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100 entries. 59,069 words.

June, 2012

  • The Secret World. 2012-06-29 9:08 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve had a burst of gaming enthusiasm in the last month or so, ending my streak of playing basically nothing since Christmas. As usual, I tend to gravitate toward RPGs and MMOs. The last MMO I played before my break was Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I found enjoyable, but not enough to keep playing past the free month. Then recently, on an impulse, I bought TERA, which boasted a totally fresh new action-based combat system, but again, it didn’t keep my attention past the first month. After that I played LOTRO again, which is a bit dated now but still one of the best MMOs around. 283 words.

July, 2012

  • Down the Rabbit Hole. 2012-07-17 1:59 AM.
    • Dungeons
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Theory

    I’m a bit surprised to say this but I don’t think I’ll be playing TSW beyond the free month. In fact, I stopped playing long before the free month ended. I’m still glad I pre-ordered it, though, because it deserves to have a chance. But I realized that I don’t feel much of a sense of character advancement while playing. You don’t get new weapons very often, and you don’t really get new powers very often, either. Like I said before, as your character advances, you get more choices of powers, but you don’t really get more powerful powers like you might expect. So often times, when you gain new abilities, you find there’s no reason to change what you’ve already been using. The only things to look forward to are new NPCs telling new stories, and maybe a new piece of clothing now and then. 1,371 words.

August, 2012

  • Guild Wars 2 Head Stop. 2012-08-25 1:58 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Well I thought it would be a nice Saturday. I’d get up, log into the Guild Wars 2 Head Start along with the rest of the entire Internet, and have a nice morning of adventure. But nooooooo. It’s been down for two hours now. Not just intermittent connectivity issues; we’re talking 100% dead. And the information coming out of ArenaNet is somewhat lacking. About once an hour we get something like, “We’re looking into connectivity issues. Thanks for your patience.” 80 words.
  • Guild Wars 2 Head Start Weekend. 2012-08-27 2:23 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    The hype is finally over and Guild Wars 2 is out (if you pre-purchased it, that is). After being down Saturday morning, GW2 worked flawlessly for the rest of the weekend. Usually the hype far overshadows the actual game. But in this one rare case, it’s possible that the hype was justified. Let’s talk about Guild Wars 1 for a second. I never got into it. Certain things just bugged me. Mainly the lack of a jump. I’m not one of those people that bunny hops everywhere, but I never realized how often I jumped until it was missing. The other thing I couldn’t get past was left-clicking everything instead of right-clicking. 410 words.

February, 2013

  • Upcoming 2013 Games. 2013-02-23 10:10 PM.
    • Musings
    • Status
    • Steam

    Looking at upcoming PC games for 2013, I’m only seeing three that I think I’ll buy when they come out: Bioshock Infinite, Elder Scrolls Online, and Neverwinter. GTA V is a possibility but I think I can wait for a Steam sale on that one. (Especially since GTA 4 sucked.) 50 words.

April, 2014

  • ESO – The View From 30. 2014-04-24 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    My Templar has reached level 30, and I’m starting to notice a few long-term trends in ESO gameplay. First, my character hasn’t really changed very much. I expected that having more skill points available would allow me to make significant changes to my gameplay style over time, but I am still using basically the same set of 5 skills that I started with. And to be honest, the newer skills available to me don’t sound very interesting or helpful. Consequently I have a surplus of skill points while I wait for something better to open up. (And that’s after spending many points on crafting.) 478 words.

May, 2014

  • ESO – Decision Time. 2014-05-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Okay I’m just going to say it. ESO is not holding my attention. I keep logging in and thinking to myself, “You know, I don’t particularly feel like playing this.” I’ll go through a quest or two and then log out again. It’s a major factor in why I went ahead and dropped cough cough dollars on ArcheAge. And yet I can’t think of anything wrong with ESO (well, except for inventory management - it’s really a pain). 404 words.
  • ESO – Sub Cancelled For Now. 2014-05-06 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I went ahead and cancelled my ESO subscription. I’ve got a few more days left but I suspect my Templar will stay at level 36. I think I will wait two or three months and return to see what changes have been made. I like the direction I’m seeing in the roadmap; I’m just itching to do other things right now. Go to the light! In the meantime, I’m planning to play Rift 2.7 when it drops on May 7 until the WildStar head start. I have created a Defiant mage and leveled him up so that I can start him tanking in Realm of the Fae and Iron Tombs. I haven’t seen anything about how the mage tanking soul works yet so it should be interesting. 249 words.
  • PC Upgrade, Annoying But Necessary. 2014-05-09 3:00 PM.
    • Hardware
    • Status

    My gaming PC hasn’t been upgraded since mid-2012, so I thought it was time. The fact that the computer had a nagging USB mouse driver problem and has been crashing a lot in games also contributed significantly to my decision. And so another PC has been upgraded, and once again I make another vow not to do it myself any more. Pro installation work right there. Oh I wanted to order a pre-built PC. Imagine how awesome it would be to come home from work one day and find a brand new, completely built Alienware PC sitting on the front porch. (In a box, presumably.) (Hopefully in a box that isn’t stamped with Alienware all over it, so it won’t get stolen.) All you would have to do is open the box and plug it in, and you’re done. 539 words.
  • ESO – Complete One-Eighty On Subbing. 2014-05-13 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Tanking

    So, yeah, I changed my mind and subbed for one month of ESO. I did it after I played the Arbiter in Rift for a night, and realized to my horror that there was no way that I would be able to fill all of my gaming time between now and the WildStar launch with Rift tanking. I sort of forgot to factor in my terror of tanking high-level dungeons in PUGs. There are only a handful of low-level dungeons that I’m comfortable with, so it won’t be very long before tanking becomes a hellish, stressful nightmare, regardless of what I think of the soul. 210 words.
  • May, The MMO Crisis Month. 2014-05-19 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    May has been an MMO crisis month. I can only stand to play ESO for a quest or two at a time. There’s nothing wrong with the game (except the horrible inventory management and dungeon grouping tools). I accept full responsibility for my lack of enjoyment. At level 41, my stupid Two-Handed Templar build feels weak and ineffective, and it has almost no AoE damage capability. Everyone around me in public dungeons is burning down big groups in seconds, but I have to wack on mobs one at a time. 535 words.
  • Age of Conan – A Fun Diversion. 2014-05-28 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Indicative of my continuing disinterest in ESO, I downloaded and installed Age of Conan and played for a good four or five hours over the weekend. Enough time to get my highest level character, a Dark Templar, from level 55 to level 57. (I honestly do not remember what role the Dark Templar is, but I have a sword and shield.) Also enough time for me to remember why I don’t play AoC all the time. 369 words.
  • ArcheAge – Austera Trade Run. 2014-05-29 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Stories

    As an elf, in order to get your 16×16 farm design in ArcheAge, you have to complete four Trade Run quests. I’m assuming it’s the same for humans, and basically the same pattern if you’re one of the Eastern factions. (I don’t know of any other ways to buy these scarecrow plots … I have seen people with multiple plots but I don’t know how they got them. I haven’t been able to find them for sale on Mirage Isle.) 1,681 words.
  • ArcheAge – PvP Jamboree. 2014-05-30 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Stories

    I got a chance to experience a little bit of large-scale PvP during the ArcheAge Livestream: Beyond Bloodlust a while back. They invited everyone to go to Halcyana to fight it out while they talked about PvP. Since I’m not feeling terribly witty or verbose, here are some screenshots to commemorate the event: The battlefield. Tab, shoot, tab, shoot, tab, shoot. Returning to the battlefield after getting killed. The inevitable result of all PvP in every MMORPG. 77 words.

