Toontown: Farewell to My Childhood Favorite MMORPG

Image from Massively by Joystiq

That’s right. It’s been announced here. The online multiplayer game, which was released back in 2003, is finally coming to an end on September 19, 2013.

Most of you have probably never even heard of the game, let alone played it, but I was obsessed with it in my late elementary school years and then throughout middle school. Even though I’d played some other kiddie MMORPGs like Runescape and Club Penguin, I never liked them anywhere near as much as Toontown (though in Runescape’s case it was probably because I didn’t do much socializing there and hated it when I got killed and lost all my items). I’ve always felt that Toontown was the best in terms of strategy and teamwork, and even if it was supposedly a kids’ game, if I had more free time, I’d still play it no matter how old I got.

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Wreck-It Ralph, Video Game Nostalgia, and Tears in the Movie Theater

Image from Animation Magazine

This is not going to be a review, considering that I don’t feel I have the ability to give a thorough or objective one, but rather more of a long monologue.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve written anything of this sort or even written anything that wasn’t for school. My desire to write has pretty much died out completely after several years of deadlines and in-class essays. But as of late, I’ve been so stressed out that I’m desperate to find some way to let it out, and since I’d rather avoid thinking about the things that have been bothering me, why not discuss a few things that I’m interested in instead of just listing a ton of Vocaloid songs? :p And I really just find it to be too time-consuming to do episodic blogging of anime, especially considering that I haven’t really been watching any of the ongoing series. (Plus I’m suffering from anime burnout…hopefully that will cure itself with time.)

As you probably guessed, I went to see Wreck-It Ralph recently. Although it was my friends’ idea to take a trip to the movie theater, I was already interested in watching it, considering that it was 1) an animated movie (you’d think I’d outgrow them eventually, but I still enjoy them as much as ever and probably will no matter how old I get), 2) about video games (which I spent much of my childhood playing) and 3) had an interesting premise that I don’t think I’d seen before (not only did we get to “be” in a video game, but characters were jumping from one game to another and even trying to beat those games themselves). So I was really excited to watch this, and as I had expected, I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. But it was also a somewhat saddening experience for me on several counts.

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Convention: Fanime 2012 @ San Jose

The beginning of the Cosplay Spectacular (Masquerade)

Time: Friday, May 25 to Monday, May 28, 2012 (although there were some pre-con events on Thursday)

Place: San Jose Convention Center, Marriott, and Hilton in San Jose, California

Event Website: http://www.fanime.com/

Just a little heads-up: This post is rather long. If your computer is prone to crashing when you view very long pages, be careful. D:

Finally got to attend the event I’ve been waiting for nearly all year… I went on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, I went dressed as Death the Kid from Soul Eater and was accompanied by three of my friends, one of whom cosplayed as Aradia Megido from Homestuck. On Sunday, I was Hong Kong from Axis Powers: Hetalia and went with one friend (the two others stayed home due to studying for finals and to classes they had to attend ): ). Fanime is a really big convention with a ton of different events, so there’s a lot of panels, video showings, and cosplay meet-ups that I haven’t covered here, but I’ll try to give as much as I can. (I did get to see most of the Masquerade, for those of you who didn’t attend it…If you went to the  black & white ball instead, please do tell me about it.)

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Upcoming Harvest Moon Game: Hajimari no Daichi

Okay, so I know I’m late finding out about this but I just heard about it on VocaloidOtaku through this link. The next Harvest Moon game will be called Harvest Moon: Hajimari no Daichi (which translates to “Land of Origin” or “Land of Beginning”).

Hearing about this game has been simultaneously exciting and frustrating. Exciting because the character you play in Harvest Moon will FINALLY have a customizable appearance. See the videos below:

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Often Amused and Almost Awake

That’s how I’ve been feeling, at least up until about now. Having no 1st period did give me a little more time to sleep, though unfortunately the last few days my insomnia has returned and I’ve been tired all over again. Now that I have a presentation coming up for history class, various tests next week, and a small (but still annoying) project for literature, things are starting to go downhill. But at least I’ve been finding tiny things to entertain me lately.

I bumped into one of my friends after school the other day and we went over to her house for a while. I figured I’d do some homework, but when she suggested that we play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl, well, the paper and pencils went away and the Wii controls came out.

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Conspiracies Abound (Part 2)

I should’ve posted this a lot earlier, but I had a few things to add to it :p It’s gotten really long, so you can read one per day or something.

Microwaves Can Be Used for Anything
I’ve heard some rather strange things about microwaves lately. I remember hearing once that an old lady tried to dry off her wet cat by putting it in the microwave, so apparently now there are warnings telling people not to put animals in their microwaves (I have no idea if it’s true, though). My mother seems to think it’s okay to do that, though, at least with stuffed animals.

