Blogger Archive: TraderJake 
Sorry about that, a process went zombie and since the Black Perl and I are either going to school full time or working full time, we were not aware of the issue. Needless to say, it is fixed and all is better. Sorry of you that could not get to your beloved RF Generation.
 Happy Birthday PS3! That's right, two years ago today the PLAYSTATION 3 was released here in the states, being the second region to get the behemoth known as the PLAYSTATION 3. At the time it was the BIGGEST, BADDEST, MOST POWERFUL console to date, and well, two out of the three of those descriptors still fit. Depending on how you look at it, those descriptors can have either a positive or negative connotation associated with them.
Let's look back shall we? Well, in 2006 Sony had far and beyond the largest ego of the three developers. A cocky arrogance, so to speak. The PlayStation 2 sold like hotcakes, so obviously the PS3 would sell like hotcakes as well, right? Never mind the price differential. I know inflation occurs, but damn, you paid a premium if you bought a PS3 at launch. So, looking back, is it that surprising that the PS3 hasn't sold so well? I wouldn't think so, but I certainly didn't expect it to be as piss poor as it's been. Maybe it was branding the PLAYSTATION 3 as PLAYSTATION 3. ALL CAPS IS GREAT!!!!L0Lz0r. Seriously, why? Was it arrogance? I don't know for sure, but I am certainly inclined to believe it was.
Grand Theft Auto IV was supposed to get people to buy a PS3. To a certain extent it did, but then it dropped off like your grandmother's fine china falls off the table when your two year old son gets a hold of it. Truth be told, the massive releases haven't really had the intended effect that Sony was hoping for. It's sort of sad, don't these companies learn from history? I remember some other company being an arrogant ass and in the process watched it's market share drop from first to third over two console generations. I guess these companies just don't like to read up on history.
Of course, perhaps the future will be better for Sony. I know that I really want LittleBigPlanet, and half of Japan really wants Final Fantasy XIII. Perhaps the PS3 will be a late bloomer. Time shall tell, but in the the past things haven't been so rosy for the poor PLAYSTATION 3. After all, The PLAYSTATION 3 is now referred to as the PlayStation 3. Did the marketers get tired of holding down shift or did Sony realize their arrogance? Who knows, but it does make you wonder.
 So, 2 years down, how many more to follow? Clearly the 4 year cycle should be blown to nothingness, I hope. I honestly think the PlayStation 3 will have a rosier future. It really is a powerful, powerful system, and in time production costs will hit a sweet spot where the mass public can afford it. There are good games for the PlayStation 3, and someday maybe a lot of people will be fortunate enough to play them. Sony really, really needs to knock the socks off of the gaming public. Clearly non casual gamers feel at time disenfranchised with the current market leader, why not capitalize on that? Find a sweet spot to sell the console at. Promote the third party tie-in ratio. Push the value of the console. Stop running esoteric and crazy commercials. Sell and advertise what people want. I think Sony will be able to pull it off, and in the future you might just see Sony be somewhere rosier than they currently are. Time shall tell.
Two years down, more to follow. What's your take on the PlayStation 3? What has the past and future held for the console in your opinion? What must they do in the present? Are they doomed to third place? Have the mighty fallen again? Time shall certainly tell.
 As you probably know, RF Generation is a community consisting of gamers, collectors, and average Joes. We're quite proud of this fact, and proud of the fact since our inception on April 28, 2004 we've been an independent site for you guys, the community, and will continue to be a site for the community well into the future.
Of course, RF Generation's success has hinged a lot on contributions of our members, and the future of the site is no different. We didn't go from less around 15000 entries to over 42000 game and hardware entries by just the submissions of our staff alone. No, without the submissions of regular members like yourself we would not have gotten to the point where were are today. It's mind blowing to think that after almost 5 years we have that many entries in addition to almost 65000 images! We have an international audience, and our forum has almost 2000 members and over 120000 posts! Of the 1112 members that track their collections on our site, we have a tie ratio 274.9 games per collection! The 1112 collectors own over 305000 games! That's a huge number! Surely we are humbled by the success our site has achieved. It truly is a site for the community.
Look where we are. It's amazing to think where we might be in the future. The continued growth of the site though can't just happen with the submissions of our staff members. That is why we need YOU.
That's right, we need YOU. Start a blog, contribute stories. Scan your games and submit them to our database. Capture screenshots. Submit missing games and hardware. Add missing information. Have fun. Be social!