June, 2014

  • WildStar – Before and After Launch. 2014-06-03 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Before I’m writing this on Friday before the WildStar head start launch. By the time you read this, I’ll have already been playing for a while. I’m anxious to start playing, but I don’t feel nearly as much excitement as I did for the ESO launch. Part of it might be that I saw a lot more of WildStar in the beta than I had seen of ESO in beta. I feel like I know how everything works in WildStar. (I probably don’t, but I feel like I’ve seen most of the game systems.) I don’t feel like I’m going to encounter anything radically different in the gameplay mechanics after level 10. 1,110 words.
  • WildStar – More Chore Than Game?. 2014-06-10 2:43 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Over the weekend I had a depressing realization: Playing WildStar is already becoming a chore. How can this be? I said before that questing is not inordinately challenging in WildStar, but I don’t know if I made it clear that the difficulty is higher than average. (Solo questing that is.) It takes some time and patience to thread your way through the packs of mobs out in the world without pulling too many. Up around level 20, you can’t just run around jauntily shooting everything in sight and expect to survive for very long, especially if you miss a telegraph. In other words, it’s work. 453 words.
  • Friday Blues. 2014-06-13 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings
    • Status

    Today I’ve got the blues. It’s been a generally lousy week. I was going to skip posting today because I didn’t have anything queued up and in the broad spectrum of life, who really gives a crap whether one blog out of a billion misses a post. Instead I’m going to attempt to rid myself of this funk by writing a little bit, because it’s Friday morning and my workplace is dead as a doornail on Fridays so I have eight full hours to kill. 476 words.
  • WildStar – Dungeons Are Too Hard… For PUGs. 2014-06-18 3:00 PM.
    • Dungeons
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Quick status report: My mood improved a lot over the weekend, and I had a mostly-enjoyable time playing WildStar. As of this writing I have a 25 Esper, 15 Spellslinger, 15 Warrior, and 15 Engineer. I spent a fair amount of time leveling up three alts so I could experience adventures/dungeons with some other classes. (Getting from level 10 to 15 is pretty brutal the third and forth time.) So dungeons. Man. Those two level 20 dungeons are serious PUG-killers. This is the first MMO where I’ve wondered why they bothered to include a LFG tool. Unless you’re a total masochist like I am, I would strongly advise you to join a guild to do dungeons in some kind of cohesive group. For reasons I’ll explain below, PUGs are going to be terrible or deserted. 1,139 words.
  • Mid-June MMO Status Report. 2014-06-20 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Not much to talk about, so here’s a non-WildStar MMO status report! ArcheAge. I’ve only logged in to pay the taxes on my measely 8×8 farm, and occasionally grow aspen trees. I don’t expect to play this any more until after it launches. The Secret World. I have logged in every few days to grind through a mission or two in the City of the Sun God zone. I’m attempting to collect AP and SP so I can fill out my skills better, which will better prepare me to go back to the Besieged Farmlands and continue the main story quest, which will then eventually allow me to get to Tokyo perhaps sometime in 2018. 421 words.
  • WoW – Yeah, You Read That Right. 2014-06-23 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    There’s WildStar to play, right? So of course I spent a big chunk of time over the weekend playing … wait for it … World of Warcraft. I have about ten days left on a subscription so I figured why not use it. I leveled my Hunter from level 72 to 75 with plain old PvE questing. It now seems quite plausible to level up to 90 before WoD comes out. Especially when it seems like everything you touch fills up 5% of your experience bar. In other words, leveling in the WotLK zones feels a lot faster than it was in the BC zones. (But then I’m making no attempt to finish all the quests I find now.) 346 words.

July, 2014

  • Ditching WildStar for WoW. 2014-07-02 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I cancelled my WildStar subscription*. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I don’t feel like playing it any more. My Esper has remained largely static between levels 20 and 30, with no noticeable improvements in abilities, so I fully anticipate it will just be a repetitive chore to get from 30 to 50, at which time I would enter the cesspool of toxic behavior that I keep hearing about. Don’t fret, though, I’m sure I’ll be back someday. 383 words.
  • WoW – 85 of 90 – Death March Continues. 2014-07-08 3:08 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Status of my WoW death march to 90: My Hunter is at level 85. I finished the Deepholm zone which was quite enjoyable; it was colorful and weird and gigantic (although strangely devoid of pets to tame). I had just started the Twilight Highlands, which the “Altoholic” addon told me was where I should go next, when I hit 85. It’s not as colorful but I love the way the dwarves go on those little raids to retake their little villages. Major props to Blizzard for improving the “look and feel” of their zones with every expansion. 514 words.
  • WoW – 86 of 90 – Jade Forest. 2014-07-11 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve been experiencing a lot of drama at work lately, so vegging out with WoW has been pretty awesome. By the time I get home I’m not in any mood for challenging gameplay. I tried the Death Knight for the first time and couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to use all those weird rune resources or whatever. So on we go toward level 90 with the Hunter! I was going to spend a little more time in the Twilight Highlands to see what happened with the dwarves, but then I noticed that my experience bar barely moved after I turned in a few quests post-85. That was when I realized how many XP were required to get from 85 to 86 and I dropped everything to start the Mists of Pandaria quest line in Stormwind. 593 words.
  • WoW – 87 of 90 – Jade Forest Continued. 2014-07-17 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Since I’m now pretty sure I’m going to hit 90 well before Draenor comes out (I’m guessing it will be late Fall at the earliest, but I hear mutterings that it may not even make it out by December), I no longer feel the need to rush to maximize my leveling. So I’ve stuck around in the Jade Forest doing “low” level (85) quests so I can complete the whole zone, rather than rushing ahead to the higher level zones. Still, I hit level 87 before I completed the entire Jade Forest. Has anyone noticed that leveling is really fast in WoW? 422 words.

August, 2014

  • WoW – 88 of 90 – Valley of the Four Winds. 2014-08-06 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    July was a rough month for me, professionally speaking. To make a long story short, I’m unemployed now. Consequently I’m forcing myself not to spend any money on games, so I cancelled my WoW subscription and I’m sticking to bought-but-unplayed Steam games. But before I did that, I made it to level 88. Ding! Valley of the Four Winds was kind of a weird place. Lots of giant mutant vegetables and Monty Python-esque cute, furry, dangerous creatures. 99 words.