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◆ let’s play persona.

Interpret the meaning of that however you want. I love having titles with multiple layers of meaning. I guess my Writing for Publication class really is seeping into the rest of my life.

Well, one of my friends, thefalse-tto, seems to enjoy being written about, so I suppose I’ll inflate her ego a bit more (no offense intended, if she is reading this). She was telling me about how before she’d made a “persona” on the Internet, which means that she basically made a whole identity for herself.

She managed to convince people that she was a 17-year-old boy living in Korea, and she explained that she knew English because you have to learn in there (which is true) and that she knew Chinese because you had to learn another language besides English and Korean (apparently also true; first time I’ve heard it, but it doesn’t surprise me). I think it’d be pretty fun to try doing that myself. All I’ve done so far is stop showing my gender one or two of my accounts…but then again, I bet they already saw that I was female before I hid it. Or they can tell from the way I speak and the kind of pictures I have on my profiles/blogs/etc.

But then again, maybe not. It might not take much to convince people I’m the opposite gender or that I’m a different age or anything I feel like. I’ve done it before by accident; when I was in 7th grade, people on a forum I used to visit said they thought I was in high school or college because I apparently sounded mature (well, most people speak with tons of smilies and chatspeak, so I guess I seem really old in comparison. I don’t know about you, but I estimate people’s ages based on what they type). And there was a really funny incident many years ago on Club Penguin: Some girl thought I was a guy, so she kept having her penguin make those emoticons that look like a heart is breaking. Concerned, I asked her what was wrong, and then somehow or other we ended up going to my penguin’s igloo. Well, eventually I said I was a girl and she said “You lied” and left. I was really flabbergasted at the time, and even angry, because I never said that I was male. But now I just find it hilarious. Isn’t it funny how people are trying to flirt using a kids site where everyone is a bird?

Anyways, I don’t really like to lie about my information, because I try to live by what I believe in, and also because I’ve seen lots of people on the Internet say they hate fakers and liars. I am overly concerned about whether people dislike me because I believe that they attack me with switchblades in some dark, obscure alley, or take pictures of me while I’m changing clothes and put it all over the Internet, and other things like that. (Not that it’s ever happened, but hey, you never know.) Still, I am very curious about what people would think I’m like if I didn’t have much information up. So maybe from now on I’ll reveal as little as possible and see what happens.

This is a pretty big change of topic, but it’s still got to do with this post’s title. Very literally. Because there’s a series of video games called Persona, and another friend of mine started telling me about the plot of Persona 4 yesterday. I’ve certainly seen Persona around before; one time I was on the air plane, and I noticed that the guy in the seat in front of me was playing a video game. Being the creepy, eavesdropping, people-watching sort of person that I am, I stared at it through the gap in the seats to see what game it was. I saw a character that looked very familiar, and then after a while I was certain that it had to be Minato Arisato, the protagonist of Persona 3. (And I was right; I later confirmed it by looking at pictures of Minato on the Internet. Couldn’t find out from watching the guy play because his game was in Japanese, I think. I really have to learn Japanese this summer.) My friend says that she convinced her mom to get her Persona 4, which she says was pretty awkward, because Persona 4 is rated Teen in Japan but is rated Mature in America. (Tells you something about Japanese standards for what’s age appropriate, game-wise at least, doesn’t it?)

What I’m really in the mood for playing, though, is Pokemon. Sure, I have the older games, and I could go back to those, but there’s nothing to do except slaughter wild Pokemon (which is like animal abuse, seeing as I don’t even need to attack them except to make my own Pokemon level up), since I’ve already beat the main storyline. I’d like to try playing Pokemon Black or Pokemon White. But I haven’t decided which one I want yet…I like Reshiram, the legendary Pokemon of Pokemon Black, but I think it’d be more useful to have Zekrom, and possibly Thundurus, if I ever get that far in the game. It seems, from what I’ve Googled, that it’s easier to level up your Pokemon in Black…? (Correct me if I’m wrong.) I guess Black might be more useful to me because I don’t really need those Pokemon that you can get in White but not in Black. (I mean, I checked the Pokemon that are in the White Forest, which is only in Pokemon White, and I have those Pokemon on my older Pokemon games.) If you have either game, please do tell me which you think is better.

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◆ the next addiction?

I always seem to be addicted to one thing or another…Such has been the pattern since I was a young girl. Most of the addictions I had were having to do with video games and other electronics.

Anime (which led to japanese pop and rock)
If you count Pokemon and/or Sailor Moon, then I first watched it before I was in kindergarten (I remember watching Pokemon with a preschool friend of mine). I think I was the most aggressive about watching anime during 6th and 7th grade; I kept watching in 8th grade, though not nearly as much. And after going into high school I haven’t had as much time for it. But I still managed to get some in here and there.

