Comic Con 2008 and a LOT of good luck

What a weekend I had

I was kinda down and out on luck. My budget was really getting strained and it was 3am in the morning on the 23^rd of July.

I was trying to make a deadline for this SDSU ( San Diego State University) Teen Camp seminar on Video Games. I was to talk about Work Ethics. To top that I had to again refuse a position from a video game test company due to the fact the location was REALLY FAR.

So there I was trying to revive most of my Power Point skills. I was at the end of my 7 page template on Do’s and Don’ts when working in a gaming company, importance of customer service, blah blah blah…all the important stuff. I was really in a bad mood. Budget down, I left being an RB Mod. I posted too that very risky article about how disappointed I was with the RB Mod Management.

The friend I had also was gloating the whole week about how she got Comic Con Tickets. Just so you know, Comic Con is one of the biggest pop culture and media convention. Big stars from film, comic and movie industry would go there and mingle with fans. This year they had Heroes as usual, people from the Iron Man movie, Kim Kardashi, Stan Lee, Keanu Reeves and many more. If you did not pre register yourself for the tickets, the tickets itself for the Saturday event would sell up to 200$ from its original 60$ value. Of course the fact she can go and I would be stuck at home made me extra miserable as is.

I then got a call from my ex. He’s here in California. I dated him during the time I was in Sony Playstation well actually after I left Sony then went back to work with them again hahaha. He had a free ticket to Comic Con on the Most Wanted day event. The Saturday event. But being stoned I was from staring at the laptop monitor for the last 5 hours, the realization of what LUCK I got didn’t hit me till the next morning.

The Gaming seminar followed smoothly. I spoke to some highschool kids. They were a quiet bunch. The topic should be boring but surprisingly, a lot participated in the discussion. I was happy about that. To top it off I got to speak with David Hernandez, a game animator who was the head of the Video Game camp. He was cuuuuuuttttteee. We got to speak about the Thor Movie and the new Xmen Origins and Comic Con.

The next day, I got a call from a company that I had previously interviewed for. I was put in conference call. This interviewed took WEEEKS before they got back to me on anything, I went through a lot with the final interview after being dissected by their company VP. In the end they made me a lucrative offer. I was sobbing on the phone. Miffling it really. What LUCK I am having. All I could think was, I have to get to church. I needed to pray. In addition, my weight has been going down constantly due to my Cardio. Im sooooo happy.

It was Pasalamat at our church. I was able to get to our Local at the right time. My friend James drove me there. He spent the night at the boarding house Im staying to save gas. At church, I was sobbing during the prayer. It was a tough year. And this was the first sign of good stuff that happened to me. However, my good luck meant bad for my friend who originally got Comic Con passes. Her own contact never came through for her, you can imagine how PISSED she was at me when I told her I finally had tickets. At that time I assumed she had hers and wanted to go together with her

It did not end there. I got to attend a Bridal Convention too. The entrance fee was really cheap. And I went there for the free cake tasting. I won a contest for a free banquet room at a local water hole. I still need to think HOW to use it.

Roll in Comic Con which I attended 2 days ago. I had to wait for Daniel to give out my pass. When he did, he wanted us to walk 3 blocks to the parking lot which I was swearing like mad because I was getting trampled by the cosplayers on our way. He then treated me to a REALLY posh Hotel Restaurant…man was I intimidated.

Then we finally headed off to the
Comic Con convention area. On our way there I didn’t know I bumped into Seth Green and guys from Adult swim. I was sooooooo annoyed that I wasn’t able to get a picture. But once we reached the main halls, the first place I jumped into was the Square Enix Booth. One guy wanted me to buy Aeriths Mana necklace…wahhh no budget yet. Then off to DC. Where I got a cool piture with the Batman team. I was really shy. But my eyes were locked on to Robin. He was cute. I said I wanted to take a picture with him. To his reply “ IT’S ABOUT TIME!!!”

It was really funny since if you see the pic all the rest of the DC crew were staring at him as he had my arms wrapped around him. My ex was pretty annoyed too. Dragging me out of the DC Booth. He blamed the flower on my head. He’s half Hawaiian, so I wore the flower on the side of my head that says Single…after that I REALLY got good pictures. ( Sorry Goenitz huhuhu)

I did pass by the Capcom section and bought my dear Goenitz a limited edition Capcon Hologram comic

My luck didn’t ended there. Remember that article I made? I never thought anyone would take notice. An RBer actually made a topic about it. I gained some good comments but I did had to clear some issues, just to make sure I don’t have animosity towards some of my ex managers. The article was deleted but I felt happy and really grateful on some of the supportive comments they gave me.