September, 2014

  • FFXIV – Okay There’s One Bad Thing. 2014-09-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Opinion
    • Status

    To be fair, here’s one thing that FFXIV doesn’t get right: I just re-installed it, subbed up, and jumped in again. (I went crazy and got a 3-month sub because I have some money coming in again heh.) I’m installing it on a different PC from when I last played it, so maybe you can guess what happened. All of my settings, keybinds, and HUD configurations were gone. Even the character-specific configurations like my gear sets were gone. 201 words.
  • Landmark’s Combat Update. 2014-09-08 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    Is something I know very little about. I re-downloaded the game and eagerly logged in. Combat was here! Finally something to do besides dig up ore! My claim was long since gone, which was fine because it had nothing on it except some crafting tables. I ran to the crystal hub thingy in the middle of the map-an object that I still don’t know what to call-and found the right table to craft a weapon. I made a sword. I equipped it. 499 words.
  • Results of Un-Learning Invert Mouse. 2014-09-09 3:00 PM.
    • Advice
    • Musings
    • Status

    I noticed that I never reported the results of trying to un-learn the use of Invert Mouse. After about two weeks, I was no longer fighting my muscle memory and could play MMOs unhindered. After about a month, I felt like I could aim pretty well again in shooters where precision is important. It’s now been nearly six months, and I feel like I’ve never played any other way. So it is possible to switch, even if you’ve played with Invert Mouse all your life. I have not attempted to play any flight simulators since switching though. I suspect I would crash and die instantly if I did. 108 words.
  • FFXIV – Crafting My Way Back Into It. 2014-09-12 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game. Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do. (By which I mean it would be impossible for me to max them all out without spending the rest of my life in the game.) 706 words.
  • ArcheAge – Head Started. 2014-09-16 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    ArcheAge continues to top the list of most popular posts and search terms on my blog for some reason, so I feel like I should say something about the head start. Suddenly player collision doesn't seem like such a great idea. Make way! Coming through! I played a bit over the weekend, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, I kept getting disconnected due to the persistent server issues, and for another, I didn’t particularly want to spend all of my time staring at a queue screen. (Eventually I figured out I could leave ArcheAge on the queue screen and fire up FFXIV at the same time.) 511 words.
  • ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, First Five Days. 2014-09-26 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    (Updated with the rest of the screenshots I meant to include.) If memory serves, Trion brought up the NA Calleil server on Sunday afternoon (Eastern time). Since the queues on Naima were horrible at the time, and there was little or no chance that I would ever find a place for a house or farm there anyway, I decided that I would make a character on Calleil to see how fast property disappeared. 1,070 words.
  • ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, Next Four Days. 2014-09-30 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Continuing my diary of ArcheAge on Calleil, the newest, emptiest North American server. To make a long story short, it looks like most of the land in safe zones was gone about a week after the new server came up. So if they start a new server and you want some good land, get ready to sprint for it. (The really prime spots.. those cool lone houses up on hills.. are probably gone within 24 hours. A really dedicated player can probably collect the 15 Gilda Stars from the main questline to buy a house design in under 2 hours.) 1,862 words.

October, 2014

  • ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, Water-Faring Days. 2014-10-03 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Previously on Calleil Diary: First Five Days, Next Four Days. Calleil Day 10, Tuesday After I got home from work, I built my Harpoon Clipper ship! It took about 1700 Labor in total, by the way, which was just about everything I had at the time. Oh also I believe it cost 10 gold just to set up the dry dock, which was an unexpected cost. The order of packs you need to use is Lumber, Iron, then Fabric. And then for some reason there are three steps of simply spending 25 Labor Points each. 1,677 words.
  • Ping-Ponging My Way To Nightmare Tide. 2014-10-23 5:41 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I took a little break from ArcheAge and it turned into an unintentional gaming ping-ping-a-thon. Don't worry, I still log into ArcheAge to gather the fruit from my trees a couple times a day. Also, I finally destroyed my Scarecrow Garden to make a Farmer's Workbench. I hated to do it, though. I wish I could rotate my house to face a different direction. FFXIV First I dropped back into Final Fantasy XIV again because I had an active subscription. I didn't really have a goal but it turned out that there was a Halloween event going on so I went through that quest line. Seasonal events in FFXIV are very quick and easy, so it didn’t take more than an hour and I ended up with some neat-looking scary barding for my Chocobo. (I think it's the only barding I've gotten so far.) The rewards this year were far better than the silly ghost costume we got last year. 870 words.
  • WoW – Level Cap At Last!. 2014-10-24 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I haven’t mentioned Bragtoberfest yet because a) I haven’t really had anything to brag about and b) I’m not a very braggy sort of person to begin with. I’ve never been one of those people that parade around banks riding high-end mounts and wearing raid gear to make everyone jealous. I usually wear rag-tag outfits that don’t match. But this is undoubtedly the braggiest thing I will accomplish this month so: I dinged 90 in WoW! First time I’ve gotten to the level cap in WoW since I started in 2006! 385 words.
  • Rift – Nightmare Tide. 2014-10-31 9:11 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    I’ve been playing nothing but Rift since the expansion came out.* If you even remotely like the game, you should definitely check out Nightmare Tide. I’m a little biased though, since I think Rift is the best themepark MMO out there, far surpassing WoW in every possible way. (Except in the amount of available content and player population.) A nice vista in Goboro Reef. Good things about Nightmare Tide: 975 words.

November, 2014

  • A November Kitchen Sink Post. 2014-11-11 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings
    • Status

    Hi! You may remember that I used to write blog posts. At least occasionally. Unfortunately this month two things have happened: Rift Nightmare Tide and NaNoWriMo. Those two things, particularly the former, are way more interesting than writing blog posts. But I thought I would take a break and quickly write down some stuff about things. Chatting with Arak near the end of Draumheim. Overwatch. Blizzard is making a role-based shooter (cough Team Fortress cough). This is probably a great idea that will make bazillions of dollars. I personally have less than zero interest in yet another shooter in a crowded, stale market. The only way I could possibly become interested is if they find a way to solve the ridiculously unbalanced gameplay that usually occurs between casual newbies and hardcore veterans. Most shooters are not fun unless you decide to dedicate your life to them and start on day one. I can’t tell if they are addressing any of that from the information I’m seeing, but I’m guessing that if it’s Blizzard, there will be progression in it, so they probably aren’t addressing it. 709 words.
  • Rift Enthusiasm Waning, Bring on Draenor. 2014-11-29 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    November is nearly over, which means NaNoWriMo is almost over for another year. As of this posting, I have some 1,500 words left to do before validating. (The story is nowhere near done, and I expect I will need to add another 40,000-50,000 words to actually finish the novel.) I’m growing a bit tired of Rift. I finished the main story and got my main Mage to 65, and my Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric are all sitting at 60. I still enjoy playing Rift and sending out Minions, but it’s prohibitively time-consuming to farm Void Stones from 61+ Zone Events to upgrade one’s gear, and I’m not really in the mood for dungeons right now. 370 words.

December, 2014

  • Dragon Age Ate My Life. 2014-12-19 4:00 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    In case anyone is wondering, Dragon Age has eaten my life. Get that camera out of my face. I’m currently playing through Dragon Age II for the first time, after which I’m going to play Inquisition. So, no time for blogging, writing, sleeping, eating, playing any MMOs, or moving away from the PC screen for even a moment. 58 words.

