Thursday, May 20, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Pet Nebula
Today it was a tossup between Verpets and Pet Nebula, and I decided Pet Nebula on account of the shiney bat thing on the front page. Bats = yes. All the time. Unless they're those stupid Neopet bat things whose name escapes me. Those are just...no. Insulting, really. (I'm not knocking Neopets completely, now. I may get to that later. Maybe. Maybe not, because it's already so galldanger poopular.)
Well, I'll go signup now, and then I'll give my first impression. If I remember, I'll update over the next ten days to maybe a month. I think I'll include things like forum activity(overall community), game quality, pet quality(interactivity as well as graphics) website functionability,(it's a word because I SAY it is) aaaaand profile perks. Like, what kinds of things you can do with your profile and such.
First impression:
So far, all I've done is enter a sign up name, and on the second step a very nice, shiney pet popped up.
Graphics wise, this looks very promising so far. To me, anyway. I dunno if YOU go for that kind of thing, but if not, I don't understand you. I mean, it's so shiny. And purple. Who can not love shiny purple things?
Step three, more shininess, entering your birth date and country. I have to say, this signup process is nice. Most sites have you fill out a form like some kind of application. This setup is kinda spunky and interactive. More promising.
I feel this is worth mentioning because maybe one day, the person whose idea this was and who made this signup process will read this, and know someone appreciates their hard work. The little things deserve to be noticed when they're unique.
Final step, and the graphic is a pretty dragon. I am a fine of dragons to begin with, not to mention it's impossibly scrawny with huge ganglish legs. He also has black. A dead black mane of fur and wings. This makes me happy.
Okay, the enter the number thing is slightly confusing. For those of you that finish this and are interested in signing up, remember that for the single-digit answers, enter a zero before the number, ex: 06. I may mention this to them. It wasn't a huge roadblock, especially since the next answer was two digits, but like I said, the little things matter.
Also, after the parade of shiny pets, the flat-coloured wizard at the end was a little anticlimactic. Just saying. He looks like something out of the clipart gallery in Microsoft Word.
Okay, this was a little random. That wizard graphic is holding a little billboard telling you that you've been registered and your password ----------- has been sent to your email. ...If you're going to bother sending the password to my email, doesn't that imply you're not going to give it up right off the bat? And yet here we are.
Though I suppose that's a good thing, in a way. I mean, what if I had entered one wrong letter in my email address, and I never got that password? I'd have to go back through the whole process again(assuming I eventually figure out what went wrong) and I'd have to get a new username and everything. And I get very attached to my usernames very easily. I put a lot of thought into them. I'm a wordsy person, and words are important to me.
So in the end I suppose I have to rate that a + for convenience. Pet Nebula, looking good so far.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Ah, I just noticed on the billboard, they used a made-up word. They get another ten points. Made up words = ninja, which = win. So let's say they win ten ninjas.
I'm going to say each shiny pet is worth ten ninjas. So far they have forty. And I'm gonna say...five ninjas for each spark of creativity that catches my eye. The sign up process gets them another five. So forty-five ninjas, so far.
Pets:
Yaay! I've logged in. Now it's time for the real fun to begin: the pets.
They have them on display three at a time. Interesting. I guess they wanted to do something different. I don't think that warrants any ninjas though. Sorry.
This is called a Dray. It's some kind of dragon thing, so that wins it an extra two ninja. Seven ninjas. However, it will also lose an extra ninja for that discouraging wing anatomy. Sorry Pet Nebula, but you've stepped the very long toes that are attached to my pet peeve: poor wing anatomy. Don't feel bad, though, it's nothing personal. I'm just a kook.
That doesn't mean you get that extra ninja back.
This next pet is a "Gretchling".
Again, they have stepped on my pet peeve anatomy toes. Those wings are just...I'm sorry. But they are.
Not to mention I'm not a fan of random cutesy bipeds with random head tentacles and raep faces. Three ninjas off for the random cutesy bipedal ness that looks like a cross between a furby, a Troll(c), and one of the little green men from Mars. Another ninja gone for the pet peeveness. Though you do get one back for the raep face. I lied. I can be a fan of raep faces when properly applied. On this thing, it makes a deceptively cutesy creature into a potentially villainous ball of fluff. Gretchling, your name sounds like a marriage of "retch" and "Gretel", your wings are painful to look at directly, and your tentacles combined with the raep face make you a subtle allusion to hentai, but you may win me over yet.
Overall rating: Two ninjas.
Up next, the "Panormo". It's a pony thing, so that wins it...eh. We'll say a whole ninja for now. But I may have to update my ratings to half-ninja increments in future. I don't think ponies rank as high as half as much as dragons. But like I said, I'm winging this for the first time and I don't like thinking too much this late, so we'll give you that freebie.
I'm gonna say the first two were done by the same artist, while the Panormo is clearly of another style and quality. I'll give it a solid three ninjas. And then another for being a shiny pony.
So, overall rating, four ninjas.
