Endgame Viable

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. (216 words.)

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.)

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. (799 words.)

Am I crazy or should they have skipped Part 1 and gone right to Part 2? The entire movie seemed like a prologue. Which, I guess, it was. For Part 2. Other than that, it was a great depiction of rubble. (41 words.)

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. (125 words.)

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. Now I see that it has one very compelling feature: You can play it one-handed. (297 words.)

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. (423 words.)

My last post was a “February Status” but it was posted at the beginning of February, so in reality it was more of a “January Status.” It’s now the beginning of March (sort of), so this writing update will actually cover February. As of now my manuscript from November is over 80,000 words, and Scrivener says I wrote nearly 12,000 words in February. Not great, but better than nothing. A couple of interesting story twists occurred in February: 1) I killed off a character that was no longer doing anything interesting, and 2) I came up with a new idea for an interesting group of people to encounter in the post-apocalyptic wilderness. (263 words.)

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. I’ve had tons of dental work done. I secretly wish I could do slight-of-hand magic. My perfectly sane retirement plan is to become a best-selling author. This year I’m hoping to buy a house; I’ve been renting for three years. I hate talking about myself which makes job interviews painful. I used to have really long hair but I cut it short on my 40th birthday. My favorite pickle is the Mt. Olive Kosher Dill pickle. I don’t talk much but sometimes I can be annoyingly verbose. I can juggle up to four balls. Answers to j3w3l’s questions: (1120 words.)

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.) Even going back to the earliest city builder game I can remember, a type-in BASIC program called Hamurabi that I played on a TRS-80 Color Computer, I almost always starved my people. (294 words.)