When I made this journal, I made it specifically to document my thoughts and notable moments within the realm of Puzzle Pirates. I told myself that I would not say here that I have another journal (ah, well, I technically have three, but the third's handwritten) because I wanted to be able have a better idea of who's reading the other. Of course, in the light of this post, I suddenly realized that I don't care about keeping that on the lowdown anymore, and I suppose if someone cared enough, and if they were as stalkerish as I can be, they could find my first livejournal. Which, *shrug*, has a lot of things in it...it dates back to nearly the beginning of those wonky teenage years. It even has stuff about Y!PP up until I figured that none of my friends from outside of the game played the game anymore, and hence the desire for a Y!PP-specific journal.

But what happens when it's borderline? This was actually going to go into my first journal. But after thinking about what I wanted to talk about in this entry for just a short moment, I felt that this journal was more appropriate. Lucky you. And perhaps a watered down version will go into the first journal. Or I just might copy this over word-for-word. Whatever.

( Just because this entry is long... )

I think I've reminisced enough. Obviously, if I wanted to cover everything under this topic, more names would be mentioned, more memories...and this would go on forever. It's the tip of the iceberg...I didn't even touch upon everyone in my crew, let alone all my Y!PP contacts. And of course, my memories fade over time like everyone else's. So I dunno, maybe someday I'll revisit this with another really long entry. Until then, back to studying.

I am utterly surprised that our team made it to the semifinals. And now I feel somewhat guilty about the lack of rescheduling with Odd Jobs. I didn't think it would make a difference on who went to the semis. Unfortunately, it was a little late to do anything about that.

We fought Deadly Combination in the semis, who topped Midnight's A pool with a perfect win record. And they topped us with a perfect win record. Which was fine and well within my expectation on the turnout of the match. I was a little disappointed with the overall nature of the match though. This was not a pleasant team to work with, which is disappointing because the teams in my pool were okay. An exception may be Bitter Death, which I will elaborate on shortly.

The unpleasantness with the match started 10 minutes prior when I received a /tell from a team member asking if my team was ready. Then I received /tells from 2 others from the team. Heck, it's my livejournal. Why not post transcripts?

[11:51:34] Whitewizard tells ye, "are you ready for ocl then?"
[11:52:09] Whitewizard tells ye, "got a 4 player + team?"
[11:52:47] Ye told Whitewizard, "We do, but I'd like to see if our fifth will show (since she said she would). We'll be ready to go at the match time regardless"
[11:53:01] Whitewizard tells ye, "okies, what are your team members?"
[11:53:11] Whitewizard tells ye, "send them to pavement for invites"
[11:56:05] Sheridyn tells ye, "hi"
[11:56:11] Sheridyn tells ye, "Ready for the OCL :)?"
[11:56:20] Mrswordfight tells ye, "hey"
[11:56:33] Mrswordfight tells ye, "so who are your team members?"
[11:57:39] Ye told Sheridyn, "Pretty much. Just talking over a couple things. We'll be over in a minute"
[11:57:44] Mrswordfight tells ye, "HELLO?"
[11:57:49] Sheridyn tells ye, "Ok tell me when your done :)"
[11:58:03] Ye told Mrswordfight, "*laughs* Sorry. I have three of your team members sending me /tells plus my team."
[11:58:21] Ye told Mrswordfight, "My fingers are pretty occupied. We'll be ready in a minute :)"
[11:58:29] Mrswordfight tells ye, "okies just concentrate on me XD"

May I note that Sheridyn is their captain. I could have not cared and just spoken only to her. But whatever. Someone on my team requested that we had a plan, that is who fought when, beforehand and so I was trying to oblige during those last 10 minutes. With the absence of Nue, I wasn't sure whether I should write her in or not. In the end, I did, and had Pj jump in for her until she showed.

Once we got there, we had to wait for 7-8 for one of their team members (I believe finishing another game) before we could start the first game. Wait wait wait, you're harassing me at 9 minutes before the match time about having my team together and you didn't have your goddamned team together? wtf?