January, 2015

  • Year End 2014. 2015-01-01 4:00 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Opinion
    • Status
    • Steam

    In most Steam sales, I have a fairly strict cut-off point of avoiding anything unless it is under $10. Over the past year or so, I’ve rarely found anything meeting that criteria that I don’t already have, so I was a bit surprised to find myself buying nine games in this Winter Steam Sale, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, The Walking Dead Season 2, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Democracy 3, Contagion, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Dominions 4, Thief, and Transistor. All less than $10. 488 words.
  • Arbitrary Mid-January Status Update. 2015-01-19 7:33 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m in a “bouncing around between games” mode at the moment, now that I’m done with Elite: Dangerous. I’ve been logging into two or three or four different MMOs a day, looking for one to capture my imagination. Level 100! WoW. My WoW subscription runs out on the 20th, and I won’t be renewing. WoW is a fun game, but I always tire of it pretty quickly. I did manage to reach level 100 with my Hunter and upgrade my Garrison, though. I have enjoyed my time in the game, but I simply can’t comprehend how people think the story in this expansion is the best ever. I guess I’ve never “gotten” the lore in WoW. (WoW might be the only game that I care less about the quest text than ArcheAge.) I thought there was supposed to be time travel in here somewhere but at no point do I remember anyone saying that I traveled back in time. (Except one quest to kill Banthar in Nagrand that sort-of referred to it, some five zones into the game.) There are Russian space goats and angry orcs everywhere, but then I was in a place with a bunch of bird people and giant crow gods or something. *shrug* I feel bad for people who will feel obligated to spend the next two years playing this expansion until the next one comes out. It’s okay to play other games, guys. You really don’t have to live in one game your whole life. :) 1,043 words.
  • ArcheAge – Patron Status Waning. 2015-01-20 10:32 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Responses
    • Status

    Ruh roh. No more soup for you. Or land. I logged in quickly to see what, if anything, changed. The only immediate change I noticed was that my Labor Points plummeted from 5000 to 1000. My house and land are still mine, but they are only “protected” until the 28th, after which I believe they will decay in a week. I went to the web site to see how much it would cost to resume my Patron benefits, and realized I had never redeemed my Patron Compensation thingy, so I went ahead and did that to extend my time another 5 days. For no particular reason. 271 words.

February, 2015

  • Progression Report – February. 2015-02-28 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    I think I’ll make this a “thing” and do a monthly progress report of all the MMOs I’m playing. I started running a time tracking program* called ManicTime so I can actually record precisely how much I’ve played every game now. FFXIV (22 hrs)**. I unlocked most of the new 2.5 dungeons and World of Darkness, however I haven’t actually gone into any of them yet. (To this day I’ve only done one level 50 dungeon-Amdapor Keep for the Relic quest.) In other news I leveled my Rogue class from-you might want to sit down for this epic achievement-10 to 15. 1,168 words.

April, 2015

  • Progression Report – March. 2015-04-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    March was definitely a low point in my 2015 MMORPG activity, but don’t panic. This is normal for me. There’s usually one or more months during the year when I end up watching television instead. Still, I accomplished a few things. In Rift, I continued to log in every few days to collect Minion rewards and send them out again. My bank and inventory is bursting with useless junk. In Final Fantasy XIV, I forgot to mention that I joined the cool blogger Free Company on Cactuar. Unfortunately every time I log into FFXIV I stand around feeling like I don’t have any goals to accomplish. I do have goals, but none of them are interesting to me right now, which is a shame because it’s awesome to see so many other people *cough* finally *cough* getting on the FFXIV bandwagon. 639 words.
  • Star Trek Online – Delta Recruitment. 2015-04-06 3:00 PM.
    • Advice
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve enjoyed Star Trek Online quite a bit over the weekend. I’ve tried to play STO several times in the past but I could never get into it, but for some reason (boredom, probably) I’m “getting it” now. My heavily-armed away team takes on time-traveling bad guys from blue space. Perhaps it’s because they just started this Delta Recruitment event at the exact time that I began playing again. I abandoned my two previous characters (who were no higher than the STO equivalent of level 1 or 2) and made a new Star Fleet “Delta Recruit” dude. I don’t have enough STO experience to know exactly what’s different but I gather that Delta recruits level a lot faster and get bonus loot to help you along the way. I seem to gain one level (or “grade” I think they’re called) after each story mission I complete, which is pretty cool. 636 words.
  • FFXIV – Ramping Back Up. 2015-04-15 3:00 PM.
    • Dungeons
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m starting to get back into the swing of FFXIV. Over the weekend I played more than I have in ages. I finally got a chance to play a bit with the guild which was a lot of fun. My first priority is finishing the Main Scenario, what with the expansion coming and all, so I picked that up again. I had stopped at Thornmarch (King Moggle Mog or whatever) because, given my last experience with PUGing Titan (Hard), I had no wish to enter another impossible Trial, so I kept putting it off. Then over the weekend I decided to buckle down and finish it. I watched a guide but I couldn’t really follow what was going on, so I decided to leap headlong into the middle of a PUG and experience it firsthand. I figured I would learn what I could, and when the PUG fell apart, I would ask the guild to see if there was anyone around who could help. 642 words.
  • FFXIV – Where I Hate Dive Bombs. 2015-04-20 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    It’s been a big week in FFXIV. I finished out the 2.2 and 2.3 main scenario quests, getting through both the Leviathan and Ramuh trials with relative ease. Both PUGs beat them on the first try despite me not knowing what to do when Ramuh tethers you to someone else (hint: pick up 3 blue orbs like Pac-Man). Over on the Dragoon class, I finished the first relic quest to get my Zenith Gae Bolg spear, and also picked up the Onion gear set from Labyrinth (well, all but the belt, but you can’t see that). It’s nice to have a dragoon set that doesn’t make me look like a terrifying robot. 845 words.
  • FFXIV – Ding, Ding. 2015-04-29 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Last Wednesday was a rough day at work* so I was too beat to try Turn 5 again, but Saturday the guild was kind enough to re-run it for me and we breezed through it like it was nothing. Thanks everyone! The previously-hated Dive Bombs were no sweat this time. Now I have the Second Coil of Bahamut unlocked for future escapades. (One of these days I’ll have to go back through Turns 1-4 just to see them.) 721 words.

May, 2015

  • Progression Report – April. 2015-05-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    Oh crap, I forgot to write one of these for April. Well, it’s not hard to figure it out. I started out playing mainly Star Trek Online and made it to, I don’t know, 30something I guess, and then I was bitten by the FFXIV bug again and spent the rest of the month there. Final tally: STO 34 hours, FFXIV 127 hours. (Though I’m sure at least 25% of those FFXIV hours were AFK time.) 125 words.
  • FFXIV – Who Is Bogatyr Anyway?. 2015-05-17 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Experts Unlocked. With some help from the FC, I finished all three of the Expert dungeons so I can finally do the Daily Expert Roulette. Now the Poetics will really start rolling in! Ironworks Magitek Bow. I had finished two books of the Animus relic upgrade quest but at the rate I was going it would be another ten years before I would be able to upgrade the Artemes bow again. So I went on a Poetic Tomestone farming blitz (as much as a DPS can blitz queues) so I could buy an Ironworks bow. After spending all my Poetics on the new bow, I took a trip to Hyrstmill to upgrade it to a shiny new 130 Augmented Ironworks Magitek bow. It’s the first time I’ve held something different than the foldable Bard bow since, oh, I don’t know-I can’t even remember when. 536 words.

June, 2015

  • Progression Report – May 2015. 2015-06-01 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    With the exception of a few interminable days at a work conference, I spent the entire month of May playing nothing but FFXIV. That clocks in at 180 hours or an average of 6 hours a day, which is pretty much the maximum amount that I can play any game in a month. (Many of those hours were spent AFK, in case you’re wondering-I tend to leave FFXIV online because it’s a pain to log in with the security token.) I should probably back off in June or I’m going to be completely burned out when Heavensward hits. 504 words.
  • Dabbling In The Witcher 3. 2015-06-03 3:00 PM.
    • Single-Player
    • Status
    • Steam

    I’ve been dabbling with The Witcher 3 off and on since it came out, as I’m sure almost everyone who plays RPGs has. After playing The Witcher 2 there was no possibility that I wasn’t going to get the third installment. Anyone who has even a slight interest in single-player, story-based RPGs should get it without hesitation. That said, I haven’t yet been wowed or completely absorbed by it, but I’m enjoying it. I’ve only been playing in small chunks, which is made possible because it’s a very quick-loading and quick-exiting game, which is one of those small touches in a game that I really appreciate. Quite often I decide on the spur of the moment to start or stop playing a game, and it’s annoying to have to wait for them to load or shut down. 417 words.

