Endgame Viable

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.)

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. It seemed like a fitting tale to start off Blaugust. (1261 words.)

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. I generally don’t feel like I’ve written enough unless I get to 500 words, but most of the time I don’t have that much to say about a topic. Thankfully this new Yoast SEO plugin that I’m using tells me my posts only need to be 300 words or more. And the Blaugust guidelines say I have to write ten sentences, which at the recommended average of 15-20 words per sentence comes out to 150-200 words, which is pretty short, but when you have nothing to say, it might as well be 10,000 words. (This post, as of this sentence, is still a bit shy of 200 words.) (211 words.)

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.)

Reims Bible, Wikimedia Commons. Spelling was pretty important for monks. Spelling is important, right? I saw a post on Facebook about this Grammar Girl article, which was a response to a Wired article by Anne Trubek on spelling. I started to type a pithy comment about it, but then I realized I kept thinking of new things to say that went far beyond the scope of a pithy comment, so I figured I should turn it into a long, rambling blog post. (1071 words.)

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.)

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. How many “credits” or “gems” or “zombie points” I would get, what costumes or guns I would get, what titles I would get, etc. Because obviously there should be some tangible incentives for me to buy a game that’s buggy and broken and not finished. (215 words.)

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.)

Oh crap! It’s July! This is Camp NaNoWriMo month, and it’s Day 3, and I haven’t started writing-haven’t even thought of an idea. Didn’t even realize it was July until this third day. Should I write something? Coincidentally, I’ve had a story in my head for the last few days. Actually, I should say I’ve had a setting in my head for the last few days. It’s from an old idea I wrote down years ago, which was rekindled by running across The Conjunction Of The Spheres in the The Witcher 3 which I’ve been playing. (173 words.)

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. (688 words.)