Our site remains vibrant and successful because of the submissions of people like you. With continued contributions by members like you well into the future, we will ensure that the site remains THE Classic and Modern Gaming Databases that it has been now for almost four and a half years. Do your part to make RF Generation the best independent gaming database that it has been for years. With your work and the contributions of other members just like you RF Generation will always be a website by the community for the community, and I'll always be proud of that.
So, will you contribute? We sure hope you will, and when you do I know that I as well as the entire community will be grateful that you did.
That looks really complicated to do, doesn't it? It's okay though, I only played sax, clarinet and recorder, and I don't think you can do anything like that on any of those instruments. Pure awesome? I think so.
[10:33] TraderJake: hooray first day of daylight standard time!
[10:33] Malygris: Yup. Whee.
[10:34] * TraderJake hates DST
[10:36] JamesF: you guys are behind the times
[10:36] JamesF: DST was last week
[10:36] Malygris: afk a bit
[10:36] JamesF: maybe the week before, i forget
[10:36] TraderJake: for you guys it was
[10:36] TraderJake: but they kicked it back a week for for the children!
[10:38] TraderJake: you know... halloween is big here in the states
[10:39] TraderJake: speaking of which, have you crafted your guy fawkes effigy yet to be burned at the stake on wednesday?
[10:40] JamesF: nah
[10:40] JamesF: its too wet to bother celebrating anything
[10:40] TraderJake: but bonfire night seems like such a fun holiday to celebrate
[10:40] TraderJake: what could be more fun that burning things?
[10:41] TraderJake: aside from plotting to blow up parliament, of course
[10:41] JamesF: chavs using fireworks?
At #rfgeneration, we like to have interesting discussions. A lot of time they are random, and periodically they are related to gaming, or in James' case, letting the room know that he is going to go and listen to music in his Mini. See, it's truly a fun time, where we don't really have a set topic and things just go with the flow. So, that said, why aren't you in the chat with us? It's easy! #rfgeneration on quakenet is our location, and if that's too hard for you why not check out this page for the nitty gritty on joining. Won't you join us? JOIN US, WILL YOU?!
Poor Circuit City, relic of the Eighties. You had your streak of amazingly depressing dark stores and creepy atmosphere, but then Best Buy came along and now things are just terrible for you. You've tried really hard to rescue yourself from sinking ever farther into the abyss. Your new stores feel like in many ways of copy of old Best Buy stores. Always trying to catch nowadays, aren't you? Well, it sounds as though things are not going your way anymore.
Circuit City isn't exactly profitable anymore. Hemorrhaging money is a good way to describe their current situation. Let's just say it is bad, really bad. It's bad enough where investors are expecting a bankruptcy declaration next week, and the NYSE is ready to delist them. Well, that just seems bad, doesn't it. Well, it seems as though things are going to get much, much worse.
Sony, you know, the people that do the PlayStation 3 (nee PLAYSTATION 3), have decided to abort shipments to Circuit City distribution centers while the shipments were in transit. They are afraid that Circuit City will not be able to make payment on those shipments, so... no new Sony Shipments for Circuit City. So, if you need a big box store to buy your Sony crap from, might want to try Best Buy from now on.
Why is this such a big deal? Because apparently several companies are waiting for one company to stop shipments so that they as well can stop shipments. If that is truly the case, then the road to bankruptcy is coming to its destination very, very soon. Stay tuned to that! You might get some amazing deals!
Sony Merch Bound for Circuit City Makes U-Turn [Updated] [Kotaku]
 The OH NOOOO! Otter is concerned! See, the OH NOOOO! Otter has a side thing he likes to do when he isn't the OH NOOOO! Otter on this here website. It turns out that Mr. Otter is a mischief maker on EA's official forums. You might call him a troll, but hey, every forum has their troll, and well, we tend to ban them. I really don't know why Mr. Otter find it's necessary to be such a not so nice member on EA's official forum. It might be because EA has historically been an evil corporation. It could just be that he is a truly malicious person. But, EA is really getting sick of his and others antics, and they are going to raise the stakes in getting banned.
See, most forums just ban you from the site. That's what we do, and I imagine other sites do that as well. But see, EA decided to be truly malicious in banning. EA happens to use a wonderful piece of DRM known as SecuROM, which causes its games to call home periodically. Additionally, these new games all have an EA ID that spans across games. Well, EA has decided to tie your game EA ID to your forum ID. Big deal, right? Well, it is.