After Deadly Combination won their fourth game (and therefore winning the match), we said we would like to play out the rest of the match for fun. I had to repeated myself twice that yes, we were aware that they won, but we would still like to play.

Of course, there was this:
[12:21:35] Mrswordfight says, "I have a match at 9"
[12:21:38] Mrswordfight says, "so let's get this out of the way"

And there was another comment from this guy that was somewhat annoying. And then I think during the last match, Sheridyn picked up a stick to fight us with for laughs. And of course, comments such as:

[12:29:47] Sheridyn says, "bang bang i shot you down demonslayer"
[12:29:48] Demonslayer is eliminated!

Which, meh, annoying yeah. Rude, definitely. Sadly though, this isn't out of my expectation for high end swordfighters and unfortunately, they just totally reinforced that opinion about them for me. Which is fine, I suppose, if they get a kick out of that (although I wonder what it is about swordfighting that brings out the arrogant bastard in its extremely good players).

I think what pissed me off in the match was this exchange though:

[12:25:00] Pjotr says, "Orangegreen is just a watcher, not a temp, right?"
[12:25:06] Sheridyn says, "yeh just a watcher"
[12:25:17] Pjotr says, "okkies, cause he's rather annoying :)"
[12:26:16] Orangegreen says, "I've actually never heard of Pjotr ever in my life. Who are you? Are you in the OCL finals? Didn't think so."

Which, heh. Never heard of Pjotr? He's honestly missing out. But I have another entry typed up about that. I also think it's mighty sad how he clings onto the fact that he made it to OCL finals like that. It's another one of those times where I wonder, "are you trying to compensate for something?"

But anyway, that's OCL swordfighting semis for you. Heh, perhaps we did Odd Jobs and the other teams a favor by not making them deal with these guys. As fun as it was, I am not sad to see it over.

edit: Oh right, Bitter Death. I don't remember our match against them being annoying or unpleasant. At the same time, I don't remember Orangegreen or Greenorange being there so the unpleasantness on their team might be limited to one person. Heh.

There's a lot of whining here. But it's my (Y!PP) journal and I'll whine if I want to? Actually, I want to get this out of my system. So here goes.

I'm captaining another OCL team this season. Granted, it's a casual team, and I think I'm only captaining it because I brought OCL up first and no one wants to deal with the wiki :P

Last weekend was the first match, which went less than smoothly. Because the schedule went up within the 48 hour window, the rescheduling rules were kind of thrown out. We received a request to reschedule from the other team--ah well, I said three hours. It actually landed in my box 2.5 hours before the match, and I didn't wake up to look at the forums until an hour after that. Ha, I slept for a grand total of two hours that night. Go figure that she would send that during the two hours I happened to sleep.

Of course, I went to try and contact my team to discuss it, but only two were around early and neither wanted to reschedule it. I don't think everyone spoke up when I polled after the match time (I was surprised when everyone showed up. Only two told me ahead of time that they could be there for sure), but the general agreement was that we wouldn't honor the reschedule. Maxtrie was the only person from the other team that was logged in during the match window. I would later find out that the captain, Queenofb, went to bed.

I think Alastriona was the only person on my team that asked my opinion. If she didn't, I think I gave it to her anyway (we were in /tells a lot), that I didn't want to deny the other team the reschedule. Heh, I actually felt pretty bad. That could have easily been us. But I wasn't going to make my team do something they didn't want to do.

I sent off a PM to Apollo seeking advice, which didn't really present anything novel. But the exchange gave me some reassurance that I needed. Even so, this episode still bugged me. I showed my team Apollo's advice, but once again, I couldn't contact them all fast enough to agree to a reschedule. We had to take the forfeit.

Understandably so, Maxtrie made a disgruntled-sounding post after I said we're taking the forfeit. Heh, I'd quote her here, but it seems she changed her post since then. Something about what competing for a familiar does to people. Which made me both amused and sad.

