoop kimchi from the kimchi bowl.

So food will arrive. And I will realize what I have ordered (what people have ordered for me). And then the race begins. Eating with Koreans is like eating with Wangyangs. They don't mince their meat, they pour it down their throat. Even spicy-pork-bone-soup is finished within 10 mins. I have to eat at full speed to match them. Wangyang will fit in perfectly here. It is so crazily fast that I was stunned from the first day. Koreans have this 빨리 culture deeply embedded in them. (By right you are supposed to start only when your senior starts and stop when he stops. But I think that rule is somehow abolished)

Then when everybody is done (the others engage in small talk while waiting), the leader says 가자? And with agreement from the floor (or sometimes the novice 의국인 is caught by surprise), peeps start to rise and leave. (Oh yeah did I mention that 50% of the time, Koreans eat cross-legged on cushions on the floor with small low-rise tables? ~!@#$%^ luckily I got used to it fast)

Then everyone starts to fork out the wallet. (If you are the senior/oldest and aiming to treat, this is where you step in. Too bad my company doesn't follow this. Normally they practice some form of treat/drink for first meetings) Then everybody forks out \6,000. (remember that we all ordered the same dish?) They (forcefully) pass it to one person, and promptly walk to wear their shoes. (Oh yeah cross-legged sittings come with smelly Hongkong feet) If its winter, you go 아!춥다! If summer, go 아!더워요~ when you are outside. LOL.

Then conversation resumes while going back to the office. 30% of the time, 80% of the people go for tea/coffee. 100% of the time, 30~80% of the people for go a smoke. Because this is a game company, 20~30% of the people go back to play games/watch Tekken competition video replays/PSP/DS/comic. And usually I'm back around 12:20pm, which tells you how fast we eat.

In addition, not ALL people participate in the lunch. 20% of the people eat cup ramen, 10% eat salad/fruits - diet (females/males!!). And they do it on a regularly basis. And 5~10% of the time, I spot my mentor sleeping in the bed in the office. Skipped lunch prolly because too engrossed in coding. Return to code after nap. Best.

Monday, September 28, 2009

3 weeks into work

Updates:
Got people wondering that I'm missing? Well, sort of busy with work. Work life = no life. Plus Korean lessons. Here is my weekly outlook:


Work - 8am - 5pm.
Mon, Wed - Korean classes from 8pm - 10pm.
Thurs - Basketball with NEXON peeps, 7:30pm - 9:30pm.
So I don't think I'll be on MSN on those nights. And this current arrangement sucks because work ends at 5pm and I have to wait. Too lazy to walk 20mins home and 20 mins back, so I just stay at office.


Weekends I spend touring Seoul, which is pretty much just a city, so I'm looking forward to going to the countryside, or skiing during winter. Work sucks because I can't communicate with those Koreans, and so they don't speak to me... I'm like an alien to them. As Vincent says, I (we) learn something new. We learn to stay quiet for 8 hours per day. zzz. How much I wish this were Japan. Whoever thinks this is a walk in the park needs to reconsider all factors and angles. I look forward to visits from SG. pft. grrrrrr. I should stop thinking in this angle. Thinking about maybe and what ifs. What if I didn't take this job, and waited for JET 2010. grrr.


So I'm pretty motivated to better my Korean. At least I (we) can communicate with the Son-saeng-nim. (she speaks Japanese too) At least she bothers to talk to us. To as least do something worthwhile at work and learn something.  Feel like a liability now. zzz. Maybe I should just slack two years. Or am I expecting too much from myself. (or the company?) Grrrr. The best thing is the weekends... I look forward to touring the country. Pft.


Address:
S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01


Handphone:
010-6422-1908, or
(+82)10-6422-1908

Home VOIP Telephone:
070-8129-7846, or
(+82)70-8129-7846

Thursday, September 17, 2009

the Korean language

well, Korean is Korean in Korea, just like Japanese is Japanese in Japan. hmmm... its difficult to explain, but as a Singaporean, I guess we have a different 'interpretation' towards language. English is the main (written) language in Singapore - if you only speak Mandarin (and no English), you can get by with a limited subset of Singapore. Likewise if you only speak Malay, or Indian, Japanese, Korean, assuming that you do not want to communicate with a person from another race.

I should have expected it, but then reading (and understanding) is different from experiencing. It always has been for me. Korean is the language here, it is the alphabet here. People type Korean on their keyboards as fast as I type English, perhaps 140wpm, it is quite amazing to see vowels and consonants combine to form words after words.

In my own internalized interpretation, Korean language is a "pronouncing-alphabet". Just like I can recognize abc...xyz immediately, Koreans can recognize 어디에 갈가요 as individual "unique-sounds" immediately. To me, I take time to _parse_ the characters, dissemble them, construct, and pronounce each sound.

e.g. 갈. It is made up of k-a-l. And so a string of (normally) 2~3 words form a meaning. Sometimes romanized, like 텔레비전. Other times from Chinese, like 약속.

Anyway, what am I driving at? Haiz... the language barrier is still too great for me to break. Nowadays I hardly speak 10 sentences a day, and I pretend I'm an invisible wall 95% of the time our team of 4~6 goes for lunch. Then the weekends are so empty and free. Its not like Japan anymore... not like I can go everywhere to explore and play. Sometimes my team helps me to order food for lunch. (T.T)

I need to start from zero... I need to forget my old self... I need to step out... I need to find a routine to settle down... in this new life~

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Home, work (NEXON) and basketball

OK I got my internet/cable-tv/VOIP phone. The cable guy came over on the 9th and he installed. Luckily he could speak Japanese (because he stayed there for a year) and so we conversed in Japanese.

