As for MMOs, the short of it is that I’ve gone crawling back to Mabinogi because I have absolutely no conviction or willpower.

Anyway, I’ve been alternating between hating free games and…well, not hating them, I suppose.  Partly because I keep holding them up to the (unfair?) standards of World of Warcraft, but mostly because of Dream of Mirror Online‘s item mall.

I was all set to write NCsoft a stubborn letter about how deceptive it was of them not to clearly indicate that the “Aion Prepurchase” was a download-only purchase that didn’t come with any of the physical benefits (soundtrack, figure, etc.) on the actual product page instead of a separate FAQ and that if they didn’t give me a refund, I would dispute it.  I even took screen shots to show that nowhere does it indicate on any page leading up to the completion of the order that it is a download-only purchase to submit to the credit card company, should it come to that.  In the end, I chickened out and decided that it wasn’t worth it; I like my squeaky clean credit record, it is mostly my fault for not being more thorough (prepurchase =/= preorder) and too spontaneous (although, I grudgingly admit this; all info pertaining to said product should be on the product page, not a separate link that’s not even provided on the product page), and I didn’t want my NCsoft account getting locked.

I still wanted a physical copy, though, so I went to trusty old Amazon and preordered it.  I love real world extra crap; it’s the only reason I care about collector’s editions.  In-game extra crap means nothing to me because I won’t have them anymore after the game is dead and gone, which, I hope, is tens of years from now.  Well, they mean something to me in free, microtransaction games only because the game was free in the first place.  For as much money as a collector’s edition, though, I want something I can use without having to be in the game.  No, that $10 difference in price is not enough to make up for the physical stuff, such as the figure and the soundtrack.  A soundtrack by itself would cost around $15!

So I’m ordering more Aion for $70 even though I already spent $60 on the prepurchase because I’m a stupid, obsessive collector.  I’m mad at NCsoft for not being clear about what kind of store theirs is,  but I’m madder at myself for not having realized that every game being sold off the NCsoft store is really just an account code and nothing more.

That should have been the end of it.  I had the only Metal I wanted, some boxes to sell the ones I didn’t want, and some tags to name the ones I did (want).  The crafty staff of Aeria, however, then slashed the prices of the chests and gave out a hundred percent rebate on them right after that spender promo!  Well, of course, I had to get in on that.  So with a bajillion pets (okay, maybe more like fifteen) under my care, I engaged in a frenzied chain of pet trades and sales that lasted two weeks, but resulted in me finally owning all the handsome Jades (mostly still roly poly cacti) and a pink-haired Lily.

Original Pet Line-up: SE4 Rock, SE4 Metal, Original Jade, SE4 Sapphire, Original Ruby

Final Pet Line-up (After Having Gone Nuts): SE1 Jade, Original Jade, SE1 Love, SE3 Jade, SE2 Jade

I bartered away whoever wasn’t in my final line-up (and ones that weren’t in my line-up at all) except for the Rock and the Metal because they’re so adorable.  The Rock I’ll probably try to vend soon because I think the Special Edition 5 piggy is a lot cuter, but the panda is staying with me, even if he has to rot in a Hibernation Box.

Maewen: I don’t think they’re the same ears.
Me: Good, because they weren’t on sale.

Special Edition 4 pets have come to Dream of Mirror Online in North America, along with a wave of pet promotions!  Lacking a sufficiently handsome Jade among them, however, I’ve (just barely) managed to keep myself from breaking the pupu bank.  I was tempted, but not ensnared by the  slashed price  of the Vanity Pet Chest, which seems to have been in conjunction with the “Buy Vanity Pet Chest, Get Ornamental Pet Naming Tag” promotion.  No adorable little boy to go with my big handsome man?  No, thank you.  By the way, I would have renamed him Shy Joey.

While I entertained the thought of having an ugly Doraemon for a few minutes, it was actually the “Mini Spender Promo” that almost got me.  I don’t like the look of the Jester Costume (if only it looked like Harley Quinn’s), I don’t like the look of SE4 Jade’s beady eyes, and none of the vanity pets  look as cute as my roly poly cactus.  I needed an inventory upgrade, though, and I figured I might as well get something extra out of it.  At the last second, I pulled back on my mouse as it approached the checkout button, told myself to wait for a better costume promotion, and to just sell all that damn junk in the bank.  Okay, I didn’t really “pull back”, but news like that should come in a dramatic narrative!

Maewen: You’re calling not spending AP on anything news?  Then what’s a headline?  Spending a buck on a Pet Naming Tag?
Me: You really know how to spoil a story.

Due to technical difficulties, I was forced to start as a magic-embracing Elerd pom in Neo Steam.  Okay, that’s mostly a lie–there was a problem with Rogwel (to be explained sometime in the future), but that had nothing to do with my decision; I had wanted to be  a citizen of the magical nation since Atlus put the site up.  I still wanted to be thorough and check out the other side, though; just because something is good in theory doesn’t make it good in practice.  So I started creating a Rogwel pom and received an aesthetic shock.  Red hair!  These were the poms I had wanted all along!  Maybe the opening movie influenced me, but I find them much cuter than the white cotton balls.  I had thought at the time I was creating that first Elerd pom that this kind of coloring wasn’t offered to players or that it would be, but only through the cash shop.

That all but cemented it for me.  The only thing holding me back was that I wanted my “main” name, which was currently being occupied by my magic-loving pom.  I didn’t want to wait 10 days–the wait period for the name to be freed up–just so I could play with that name and I still had a bit of an attachment to her, little as I played her.  So I decided to not  delete her and just relegate her to alt status so I could spend time with my adorable red-head.

