98 entries. 47,913 words.
2015-01
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Elite: Dangerous Opinions and Advice.
2015-01-10.
Elite: Dangerous is a neat game, however right now I see it mostly as a single-player game. I play it entirely in the “Solo” mode, and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything without other people around. Thus I wouldn’t consider it a contender for 2014’s MMO of the year, despite how bad the other choices were.
From what I can surmise, there are only two possible outcomes that can happen if you encounter another person: Either they can a) ignore you or b) try to shoot you down.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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MMORPGs Aren’t Dinner Parties.
2015-01-14.
I recently read this Soapbox article on Massively: Of course I care what you’re doing in MMOs.
(Contains Moderate Peril also read it.)
It’s a soapbox article, so I’ll grant that it’s supposed to be controversial. Jef sets out to refute what he calls this misconception he read on a forum: “Why do you care what other players do in an MMORPG? It doesn’t affect you.” I didn’t write that, but it’s something I might have written.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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H1Z1 – Early Access Already?.
2015-01-15.
So apparently John Smedley of SOE called PvE players “disgusting carebears” on Twitter. (Covered by TAGN, BioBreak, and Clean Casuals.) It’s yet another example of how executives should never attempt to be funny in public.
More interesting to me was the sudden news (to me, at least) that H1Z1 is launching on Steam today (January 15). (Well, I say “launching” but I really mean “crowdfunding” because it’s an Early Access game.
- MMORPG
- Responses
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H1Z1 – Dumb Question.
2015-01-17.
This is probably a dumb question, but if these Airdrops are such a fun element of the game that everyone enjoys, why aren’t they building it into the game as random spawns like Trion’s Rifts and Arcfalls? Why would they make someone pay to spawn a fun event for everyone? That makes no sense. It’s like making people buy world boss spawns. (Don’t get any ideas, game developers. That would be terrible.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Arbitrary Mid-January Status Update.
2015-01-19.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Patron Status Waning.
2015-01-20.
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.
- MMORPG
- Responses
- Status
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Comparing Played Times.
2015-01-21.
I found an old, old screenshot of my main Asheron’s Call character from near the end of my playing time:
What MMORPGs looked like when they were more work than fun.
There’s some interesting things to note there. First of all, my /played time was 17d 11h 26m 22s. I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing that game… it seemed like my entire life was spent in that game for about a year.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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AOL Sucks.
2015-01-29.
If this rumor that AOL is going to shut down Joystiq-and by extension Massively-is true, then I’d just like to say that AOL sucks. Massively is basically the only gaming news site that I read, and their podcast is one of the few that gets a regular weekly listen from me on my morning commute. I hope everyone at Massively and Joystiq lands on their feet.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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Planetside 2 – First, Second, and Third Impressions.
2015-01-30.
This is unrelated to MMOs (sort of ), but I’ve been on a Quake CTF nostalgia trip for a while, so I went looking for a modern AAA shooter that would provide the same sort of team-based competitive spirit.
I don’t know if such a game still exists, but my first candidate for testing was Planetside 2, a game which I haven’t played before. (Well, that’s not entirely true-I installed it sometime around when it first came out, played it for about 30 seconds-enough to see myself airdropped into a chaotic mess-and then decided it wasn’t for me.
- Reviews
- Shooter
2015-02
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Goodbye Massively.
2015-02-01.
So yeah, there was a post recently in the MMO blogosphere that basically trashed Massively. I guess they’re entitled to their opinion, but it didn’t make any sense to me.
I liked Massively for the exact reason that this other blog trashed them: They didn’t take themselves too seriously. I always felt like there were human beings behind their articles and podcasts. Real people doing the best they could with clearly limited resources in a super fast-paced environment.
- Opinion
- Responses
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What Does Buy-to-Play Really Say About An MMO?.
2015-02-03.
ESO* is going Buy-to-Play. Yay! I’m looking forward to playing it again.
(Holy jeez those guys make awesome cinematics. I wonder how much of a AAA studio’s game development budget goes into those.)
But philosophically speaking, I wonder what the Buy-to-Play model says about an MMO. After having experienced it in GW2, B2P seems to imply something that’s not a very good thing. The game company seems to be saying, “Here’s our persistent world game, but there’s really only about a month or two of fresh gameplay for you to look at, and we’re probably not going to update it very much, so don’t make any long-term plans to stay in our game.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Hello MassivelyOP.
