Endgame Viable

It occurred to me: The seasons in A Song of Ice and Fire are many years long, right? In the show, Old Nan said that men were born, lived, and died all without seeing the sun (presumably in winter, in the north). But when the characters talk about how long the seasons are, they use the word “years.” (At least, I think they do. I would have to comb through the books to be sure.) But since for us a year is defined as one revolution around the sun, or one cycle of seasons, how do the people in Westeros know how long a “year” is, since it would be some fraction of the length of their seasons? Why would they even have a concept for a fraction of time shorter than a season? (275 words.)

“Hardhome” (Game of Thrones, season 5, episode 8) did a fantastic job of reminding us why we (and The Seven Kingdoms) should care that “Winter is Coming.” (27 words.)

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.)

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.)

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. And also that I haven’t seen much of anything about Heavensward except what I’ve seen in FC chat and that benchmark.) (1015 words.)

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.)

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. I have not supported any game projects on Kickstarter, however I have purchased about a half dozen Steam Early Access games. I have also "bought into beta" a few times too (ArcheAge and Landmark are the biggest examples). (704 words.)

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. NBI is generally focused on gaming blogs but nobody is going to stop you from starting a non-gaming blog, too. (451 words.)

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. (378 words.)

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.) Here is my brief diary of how they went. (Spoiler: They all went better than expected.) (778 words.)