See, if you get banned on the forum now you're going to get locked out of your games, and well, that would truly suck. You paid for the games, so shouldn't you be able to play the games even if you get banned from some measly official forum? Well, EA doesn't think so. So yeah, play nice kids, and Mr. Otter, do be careful now. You never know when EA might lock you out of your games.
UPDATE: A Red Alert 3 Mod was lying. Way to represent the corporate behemoth! Turns out this was false.
Backtalk in EA's Forums, Get Banned From Your Games? [Kotaku]
Did you know that RF Generation has a chat room?? We really, truly do, and we like to talk about stuff in that chat room. Be it about gaming, collecting, or truly random crap, our chat room is a wonderful melting pot of the Unrelated Series of Thoughts thread in real time. Did I mention that we're not hateful like other chat rooms seen throughout the series of tubes? Won't you join us? It's pretty damn easy to do.
Why not see some of the crap we talk about in #rfgeneration. Sounds as though we'd like to see you in the chat with us:
[11:01] Malygris: Personally I'd be quite happy with a big ol' "COME IN AND CHAT" link to the channel on the front page along with a button that will manually show you who's in. [11:01] logical123: i've been vouching for that for a while [11:01] logical123:  [11:01] TraderJake: ...no one visits the front page [11:01] TraderJake: it's just there for show [11:01] logical123: I do [11:01] Malygris: Well, wherever. On the main forum page then? [11:01] logical123: I visit it everydat [11:02] logical123: *day [11:02] logical123: poopoo peepee diaper babies [11:02] logical123: XD [11:02] Malygris: It just seems to me that RFG is a fairly decent-sized community, so we should be able to pull in more people to the chat than just the regular half-dozen we've been getting since we came here. [11:02] logical123: yeah... This chat fails to the third degree [11:03] TraderJake: people are too preoccupied with tracking their collections [11:03] * logical123 throws rocks at all the peeps idling [11:03] Malygris: I don't think it's necessarily a big deal, I like it the way it is just fine, but there's no sense not taking the opportunity to at least draw some attention to ourselves.
See.... we want to see you in chat. We need to see you in chat. I swear we're not an obsessive bunch, but it's certainly more fun when lots of people are in the chat and I am sure if you stick around in the chat someone is bound to show up.
For those of you who sort of follow gaming news, however few of you there are, probably have been following the Tokyo Game Show, which is probably the biggest show there is for gaming now that E3 is dead. Long Live E3. So, there are a lot of bombshells and great announcements to come from TGS, and if you want to know what they are I suggest you look at a website that blogs about games. Might I recommend Kotaku. See, I am not here to report all the crap that was announced at TGS. Rather, I want to start a discussion as to the things that excited us. Well, now that I got this out of the way way, let me begin.
Continue reading TGS is going on, what excites you?
Well, here is a treat, it's the Mega Man 3 theme, with lyrics. I was a bit skeptical when I decided to listen to it, but after listening to it, I am very pleased with what the singer has done:
Isn't that awesome? I sure thought so. Tell me what you think in the comments.
 "LOOK AT ME OOOOH OOOH! I AM ME! I AM SUPER COOL! I NEED TO BE LOOKED AT. I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Hey there readers, what you see above is some game developer off in the distance crying out for attention. It happens from time to time really, and it’s god forsakenly annoying. Really, it’s not cool, and honestly I don’t understand why some developers go the route of the attention whore.
You might have at one point been wowed by a game called Eternity’s Child. It had promise, it really, truly did. It’s developer seemed to be a charismatic developer who you might know as Luc Bernard. He seemed cool, and he was more than willing to tell his development story on Destructoid, and from a hype generating standpoint, he did an awesome job getting people excited for his game. The thing though is that you have to deliver on the hype, and apparently he didn’t do a good job finding a competent programmer for the job. Perhaps he should have hired Chainclaw on the side, because those people who have played the game as it was released on Steam found the game to be absolutely atrocious. One site decided that they would be brutally honest in their review, and this is where this story gets fun. See, Luc and Destructoid were buddy buddy prior to the release, and it was a shock to see a 1 rating for Eternity’s Child. We’re not going to go into the reasoning for the score, but you can read all about it on Dtoid.
