News

Here's some news that seems to be all over the internet already, but happily won't impact, well, probably any of our regular readers. However, for those of you with ties to South Korea, note that the next time you visit you might not be able to play some games in the wee hours of the day.

The Korea Herald reports that the government is going to shut down various online games for six hour windows every night, with the windows being selected from three choices by each household. Apparently, homes in Korea have unique identifiers that are used for any sort of online registration, and this will allow the central government to shutter access as the central clock ticks over to the start of the selected window.

The government in South Korea is testing the system out now on four games, with another fifteen to be included in a few months. The entire list is unclear to me at the moment, though with the nineteen total games inclusive of "79 percent of the online gaming market," it would not surprise me to find that at some point Square Enix' online entries might soon find themselves under the restriction.

Source: Korea Herald

I got in my email a few minutes ago a pretty big list of updates and news with regards to Distant Worlds, the massively successful symphonic tour of music from Final Fantasy. Not only are there new shows being announced, there's a new CD release coming next year too.

Coming up this weekend, in Chicago, there's a pretty spectacular show planned; the Chicago Pops will be playing the first public performance of music from Final Fantasy XIV, for one; not only that, Uematsu himself will be there (as he will be for "many other DWFF Premieres," apparently). Oh, and he won't just be in the audience. He'll be playing with the "Chicago Mages," which I can only assume is essentially a Black Mages-style rock band made up of local performers. This show is Saturday night, 12 December, and as of the time I received the email, there were still tickets left.

Coming up, also, will be the first South Korean show, in Seoul, coming up on 6 and 7 February; then, over the summer, the tour will go back to Stockholm, then to San Francisco, San Diego, and back to Chicago again, with more dates and cities coming soon.

Finally, FFDW will have a second CD release next year, in June, just before the Stockholm show. No word on the tracklist for the new CD, just word that it is in fact new and will be performed at all the summer shows. I'll be sure to provide you with a nice AmaCoN link when the time comes!



Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds Official Site