Its been a good week so far. And God is good. Bad things happened too, but that’s another story for now

Birthday week

Birthday week

I didnt realized how fast my bday was approaching until my laptop told me it was already the 15th.

Its still a few days short of the B-day but since budget has been tight, Ill just have a cupcake for my bday cake.

I'll be attending a Bridal bazaar on my bday too, I got a free pass ( sorta) so I'll get to sample some free wedding cakes. At least I have cakes ( damn you Goenitz where are u lately)

On the other hand, I have finally relinquished my Ragnaboards role as Moderator...sorta.

I always thought that, I would never have to be touched by the "political games" Level Up tends to play with its employees from time to time. I have my own share of horror stories, that I personally have witnessed from former co-workers and some even got a few hits and misses myself. If not for a few good friends in LU who knew of my naiveness that helped me out before

However, most of them are gone now.

I left being a Moderator in Ragnaboards for maaaany personal reasons

I RB more than I work, so yeah my IRL work sometimes gets affected however I never got caught :-)

I loose sleep on weekends just RBing

Ever since my PC downgraded, I cant play RO as much so I have limited knowledge of the game nowadays.

But the main reason perhaps that I also fail to admit to myself and everyone, is that I am losing motivation to manage RB. Being of what it has become. The rowdy people, disrespectful ( often idiotic players), but most of all the obvious rift between the mod team and me.

To make matters worse I think I left RB just in time. You see the rules in the boards? Thats about to change soon. I spoke to the manager handling RB about the " professionalism " issues we were having internally in the team.

When the manager told me that she doesnt care about the personal, team fighting issues as long as we do the job right, that statement hit a very sensitive chord. I told her that in LU and in Rb during my time, that wasnt how things run. Since you need team work to make everything run smoother and at least some level of reprimandation for those few mods who tend to lose their way ( that includes me).

The response she gave me was very disappointing. She told me since we mods are not being paid, its ok to do " whatever" we want in the boards as long as we do the job. Any personal issues, or fights, wala na sya don. Also she said " Iba yung dati, iba na yung ngayon: pertaining how LUG/RB was before to the now system. Frankly I dont like the Now system

The RB Mod team in the past few months has its shares of ups and downs. More downs than ups to be exact. We had a couple of rouge mods who basically said things that are NOT supposed to be said to players. We had internal issues in which a few mods would take leaves yet they still used the mod account to just chat ( The manager told me that NOW thats ok). I spoke to other former LU managers, they said that action is a bit irresponsible since a mod on leave should not use a property of LU for personal reasons, in case that mod makes a mistakes its LU who will get the negative hit.

We had mods who would NOT pass reports, and basically what just ticked me off in the end was the blatant disrespect and arrogance of some of them.

In my opinion, perhaps because we have a difference of what we think is morally correct is the one thing that divided us the most. Some of the mods have gained more preference from both LU and the public despite if what they do is right or wrong...basically, I got outnumbered and they have the public to back them up.

What I find wrong too is the amnesty they would give to their friends when they commit offenses or offensive remarks to other or to me. In some cases they too would chime in with the crudeness of the pack. And when you point it out the call you the one being " Unprofessional or childish"

Im not saying Im the perfect mod or GM either I have my mood swings. And lets face it, my grammar can even be beaten by a 3rd grader. Sometimes I often over reprimand a person in the forums, and my " Ate" attitude gets the best of me when reprimanding anyone younger than me.

Bottom line, I can make as much terrible mistakes as anyone. And no matter how much anger sometimes boils in my heart, in the end I really would rather would like to resolve things. That is the one thing many of the LU employees lack especially people in the mod team. Apologize doesnt seem to be an option

The last few days I had in RB were really sad. And in one instance some one used a very personal and uncalled for remark about my family member.

I'm tired of it, the politics, the corruption, all the red tape crap. And I am losing my pride to have once worked with Level Up after the way they have taken advantage of most of its employees, not just mods but good people in general . Everything I stand up for, defended and believed that RB was the one good place in Level Ups' bad rep, was shattered in an instant.

Worse is that I lost the people whom I thought were my friends.

Maybe Im being too emotional about all this. But only because, I always regarded my role in Level Up as one of the best Jobs I had in my life. The relationships I built were some of the strongest I still have. I cant say entirely for the mod team its the same. You cannot please people who do not want to be pleased.

I should have listened to my friend in LUG who told me, that I should play the politics game...too bad I never did. I don't entirely regret it, but at least maybe i could have made changes to prevent whats become of RB now...I dunno.