Pokemon games (which led to other video games)
Started when a friend introduced me to them around 2nd grade or so. I was obsessed up until about 8th grade, where I lost interest for a while, but had a few phases of readdiction to an older Pokemon game, LeafGreen. (Unfortunately, I have since fallen off the bandwagon and I am no longer actively keeping up with Pokemon. All I know is that Black and White are supposed to come out soon, and that there’s some dude called N with green hair who seems to be popular.)

Neopets
First played it in 1st grade, made account but never got rich and kept forgetting the password. Finally stuck to one account and worked very hard on it. I did accomplish a lot, but now I don’t think it was worth the time because I no longer do much on Neopets (got too busy in high school and didn’t finish the most recent plot). Probably not going to pick it up seriously again, but who knows?

Nutrinopets (which led to role-playing and graphics)
Actually was bored by the site at first, but returned some months later and decided to become more active. I was invited to a club, and that’s how I discovered the forums of the site. It used to be quite active, but I saw people leave and move on with their lives as time went on. The site went down when I was in 8th grade and it’s not here anymore. It’s through Nutrinopets that I discovered role-playing, graphics, and my obsession with big numbers, particularly when it comes to forum posts (I had well over 20,000 forum posts, though sadly it’s all gone to waste, but I’m glad that I no longer have the obligation to visit the site).

Gaia Online
Another forum; I think I was addicted to this before I got into Nutrinopets, actually, but I didn’t stay on Gaia nearly as long. I think that’s how my childhood innocence got spoiled. Got my first taste of seeing lots of swearing and more inappropriate stuff. -_-;; Mostly I just liked to make money and get items for my avatar. My account got deactivated because I was too young, and I had trouble getting it back once I did turn 13. I still go to Gaia sometimes, but it’s really not that interesting to me.

The Sims 2 and 3
I really enjoy things that I can customize and control at my will, so making virtual people achieve things was pleasing to me… (If only it were that easy in real life to become a master chef, buy a huge house, or be friends with with 30 people… Though the third one’s already too much work in video games XD)

Crunchyroll
Originally joined the site because they had an anime episode that I was having trouble finding elsewhere on the Internet. Abandoned my account for a long time before a friend of mine encouraged me to become active on the site. I don’t have a very positive view of the site anymore (though I haven’t completely quit because I’m too attached to it D: ). There’s really a lot of people there, though, as well as many talented graphics-makers.

DeviantArt (which led to PHOTOGRAPHY!)
Another site that I was inactive on at first, but later became a frequent visitor. I started out only posting graphics, but then I decided to put up a few of my old vacation photos, and eventually photography became the main focus of my gallery. I’m grateful to DeviantArt because I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to get into photography without it.

Youtube/Vocaloids/Nico Nico singers
A friend of mine suggested some Vocaloid songs to listen to (I believe Magnet was one of them; I forget the rest. But Magnet was the one that stood out to me; although it’s not my favorite song, I know more of its lyrics than any other Vocaloid song). I knew about Vocaloids from seeing the artwork (particularly on Zerochan.net) and I’d listened to one or two songs of the Vocaloids before, but I guess those songs weren’t very good since I hadn’t liked Vocaloids back then. I’d thought they were too robotic-sounding and that I preferred “real” Japanese singers. Then I was made aware that there are actually members of the site Nico Nico Douga who make covers of the Vocaloid songs: basically, they sing the Vocaloid songs themselves and put it up on the Internet. They’re quite talented and some have actually become professional singers. (Just see Pico, he’s even got his own Vocaloid based off of himself now!) Well, you already saw my Valshe spam. I’ll probably post more videos of the Nico Nico singers’ music in the future.

I’ve had a bunch of other mini-addictions as well, to series such as Angelic Layer, Sola, Ouran High School Host Club, Pretear, Skip Beat, Durarara!!…and to video game franchises like Harvest Moon, Super Smash Bros…I wonder, will I ever break free from this cycle?

I can already feel myself being sucked into it again. I’ve seen two websites for the Dollars. It’s a fictional group from the series Durarara!! but people have taken it upon themselves to make an actual site. There’s a Dollars forum and a Dollars BBS. (If you don’t know the password to get in, just ask me or whoever else you know that’s a Durarara!! fan) You may realize that many of the sites I frequented in the past were sites with active forums. I’ve always preferred forums to chatting (chatting is too fast-paced, a bit harder to multitask), and I can’t help but be attracted when I see a forum that might suit an otaku like myself.

I probably won’t join the Dollars, at least not yet, because of the amount of users (not quite enough…it seems like the size is like Nutrinopets was when it was waning in activity, and I don’t really want a repeat of the past). There is another prospective that looks very good to me, Vocaloid Otaku. It’s a forum focused on Vocaloids and it’s more active than the Dollars forum…If I join, though, I’m bound to get addicted and waste even more time on the Internet, which really is not in my best interests. It’s so tempting, though! It would give me an excuse to make graphics (I could make myself an avatar with a matching signature banner). And making new accounts is always interesting for me. I’ll hold back for now.