2015-02-05.
I knew they’d be back. :) The web site isn’t live yet but it’s going in my feed reader the second it does.
I was really honored to see my page mentioned on the last Massively post. Thanks guys!
Reading over all of the finale posts on Massively this past week reminded me of something I forgot to mention in my earlier post, which was that all of the contributors are really top-notch writers, too.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Responses
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Something Witty Like: SOE’s New Daybreak.
2015-02-05.
Breaking News! (Not.) SOE is turning into Daybreak.
I don’t read as much doom and gloom into this news as SynCaine does, but if Daybreak intends to take a more cross-platform stance, it could mean EverQuest Next will end up a lot more controller-friendly than we PC MMORPG gamers might like. You can already sense it with Landmark actually. You’ve got a left button ability and a right button ability and that’s about it.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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GW2 – Heart of Thorns Initial Reactions.
2015-02-06.
I’m pretty sure I will buy the GW2 expansion Heart of Thorns, however I’m not sure it will hold my attention for very long since it appears there is not going to be anything new to do for existing endgame characters except collect more achievements.
Masteries. “We’re reimagining progression with our new Mastery system.” I’ll need to see this before I can make a final judgment on it, but initially it sounds like more grinding, to be honest.
- MMORPG
- Responses
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Massively Overpowered Kickstarter.
2015-02-06.
Just boosting the signal.
Massively Overpowered Kickstarter Page{.green-dark}
I feel like I’m sounding like a total fanboy but I think they’re doing this exactly right. Ie. Kickstarter for initial funding followed by Patreon for ongoing funding. (I mean, short of going to another corporate sponsor, that is.) They clearly aren’t joking around here.
Although I do kind of wish they would use some of that Kickstarter money to hire another logo artist…
- MMORPG
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Crowfall Sounds Like A PvP MMO.
2015-02-07.
I’ve been interested in the dribble of Crowfall information that has been coming out over the last weeks. I liked the art style, and the initial bits on character creation looked interesting. That is until they started in with The Hunger Week. Now it’s starting to lose me.
I’m on board with the idea of a periodic “reset.” I actually like the idea of starting over now and then, but then I’m sort of an altoholic, so it fits my playing style.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
- Responses
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How To Survive (A Game, Not A Guide).
2015-02-09.
In January, I went through a phase where I wanted to play some survival-type games. Perhaps I was inspired by the news that H1Z1 rushed itself out the door too soon came to Steam Early Access. I already had TUG and Don’t Starve, but they never really grabbed me. (I keep hoping TUG will improve.) I have a bunch of these kinds of games on my Steam wishlist, but as I’m sure you know, 99% of them are still Early Access (including TUG), so I tried to find something else.
- Reviews
- Single-Player
- Steam
- Survival
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Things I Do And Don’t Buy.
2015-02-10.
Bio Break had a great post a while back: Six ways that MMOs can get me to spend money on them. Being the shameless copycat that I am, here are some things I will happily buy in an MMO, roughly in order of priority.
More Inventory Space. Shuffling my inventory slots around is not a fun gameplay element for me, so buying inventory and/or bank slots is usually one of the first things I buy.
- MMORPG
- Responses
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The Forest, A Visual Feast.
2015-02-11.
In January, I went through a phase where I wanted to play some survival-type games. I’ve been intrigued by The Forest ever since I first saw it show up on Steam, but I generally try to resist buying Early Access games, particularly from unknown sources. Until one day when I was bored out of my mind with my current games and wanted to look at something new. And hey, it was only $15.
- Pre-Release
- Reviews
- Single-Player
- Steam
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Daybreak Firings.
2015-02-12.
I wanted to believe SOE being bought out might be-well, if not good news, then at least not bad news. But now I guess it’s okay to officially start with the doom and gloom over Daybreak. I hope everyone affected by these layoffs finds another place soon. (I’m going through my own job placement stress right now so I feel for anyone with any uncertainty about their job.)
While this news doesn’t affect me personally the way it does others-I don’t have the nostalgia for EverQuest that most people do (I was an Asheron’s Call guy and hardly ever played EQ)-based on the dour mood around the blogosphere it’s easy to see that this is a tremendous blow to the spirit of the genre.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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Improving Screenshot Technology.
2015-02-16.