I do however feel that whatever contributions I did do for RB or LU were completely forgotten if not taken for granted. I sometimes even fear pointing them out due to the fact I dont want to be labeled as a person who thrives on attention or my "laurels"

Wouldnt matter anymore.

Ohhhh well Happy Bday then to me.

Anime Expo 2009

Anime Expo 2008. How did it go?

I would give the experience a 50/50 score.

The Los Angeles Convention Center was too big that everything in the convention was spread out. By walking from one event to another, takes time making us miss other core shows.

Our day started out slightly wrong. The video cam I bought for a cheap 20$ got broken right out of the store and needed an exchange.

We spent 50$ just for the gas going there. The car were in had no aircon, we needed to have our windows down on desert heat weather.

The good news is there was no line anymore on the badge claim section. And there were fewer Naruto cosplays. Not that I’m against Naruto however, most Naruto cosplays always ended up in disaster. There were fewer Deathnote cosplayers though.

The place was HUGE parking was 13$. And the cafeteria was too small for all the thousands of attendees. But there was some decent short ribs.

There was Japanese Traditional dancing and Japan paranormal panels both I missed because I got stuck in the cosplay exhibition.

But when I saw the Gravity station I basically stayed there as much as I could. There were to give away RO2 box sets. I didn’t win it though I got through the raffle. The Gravity exhibitioners were nice enough to tell me that the USA team for RWC were preparing for their server eliminations.

I do feel though there were fewer cosplays this year.

There were other kiosks too like Funimation, Manibogi games ( RO competion in Korea) Maple Story, Xbox, Viz media, lots of Lolita/Goth fashion stands and many more.

We skipped the 2^nd day fast and decided to enjoy the rest of LA by going to the beach. Santa Monica Beach ( Beverly Hills was too far).

The beach had a pier with a small theme park. The Jonas Brothers were there as well. They had roller coasters, a small beach memorial for the soldiers and victims who died in the Iraq war.

Back at the hotel was a slight disaster. We booked a semi posh hotel with a nice whirpool and soft beds. Like the one in the websites. Well websites are misleading. The hallway stinked of cigarettes, the pool was by the paring lot and the outdoor Jacuzzi had a smell.

The good news, we had a place to sleep and we had the pool to ourselves at night.

Next year though we may not anymore participate for the 09 Anime Expo but instead do the Comic Con instead. Depends if I have cash

Kaliwanagan Article

When it comes to popularity contests in the realm of the MMORPG icon

Ragnarok Online, there are very noted few that are mentioned not only based on their skills and greatness as a player.

But because of the mere impact and change that they have contributed to the game and its society, they themselves become the very core of its Online Soul.

To name a few: We have at first GM Preator and GM Joe who started it all.

Then there’s Goenitz, my good partner ( and sometimes headache) who strived the hard fight against the botting problem. Then we have GM Phage, well loved for her Charisma, Lilith too who did not only extends her charm in pRO but also in pROSE. And who can ever forget the name Carlo Ople aka Waukeen former WOE vet now LUG manager, GM Tristan and acquaintance of mine gamer turned gamer blogtologist Diwa de Leon.

I am sure that there are many more in both the community and the industry that have carved out their names in Philippine Online gaming history. However, if there is one dark

horse that his name has become a household impact and a sworn enemy of most anti-botting propagandas. Only one name comes to our mind.

KALIWANAGAN

I respect the person behind the name. Often a discussion between me and Goenitz, we found him as like many rumors come, as the founder and some even say the creator of Openkore itself.

However I begged to disagree on his general public portrayal as the connoisseur of the MMORPG sin as most players would view him as an arrogant if not mad scientist of sorts, and other rumor marveling mythos that can label him. Many who are pro-botters/botting see him as a god.

Yet I noticed that Kaliwanagan must have more than just the title of Bot Master than he is generally portrayed. I read Master Diwa's first interview with him. I even have the rough draft of the original interview. And though I would say my friend's article on him was groundbreaking I felt there is a lack explanation on other issues that surround his personal character, WHY he does his work and how Mr. Kali is a normal person. In my observation, (and G-man will hate me for this) He had a sense of humility and noble pride on what he does. He carries good knowledge as a consultant to

his craft ( Openkore) and like us GMs and mods of the game, try our best to help our customers. In some weird way we are both alike.

So I decided to go ahead and speak to him. I tried contacting him through his blog which unfortunately shut down the same time my mom passed away. The shutting down of his blog caused massive disarray of issues and rumors. Some even saying he was fired on his status on the Openkore team. But we were able to converse again mere days after my

Mother’s burial which Ill have to admit kept me alive emotionally while coping with the grief. He agreed to an interview to clear some mythos about him and the much despised if not coveted Bot Program Issue. I decided for months to keep this from Goenitz (though I know this for him is an act of betrayal on my part since I have never kept a secretfrom him) . Not to mention I actually enjoyed speaking to Kali as a person despite us being in the opposite sides of the fence.