That's all for now, folks. I have homeworks to finish and SATs tomorrow. Not that you have to be awake to pass SATs, but the parents are buckling down on me--heck, I'm buckling down on me. Been terrible sick the past few days and I need me some forty winks. Maybe even fifty. I'd like for sixty, but that's far too much to hope for.
Guten nacht, my nonexistent readers!
Well, I'll go signup now, and then I'll give my first impression. If I remember, I'll update over the next ten days to maybe a month. I think I'll include things like forum activity(overall community), game quality, pet quality(interactivity as well as graphics) website functionability,(it's a word because I SAY it is) aaaaand profile perks. Like, what kinds of things you can do with your profile and such.
First impression:
So far, all I've done is enter a sign up name, and on the second step a very nice, shiney pet popped up.
Graphics wise, this looks very promising so far. To me, anyway. I dunno if YOU go for that kind of thing, but if not, I don't understand you. I mean, it's so shiny. And purple. Who can not love shiny purple things?
Step three, more shininess, entering your birth date and country. I have to say, this signup process is nice. Most sites have you fill out a form like some kind of application. This setup is kinda spunky and interactive. More promising.
I feel this is worth mentioning because maybe one day, the person whose idea this was and who made this signup process will read this, and know someone appreciates their hard work. The little things deserve to be noticed when they're unique.
Final step, and the graphic is a pretty dragon. I am a fine of dragons to begin with, not to mention it's impossibly scrawny with huge ganglish legs. He also has black. A dead black mane of fur and wings. This makes me happy.
Okay, the enter the number thing is slightly confusing. For those of you that finish this and are interested in signing up, remember that for the single-digit answers, enter a zero before the number, ex: 06. I may mention this to them. It wasn't a huge roadblock, especially since the next answer was two digits, but like I said, the little things matter.
Also, after the parade of shiny pets, the flat-coloured wizard at the end was a little anticlimactic. Just saying. He looks like something out of the clipart gallery in Microsoft Word.
Okay, this was a little random. That wizard graphic is holding a little billboard telling you that you've been registered and your password ----------- has been sent to your email. ...If you're going to bother sending the password to my email, doesn't that imply you're not going to give it up right off the bat? And yet here we are.
Though I suppose that's a good thing, in a way. I mean, what if I had entered one wrong letter in my email address, and I never got that password? I'd have to go back through the whole process again(assuming I eventually figure out what went wrong) and I'd have to get a new username and everything. And I get very attached to my usernames very easily. I put a lot of thought into them. I'm a wordsy person, and words are important to me.
So in the end I suppose I have to rate that a + for convenience. Pet Nebula, looking good so far.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Ah, I just noticed on the billboard, they used a made-up word. They get another ten points. Made up words = ninja, which = win. So let's say they win ten ninjas.
I'm going to say each shiny pet is worth ten ninjas. So far they have forty. And I'm gonna say...five ninjas for each spark of creativity that catches my eye. The sign up process gets them another five. So forty-five ninjas, so far.
Pets:
Yaay! I've logged in. Now it's time for the real fun to begin: the pets.
They have them on display three at a time. Interesting. I guess they wanted to do something different. I don't think that warrants any ninjas though. Sorry.
This is called a Dray. It's some kind of dragon thing, so that wins it an extra two ninja. Seven ninjas. However, it will also lose an extra ninja for that discouraging wing anatomy. Sorry Pet Nebula, but you've stepped the very long toes that are attached to my pet peeve: poor wing anatomy. Don't feel bad, though, it's nothing personal. I'm just a kook.
That doesn't mean you get that extra ninja back.
This next pet is a "Gretchling".
Again, they have stepped on my pet peeve anatomy toes. Those wings are just...I'm sorry. But they are.
Not to mention I'm not a fan of random cutesy bipeds with random head tentacles and raep faces. Three ninjas off for the random cutesy bipedal ness that looks like a cross between a furby, a Troll(c), and one of the little green men from Mars. Another ninja gone for the pet peeveness. Though you do get one back for the raep face. I lied. I can be a fan of raep faces when properly applied. On this thing, it makes a deceptively cutesy creature into a potentially villainous ball of fluff. Gretchling, your name sounds like a marriage of "retch" and "Gretel", your wings are painful to look at directly, and your tentacles combined with the raep face make you a subtle allusion to hentai, but you may win me over yet.
Overall rating: Two ninjas.
Up next, the "Panormo". It's a pony thing, so that wins it...eh. We'll say a whole ninja for now. But I may have to update my ratings to half-ninja increments in future. I don't think ponies rank as high as half as much as dragons. But like I said, I'm winging this for the first time and I don't like thinking too much this late, so we'll give you that freebie.
I'm gonna say the first two were done by the same artist, while the Panormo is clearly of another style and quality. I'll give it a solid three ninjas. And then another for being a shiny pony.
So, overall rating, four ninjas.
That's all for now, folks. I have homeworks to finish and SATs tomorrow. Not that you have to be awake to pass SATs, but the parents are buckling down on me--heck, I'm buckling down on me. Been terrible sick the past few days and I need me some forty winks. Maybe even fifty. I'd like for sixty, but that's far too much to hope for.