Amused because, as I said, this is a casual team. I said that outright when I took on team members because I took anyone that wanted to participate. I had no idea what type of rank distribution I had until our second match a couple days ago (I guess I'm our only ult...even then, I'd say I'm more of a leg. I think we had a couple of masters, a leg and a couple in the gm-ren range). I try not to say this to the team just because I think it sounds rude, but I'm not planning on winning a familiar with this team. That's what I meant when I said casual, and I specified that at the beginning so that someone who was serious about the familiar (for example, Jaina) could go find a serious team.

Sad because...well, I'm pretty sure she was referring to me and my team.

I didn't obsess about this match too much afterwards, but it did float through my thoughts off and on throughout the week. I don't know if I conveyed this to many people or not (I think I did express it a little when talking to Apollo), but the events around this match made me want to kick a wall. I was incredibly frustrated.

But I realized something today (hence finally allowing myself to type an entry about it). Going back to Queenofb and the fact that she went to bed...I wouldn't have done that. Yes, she did tell me she was sort of new at this, but...I think even in my first season of captaining, I would have stayed up trying to get a hold of the other captain. Instead, it felt like she just assumed she'd get the reschedule just because she sent off the PM saying she needed one and then skipped off. I sent a response as soon as I could (that is, an hour later when I woke up). Granted, I'm not sure her being there would have changed anything as far as getting us to reschedule. But a team really only needs two people from a team to play a match (plus the two allowed temps). She would have had that had she stuck around for the match time and then spent that 2.5 hours looking for temps. Granted, that could be difficult for some people (that's why I try to line up temps beforehand, and I did) but it would have been better than taking a forfeit. I suggested finding temps in my response to her. Because if she couldn't get in contact with her team over a period of 4 days, how does she expect me to contact my team in 3 2.5 hours? (Granted, she was also sick with the flu)

And here's something that I haven't told many people, if anyone. Apollo hosted a carpentry bake-off an hour before our match. While the bake-off itself would have probably finished in time for the match, prize distribution probably wouldn't have (and you have to stay on the ship to receive your prize). I would have loved to postpone our match so my main could attend that. Really, I would have. I would have loved to tell Queenofb that we would reschedule for a later date. But again, my team didn't want to.

So I alted in the bake-off so I could participate, yet send Bisquick off to the match if needed. I'm not a great carper, and I didn't do it for the familiar, but I like trinkets. I was going for a flower or something. Unfortunately, all of my alts are ranked low in carpentry...I had a rough time getting the hammer to sparkle for the first half of the bake-off because I didn't have enough boards to make large MP combos. I ended up about 5 or so below the prize cut off. I can't say my main would have definitely won a prize (because I'm not really a consistent carper) but she would have had a much better shot at it.

One of my team mates also participated in the bakeoff and received a prize. Therefore she was late to the match that didn't happen. Which was fine, because we had plenty of people to cover for her. But for the captain to be late? Especially to the first match of a team full of (I assume) first-timers? Not cool. So I felt gypped out of the bake-off, and felt like saying so a number of times. But I already looked like jackass in the OCL thread, so I didn't.

The second match for this team went much smoother, and I was much happier with it. Less of a desire to kick a wall.

Sea Battle is the next season, and I think I'll captain a team for that, too. I'm terribly excited though, because I think this is a first time I'll be making a serious attempt at winning an OCL familiar. With the sinking setting, Pj is willing to participate (I knew he would), which means we have a good shot at winning with kick-ass team.