An adorable red-head that I kept deleting.  First, I decided I had the “wrong” face.  Then I decided I had the “wrong” class.  Then it was the “wrong” name.  Then the “right” name, but the “wrong” class (yes, again).  I finally think of a better name, one that I’m never going to change it from this name I just thought up (seriously, matches my class and cuteness perfectly without being too…non-name-like) and I accidentally make her the wrong class.  I didn’t just change my mind about the class this time around; I actually was careless enough to not select the right class before finalizing the creation.  Another deletion.  So now I have the “right” class puttering around with the “wrong name”.  That cash shop just can’t open quick enough for me.  Well, I suppose there’s nothing I can do even if it were to open right now.  The words “ten” and “days” together will from this day forward carry with it a sense of despair and grief.  Please pray for those poor poms stuck in limbo.

As just a game, I don’t really think much of Neo Steam.  The surroundings look average, the elves look speshul, and it crashes every time I try to play a lyell (but that last part’s just me, if the forums are anything to go by).  Yet I still want to keep playing.  Poms are just so adorable!  Atlus is awesome!  (Edit:  Took out “almost awesome community” after people started bashing other MMO’s in the world chat.  It’s not a terrible community, but it turns out it’s pretty average after all.  First day novelties are wearing off.  Poms are still awesome.  So is Atlus.)

There is just one thing getting in the way:  motion sickness.  I don’t get this with other games, such World of Warcraft or Dream of Mirror Online because they move the way I expect them to.  In WoW, I see my character from behind and it doesn’t change unless I want it to.  She turns, I expect to see my view turn.  I wish it worked that way in DoMO, too, but that’s more a control issue.  Anyway, my sylph may not turn when I want her to, but I know what to expect to see on my screen:  her heading in the direction I accidentally set her off to (well, I’ve gotten better now) from the same viewpoint I’ve been looking at her from the whole time.  When an angle changes, I expect it because I made it change with the mouse.

My view changes drastically in Neo Steam and for no reason at all.  My cute pom is waddling along, and then bam, she’s a few steps back (and for some odd reason, facing the screen), the view having stepped back as well.  She keep going, it keeps happening.  She’s making slow, but sure progress, and I’m feeling the urge to throw up.  If she talks to an NPC, sometimes the camera will actually spin up into the sky before slowly settling back down to its normal NPC-talk view.  Speaking of which, why change views at all when talking to an NPC?  The sudden shift in angles, while not always to the sky, is still headache-inducing.

I’d like to think, “It’s only beta, it’s got problems,” but I have this same problem in Guild Wars, albeit it to a lesser extent, which is definitely not beta.  The headache and dizziness probably should be enough to make me stop playing since there are plenty of alternatives, but I’m nuts like that.  All this really means is that I can’t play either of these games without going afk every few minutes.

Because of Trickster Online, I came to the realization that I have absolutely no self control.  Spending <censored for my sanity> in one night just to try to get the Santa Knight, a rare drop from some kind of drilling game that I had to pay to play each time, was what spoiled the game for me and made me promise myself to never go back.  Completely my own fault, but I can’t separate the feeling of dread whenever I even look at something Tricskter-related; I even had reservations about playing Pangya with my friend because of the six-degree type of way it’s associated with Trickster.

There is one thing I’ve always missed as a result of swearing off Trickster, though:  Shy Joey, my favorite pet.  An adorable human boy in a skirt!   I didn’t even care if his abilities were helpful to my class at all, I just wanted him following me.  After all, what could be better than a pet that looks like he just walked straight out of an uke role in a BL manga?  A pet that looks like he just walked straight out of a seme role in a BL manga, that’s what.

I actually only had to play the drilling game once to get Shy Joey and he was obtained on the very last drill of that game.   The luck stopped there.  Finding out that there was a pet that looked this hot in Dream of Mirror Online and learning that pets were obtained through a (random) capsule machine only brought back the bad memories of my obsessive attempts at obtaining a second cute boy pet.  I like DoMO and my pretty costumes and I’m not about to ruin it with obsessive capsule collecting.   Obsessive clothing collecting is a different matter; at least I am not gambling on the chance that I’ll get a costume I like.  I know exactly what costumes I am getting when I purchase them from the item mall or promotions, which means I won’t try again to get a certain costume.  So I did research; I looked back through all the promotion announcements made this year, looking for pet specials.  Not that I really knew what I should be looking for.  After all, not seeing any pet promotions could mean anything:  either they don’t happen or DoMO‘s about due for one.   I would need a crystal ball to accurately guess which of those is correct.

It was a moot point after a while because somwhere in those promotion announcements, a Pet Exchange event was mentioned.  (By the way–maintenance also used to be announced.  Whatever happened to that?  I attempted to log in on Wednesday only to be unpleasantly surprised.)  Apparently, if I had ever bothered to pay attention to the event announcements, I would have learned that every Friday there is a Pet Exchange Event:  exchange four pets for one special edition pet of choice.  Armed with that knowledge, I recharged my Aeria Points.  It wasn’t about gambling for a specific pet anymore; it was simply about getting enough capsules to exchange for a SE Jade Pet.

Still, I would rather not have to use a Friday to do a Pet Exchange because it’s hard to get specific moments free on a weekday.  So I purchased one Pet Package at a time (on sale as of this writing) with the intention of stopping if I got the Jade Egg before getting four capsules.  As the accompanying image shows, success!  (I totally resisted the urge to say, “Huge success.”  Until now.)  Now I also have a Rock Egg that I don’t particularly want, but I have a good name for it, so maybe I’ll keep it.  Besides, I don’t want to buy a Pet Hibernation Box.