You will find in this article an account of our conversations over the past weeks

The Interview

Kali I wanted to still know if you would still be interested in a interview or just doing comments on some stuff that you wanted to clarify. It would be of great help if you still would like to get some of your points across or clear your name in other misunderstandings the public eye has upon you. I thought that Diwa may have left out some stuff that could clear your name maybe a more in dept discussion between us can

give us a more clearer side.

One issue is the rumors circulating why you shut down your blog.

Kali: I'd love to do a commentary or interview, but I'm afraid I am hard-pressed for time right now. I am not sure about the incident you are talking about, but I took down the blog because botters are somehow twisting my words to make it seem as if I am their champion.
That, plus the fact that I barely have time to update it. Also I don't really want to create that much fanfare over my online personality.

The number one question now is that a lot of the Bot supporters and even anti-botters were taken aback after your sudden shut down of your blog and very vague announcement of it that you posted in a commentary section of a pRO players blog.

This sudden disappearance of yours speculated a lot of rumors, the number one was that you were " fired" in your role under the Openkore team.

Kali: The rumors, though untrue, are perfectly acceptable for me. I took down the blog because I'm unable to maintain it. I was afraid that if I let it stay up without any updates, people will use it as a rallying point for the wrong reasons. I don't intend to fan nor quench the rumors; remaining a mystery is just fine. Who knows, maybe someday

I'll spread a rumor that the persona "Kali" was actually many people taking up the name (ala Phantom) and that the current Kali is the successor of the previous one.

Tell me about your current position in the Openkore community and your teammates. Besides you, there are other major names in the Opnekore society. Three of them being Don, Heero and Chaotic good. And the VCL too. Are their roles similar to yours or better yet, what are their representation in the upper hierarchy in the Openkore organization?

Kali: You'd have to understand that this is a very informal project, not some formal corporation. As such, there really isn't any "hierarchy" in the strict sense of the word.

I'd describe it more as a meritocracy: the more you contribute, the more authority you assume. Don and Chaoticgood are one of the Administrators of the local support arm of OpenKore in the Philippines. Heero is a talented contributor who had been very generous in his contributions of bugfixes and features. As I've mentioned, the meritocracy in OpenKore propelled them to the authority they have now - since they have contributed more, they are respected more.

On the Openkore website VLC says that he is the Openkore project leader. But is he also one of the main developers? And the Myths that claim that Openkore was developed in the Philippines. Any clarifications you want to dispel about that?

Kali: It's VCL, and yes he's the project leader and one of the main developers too The Openkore website can answer that question.

Have you been conversing with any Level Up employees about what they can do to better do the anti bot issue? What has been the outcome so far?

Kali: Not including this one, nope not directly. The latest would be the blog (hope it woke up some people).

Waukeen has stated in his blog that the Gravity game developers themselves came down here now to address the Botting situation in Valhalla and Valkyrie server as well as the Dupe issue in all commercial servers. What is yours and your teams prognosis on Level Up/Gravity's action as of late?

Kali: I'll address a very serious misconception. We're not here to battle with LU - to us LU is just a simple franchisee of the Ragnarok game. That said, Gravity's design with Ragnarok is *really* sloppy to say the least, and it's about time they went ahead and fixed it. Fix the bot issue, and they'll fix the entry of third-party programs (and with that I mean crashers, duping scripts, force deal, exploits, etc.)

Like I mentioned before, bots are only the tip of the iceberg - you'd think the iceberg is huge based on what you see floating in the ocean, but if you chop away that symptom, you'll find out there is something even more huge that will surface.

Our manual MP catching techniques has its limits, depending on the situations. Any advice you can give on how to summon a player or catch difficult bots?

Kali: You are right, the RO client is very limited when it comes to those things. Unfortunately, the only way I can think of to easily summon characters is through a third-party program. Actually, one of the developers made a bot-catching plugin for OpenKore specifically made for GMs.

The GM-bot will teleport itself to different maps while in perfect hiding mode (the mode where even a bot will not know there is another character with it in the map) and creates a database of which characters were seen in which maps, whether it was moving or attacking or just sitting down, and how long has it been staying in the map. It's very effective in profiling a certain map - you can easily spot a botter through the patterns

Does your peers in the Openkore family share the same sentiments you have that you are willing to help out with the anti bot situation?

Some pRO players question your alliance and how does this affect your disposition with the openkore team.

