DragonVale

Playing on the Iphone

    If you guys have been kind enough to follow me blog recently, you would know that I upgraded to a beautiful white Iphone 4s. I got data plan too and so naturally as a gamer and inspiring game designer, I decided to dive into the world of mobile games.

Other Iphone Games 
  I will have to say other games did not keep my interest long enough. Most games are farm games in which you grow something, or build something and wait hours or days in real time for it to finish. Or if you are rich or jail broke your Iphone than you can use gems/credits/coins or w/e currency they call it to make those wait times instantaneous. Obviously these one time payments for the game currency is the free to play mobile game's main revenue stream.
    However after playing games such as monster pets, zombie farm, and tiny tower I got quickly bored. It seems to be the same repetitive rewards, no real connection to other players on the game center network and it seems to be the same screen over and over again. However one game did keep my interest for a record breaking 1 month now! That game was DragonVale.

DragonVale
  DragonsVale, the game is one of the most popular games on the iphone and ipad. Both adults and children are addicted to it! I myself, a VERY picky gamer for the pc found this tiny mobile game interesting enough to pay for a month now! Thats saying something considering I dropped assassins creed after a few hours, uninstalled Modern Warfare 2 after the first 3 campaign missions, and stop playing all 20 of the mmorpgs I tried throughout this year within an hour (Eden  Eternal, Remnant Knights, Dragon Nest, Crystal Saga, Aion...etc).

     What made this game interesting is the dragon breeding. I spend a few days trying to get the rare blue fire, and now have spent weeks trying to get the coveted Rainbow dragon and the brand new Sun and Moon dragons.
  I also enjoyed designing my dragon park and below are some of the pictures. 

Will the European financial crisis let china take over the world?

Asking for China's Money
    A few days ago European officials opened talks with PRC (People's Republic of China). Basically they are asking for investments from China's huge sums of Foreign Reserves to help enlarge the bailout fund that was deemed way too small to save failing  markets like Italy and Spain. Although Greek's debt situation has been accounted for during the EU talks, the bailout does not cover Italy and Spain which are much larger markets than Greece.

What this means
    If China does participate in bailing out the European markets, than for the first time, China would have gained significant business footing in European soil. An outcome that many European officials have been defending against. Yet, during this desperate time, China's vast amount of cash may be a large part of the solution to save Europe. So for the first time, it was the Europeans that INITIATED the call for help.
I may be exaggerating but if this happens, China would essential not only control American debt, but European debt as well. Well maybe not control, but a huge stake, that no other foreign nation outside of Europe has had in European markets.
    If Europe becomes China's debtor than the demands that the Chinese government will make, and has made already will be ones that are very difficult to accept. Such as the trade embargo from the Tienanmen Square crackdown to be lifted, ignore China's currency floating policies, allow Chinese business to buy up all mineral mines (something that the Chinese have been trying to do these past years in Australia, Canada and the US) and the list goes on.


Will China do it?
   The answer is no. At least not entirely. For one China already has seen the failure from buying up Greek treasury bonds. Everyone knows how unstable and unprofitable the European market has been these past few years and bailing them out will not change anything except to let it live a little longer.  Second, the Chinese knows well thats such major political demands may be counterproductive and cause a backlash that could be detrimental to trade for the years to come.

For Chinese Immigrants all over the World
   What I really want to say in this post is most importantly about what are the implications to the Chinese Canadians, Chinese Americans, Chinese Australians, and all other Chinese people all over the world.
For me as a student in Canada with Chinese background, I most definitely find this news unsettling. I know some uneducated, or ignorant Chinese folks are probably saying "In your face, Westerns" right now. But I hardly see this as a triumph for the Chinese. In China, the majority still make much less money than people in the West, the rich to poor gap is huge, and there are many infrastructures that the government should be investing in to improve the lives of Chinese citizens instead of spending it to help out a market that already proved to fail. 
   I fear that, if China does become a major lender/investor to Europe, it may cause uneasiness of average European citizens and the western world of China's growing power over their own lives. That uneasiness can be turned to fear, and fear into hostility. And as a Chinese Canadian, what if the Western people I grew up with turned against me out of fear of the growing financial control of PRC over the west?

 This is a very unsettling matter indeed.


Here is link to the original  Europe tries to lure Chinese investment article from New York Times.

Best Bot/Hack for Vindictus

Attention all Vindictus Hackers
    The days of making your computer virtually non-usable the entire time you have a bot on is now over. The latest developed bot, called MHWalker bot, by my good friend l2noob solves that crisis and gives you windowed, and alt tab support.
     In this bot, there is an option for "Allow Non-Active Window Commands" here is a screenshot:

The magic option highlighted in yellow

About MHWalker
     Created by a very nice programmer, l2noob. I got to personally know him when I donated to him and received the VIP edition of his .916 version of the bot and than called him on my Iphone FaceTime for 2 hours to get a problem fixed. From that story alone shows you how dedicated this developer is to the users of his program.
     He does about the fastest updates I have seen in any Vindictus hack/bot program. Here is the link to the latest MHWalker bot thread on MPGH.

Here is the man himself showing you how it works

To Noobies that are looking to use this bot or any other hacks
    Hacks and bots are created by programmers not part of the original team that developed the game you are attempting to hack. You do use all programs at your OWN discretion and can experience issues with normal gameplay, cause your game progress to be messed up, defeat the purpose of actually playing the game, and oh you may also very likely be banned if you are caught!
Here is a link to  a guide on how to not get caught hacking.