Dear MMO Developers: Sometimes I want to take screenshots. Almost all of you are really great at providing a “take screenshot” key. Most of you even put it in the proper place, which is the “Print Screen” key if you don’t know. (Why some of you still insist on forcing us to use F12 or F9 or F10 or even F11 still boggles my mind, but I can let that slide.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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State of Decay Is A-OK.
2015-02-17.
In January, I went through a phase where I wanted to play some survival-type games. The first game I pulled out was State of Decay, which I already had on Steam.
I’m probably the last person to discover this, but State of Decay is pretty cool. I had played it before, somewhere back when it first came to the PC I think, but it didn’t really “click” with me the first time.
- Reviews
- Single-Player
- Steam
- Survival
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WoW – My Favorite Addons.
2015-02-20.
I started this post in November 2014, and TAGN’s recent post on addons reminded me that it was still sitting in Drafts. So I thought I would finally post it.
Addons are a fact of life when you play World of Warcraft. You can play without them (I’ve done it), and most of the gameplay basics are there, but Blizzard has consistently refused to put in any of the quality-of-life enhancements that we are all used to from every single other MMO released in the past ten years.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Three Times The Controversy.
2015-02-21.
There have been three controversies in the blogosphere lately that I haven’t had a chance to comment on. (Well, three that I know of, at least-I’m sure there are more floating around.) I don’t particularly like to be controversial on this blog but I did want to at least voice my opinions.
Twitter and MMO Gypsy made me aware of a Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview with Peter Molyneux that made the rounds of the blogosphere.
- Opinion
- Politics
- Responses
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Storybricks and The Nature Of The Internet.
2015-02-23.
More alarming news about SOE/Daybreak/EQNext.
Speaking as a gamer, even if EQNext had launched with the Storybricks AI (and I use the term “AI” loosely) included, it almost certainly wouldn’t have been as impressive as it sounded (see this demo), and it probably would have ended up being a non-factor in the game like that UO “artificial life” thingy. I’ve been very skeptical of SOE’s claims of “emergent behavior” ever since they first started talking about it.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Responses
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Crowfall And Much Rambling On Game Types.
2015-02-27.
A number of people are questioning whether Crowfall is asking for enough money to make their game. I don’t really care about that. (But I think they know what they’re doing.)
My main worry is that they’re making an MMO that I won’t like. And they know it. I suspect that’s why they are crowdfunding like this: Real investors wouldn’t support making a game intentionally targeted at a small niche market that doesn’t include mostly-casual PvE players.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Pre-Release
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Progression Report – February.
2015-02-28.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
2015-03
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Banished From MMOs For A Bit.
2015-03-02.
Most of my time lately has been spent playing Banished, which is a city builder game that I picked up on a Steam sale for $6. This might be the best $6 I’ve ever spent on a game.
I love this game. Historically, I am terrible at city builder games and usually give up on them quickly because it’s no fun to watch people starve to death. (That’s how my cities usually end up.
- Reviews
- Single-Player
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Liebster Award Saga Continues.
2015-03-08.
Thanks for the nomination j3w3l! I find these things kind of silly, but I guess it would be rude not to participate in the phenomenon that has taken over the MMO blogosphere lately. I’m such a perfectionist though it’s taken forever to put this together. :)
Eleven quick facts about me:
I’ve self-published a book on Amazon and sold over three copies. I used to write music and record songs in a home studio.
- Community
- Musings
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The Line Between Hand-Crafted And Random.
2015-03-09.
Syp generated some conversation and controversy by posting a somewhat strongly-worded post against procedurally-generated worlds, but I think he’s absolutely correct: If a developer tries to cut corners by substituting a computer-generated world in place of what should have been a hand-crafted world, it probably won’t be fun. I’m not sure which game he was talking about, but it might have been Crowfall or H1Z1, both of which embrace procedurally-generated worlds and claim to be MMORPGs.
- Opinion
- Responses
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Low-Energy Gaming.
2015-03-15.
Real life’s been kicking me in the teeth lately-I’m adjusting to a new work role/schedule and of course there was the annoying end of Daylight Savings. So my MMO gaming (and writing, and overall mental attitude, and almost everything else) has suffered.
Oddly enough I’ve landed on Path of Exile as a mental tonic, a game which I had previously rejected as uninteresting all the way back in its nearly-perpetual beta.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Single-Player
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ESO Unlimited Arrives.
2015-03-18.
ESO Unchained or Unlimited or whatever looks pretty good to me. I patched up and logged in for a few minutes to check it out.