What is important is what happened after the review. Luc appeared to become a child, criticizing Destructoid for giving his game such a low review when there were going to be many more revisions to come to the game. The thing though is that reviews are generally of the game as it is released, and in his case, his game apparently was straight from the seventh circle of Hell. Honestly, I don’t know anything about the quality of the game, but, if it truly plays like a low budget flash game then that’s rather sad. If a game is bad, be prepared to accept the cold hard truth. People are brutally honest, sometimes, and you got to be prepared for that. In Luc’s case, he wasn’t and he sort of went down in flames.
Destructoid commenters are a cruel bunch, and they absolutely destroyed him in not so nice ways. In reality, Dtoid could have done a better job moderating that comment string, but that’s not of my concern. After the harsh words and not so friendly banter, Mr. Bernard swore off developing games, and insisted that he’d only work on his art. Well, let’s fast forward to this week and what do I hear? Oh that’s right, Luc is working on Eternity’s Child 2.
It came to me as an epiphany. Luc was either a marketing genius, or someone with the emotional equivalent of a 12 year old. See, his game would never have gotten the hype it got if it wasn’t for his Destructoid relationship, which then got caught on with other gaming sites. Truly, for an independent developer, he is a marketing genius. Unfortunately, his game sucked, and in the process we learned that Mr. Bernard couldn’t take the heat of bad press, or maybe he could… It certainly generated a lot of attention, and in the process a lot of us now know about Eternity’s Child 2 because he essentially leveraged attention he got upon himself upon his next project. How very shrewd.
Mr Bernard, you used the bad review to your advantage. You never were going to quit developing games, were you? Sticking to your art would not have given you the limelight you so sorely have wanted. Aren’t you an attention whore, Luc? Isn’t that why Mr. Destructoid was originally in the game? It got you press, didn’t it? When they slammed you, it was gone. Clearly then it wasn’t crucial to the game, now was it? Why else would you have placed it in the game? Maybe you genuinely wanted to do something nice for the site that gave you your attention, but I imagine it was so that Dtoid would keep you in the limelight.
Regardless, congrats Luc! You’ve got everyone to report on the development of Eternity’s Child 2, including now the niche gaming site known as RF Generation! Here’s to you!
Game developers – don’t follow the Luc Bernard route. Here’s a very important marketing / customer satisfaction mantra that you should follow: Underpromise, Overdeliver. The best games don’t need to show itself off like a prostitute from O-Town. For indie developers, it’s a fine line, trying to get mainstream recognition while at the same time underpromising. Well, why not just shoot for the mainstream recognition while not whoring yourself / your game out? Be careful, or your experience could end up blowing up in your face.
God, this really wasn’t about attention whoring, or was it? Might have just been me bitching about Luc Bernard. Oh well. It was supposed to be about attention whoring, but in my eyes Luc is an attention whore.
Wow, two years ago the hardware database did not even exist, but some of you persisted and since October of 2006, we've had a hardware database. In the beginning, there were zero entries for this database. Truly it was something that would have to be nurtured into a viable database. Sure, growth of this database seems at time slow, but on the plus side it's still growing. That said, I am pleased as punch to inform the masses that our hardware database now has over 3000 records. For a database created from scratch, that's a huge accomplishment. I'd really like to thank lots of people for this achievement, but for now I'll just thank the three staff members that truly have made the hardware database what it is today - Marriott_guy, Tan, and Apolloboy - thanks. Of course, they are not the only people who have allowed for this occasion to occur, and I am certainly thankful for all the submissions that you, our community, has made for this database to reach this milestone. Thank you all for your help in getting to this point!
So, it took two years to get to 3000 hardware records... how long will it take to reach 6000? Here's looking forward to the continued health of our databases!
September is over. Long live September! There are a lot of things to be happy about after this last month has passed. There also are a lot of things to be not so happy about (see the economic crisis). But yes, here at RF Generation we're thankful for lots of things!
First, let me thank our donors who keep RF Generation ad-free for all you crazy people. Currently, our server costs run 90 dollars / month, which for someone who is living by himself in Maryland is not a small cost to cover. Thankfully, we have donors that kick ass and take names. Since I last thanked our donors, Sirgin and Nik the Communist. These new donors, plus the rest of our donors keep RF Generation ad-free and free for all. Let me take the time to thank every single one of them at this time:
Bad Enough Dude, Sauza12, St0rmTK421, TraderJake, tholly, Pop Culture Portal, James, Cobra, Tan, Rejinx, Fighter17, TurboGrafxer AKA DCer, Kevincal, djbeatmongrel, UNFORGIVINGPAIN, frood42, NES_Rules, Ghost Soldier, cverz2, Marriott_Guy, logical123, Phillyman, imfromwisconsin, Sirgin, Nik the Communist
These fine people keep RF Generation physically running! Thanks for helping us cover the cost of the server! If you would like to make a donation yourself, you can do so via this link. Any donation helps, and with the server cost the way it is we're always looking for donations!
