The Wallstadt Review

Today a guy from the lab and I were in charge of some programming tutorials at the university. Since I cannot speak the language of the natives very well, I had some trouble explaining the basics to the students. Now there was this one female student who seemed rather lost with the tasks. Other students and I tried to help her, and she managed to do one part of the exercise. Then she asked me if she would have time for finishing the exercise. I said that we would stay for another 15 minutes or so; she decided that that wasn't enough time, and she started to wrap up her work. Then the other guy in charge asked her if she was finished, and she said no, and then she started crying ... and gosh, I felt kind of bad.

I mean, when she asked me if she would have more time, perhaps she was trying to ask me if I was going to stay there to help her. And I said no (well, not exactly, but saying that we would stay only for another 15 mins pretty much amounts to that.). Now there are two reasons why I declined (albeit indirectly) to help her: first, my language problems, and second my social skills problem. The first one is clear, but the second one is a worrying problem that I realized only until recently. I think the main cause for the latter is my lack of practice, especially during the entire past year. In the lab, where I spent most of my time, I talk to no one within a social context. Just a kind greeting in the morning as well as in the evening. But besides that, nothing; nada. At some point I started talking to myself; I then started also worrying about becoming a schizo at such a young age, LOL! Outside the lab I know almost no one. To be honest, relinquishing social interaction has benefits, but also drawbacks. I don't want to delve into these two aspects, but I suspect that Man was not supposed to be alone. In any case, I have realized over the past weeks that my social skills have deteriorated (due to a myriad of reasons), and this is not beneficial for me or for those poor people with whom I interact. I certainly have to address this (serious?) problem; the question that remains is how??

In any case, I again digress. The bottom line is: this day shall pass to posterity as the first day I made a young woman cry: I am very sorry, I really am; it was not my intention, at all! Sorry!

So I purchased Total War: Rome some time ago. The game is simply excellent. After playing the offline campaign (which is quite entertaining) I wanted to on-line, and duke it out with the Internet folks. However, to play online, you need a valid cd-key. No problem, I thought, just type in the cd-key from the CD. But lo and behold, it didnt work. No matter how I typed it in (caps, no caps, hyphens, no hyphens) it wouldnt work. Eventually I gave up. Until a couple of months ago, when I wanted to give it another try. I started reading some internet forums, and apparently, some of those who purchased the European version of Total Rome War: Gold Edition (which includes the expansion pack) had problems with their cd-key. The solution, as proposed by the forum folks, was to contact Sega support and ask for a new key. At first, I didn't want to go through the hassle of registering. Then I saw some videos on YouTube of some online tournament for Rome, and I said, enough is enough, I am contacting Sega. I explained them my situation and gave them the details of my cd, so that they knew that I indeed had a legal copy of the game. This was done on a Saturday. The next Monday, first thing in the morning, I got an email with my new key. So after coming back from work, I went, fired up my TW:Rome, typed in the key, and voila! in no time I was playing my first online battle. FYI, it was a 3 2-man team match: 1)Germans/Scythia, 2) Carthaginians /Brits 3) Julii/Greeks (me). We defeated the Carthaginians/Brits using my hoplites as a wall, while the Romans charged them mercilessly. We did have some trouble with the elephants, but a some point they went nuts, and we prevailed. However, our forces were thinned out after the encounter, while the German/Scythia forces were intact (since they just watched our battle without intervening). I suppose I don't have to tell the rest of the story. In sum, we defeated one team, while we were defeated by another team. On the positive side, I had the second most kills (ca. 900), and this was achieved without even using spartans (because I thought it wouldn't be fair to use them nor historically accurate; but then I realized most of the other players were using elite units with total disregard to any historical consistency; oh well, I am a noob).


But I digress. The bottom-line of my post: Sega support rocks, and the world should know this.

Labels: TW:Rome

Dear Readers,

after a long hiatus, your humble servant is back. At this juncture, I still don't know how to continue with this blog. Certainly it is a nice record of the past three years, yet I feel a lot of animosity in my previous posts that I feel compelled to delete them. I do not want to read them because all those feelings start to embrace me again, yet at the same time I would like to keep them in the record, lest we forget! I may perhaps selectively delete some of them (not that many of you care, do you?) Sometimes it's best to forget ....

All the best,
W.