Six pets seems like a rather small selection.
The cash shop is very unobtrusive-about the same as GW2-but it’s also very empty… I didn’t see anything I might be tempted to buy, like for example, the only thing I really wanted-more inventory space. Also, the 800 crowns I was given wasn’t enough to buy much of anything but health potions or maybe a pet.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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On The Radar For 2015.
2015-03-30.
Last time I did this.
Note that some games aren’t on the following list because I have either a) forgotten about them, or b) never heard of them.
MMORPGs I’m Looking Forward To These are games that I’m still anxiously awaiting the opportunity to play, because I haven’t yet seen or heard anything to wreck my enthusiasm.
Black Desert. I keep seeing good things.
Skyforge. I keep hearing good things.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Pre-Release
- Predictions
2015-04
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Progression Report – March.
2015-04-01.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
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General Request For Podcasters.
2015-04-03.
This happened to me while listening to a podcast during my morning pre-work routine: My mind was wandering while the podcasters were talking, then something in what they were saying about a game grabbed my attention and made me want to check out said game. But I had no idea what game they were talking about, so I had to rewind until I got to the very beginning of their discussion topic to find out the name of the game.
- Musings
- Wish List
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April Camp NaNoWriMo.
2015-04-05.
I thought I might start crossing over a bit and post more about my writing here on this blog. It seems to me that the subjects of MMORPGs and genre fiction are pretty closely related anyway.
I am off to a terrible start in the April Camp NaNoWriMo event. I set myself a modest goal of 30,000 words (since I don’t think this story is a full novel), and I’m already about three days behind schedule.
- Writing
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Star Trek Online – Delta Recruitment.
2015-04-06.
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.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Status
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FFXIV – Ramping Back Up.
2015-04-15.
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.
- Dungeons
- MMORPG
- Status
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FFXIV – Where I Hate Dive Bombs.
2015-04-20.
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).
- MMORPG
- Status
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FFXIV – Ding, Ding.
2015-04-29.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
2015-05
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Progression Report – April.
2015-05-01.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
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FFXIV – New To Me Dungeon Diary.
2015-05-10.
In my latest FFXIV ventures, I’ve done a number of level 50 dungeons for the first time, which is something I really hate, especially so long after they’ve been out. I just hate being “the new guy” in a dungeon, especially in FFXIV because it actually announces it to everyone. (Fortunately there is a reward to the other players for running with a new person, so nobody is likely to kick you out.
- Blog
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NBI Talkback – GamerGate.
2015-05-11.
Slightly belated, but…
How did GamerGate affect you?
It actually didn’t affect me per se. I was a passive observer and it wasn’t discussed that much where I spent time on the Internet. I generally don’t read “hard-hitting” game journalism sites like RPS, Kotaku, and whatever others there are, and I definitely don’t venture into their comment sections. I think I only unfollowed one person on Twitter because of their relentless talk about GamerGate.
- Community
- Opinion
- Responses
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The NBI And Starting A Blog.
2015-05-12.
Two weeks into May, and after posting a talkback post, I realized that I hadn’t even mentioned The Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI). This is a good indication of how bad my blogging has been lately. But enough about me.
NBI is a very cool effort to promote new blogs and to spread the word that now is a great time to start a blog if you’ve been thinking about doing so.
- Blog
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NBI Talkback – Early Access.
2015-05-14.
Early Access and Kickstarter – Do you support unfinished games? This question is worded a little ambiguously, perhaps intentionally... what does "support" mean? I certainly support the development of new games, by which I mean that I always want people to try to make games. As for financially supporting unfinished games, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I've been refining my criteria (see below), but it depends on the situation.
- Community
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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FFXIV – Who Is Bogatyr Anyway?.
2015-05-17.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
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FFXIV – UI Wish List for Heavensward.
2015-05-27.
With the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Heavensward coming soon (June 23), I thought I would put together a list of all the nagging UI issues that I hope are addressed in 3.0. It’s a testament to how good the game already is that I have trouble coming up with any significant gameplay issues to complain about-only these nitpicky UI faults.
(Knowing how good Square Enix is at patch notes, I could probably go somewhere and find a detailed list of exactly what’s going to be in Heavensward, but let’s just assume there’s still some doubt about the feature set.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Pre-Release
- Wish List
2015-06
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Progression Report – May 2015.
2015-06-01.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
-
Dabbling In The Witcher 3.