July, 2015

  • Progression Report – June 2015. 2015-07-04 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    There were only two games I played any significant amount in June: Final Fantasy XIV (28 hours) and The Witcher 3 (18 hours). The latter is not an MMORPG, but since it feels exactly like an MMORPG I’m going to count it in my progression report. In FFXIV I started in on Heavensward, but to be honest I’m still a bit burned out from all the catching up I did in May, so I haven’t played that much into the expansion. I’ve only managed to level my Bard class from 50 to 53 52, and completed the first dungeon Dusk Vigil. It’s a great expansion… 228 words.
  • Dark Souls – Eat It, Bell Gargoyles. 2015-07-16 3:00 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    Almost exactly two years ago I first played Dark Souls on the PC, and a few days later I defeated the Taurus Demon, the second boss. Now I can finally say that I’ve defeated the third* boss: The Bell Gargoyles. Knight with newly-acquired Zweihander. After weeks of enjoying the crap out of the hard-difficulty combat in The Witcher 3**, I decided to install Dark Souls again. Two years later, thanks to a Steam beta and DSfix, Dark Souls runs a thousand times better on the PC than when I first played it, and using an Xbox controller works a lot better than a PS3 controller did. It’s really a gorgeous, atmospheric game. 607 words.
  • Skyforge 2-Hour Scorecard. 2015-07-19 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    I spent a few hours with Skyforge. I didn’t buy any of the founder’s packs or anything so this is the totally free-to-play experience. Business casual is the way to go in Skyforge. Character Creation: Okay Lore: Meh Dialog: Meh Visuals: Good Performance: Good Sound: Okay Music: Meh Voice Acting: Okay UI: Fantastic Customization Settings: Minimal Ads: Subtle, except for the launch window Free-to-play disadvantages: Less “sparks” so I guess you advance slower Classes: Okay (3 to pick from initially) Combat Style: Action, Button Mashing Difficulty: Surprisingly challenging for a game these days Progression Style: Skill Tree, Gear Upgrades Crafting: Unknown Endgame: I doubt I’ll ever see it World: Small zones and instances that you travel to from a hub, like Neverwinter Costumes: Plentiful Appearance: Change anything at will (only the first one is free) Things that stood out: 254 words.

August, 2015

  • Progression Report – July 2015. 2015-08-02 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    Blaugust Day 2 July was a quiet gaming month for me. Work continues to be hectic, and I’ve also gotten it into my head that I might try to take a Microsoft exam so I spent a lot of time reading and studying. It was around the end of July last year that I lost my job-not from anything I did, but from a contract changing hands to a different company. Fortunately nothing like that is going to happen this year. I’ve since resumed working on that project, but everything is different and more chaotic now as the ripple effects from the contract change continue to permeate everything and everybody. 362 words.
  • Dark Souls – Gaping Dragon Defeated. 2015-08-05 3:00 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    In an unprecedented spurt of Dark Souls excellence, I defeated the Gaping Dragon in a single evening after just thirteen attempts! (I kept count this time.) The sewers of The Depths. There is a vendor through those bars at the end of the room, because this is obviously where you'd expect to find a merchant. It took some time to find the beast. My Knight wandered around the maze-like sewers of The Depths for days, falling through cleverly-hidden holes in the floor, stabbing rats of all sizes, dodging the cursed basilisks’ breath. Not always successfully. I had never been cursed before, and I hope I’m never cursed again, because halving one’s health is not pleasant. I spent a whole evening tracking down a Purging Stone to get myself back to normal. (Of course, being frugal, I had to run all the way back to the top of the church to buy the cheaper one-and of course because this is Dark Souls, you have to kill everything in your path no matter where you go.) 615 words.

September, 2015

  • The Great Blaugust Flame-Out. 2015-09-01 3:00 AM.
    • Community
    • Responses
    • Status

    I flamed out of Blaugust, so I guess I can now break my own self-imposed Blaugust rule, which was not to write about Blaugust. There was this one day that I hadn’t scheduled a post, and it was a long, terrible day at work, and when I got home I had to decide whether to try to find enough energy to write a post real quick or play a game instead, and of course that was a no-brainer so I didn’t get a post out that day. I suppose I could have written a make-up post but then there was another day where I had to make the same decision and then another and another and now it’s a different month and oh well. 240 words.
  • Progression Report – August 2015. 2015-09-03 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    August was a very easy month to summarize gaming-wise: Dark Souls, Dark Souls, and more Dark Souls, for a total of 132 hours. My Knight is about halfway through NG+ at the moment, and I can still see myself playing this game for a long time to come. I want to finish with my Sorcerer and my Thief, then try a Cleric and a Pyromancer. In the MMORPG space, my second and third most-played games in August were FFXIV and Skyforge, for a whopping one hour each. I would like to get back to leveling in FFXIV, SWTOR, and possibly even STO. SWTOR has that 12x experience thing that I don’t want to miss (for subscribers only though I think). I might have already missed the super-fast leveling event(s?) in STO. The Rift Primalist is on the horizon as well. And through my hazy Dark Souls fog I think I heard that Heart of Thorns now has a release date, which means maybe I should try to finish that cursed Living Story. 182 words.

October, 2015

  • The Light, It Burns. 2015-10-19 3:11 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    Now that I’ve finished Dark Souls 1 & 2 I’m slowly emerging from the rabbit hole back into the sunlight. Mostly to read about Dark Souls 3, but still, it’s something. I managed to gain a handful of levels in SWTOR, but not nearly as many as I wanted. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, every RPG now seems like a kid’s game compared to the Dark Souls experience. It’s like I’ve been through a religious rite and seen the Face of God. I’ve climbed to the mountaintop and seen the vast expanse of the universe laid before me. How could anything ever be as good? 221 words.
  • ARK – I “Finally” Bought It. 2015-10-31 1:08 PM.
    • Status
    • Steam
    • Survival

    Okay, I just caved and bought ARK in the Steam Halloween sale for $20. Normally I try not to buy Early Access games unless they’re $10 or $15 but I keep hearing everyone talk about this game and I didn’t want to be the last person in the world to buy it … on launch day. :) 57 words.

December, 2015

  • GW2HoT – That Was Fun. 2015-12-04 11:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    To follow up a bit on Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns, I played it a lot right up until the day that Fallout 4 came out, and I haven’t logged in a single time since. Which suggests that I was deluding myself for those few weeks I was playing it and having fun. Okay, that’s not true. I got my money’s worth. It felt like the good old days after GW2 launched when it seemed like this game had re-invented MMORPGs and changed everything. I really enjoyed leveling a Revenent from 1 to 80 (well, 30 to 80). The Revenent is fun to play. I liked playing through the old zones again. I liked the smaller-scale dynamic events and hanging out at the huge 500-man circular-firing squads where it took seconds to down the world bosses. 324 words.
  • Fallout 4 – Wrapping Up. 2015-12-07 4:00 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Status
    • Steam