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◆ video games don’t relieve stress.

You would think that, since video games are supposed to entertain you, they would relieve stress, rather than causing more of it. But I’ve certainly had my share of worries due to the games that I’ve played.

Every day, I check up on my Animal Crossing: Wild World to see if it has rained in the game. (If you’ve been keeping track, there is a previous post of mine which speaks of this, so bear with me if you’ve already heard of it.) Over the years I have cultivated a grand garden of flowers in my town, which I am very proud of it. And as I always tend to get too attached to things, even those that may seem trivial, I can’t part with it, not after I’ve spent so much time and effort keeping the flowers alive. I’ve grown tired of having to take care of them, day in and day out (the ones that are brown and dying must be watered, so that the next day they will be healthy again).

I have already let go of Nintendogs. That was a bit easier because the worst that could happen would be the dog running away (they don’t die, nor do they ever mature. Rather unrealistic). The dog would surely come back after a while. In this case I would not lose my house or anything like that, so I wasn’t particularly concerned.

Eventually I expect I’ll abandon Animal Crossing completely, either because it falls off my list of priorities or I finally come to terms with loss. But even though I already know what will happen, I can’t help but be saddened by the future.

During my 6th grade year, I went to a makeshift YMCA daycare after school, located in a place called the Multi-Use room where school announcements and assemblies take place, since I wasn’t trusted to walk home by myself and my parents wouldn’t be able to pick me up until 5 pm, sometimes 6, in most cases. I would finish whatever homework I could (we could use the school library if we needed textbooks). At first, in the beginning of the year, I might sometimes run around backstage and play hide and seek, but after a while we were told not to go backstage anymore, so that put an end to it. We also played some games, like Apples to Apples. It can be quite fun if you have enough people. (Unfortunately you need four people to play it properly, and in my family there are only three if my mom would actually agree to play. So I never get the chance to play it.) But as the year wore on, one of the two people in charge of this YMCA would bring in his Nintendo Gamecube more frequently, and we would play Mario Kart Double Dash or Super Smash Bros. Melee or this X-Men game. I did have a good time playing the video games, although it meant I was that much more impatient for them when I wasn’t playing.

I did hear some exciting news recently. There’s a new kind of Nintendo DS coming out – it’s called the 3DS, and so the graphics will be quite nice. There are games on the way, too, like Nintendogs + Cats. Because of the camera built into the 3DS, the dog will actually be able to recognize your face. And there’s also a new Animal Crossing that looks nice. The characters you can make are now taller and thinner (I was never too fond of the chibi-ish, short people). I’d really like to try these games out, so I guess I’m going to have to get a 3DS. But this also makes me wonder if I’ll even have the time to play them.

What really spurred me on to write this post was the problems I was having with my Sims 3 today. I was notified that there was a game update available for the Sims 3 World Adventures (an expansion pack I had purchased), so I decided to update it. After that I figured I should try to play the game. But then I was told that my expansion was not compatible with my base game. I waited for it to update, but it didn’t do anything. Eventually I started rooting around online to see what I could find. It seems that other people were having the same problem, too. I finally figured out that I ought to download a patch to my Sims 3 game, which fixed the game launcher, so I should be able to play now (it has finally stopped telling me my game is incompatible and everything is showing up as usual). I was really worried there thinking I might have to uninstall everything (although I was prepared for this, and backed up my files on my external hard drive). I’m so glad that it’s been fixed now.

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◆ because I was careless.

A few days ago, I dropped my Nintendo DS.

It’s not the first time this has happened. I’ve dropped it several times before – on carpet and even on my driveway. But this was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

I can’t turn the DS on anymore. It lights up for a short while but then flickers off with a kind of cracking noise. I’ve tried tinkering a little with it but it doesn’t do any good.

I was hoping that maybe my parents might have an idea how to fix it, but they said that it was simply getting too old, and probably whatever broke was inside the DS, so there’s no real way to get to it without taking the DS apart. (But since it can’t turn on anyway, I think it’s worth the risk to try and open it up so that there’s a chance of fixing it. But I’m not knowledgeable about this kind of thing, so I have no idea what I would do even if I get into the inner workings of the DS.)

If I’d taken more caution and hadn’t dropped it on the ground, it would still work. It might have served me yet for a few more years. I know that know one has the power to change the past. But I sure wish I could do something about it.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen someone die or attended a funeral that the demise of an object can affect me so much. But maybe it’s best that I never have to deal with the pain of someone dying in my life and that this be one of the few things that I’ve grieved over.

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