2015-06-03.
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.
- Single-Player
- Status
- Steam
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Difficulty in The Witcher 3.
2015-06-08.
I’ve just about had enough of the Hard difficulty in The Witcher 3. It’s fine for normal encounters, but when it comes to bosses it’s over that fine line between challenging and frustrating. And it’s not because the encounters are actually too difficult, it’s because of two things: 1) The controls are not responsive enough, and 2) It takes too long to re-load from your previous save.
The controls. Arg, the controls.
- Blog
-
Blaugust Plans.
2015-06-14.
To hold myself accountable, I’m going to announce publicly that I’m going to try to participate in Belghast’s Blaugust this year. That means posting at least 31 times during the month of August (once a day).
Fortunately for me, I’m sure I have at least 31 half-finished posts in my Drafts folder that I can choose from. So don’t be surprised if you see posts about very old topics that everyone’s long forgotten.
- Blog
- Community
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Besiege – Failing Is Fun.
2015-06-15.
I found a hilarious physics/building game in the Steam summer sale… Besiege. There’s something about it that just makes me laugh and laugh. It’s pretty unique in that the most fun part of the game is failing. The more spectacular the failure, the more fun it is. It’s still early access but I give it a thumbs up.
I’ll be honest, in the following videos, I was more concerned about running over the chickens than anything else.
- Reviews
- Single-Player
- Steam
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Finding Heavensward.
2015-06-19.
Normally everything related to FFXIV is an absolute pleasure to deal with, but getting into the Heavensward pre-order early access has been quite an unexpected challenge.
FFXIV was down all day Thursday for the big 3.0 patch which I downloaded Thursday night. I had absolutely no idea that I would have to do anything special to see Heavensward. I just assumed the patcher would know I had ordered it, it would download it, and it would magically appear the next time I ran the game after the servers came up.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
2015-07
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Progression Report – June 2015.
2015-07-04.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Single-Player
- Status
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Why I Didn’t Buy H1Z1 For $10.
2015-07-06.
H1Z1 is one of those early access games that I have a mild interest in playing, if for no other reason than that it looks pretty. In the recent Steam sale, it was discounted 50% to $9.99, which is under that magic $10 mark where I will buy just about anything in any condition. I hovered over the Buy button…
But then I started to think.
I wondered what my reward would be for buying now-what cool stuff I would get after the game launches.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
- Steam
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Dark Souls – Eat It, Bell Gargoyles.
2015-07-16.
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.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
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Skyforge 2-Hour Scorecard.
2015-07-19.
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:
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Status
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Gearing Up For Blaugust.
2015-07-28.
This past weekend I spent some time gearing up for Blaugust next month. It’s a little daunting because July has been a very light gaming month for me and there’s no reason to think next month won’t be the same. I’ve been pre-occupied with a lot of work stuff. So what the heck am I going to write about?
One thing that I think will help me is giving myself permission to write shorter posts.
- Writing
2015-08
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Dark Souls – Capra Demon Defeated.
2015-08-01.
Blaugust Day 1
Twelve days after defeating the Bell Gargoyles, I finally defeated the next boss in Dark Souls-the Capra Demon.
Bosses in games aren’t usually worthy of a blog post all to themselves, but when you spend so much time crafting and practicing a strategy for defeating one, it’s a really big deal. Such is the case with the Capra Demon, the fourth boss I’ve encountered in my Dark Souls saga.
- RPG
- Single-Player
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Progression Report – July 2015.
2015-08-02.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
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Blaugust 2015 Feeds In OPML.
2015-08-02.
Somebody else might find this useful:
Blaugust 2015 OPML
That is a list of Blaugust feeds exported as an OPML from InoReader. Presumably you can import that into your RSS feed reader of choice (Feedly, etc.). If the URL doesn’t work directly, you should be able to save it as a file and import it that way.
P.S. I got the list from Belghast’s list of 69 Blaugust challengers.
- Blog
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A Dream About Enemy Base Infiltration.
2015-08-03.
Blaugust Day 3
It’s Sunday morning as I write this. I had the strangest dream last night. That’s not unusual because, honestly, a lot of my dreams are strange. I think the scientific explanation of dreaming* involves your subconscious re-processing things you’ve experienced, but that doesn’t explain a lot of my dreams. Quite often I see things in my dreams that I have no memory of ever seeing, hearing, or experiencing before.