Anyway here is my address (Sep-Nov 2009):

S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01

VOIP Telephone:
070-8129-7846, or
(+82)70-8129-7846
from Singapore. VOIP meaning its internet so its cheap for me, and then it might be turned off when I'm not at home.

Vincent is going to be attached to NEOPLE (a subsidiary of NEXON group), and I'm going to NEXON, devcat studio. I just signed a confidential form, so I can only say I'm working on a game similar to mabinogi, which is released in NA, EU, KR, JP, CH. (http://mabinogi.nexon.net/) My mentor is Jaesuk Gim, who can speak very little English. Vincent's mentor is James, studied in Canada. dammit.

My work is supposedly from 8am - 5pm. I will see whether I get any OT... (T-T)

We have Korean evening language classes after work Tues/Thurs, and then alternate with Tues/Fri. So that means every Tues with alternating Thurs-Fri, Thurs-Fri. Looks like we are going to be busy.

Then on our fortnightly free Thurs, we have basketball sessions. LOL. We were kinda automatically signed up for bball given that Vincent is 1.98m (I have heard qns about his height 20x times since day 1)... not that I mind, I'd like to meet as many colleagues as possible.

NEXON team plays full-court 5v5 against some "BBS" players who outnumber us 2:1. So we are pretty shacked. Anyway they are all quite tall... dammit I seem to be the weakest. The basketball guys were quite colorful, especially the few that had dinner with us.

Y.K. (An?), HR.
Park Star, web design.
Ogre, Talesweaver, Korea #1 hacker + hiphop rapper + composer + middle-school shotput champ.
Jason, Counterstrike Online #1 champion.

Ogre is like wy resized to 1.88m height, 120kg, gold earrings on one ear, negro hiphop style, transition-sports-glasses and when we went for dinner, he was like:
ogre: "Do you like kimchi?"
me: "Erm.... not bad. We ate it everyday... so we were kinda sick of it."
ogre: "You mean you fucking hate kimchi."
me: "Erm... ooh. Erm... yeah."
vincent: "(whisper) ...I like his style... he's cool."

LOL. He eats 4 burgers, 4 cokes for a meal, and wears cargo pants and jackets with 20 pockets so he can store sandwiches, burgers and coke cans. He is a walking vending machine. I likes.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Day 4

current status:

language problems sibei jialat till these two years going to be damn lonely. taking long time to setup everything... 10 days for alien foreign card... which w/o it i can't apply mobile/internet... so my status now is equivalent to illegal immigrant.

starting work this thurs 10 sept, because quarantine for 1 week for H1N1 even though i don't have symptoms. going to be working at Nexon Corp, mabinogi team.

current address (sept-nov 2009) is:
S. Korea, Seoul 943-24, Kangnam-ku, Daechi-dong, Shinan Metrokhan Officetel, #20-01

Saturday, September 5, 2009

first three days

first three days of settling in...
it feels totally like SEP so far... just exploring the places, getting the basic stuff like water, detergent, toiletries, food, toilet paper, bank account...

so far 0.5 day to setup bank account, 1 day of touring... not much completed. though thanks to Kate (and our project team heads), i got two programming (methodology?) books to read, and be tested for/submit a summary, within a week. Which is also due to H1N1 (they call it SI - swine influenza here), that I need to be quarantined.

well, good news in a sort of way, otherwise i would have had to start work immediately. One maplestory children picture book for myself, because i seriously need to resume studying korean. this place is totally like Japan, and everything is the same as before, except I don't f**king understand korean. I can't even get the TV up and running by myself. shit. I need to get motivated, and i need to trick myself to study.

And all this is before i start work... before i get to meet all the colleagues and talk to them in Korean. Which is impossible for me, at the state of only being able to say yes/no/goodbye/thank you/sorry. And I heard my mentor is starting to learn English for me. Haha it will be a quackquack-cockadoo situation very soon. f**k. At least Vincent's mentor went to California to learn English before. dammit.

And there's a relationship issue that I'm keeping somewhere at the back of my mind, which Vincent terms "an open relationship". Which I don't know how to handle... Logically and plainly speaking, what she needs right now in her stage of life is someone to study with her, play with her... enjoy her uni life. Which i can't really do...   I need to polish my survival skills - to be able to eat, sleep, interact, commute, communication, work happily in office/home, and make as much friends as possible - which any person who went on exchange knows how important this is.

I need to step out of myself right now, to put on full power to my sluttiness and lameness and joker and craziness (which I have pretty much confidence in) - the life that I choose to lead... the crazy, full-throttle, ever-changing life. How can I make her happy, how can I make everyone happy? I don't know the answer...

uverworld~ D-tecnolife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JKD-lh68g4


癒えない 痛み 悲しみで キズついた 君
もう笑えないなんて 人嫌いなんて 言葉そう言わないで
見えない未来に起こる事 全てに意味があるから
今はそのままでいい きっと気付ける 時が来るだろう

How can I see the meaning of life...

Sunday, August 30, 2009

testing~

test test