Next, I want to thank our members who really have been kicking ass with amazing blog articles. While we don't guarantee that we'll promote all blog articles, in recent history the quality of the articles have been too good to pass up. Sirgin, logical, Nik, Wolfman, NESman... thanks. You all make me happy that I expanded the front page script to something that can be used by all. I certainly hope you all keep up the amazing work you do with your articles!
Next, I'd like to congratulate NES_Rules on getting his Treasure Hunt Chronicles feed StumbledUpon! You may have noticed that his images all went to "Bandwidth Exceeded" images. Well, now you know why! Congrats, Mike! You make RF Generation proud with your excellent series.
Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone for their submissions over the last month. Our European members have done a great job giving some most needed TLC to the European Database. Special thanks on that goes to Sirgin, Darth Sidious and Madir, and I apologize if I missed someone European who also deserves special recognition. When September wrapped up, we had 3899 submissions for the month, compared with 2962 the prior month. Simply put, you guys kick major ass. September saw almost one thousand new images added to the site, which truly helps solidify our status as the Games Database with one of the most comprehensive catalogs of images. Of course, while we have over 62000 images, we're not happy just with that. We always want more, and there are a lot of game and hardware entries that need images added! Why not help out today? Of course, there are so many people who make submissions, and we're really thankful for alll of them. Similarly, there are those staff members who review your submissions, and without them your submissions would sit in a queue forever, and we just don't want that. This month, Tan kicked ass with 864 submissions! Of you crazy and amazing regular members, Madir kicked ass with the most submissions! From those who review your submissions, NES_Rules kicked ass with reviewing those submissions! Tan though, was not far behind. Of course, we're pleased with this month and we appreciate all your submissions! Let me take this opportunity to thank all those members who made 50 or more submissions:
Tan, Funk_Buddy, ApolloBoy, Madir, logical123, NES_Rules, Darth Sidious, blcklblskt, eaglebeak99, Fuyukaze, Sirgin, Anditheway
Thanks to everyone who has made RF Generation the kick ass site it truly is! Here's hoping for an amazing October! From submissions to blog articles to forum posts, we hope to see you around RF Generation!
Well, RF Generation doesn't really actively advertise. We like the close knit community we have here, and the passive advertising strategy we employ does well to keep the community close knit. That said, some of you might want to be a part of the "passive" advertising. Some of you might even like to gloat about the fact that you are a member of RF Generation. I know I sure love the site, but then as its Site Director I damn well better. Anyways, RF Generation now has a facebook page. You can find it here, maybe. If that link does not work try searching for it, it should show up. Want to show your love for the site, and you have a facebook account? Why not make yourself a fan of RF Generation? All the cool kids are doing it!
I’ve seen this on another site, and I thought it could be fun. Basically, this little feature will be a “learn about the people behind RF Generation”, provided I can convince other staff members to do it. Basically, there are a bunch of standard questions, and if you want a question answered, ask it. Provided it isn’t perverse, I’ll answer it. Let me start off my introducing what I do here, and you can find out all you want to know about me after the jump.
Well, my name is David. I happen to be the Site Director of RF Generation. Coupled with the rest of the directorship, we are responsible for the well being of the site and its continued operation. I tend to deal with the big picture on things, and make sure that the site overall is always moving in the right direction. I try, I really do. In addition to being the Site Director, I do a lot of other things. I am also the PHP programmer, and I’ve coded every file that ends in .php that is not the forum. That makes me responsible for things like the submissions system, staff pages, and blogs, amongst many, many other things. I also like to write for the blog, when I have the time. Oh and yeah, I designed the current layout of the site. I registered here way back at the end of June in 2004, and look where I am now. If you told me back then that I’d be the Site Director, I would have laughed at you, but… it’s strange and sad how I ended up in the position I take here today.
Learn more about me, after the jump if you want...
Continue reading Get to Know a Staff Member: TraderJake
|
|