- Musings
- Stories
- Writing
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YouTube Gaming Or Something Like It.
2015-08-04.
I don’t stream a lot but I like YouTube Gaming so far. Twitch is okay, and Hitbox is okay, but I almost always see a lot of stuttering, lag, and painful dropouts, both when I stream and when I watch other streams. With YouTube Gaming I’m just going to go out on a limb here and guess that they’re going to have the best possible video streaming technology working behind the scenes.
- Pre-Release
- Reviews
- Streaming
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Dark Souls – Gaping Dragon Defeated.
2015-08-05.
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.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
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The Wild Internet Frontier.
2015-08-06.
The hubbub surrounding John Smedley stepping down from Daybreak has gotten me thinking once again about The Internet and its place in society.
I’m sort of a Libertarian at heart so the very idea of The Internet has always appealed to me. A place where everyone is free to make their own way, without any pesky government regulations. A place that breaks down political and social borders and treats everyone like an equal human being.
- Musings
- Politics
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Rift – The Primalist Announcement.
2015-08-07.
Of course the big news Thursday from Gamescom was Trion’s announcement of a new Calling-the Primalist.
I can’t say the name jumps out at me as being the coolest name for a calling ever, but then it’s hard to follow up the likes of Mage, Cleric, Warrior, and Rogue. I mean there’s not much left after those four. Bureaucrat? Astronomer? Primalist is as good as anything. Although it doesn’t quite sound like something that channels animal spirits.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Skyforge – Sound Design Matters.
2015-08-08.
I duck into Skyforge now and then but it’s rapidly losing its appeal for me. Part of it is because Dark Souls demands my attention right now, but I think I figured out another reason yesterday: The sound effects, or lack thereof.
On my 2-Hour Scorecard for Skyforge I marked the Sound as “Okay.” Now after five hours I’m going to downgrade it to “Bad.” When my Cryomancer is out in the world defeating bad guys and such, throwing out these huge AoE whirlwind spells and dropping comets from the sky (or whatever that ability is), you would think that my speakers would shake and rattle everything on the desk with the sheer magnitude of it.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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The Elite: Dangerous Expansion And Value.
2015-08-09.
Elite: Dangerous has an expansion coming out and you’ll never guess what happened after the announcement: People on Reddit got mad.
In a related story, the sun rose and set today.
I admit I’m just an average guy who doesn’t grasp all this new-fangled math the kids use, but I have never understood the “it’s not fair that if someone buys it today they’ll get a better price than someone who bought it before” logic when it comes to games.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Responses
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Reactions To WoW Legion.
2015-08-10.
World of Warcraft is so far off my radar right now that the announcement of the new Legion expansion* is about as interesting to me as a deer tick. Even that horrible analogy was more interesting to me. It’s not that I don’t like WoW when I play it. It just doesn’t hold my attention for very long.
There are two things I just don’t understand about WoW fandom: The first is how people can look around at all of the MMORPGs out there and decide that WoW is the only one they want to play, and the second is how anyone can follow any of the lore that happens in WoW.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Pre-Release
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Game Developers Aren’t Slaves.
2015-08-11.
A while back I saw this pro-GamerGate post and had a flashback to my days in the political blogosphere. I’ll save you the time of reading it: It’s a long, very well-worded piece of propaganda disguised as anti-propaganda. (You know you’re reading propaganda when you come across the word “indoctrination.”)
The part that really made my jaw drop was this:
Never forget that you [developers] are here to please the gamers, they are not here to please you, validate your beliefs or prop up your ego.
- Gaming
- Opinion
- Responses
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A Year Of Blog Stats.
2015-08-12.
Way back in April, Endgame Viable became a year old, statistically speaking. That is to say, in April, I had accumulated my first full year of WordPress site statistics. (The Endgame Viable “brand” was actually born on October 16, 2013, while the first post on this blog-ie. the database that powers this blog-was June 29, 2012.) I’m not one to keep a close eye on statistics, but they can be useful to see what “works” and what “doesn’t work,” and some new bloggers might be interested in what I’ve learned.
- Administration
- Blog
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Dark Souls – Chaos Witch Quelaag Defeated.
2015-08-13.
Previously on Dark Souls, our intrepid Knight Thomas dispatched the Gaping Dragon on his way through The Depths. The Gaping Dragon dropped a key which opened a door leading to Blighttown, a total bastard of a zone, pardon my French.