Guten nacht, my nonexistent readers!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Day One
So I had a thought. (Which is scary enough in itself if you know me, but for those of you that don't, feel free to give me the benefit of the doubt!)
I was on Deviant Art and saw someone's designs for a virtual pet site that they'd sold recently. I went to check out the site for myself, and, as usual, you can't check anything out before you make an account. Which is kind of...feh. I mean, seriously? You're going to try to get commitment out of me before I've even gotten in the front door? That's like asking me to buy a Season 1 set of a series on DVD before I have even watched one episode--and unless I've got like four friends chanting at me to doooo iiiit because they know for CERTAIN I'll loooove iiit, it's not going to happen.
And those virtual game websites with their so-called reviews? Yeah. Those aren't reviews. Those are glazed-over summaries of what you can do on whatever site you're looking up. Which usually includes three or four lines of "you can adopt your own virtual pets, play games, and interact with other virtual pet owners!" which is like saying "If you buy this sofa, you can sit on it, sleep on it, and your friends can join you to mock soap operas on Saturdays when you have nothing better to do!" Not to mention whoever writes those things always sounds so dang happy about life. Everything ends in exclamation points and every other sentence either involves the word "fun" or "exciting". I mean, has this person ever even actually played those games?
Which brings me to my point. Movie critics don't write reviews without seeing the movie. Restaurant critics don't write reviews without eating the food. Book critics don't write reviews without reading the book. Game critics don't write reviews without playing the game.
I happen to love virtual pet sites. Really. I like shiney, pretty pet graphics and I like it when there are ways--paintbrushes, potions, elixirs, whateverhaveyou--to make the pets even prettier and shinier. If I can make them hardcore shiney, like, monstery, with spikes and stuff, you will find yourself with a very happy Thaddeus Grey.
But how am I supposed to know I can do that when there's no reliable source of information? "You can feed your pet, play with it, and even change its colouromgexciting!!" is not a reliable source of information. People that get paid to hunt down links to pet sites for game review sites and slap halfheartedly falsely cheerful summaries onto said links are not reliable sources of information. One or two "reviews" from users (which are more like ten-worded comments than anything) do not really count.
So I thought, hey. Since no one else is doing it, and I have nothing better to do(like my 3d modelling class homework, my two essays for AP Lit, or studying for AP Exams) why not?
Plus, this is actually a fantastic excuse for signing up on impulse to shiney pet sites and spending a couple weeks before dropping off the face of its planet without feeling guilty.
Will I be updating this every day? Is anyone actually reading this that might care? Heck no on both accounts. But I will try to update with semi regularity.
Which means whenever I find a shiney pet site and sign up for it.
I was on Deviant Art and saw someone's designs for a virtual pet site that they'd sold recently. I went to check out the site for myself, and, as usual, you can't check anything out before you make an account. Which is kind of...feh. I mean, seriously? You're going to try to get commitment out of me before I've even gotten in the front door? That's like asking me to buy a Season 1 set of a series on DVD before I have even watched one episode--and unless I've got like four friends chanting at me to doooo iiiit because they know for CERTAIN I'll loooove iiit, it's not going to happen.
And those virtual game websites with their so-called reviews? Yeah. Those aren't reviews. Those are glazed-over summaries of what you can do on whatever site you're looking up. Which usually includes three or four lines of "you can adopt your own virtual pets, play games, and interact with other virtual pet owners!" which is like saying "If you buy this sofa, you can sit on it, sleep on it, and your friends can join you to mock soap operas on Saturdays when you have nothing better to do!" Not to mention whoever writes those things always sounds so dang happy about life. Everything ends in exclamation points and every other sentence either involves the word "fun" or "exciting". I mean, has this person ever even actually played those games?
Which brings me to my point. Movie critics don't write reviews without seeing the movie. Restaurant critics don't write reviews without eating the food. Book critics don't write reviews without reading the book. Game critics don't write reviews without playing the game.
I happen to love virtual pet sites. Really. I like shiney, pretty pet graphics and I like it when there are ways--paintbrushes, potions, elixirs, whateverhaveyou--to make the pets even prettier and shinier. If I can make them hardcore shiney, like, monstery, with spikes and stuff, you will find yourself with a very happy Thaddeus Grey.
But how am I supposed to know I can do that when there's no reliable source of information? "You can feed your pet, play with it, and even change its colouromgexciting!!" is not a reliable source of information. People that get paid to hunt down links to pet sites for game review sites and slap halfheartedly falsely cheerful summaries onto said links are not reliable sources of information. One or two "reviews" from users (which are more like ten-worded comments than anything) do not really count.
So I thought, hey. Since no one else is doing it, and I have nothing better to do(like my 3d modelling class homework, my two essays for AP Lit, or studying for AP Exams) why not?
Plus, this is actually a fantastic excuse for signing up on impulse to shiney pet sites and spending a couple weeks before dropping off the face of its planet without feeling guilty.
Will I be updating this every day? Is anyone actually reading this that might care? Heck no on both accounts. But I will try to update with semi regularity.
Which means whenever I find a shiney pet site and sign up for it.
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