PS1>PS2 and Game>Sony

I've had the interesting experience of trying to resolve a fault with my PS2 over the last few days. Basically the second memory slot has started to delete the file system off of my PS1 memory cards, while we're playing games on it. This is a new fault and started about a week ago. I'm the kind of person who keeps all the games, and relevant save files and come back to them later so this was annoying. Thankfully checking the cards on the PS1 browser actually rebuilt the file system much to my joy, hence first part of the subject line.

So anyway I phone Sony, spend about quarter of an hour on the phone. I get asked if it's an official memory card that's affected several times, I say yes each time. They ask if I've been able to replicate the problem (it has already affected two of them) I said I didn't want to try and have it delete more of my memory cards. Oh and the whole concept of playing PS1 games on a PS2 seems to confuse them.

Anyway I get told after much pointless questioning to phone square because they made the games. I get given a number a wrong one, the recorded BT voice on the number gives me a number for one of their office buildings. The secretary sends me through to a tech support number who tell me they only support FFXI, and tell me to call Sony.

I call Sony, there is much holding and repeating of questions. Eventually I speak to a supervisor who tells me I should send the PS2, the games and the affected memory cards to them in Watford by post. Oh and it will only cost about a £1.

So I go back to Game today instead, explain that my PS2 has a fault with the second memory card slot, and they say bring it back with the receipt and they will change it for a new one. Hence subject line part 2.

Nothings simple.

36 Hour

So the 36 hour weekend. Well in summary it was mostly fun - particularly the Sunday, but far too hot. duke_of_krondor did a very good job considering how constraining the campaign plot and setting was.

I hated the 'Nykrul Empire/Away Mission/Stranded' plot and I've told the person responsible that. In the end the 36 hour was like most of the 'Nykrul Empire/Away Mission/Stranded' games, fun from a larping point of view, but not enjoyable or interesting from a plot/story perspective. The campaign plot had given us week after week of Pyrrhic victories which took away any sense of achievement we had, a trend that continued right up to Saturday evening. The scale of our foe compounded the group feelings that our actions were futile. Nor was there an identifiable antagonist to defeat. Our enemy was the continent, Colonel Blood came two late, after two many successful missions that ended in failure because of a sequence of seemingly arbitrary and cruel events, to feel like anything other than another horrid trial of fates making to overcome. The only goal, the only desire the party ever had was to leave, and at no point except the very last Sunday did it feel like we were in a position to choose to do so, or to make it possible. It was like we were trapped in a nightmare, that got worse and worse, and we were just waiting for someone or something else to let us wake up.

With regards to the 36 hour itself it would have been nice if we'd had some puzzles or some more variation in our goals, which in the end were all fighting off or attacking an opposing force. Even the Saturday morning special wasn't particularly special, because the giant insects had become quite normal at that point. Then again unless you radically departed from the setting* there was no way you could fit any of those things in, and radically departure would have left too much unresolved.

More opportunity for roleplaying would also have been good, but in this case it was the high temperatures that prevented that. They meant the time in between when there could have been roleplaying could have happened were necessarily spent instead resting, taking water and
cooling off out of out kit. Given the choice I'd rather have had the time to cool off and recover; as Harold's kit, even the reduced version, is very hot to wear**. It was also a shame that time pressures meant we couldn't roleplay together after defeating Colonel Blood on the boat.

The boat bit was clever and well done. It was very good, especially now I'm not too involved in the action to really thing about it, all the cinematic pirate style things. It was well fought and well done, and it really felt like we were fighting on a boat, against a load of pirates.

The other good bit, was the sneaking mission in the evening, though I do think that could have been better. With the monsters briefed that IC they knew we were coming, once they started actively searching for us (because of the owl** - which started to hoot just after we began to move) it was only a matter of time till they found us. You can't move quickly and silently at the same time on that site, and it was just bad luck a patrol of monsters hit the party in the back just as we went to the charge the dutch barn. If the monsters were alert for rescue attempts, but didn't explicitly know we were coming then, they would have continued to patrol and we would have been able to sneak past them, or have the opportunity to fail. There were points when we were literally not making a single sound, but in the end it didn't matter, because the monsters just had to blunder into us. Made all the worse
because they had already confirmed we weren't in most of the site, when we arrived at the stockade because they had been chasing the owl. So yes in the end it came down to luck, but we did succeed in spite of the bad luck we had; though I would have preferred it if our actions, choices and ability to be stealthy had been the driving factor behind our
success/failure.

In summary fun, but far too hot. That and it would nice to have seen what duke_of_krondor could have done with a decent campaign plot - even if it was just a better version of what we had. So all that's left is to go to the Plane of Tortured Souls and rescue those of the AG command who didn't make it back.

*Say for example we escaped by ship Saturday, and had an adventure on the way home for the Saturday.
**It was bad enough sitting in the shade with the kit on let alone fighting or walking in the sun.
***The monsters thought the owl was the party, the party though the owl was the monsters.