Let’s just say that Thomas the Knight died a lot-sometimes from falling but mostly from getting poisoned. Not just regular poison, either. Super-duper “toxic” poison, delivered by friendly neighborhood Blowdart Snipers hiding in hard-to-reach areas, spitting deadly darts rapid-fire while you climb up and down ladders and navigate across shaky wooden bridges, dodging Ghouls and Flaming Attack Dogs.
- RPG
- Single-Player
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Dark Souls – Moonlight Butterfly Defeated.
2015-08-14.
After defeating Chaos Witch Quelaag, ringing the second bell, and leaving Blighttown, our intrepid Knight Sir Thomas wandered far and wide looking for the right path. His journey took him back to the Undead Parish bonfire, past Andre the Blacksmith, to Darkroot Garden, where the Demonic Foliage lives. (I’m not making that up.)
Darkroot is also home to a clan of Giant Stone Knights, napping among the trees. You’d think they would welcome a fellow Knight, but they did not.
- RPG
- Single-Player
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Project Gorgon – The New Black?.
2015-08-15.
About a year ago I installed Project Gorgon and played around in the starter cave. It was mildly interesting but of course it wasn’t finished, the graphics were terrible, and there are so many other things to play. So I put it away again, filing it in the back of my mind.
Now suddenly everyone is talking about Project Gorgon. And by everyone I mean MassivelyOP which apparently has turned into the all-Gorgon-all-the-time site.
- MMORPG
- Pre-Release
- Reviews
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ArcheAge – Server Merges aka. Evolution.
2015-08-16.
ArcheAge is merging servers, and of course all of the ones I play(ed) on are affected: Naima and Calleil. (Of course those two aren’t merging together, so I’m still going to end up on two different servers: Kraken and Hanure.) So it looks like if you didn’t stick with one of the very first full servers with all-day queues, you’re getting merged.
Out of curiosity I logged in to see what the game looks like now.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Dark Souls – Screenshots.
2015-08-17.
Have some Dark Souls screenshots to start your work week.
I am absolutely in love with the “look” of this game. I’ve always been a big fan of realism in game graphics and this game looks like you could reach out and touch what’s happening on the screen, at least after you install the DSfix mod.
Tomb of the Giants Before I found out that Anor Londo was the place I needed to go, I wandered around The Catacombs and the Tomb of the Giants for quite a while.
- Musings
- RPG
- Single-Player
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Pay-to-Win.
2015-08-18.
I don’t think I’ve written about pay-to-win before, mostly on purpose. Frankly I think most of the outrage is entirely manufactured. But I posted a brief comment on Jef Reahard’s controversial MassivelyOP post to the effect that “pay-to-win” is one of those emotionally-charged terms like “climate change” or “gun control” that evokes instantaneous knee-jerk, black-and-white responses, so it’s a dangerous road to travel as a blogger.
Because in reality it’s a very complicated subject with many shades of gray, and it requires us to sit down and think long and hard about our gaming goals and values and who’s got time for any of that?
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Quake CTF Nostalgia – CC vs. DPS.
2015-08-19.
This is off topic for this blog, but my old Crayola Clan mate ]CC[-Orange converted some of our Quake CTF match demos into videos. It’s not an exact copy of what we would have seen on our monitors back then (we probably ran at 800×600, and the fov looks higher than I remember) but it’s close.
Most of the time I was average, but this one Quake 2 match I was “on” so this is how I will choose to remember my performance from the good old days.
- Musings
- Shooter
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Dark Souls – Catching Up.
2015-08-20.
Don’t really having time to write up every boss fight in Dark Souls right now, but here is a quick summary of the bosses and mini-bosses Sir Thomas the Knight has gotten through.
Havel The Rock A mini-boss waiting at the bottom of the Watchtower right before the Taurus Demon. He hits really hard and takes a ton of damage, but is otherwise fairly straightforward. He drops Havel’s Ring, which boosts your carrying capacity (and typically increases your movement speed).
- RPG
- Single-Player
2015-09
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The Great Blaugust Flame-Out.
2015-09-01.
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.
- Community
- Responses
- Status
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Progression Report – August 2015.
2015-09-03.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
2015-10
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Progression Report – September 2015.
2015-10-03.
September’s report is again pretty easy: No MMORPG progression, however quite a lot of Dark Souls progression. I started Dark Souls II on roughly the 5th and as of this writing, I’ve completed the main storyline and have moved on to the post-launch DLC content on my first character. I’ve been posting a video series of my play-through on YouTube for those who might be inclined to watch.