Kali: Since we're a very diverse team with different ideals, I cannot say that we share the same sentiments regarding botting. On the other hand, we all share the same drive in making OpenKore the best AI for Ragnarok there is, and to continually improve it.

You also moderate the Darkmoon forums. How is it different from the Ragnaboards? I mean besides the basic support/ assistance and updates you give your forumers, what type of rule implementation do you do there?

Kali: I'm just a guest in the Darkmoon forums. It's just a local support arm of OpenKore anyway. I don't really have any business there, but I sometimes help out by trashing posts (my favourite job)

Is the Openkore team creating a Bot for RO2? 2. If no, do you know of any news that LUG should be ready for the possible Bot threats for RO2?

Kali: No.

What’s you’re comment on this website that are making claims that they are associated with you http://ragnarokfiles.blogspot.com/

Kali: Okay I have skimmed through the link you posted. It looks like a demolition job of Heero and RB. I think this person is just causing a lot of drama to stir up the whole community. It's happened in iRO. He might also be just twisting words. A person "participates" in an OpenSource project merely by using it - so if you replace

""nagpaparticipate sa" with "gumagamit ng" you have a perfectly acceptable statement. I control who receives write permission in OpenKore - having write permission means that you have the privileges to actually modify the program being downloaded by other people. Thus,write permissions are only offered to certain trustworthy and skilled
individuals, not just some 2005-2007 CS graduate. Besides, *very* few Filipinos are granted this privilege - most of the OpenKore dev team are from International countries.

If he were even part of the group to begin with, he would have already been kicked out long ago. He doesn't possess the professionalism we require (as well as basic English communication skills).

Kali: For one thing, I'm not that interested in vindicating myself - people have seen me as a bad guy, and rightly so because that is the persona I've taken up. Just like the DeathNote analogy, Light might be helping the world by killing criminals, but he's still committing murder. It all boils down to a moral question, and I'd like to keep it at that There is a thread in Ragnaboard thread before that claims the Bot programs is to blame for disappearance of items.

Kali: On the day that topic came up I have tried monitoring who else will be trolling on the boards. The safety of OpenKore is guaranteed by the fact that all the source code is freely available for anyone to view, inspect, and even modify. this is again another case of pRO players getting too big an ego and thinking that OpenKore was made for them. In fact, pRO is just small fry - the real target market is iRO and euRO.

It just so happens that Gravity (and LU) implements the same technologies throughout their licensees, so it's a safe bet that whatever anti-bot patches they put in the Asian servers, they will also be placing in the American and European servers (and they did). If there was rogue code in OpenKore, it should be affecting these bigger (and more tech-savvy population) servers.

I am not discounting the fact that some shenanigans have taken OpenKore and made modifications to it, and then disseminated such modified versions to the public. Oftentimes these modifications include a "kill-steal" capability (something we have taken great lengths to prevent.)

Or some hacking ability that we have not included in OpenKore, or a new version that will work with a new patch (mostly seen during server updates). However, these modified versions are usually compiled and thus nobody is unable to inspect the source code (there have been times that the modified kores have their source codes available - we have acted on those reports by proving that certain lines will cause the username and password to be sent to a certain address). These versions are not in our control, and we have always reminded people to only download OpenKore from official sources.

In my opinion, this is a simple demolition job against OpenKore to try and convince people not to use it.

Personal Question: Are you Married?

Kali: No I'm not married. Though I prefer girls who are spunky and not kikay; someone who can go on a mountain expedition date today with me while still being gorgeous in a backless gown for a date tomorrow night.

What kind of foods do you like

Kali: I like spicy foods (Bicol Express, Laing) and sweet foods (Ice Cream)

Hobbies that you enjoy? Like types of movies? Sport or things you do to relax?

Kali: I enjoy just sitting or walking around aimlessly. I don't really watch movies (but I liked Return of the Condor Heroes). When I want to relay

I just lie down and sleep :P

Tell me a funny joke : -) I know u have a sense of humor

Kali: Actually I don't :(

End Notes:

The plans of this article started on December 2007 and ended June 2008. In which I had a chance to get to know Kaliwanagan on a different level.

* I would like to thank him for the time and patience he had with me in the making of this article. We both had a busy schedules. The article would have been longer but there are better things left unsaid

I would not say that we are close but I have gained a new sense of respect for the man. Naturally he and my friend G and myself as well are on different sides of the war fence. Yet in some sense, the fact he finds a great purpose of what he does, gives him that “ Light” of nobility that perhaps is worthy of his name of Kaliwanangan.

This my dear friends is one of the last articles I will be doing for RB/ and RO. After this article I will be taking my leave being a Ragnaboard Moderator by early July.