    I finished the main story in Fallout 4 (I think) and I don’t see myself going back very much any more. I reached a point where I almost decided to quit the game. Like a lot of people, and like the game almost forces you to do from the beginning, I kept trying to maintain my Minuteman settlements. I was under the illusion that it was a side quest chain that would eventually end, at which point I would resume the main story. Well at some point it dawned on me that I was on an endless treadmill. I’d go out and rescue a hostage or help a settlement or build a radio beacon, then come back to Preston Garvey only to discover another settlement in trouble. It became pretty obvious that the cycle would never end and they were random quests intended to keep me busy forever. When I started having to clear out the same places over and over again, I got fed up with it. 629 words.
  • SWTOR – Bring on the Hutt. 2015-12-14 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Roughly four years after I started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic right at launch, I finally hit level 50, what once was the level cap. I hit 50 somewhere in Corellia. Just two and a half years after the release of Rise of the Hutt Cartel, I rolled into Makeb to face the Regulators. Or Hutts. Or whatever. I’m not following the story super closely. SWTOR is the MMORPG that I find most comfortable right now. I really don’t have to think very much when I’m playing it. Especially since they made the change to allow any companion to play any role-I set Kira to heal and blow through everybody without stopping to rest, watching the pretty lights and sound effects as my guy whips his lightsaber around. That’s about the complexity of gameplay that I want in my MMORPG right now. 164 words.
  • Getting Back Into MMORPGs. 2015-12-16 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m having a hard time getting back into some MMORPGs I used to play. FFXIV. First of course is FFXIV, the game that I have an active subscription for that’s draining my money while I avoid logging in. Every time I try to get back into it, I keep running into this roadblock-Heavensward is hard. Well, maybe hard isn’t the right word. More like tedious. I’m mired at level 53 in the Dravanian Forelands where it takes an hour to run from one side to the other for quests since I don’t have flying unlocked there yet. 423 words.
  • WildStar PSA – Password Length. 2015-12-20 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings
    • Status

    I finally figured out why I couldn’t log into WildStar. This little saga has been taking place over the weeks and months since the game went free. Originally there was the fact that I’d completely forgotten that I’d setup the Google authenticator, so it kept rejecting me for leaving out that code. That took a while to figure out. (Admittedly I wasn’t looking very hard for the solution.) Next I had to reset my password, because I’d forgotten it. Possibly I’d reset it somewhere during the time I was figuring out the authenticator problem. Of course it wouldn’t let me set it to the password I wanted to use because it doesn’t let you use any of your previous passwords, so I had to make up a new one. This time I made a pretty long one and typed it into the web page and everything was fine. 335 words.
  • More End Of Year Charts!. 2015-12-29 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Progression Report
    • Status

    Everyone is making a chart of their gaming for the year (Belghast, Liore, and Wilhelm at least), so I thought I’d see if I could get ManicTime to export something into Excel. After judicious flipping, coloring, and rearranging, this is what I got: My data only starts in February, so January is missing. It probably might have had some WoW in there, but definitely more SWTOR and FFXIV. I’m a little disappointed to see that ManicTime is dead wrong about some of the times it recorded. For example, I played a lot more Witcher 3 than it thinks I did-Steam reports 134 hours. Steam also reports that I played 295 hours of Dark Souls II. Ditto Fallout 4, which should be 110 hours. I don’t know what ManicTime was thinking. Maybe I need to look for another tracking program. 205 words.

March, 2016

  • The Weight of Black Desert Online. 2016-03-23 12:14 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s accounts of their adventures in Black Desert Online, mainly because I feel like I haven’t done much “adventuring” in the game yet (by which I mean exploration). I’ve spent most of my time with my head down, running and riding back and forth between NPCs to finish “Life” quests. It’s a bottomless pit if you follow that route. I don’t think the quests ever end. And they are all essentially tutorial quests, teaching you how to make more and more stuff. Don’t know what this is but it doesn’t matter because I need ash tree sap and pig’s blood. 437 words.

April, 2016

  • Low Energy Gaming Week in Review. 2016-04-09 11:24 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Steam

    The past couple of weeks have been really trying at work. I’m in the process of training other developers, writing documentation, and frantically trying to tie up loose ends before moving to another project in May. It involves spending pretty much all day every day doing things that I’m not particularly good at, i.e. interacting with people, leading, making decisions, and generally trying to be a role model for everyone who stares at me with big round eyes wondering what to do after I’m gone. It feels a bit like acting in a play. 611 words.

May, 2016

  • New. 2016-05-16 5:59 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Musings
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    I am writing this post on my phone while I sit in my new cubicle at my new job, which is not so much new as it is different, in that I have only moved about 15 yards away from my old cubicle which I left Friday. I moved from an old and dying project where I constantly had to deal with the world collapsing around me to an equally old but at least stable, funded project where I will only be responsible for a straightforward set of requirements. 584 words.

July, 2016

  • Unscheduled Move and Stranger Things. 2016-07-26 3:44 PM.
    • Status

    I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before, so here’s a quick backstory: The lease expires for the house I’m renting at the end of August, so I bought a new house. The closing for the new house was in June, which was about two months earlier than I planned for, so I’m currently living in a stressful chaotic limbo between two houses. I had planned to put off moving until closer to the end of my lease expiration, but when quite a few consecutive days of 95+ degree heat rolled through my un-air-conditioned rental house, complete with 219% humidity that felt like wearing clothes made out of a boiling wet sponge, my dog and I bailed out early and moved to the new place for good on Monday. 763 words.
  • Moving Old PC, Building New PC. 2016-07-29 1:35 PM.
    • Status

    I drove back to the old house after work Wednesday to pick up some things to improve my camping experience in the new house, and while I was there I unplugged my PC and a monitor and threw it into the car. (Not literally. But close, because it’s still frickin’ hot as hell, and after less than a half hour of moving around in the old house, sweat was pouring off of me in rivers and I felt like I could barely stand up from the weight of all the humidity pressing down on me. It’s possible I’m not in the greatest of shape.) 639 words.