I’m starting to get a little tired of the Dark Souls rabbit hole (the Dark Souls II DLC content is getting pretty frustrating), so I might finally get back to some MMORPGs soon.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- RPG
- Single-Player
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The Light, It Burns.
2015-10-19.
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.
- MMORPG
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
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GW2HoT – Obey The Zerg.
2015-10-29.
Somewhat to my own surprise, I bought and installed Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns on Saturday. The first thing I did on my Necromancer was spec the Reaper thingy and train the ability to use a greatsword. That was pretty cool. I enjoyed the greatsword on my Guardian so it’s nice to have it on the character that I actually play the most. The game was nice enough to give me an exotic Reaper’s Greatsword of Air to play with, too.
- MMORPG
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ARK – I “Finally” Bought It.
2015-10-31.
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. :)
- Status
- Steam
- Survival
2015-11
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ARK – Um It’s Got Issues.
2015-11-02.
Here’s my advice: Do not buy ARK right now. At least, don’t buy it with any expectation of actually playing it. Because on my 12GB system it runs out of memory and crashes. If you run the “low memory” 4GB version it doesn’t crash, but it runs horribly slow. There is a good two minutes of loading screen to wait through before geting into the game (literally-I timed it). Then in order to get it to run at an acceptable frame rate (which to me is a rock-solid 60 fps, but I suppose in a pinch 30-40 fps will do) you have to disable almost every graphical setting, and then the game is painful to look at.
- Pre-Release
- Reviews
- Survival
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Fallout 4 – Better Than Expected.
2015-11-12.
I must confess that I did not like Fallout 3 and New Vegas as much as everyone else did. To me, Fallout 3 was exactly the same game as Oblivion, which I had already played enough to be tired of it. So after I finished the main Fallout 3 story, I was done with it. (Steam reports that I played some crazy number of hours, but that was only because I left it running 24/7 on a secondary PC.
- Reviews
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Steam
2015-12
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Trying Bound By Flame.
2015-12-02.
Normally I would write about a new game I tried, but since I never have the time or energy to write anymore, I thought it might be fun to record my first hour of play instead. (Fun for me, at least.) This time I tried out Bound By Flame, an action RPG I got for around $5 in the recent Steam sale. In short, it’s pretty average.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Steam
- Videos
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GW2HoT – That Was Fun.
2015-12-04.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Fallout 4 – Wrapping Up.
2015-12-07.
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.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
- Steam
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Trying Betrayer.
2015-12-09.
Here’s a video I recorded in October of the first hour of a game called Betrayer. It’s a first-person exploration/mystery sort of game set in the time period of Jamestown. It’s a neat-looking game, and I liked the idea of it, but I never finished it because I thought the pacing was a bit too slow.
- Reviews
- Videos
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SWTOR – Bring on the Hutt.
2015-12-14.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Getting Back Into MMORPGs.
2015-12-16.
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.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WildStar PSA – Password Length.
2015-12-20.
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.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Status
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Listmas 2015: Recent Audible Listens.
2015-12-23.
I’m sort of trying to merge this and my horribly neglected writing blog together. Maybe. I don’t know. My “branding” is all messed up right now. Also I haven’t written much lately.
Anyway, one of the things I tried to do on the writing blog every now and then was talk about books I’d read lately and what I learned about writing from them. So that’s what this post is.
- Reviews
- Writing
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Games Of My Year 2015.
2015-12-26.
Here’s my year end “Best Of” list, because if you’re on the Internet, you have to do a year-end list of some kind. It’s the law.
2015 Contenders After studying my Steam purchase history and searching my memory, I’ve come up with the following list of new games that I purchased and played in 2015. These are only games that were released in 2015, not every single game that I purchased or played in 2015.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- RPG
- Single-Player
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More End Of Year Charts!.
2015-12-29.
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.
- MMORPG
- Progression Report
- Status
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On The Radar For 2016.
2015-12-31.
Last time I did this.
Note that some games might not be on the following list because I have either a) forgotten about them, or b) never heard of them, or c) dismissed them as not MMORPGs. This MassivelyOP Betawatch post helped me a lot, too.
* Games marked with a * can be bought and played now in some early access form or another. (I think. Don’t hold me to it.
- MMORPG
- Predictions