And admittedly, this made me quite pleased:

Bisqy: That's what I was thinking. I felt kinda bad for putting out like that
Bisqy: Because now you have a bunch of people jumping on you. :P
Pjotr: hehe yeah, both Alas and Nue already asked me for a spot on the team
Pjotr: which is fine
Pjotr: either way though, you're on it :P

Yeah. "Pj's minion" still feels like an accurate description. :P

So I got accused of cheating in the SF tourney yesterday by an ult in the lower third of the list. I was amused:

[15:12:27] Lilirishdude lost!
[15:12:27] Game over. Winner: Bisquick.
[15:12:29] Bisquick says, "close one"
[15:12:30] Lilirishdude says, "rooflllllllllll"
[15:14:42] Lilirishdude lost!
[15:14:42] Game over. Winner: Bisquick.
[15:14:42] Your next match in the tournament will begin in 30 seconds.
[15:14:44] Lilirishdude says, "Biggest"
[15:14:44] Lilirishdude says, "oad"
[15:14:45] Lilirishdude says, "of"
[15:14:46] Lilirishdude says, "bulll"
[15:14:48] Lilirishdude says, "load*"
[15:14:48] Bisquick says, "heh"
[15:14:55] Lilirishdude says, "SUCH bs"
[15:14:57] Lilirishdude says, "dont even deny it"
[15:15:00] Bisquick shrugs
[15:15:01] Lilirishdude says, "Clear your screen >.."
[15:15:03] Lilirishdude says, ">.>("
[15:15:08] Lilirishdude says, "BUild suspiciously fast"

I was sad I had another match after that. Kinda whisked me away unceremoniously. But oh well. *pastes into the personal Y!PP album of memories...er, lj*

I mean, is there a magical "clear screen" button somewhere? I thought only OMs had access to that? And I thought he built just as fast.

But I dunno. I thought the "BS" was because I was a "lucker". Bwehe.

I decided in today's trophy whore whim that if I'm going to have a shot at that sf-ing ult, then I'm going to have to get over my fear of the brawl table and do matches outside of tournaments. I thank Kerrawyn for giving me the foundation of my style (although it doesn't go as well for me as for him) so I at least have something to shoot for in the first two seconds of the game.

The etiquette between rumbling and swordfighting still tends to vary, with the rumblers slipping in a quick gg before leaving, and more often than not, the sf-ers just left. I wonder what the difference is.

Granted, there are exceptions. I remember Aryian as one of the first legendary rumblers I managed to beat, but she sticks in my memory more as someone that leaves the table as soon as the match is done. Tonight I managed to slip in a "wow" after a scary and close match, prompting my opponent to inquire. A somewhat stiff, but friendly conversation ensued.

I won more matches than I lost today, which is good. I still fumble around with setting up combos. I did manage to pull off a donkey (which I thought was just a bingo).

Bah, I should study.

I got inspired to start this today. It's honestly not often where people annoy me enough for me to want to slap them, but well, today is just special.

Wall of particularly annoying people:

Bisquick lost!
Game over. Winner: Surasshu.
Surasshu says, "good game"
Bisquick says, "good game"
Surasshu says, "pwned"
Resentment is watching the game.
Surasshu lost!
Game over. Winner: Bisquick.
Surasshu says, "wdf"
Surasshu says, "WDF"
Resentment stopped watching the game.
Bisquick says, "heh, should I say it?"
Resentment is watching the game.
Jasen is watching the game.
Bisquick lost!
Game over. Winner: Surasshu.
Jasen stopped watching the game.
Surasshu says, "pwnt."

Baleful Blades: a long sword tourney. Not that this was the typical longsword (sticks in disguise!) match. The first and last fights he unleashed large completely debilitating attacks in the first 20 seconds. It reminded me of Kerrawyn's play style. In the second fight, he either messed up or got delayed because I got the fairly large attack off first. It took him longer to die, but there you go. It made me sad knowing that there really weren't any apparent ults in the tourney (this guy was gm), so as I predicted he also won the tournament.

I find the swordfighting community in general more likely to be annoying (like this guy!), which contributes to my dislike of it. There are a select few in it that have proven themselves exceptions to the community's reputation (Kerrawyn as far as I'm concerned) but otherwise...while this is annoying, it's really no surprise coming from a swordfighting tourney. I wonder if this Surasshu guy is 13 or something?

But anyway, I still hold out hoping for that ult trophy someday.... :P