August, 2016

  • Dipping Back Into LotRO. 2016-08-01 7:46 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Between trips to the old house and trying to figure out what kind of blinds to put in the windows of the new house, I finally sat down (ie. collapsed in a blob) and spent a few hours playing LotRO over the weekend. I’m continuing my overall quest to see all of the game before LotRO closes down*. The character I’ve chosen for this task is my Hobbit Hunter, my highest level character at level 52. (All other characters are in their 20s.) It was around the time that the servers merged when I started this quest in earnest, when I decided to abandon Angmar (because the Epic story at that point was basically impossible for me to solo) and take the plunge into Mines of Moria at level 49. I spent about a week going through the initial Eregion and Moria quests, getting from 49 to 52, and since then my Hunter’s been idling in The Great Delving. 767 words.
  • LotRO – Back to Angmar and Evendim. 2016-08-10 1:29 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    In my continuing quest to see all of LotRO before it (possibly) shuts down, my Hunter reached level 53 over the weekend. You wouldn’t think gaining a single level would be cause for celebration, but in LotRO it kind of is. I don’t know if I’ve ever written this, but I feel like LotRO is one of the last of the “old school” generation of MMORPGs. By which I mean the generation of MMORPGs where the world is actually massive (ie. it takes a long time to run from one side to the other). (That, by the way, is what I’ve always thought the “massive” in MMORPG meant-not the number of players, but the size of the world.) 826 words.
  • Legion Pre-Expansion Invasions Are Fun. 2016-08-15 2:36 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    I had fun with the WoW Zone Events aka. Invasions over the weekend. But first, the biggest news from my weekend was that I finally moved all my furniture from the old rental house into my new house. I achieved my goal of picking the hottest day of the entire year to move. I believe it was upwards of 95 degrees Farenheit with a heat index of 105. (Google tells me that’s 35 and 40.5 Celsius, but that doesn’t sound nearly hot enough to me.) The temperature reading inside the old house was 92 by the time we left. Since I am not currently dead, I must have stayed sufficiently hydrated. 845 words.
  • Legion Ordered. 2016-08-17 8:12 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I went ahead and ordered Legion. Why not? I had fun with the last expansion. For a little while, at least. And a level 100 boost is worth a fair chunk of change to me, considering it normally takes me years to get to the level cap in WoW. (Although I confess I have yet to use the level 90 boost I got in the last expansion.) My second-highest level character in WoW is a Gnome Mage at, now, level 77, thanks to a handful of Invasions. This was also one of my original characters from back in 2006. I hear the experience gain from Invasions has gone down so I guess I won’t quite get the free ride to 100 that I’d hoped for. Still, I picked up four levels a lot faster than I would have through questing. And as it turns out, maybe fast leveling isn’t such a blessing for this character. 571 words.
  • LotRO Volume I, Book 10, or A Lot Of Running. 2016-08-19 1:42 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m continuing to make slow progress on seeing the rest of LotRO*. Since I was on a roll, I’m continuing with the Volume I Book 10 epic story over in Evendim (rather than returning to Moria). I’m glad that I went and subscribed to the game, because I noticed that I was missing out on rest experience. Hopefully that will speed up the leveling curve a little bit. (But I still finished all of Book 10 without reaching level 54.) 653 words.
  • WoW Invasion Level Tally. 2016-08-22 5:26 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    WoW leveling tallies from the Invasion events so far: Mage from 73 to 87. Warlock from 50 to 60. Priest from 34 to 52. Druid from 23 to 32. My goal is to get the Priest and Druid to 60 before the end of the event. That will give me three choices from which to pick my two level boosts (one to 90 and one to 100). (My understanding is that if you boost from 60 it will also boost your professions too.) 636 words.
  • LotRO Volume 1, Book 11: The Search for Narchuil. 2016-08-31 12:21 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status
    • Stories

    For the one or two folks out there looking for non-Legion posts, over the weekend I completed another book in LotRO: Volume 1, Book 11. (Spoilers ahead if for some reason I’m not the last person in the world to do these quests from c. 2007.) LotRO is a great game to play in the morning with your coffee when you don’t have anything pressing to do for a few hours. The music is really good and it’s nice and relaxing to crank up the tunes* and wander around in the scenery. This time I even paid more attention to what was going on (since I planned to eventually write a post about it). 848 words.

September, 2016

  • WoW Legion Status: Almost Done. 2016-09-08 9:14 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Since my last WoW post, I’ve finished the first four zones, and leveled my Mage to 106 and my Hunter to 110. Total WoW time played since August 30, according to ManicTime, has been 55 hours. (It was a holiday weekend.) So yes, basically I’ve been playing nothing but WoW. I intended to play my Mage all the way to the end, and started out going through Azsuna, then Stormheim, ending up at level 106. (By “finishing” zones, by the way, I mean I did all the quests I found and completed the final dungeon in the zone’s story which gives you the foozboozle piece you put in that Hall of the Guardian.) 892 words.
  • WoW Legion, Last Impressions. 2016-09-12 5:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Reviews
    • Status

    In this post I will share my thoughts on the new features found in Legion. This will probably be the last time I talk about WoW since, barring a last minute change of heart, I’m planning to let my subscription end today, the 12th. A brief character status update: In case you’re wondering, the brick wall hits in Suramar, the fifth zone. That’s where the grind begins and you’ll start wondering why you ever came back to WoW. This is the exact quest that did it for me: 2,200 words.
  • FFXIV – Sohm Al Completed At Last. 2016-09-14 3:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss Legion already. There is something very comforting and familiar about playing WoW, even though I don’t have any of the nostalgia that most people have. You run around colorful scenery, click on things, and watch impressive numbers fly around the screen. It’s almost hypnotic. To head off the withdrawal symptoms, I thought I’d try to get back into FFXIV and get something going there. (I’ve had an active subscription to FFXIV forever.) 593 words.
  • FFXIV – New Abilities and The Aery. 2016-09-21 12:00 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I switched Tya back to her true form, and changed her hair again. She looks a little older and wiser now, maybe even a bit world-weary after all of her trials and tribulations. I changed her voice too, but the new “hiyah” when she’s firing arrows isn’t much better than the old one. (It would be nice if you could preview that when you’re selecting the voices.) Halfway through level 54, it finally dawned on me that I was due for a new Bard ability, so I went searching for the Bard quest giver. This turned out to be more difficult than I expected, because I had no memory of who I was supposed to talk to, and there wasn’t anything in my quest log about it. I ended up using Google to track down the guy. Oddly enough, the guy you have to talk to is carrying a big spear. I don’t remember why that is. It’s probably been about a year since I last talked to him. 856 words.
  • The Vault, The Whale, and Some GW2. 2016-09-28 12:13 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’ve slowed down a bit, but I’m still making progress in Heavensward. I made it to level 57 and got through The Vault after putting it off for half a week. The last boss with all the chess pieces (or robot horse-men as I call them) was actually kind of fun. The post-dungeon cut scenes were less fun. Sad kitty is sad. After The Vault I was sent back to another part of the Sea of Clouds, and shortly thereafter I was asked to fight a big whale in The Limitless Blue. Thankfully 8-man trials are less intimidating than 4-man dungeons. I was going to do it Monday but of course FFXIV was down for maintenance, so I ended up completing it tonight. The first time through everybody kept dying for some reason and people dropped from the group (I don’t think it my fault), but the second time we got through it on the first try. 508 words.

October, 2016

  • FFXIV – Palace of the Dead Discovered. 2016-10-03 6:44 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Most of my gaming over the weekend was preempted by other media consumption. First it was Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, which I could not put down between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, until I reached the third part of the book and had to have a break. (It’s a convenient stopping point, the reasons for which should be fairly obvious upon reading the table of contents.) And then Sunday night I noticed that Deadpool was on HBO prior to Westworld, which I hadn’t yet seen. It wasn’t that funny, since surprise is essential for comedy and most of the gags were predictable, but I thought the serious parts were pretty good. (I have zero knowledge of the comic book on which it’s based.) I found it somewhat amusing to see Collosus in the movie, which was a character I played a bit in Marvel Heros, seemingly a million years ago. 577 words.
  • Doom’s Problems. 2016-10-13 4:03 PM.
    • Shooter
    • Status

    I haven’t played very much lately. Over the last few weeks I’ve been putting time into reading up on World War I (research for what I hope will be a historical fiction story for NaNoWriMo), reading Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, listening to Stephen King’s 11.22.63 audiobook, and even playing with composing some music in Renoise. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say the frenzy over the 2016 election has turned into a really entertaining Jerry Springer episode. A carefully un-cropped screenshot of a video player. 438 words.
  • Audiobooks, NaNoWriMo, and other Miscellany. 2016-10-18 10:54 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    This is one of those rambling posts about everything and nothing, because I don’t have much to say. Just writing for the sake of writing because I was bored at work. I’ve been listening to audiobooks again, trying to use up my credits. I recently finished Stephen King’s 11.22.63, which was beautifully read by Craig Wasson. He’s the actor who played the lead in that weird 80s movie Body Double. Now I’m listening to Stephen King’s End of Watch, which is beautifully read by Will Patton. Later I might listen to Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, the beauty of which I know nothing. [Editor’s note: I spent a lot of time wording and re-wording that last sentence, and I still don’t think it’s right.] 800 words.
  • Battlefield 1 and (not) Civilization 6. 2016-10-21 9:09 PM.
    • Single-Player
    • Status

    Fridays are the worst days of the week for me, in terms of being bored. Usually half of the workforce is gone on Fridays, so it’s abnormally quiet and I have to spend eight solid hours trying to entertain myself in library-like silence. Using only my phone, mind you, because god forbid we have access to anything “fun” or “entertaining” on our work computers. The most interesting thing I can manage on my work computer is reading Wikipedia articles. My personal favorite is the On This Day page. 506 words.

November, 2016

  • Rift – This Thing Is Hard Yo. 2016-11-28 11:46 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I broke down and bought 15 days of Patron status in Rift. The amount of extra XP gain is very large and noticeable and I would say almost mandatory, at least if you want to keep your sanity while leveling. Before continuing with my Mage, in a fit of rage over being so under-powered in the new zones, I got out my Primalist and started leveling him. I made a Primalist back when they first came out but only got to level 9. This time, I discovered the Hammerknell Instant Adventures, which I’d never done before. 919 words.

December, 2016

  • Not Much To Get Excited About. 2016-12-14 2:00 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I sort of lost interest in Rift when I got to level 68. Xarth Mire is not very pleasant to run around in, what with the lack of safe roads, the rather high mob density, and the frog tongues that constantly pull you to them no matter how much you want to run away from them. But mainly I drifted away from Rift because I started playing Fallout: New Vegas. I played it for about 8 hours last year, then put it away when Fallout 4 came out. Recently I installed New Vegas again and my old saved games magically appeared, so I was able to pick it up right where I left off. It’s quite good. I dare say it’s as good or better than Fallout 4, at least in terms of story. 300 words.
  • Most Played Games In 2016. 2016-12-29 4:13 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    It took a little more effort to calculate my most-played games in 2016, because I changed PCs in the middle of the year. But the results are now in, and the number one positions were just what I guessed they would be. (This data was gathered on December 24, 2016. I’ve pretty much only played Morrowind since then, although I played a couple hours of Elder Scrolls Online as well.) 363 words.

January, 2017

  • FFXIV – Unexpectedly Hard Dungeon. 2017-01-04 7:06 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Last night I only had time to play one game, so I decided to play some FFXIV again, as part of my as-yet unannounced goal of catching up with the Main Scenario before the expansion arrives. I was stuck at a point in the Main Scenario where the next quest requires level 58, but I was only at about 57.8. So I thought I would do a few quests to start getting a feel for my character again. 496 words.
  • LotRO Volume 1, Book 12 – Rescuing Laerdan. 2017-01-08 1:57 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Turns out this was the only screenshot I took. As part of my continuing efforts to catch up in LotRO, I played through another Book in the Epic Story. In the last book, we were looking for a ring called Narchuil, which is pronounced quite differently from the way it looks, according to not-Ian McKellen Gandalf in the voiceovers. (It’s something like “Nar-wheel.”) 692 words.
  • FFXIV – The Level 58 Slump. 2017-01-11 12:39 AM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I’m a little miffed that I’ve run out of level 58 quests in the Dravanian Hinterlands only about halfway to level 59. Alphinaud and [redacted] stopped talking to me about the Main Scenario almost immediately after I ascended to level 58 and entered Idyllshire, which is apparently the new Mor Dhona. They now want nothing to do with me until I get to level 59. So I did every level 58 quest I could find around Idyllshire and the Hinterlands, mostly involving the gobbies’ loony adventures building their city government. After that, I followed two racist refugees from Uldah in their misadventures of gobbie mistrust. I thought for sure that somewhere in those quests I would unlock Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum, which is clearly marked as a dungeon on my map, but nope. That blue dungeon icon is still there, and I guess I’m supposed to pretend I can’t see the rather obvious entrance. 442 words.
  • LotRO Volume 1, Book 13 – Snowpocalypse. 2017-01-12 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    I completed a second Book in LotRO over the snowy weekend. Last time we rescued Laerdan and found half of that elusive ring Narchuil. After Laerdan stormed out of the council meeting, Elrond asked me to talk to him. Laerdan believed the rest of the ring could be found in the (presumably dead) hands of a captain whose ship sank somewhere in the north. He asked me to meet a dwarf friend of his in Forochel, because he wanted to stay and patch things up with the Elves. Typical. I always have to do the work. 960 words.
  • FFXIV – 3.0 Main Scenario Complete. 2017-01-20 2:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    A while back I said I was playing ESO again.. welllll, I sort of lost interest. (I think it’s because I find the quests very depressing, and it also seems like everywhere you go and everything you do is basically the same as what you did before.) So it’s mostly FFXIV and an occasionally foray into LotRO for me these days. I finished the Aetherial Research Facility. I got a nice group with a very “professional” tank, who explained the mechanics concisely and non-judgmentally. Indeed it turned out to be much easier than I feared, and kind of fun. It was another one with a lot of AoEs to dodge, which I like. It’s sort of like a puzzle game, trying to figure out where to run so that you don’t get caught by overlapping or moving AoEs. They’re usually predicable enough that you can plan ahead, but random enough that you still need to think on your feet. 817 words.
  • FFXIV – Void Ark and Weeping City. 2017-01-31 9:57 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    First there was Void Ark. I watched a guide on YouTube but I didn’t understand much of it, so I just jumped in. (It’s easier to learn mechanics first-hand.) It turned out to be fairly straightforward to get carried through there. Just like the Labyrinth of the Ancients raid at 50, everyone is so over-leveled that you hardly even see the mechanics, and mostly all you have to do is follow along, avoid AOEs, and pick up the loot. I got most of the Bard 200 gear (except the belt) and moved on to the next tier. 545 words.

February, 2017

  • Conan Exiles, Part Two. 2017-02-05 11:14 PM.
    • Status
    • Survival

    For some weird reason I’m still playing Conan Exiles. Probably some misguided need to get my money’s worth out of it. Also it’s a fairly relaxing game world to be inside right now. I can safely ignore everything in the real world while I’m breaking rocks. (And that is a big chunk of what you do-everything requires tons of stone.) However, I will continue to list everything that’s wrong with the game, hopefully to shame Funcom into feeling bad about releasing their game too early. Let this be a lesson to you game developers: I will say bad things about you if you release too early! 1,367 words.

March, 2017

  • LotRO Volume 1, Book 14 – The Sloggiest Journey. 2017-03-06 4:00 PM.
    • MMORPG
    • Status

    Another post rescued from my drafts… Book 14 begins with Laerdan preparing for a journey south. He asked me to collect a bunch of gear for him that he left strewn around Eriador, because the hero’s journey always involves fetching stuff. It was a lengthy, boring scavenger hunt. When I returned to Rivendell, Laerdan was gone. In a note, he said he sent me away so I wouldn’t interfere. I spent all that time collecting his gear for nothing. But I wasn’t bitter about it. Much. 628 words.

February, 2020

  • Catching Up On Life. 2020-02-20 9:45 PM.
    • Musings
    • Status

    I haven’t played much of any games in the last month, because I’ve been busy dealing with a lot of overdue tasks that I’ve been putting off for so long that they’ve gone from Merely Unpleasant to A Huge Overwhelming Insurmountable Problem. It’s mostly “administrative” tasks-household and personal and money and insurance stuff. All the things I hate dealing with and put off as long as possible, in other words. 416 words.