Final Fantasy XIV slipped to third place in August, behind LotRO and, amazingly enough, Guild Wars 2. Lord of the Rings Online - 45 hours Guild Wars 2 - 27 hours Final Fantasy XIV - 21 hours Subnautica - 2 hours All tied for 1 hour or less: Destiny 2 Open Beta, Dark and Light, Secret World Legends, Dark Souls III, WildStar. (62 words.)

I tried out the Destiny 2 PC Open Beta Tuesday night. I’ve never played Destiny before or even seen it or read much about it. It was incredibly easy to install and play through the Battle.net launcher. I just clicked on the “Install” button and less than an hour later it was ready to go. It was not quite as easy to configure though. It gave me exactly one opportunity to adjust my video settings and then I got a class selection screen. (1228 words.)

While the rest of the world is probably posting about the Destiny 2 open beta today, I’m going to post about lockboxes, because I wrote this yesterday. I think it was Roger that said we bloggers could get a lot of good topics out of MassivelyOP’s Daily Grinds, so here’s another one: What Do You Actually Expect To Get Out Of MMORPG Lockboxes? This particular Grind was inspired by Bhagpuss boldly claiming to like lockboxes (in a way). (436 words.)

Last night I tried out an early access survival game called Subnautica. I bought it for $9.99 in the last Steam sale. The premise of this game is unlike other survival games in that you play a big part of it underwater. The game begins with you scrambling into a “rescue pod” while your ship blows up around you. (I assume it’s some kind of spaceship.) The rescue pod lands in a big alien ocean and then it’s your job to survive, while your ship looms in the distance, burning and giving off radiation. (812 words.)

I was looking around for something to write about today and stumbled on this MassivelyOP post about Ashes of Creation combat. I clicked on the video and started watching with no real interest until this one combat mechanic caught my attention. But first, I don’t know who that Ziz guy is, but if he’s not a paid content creator for Ashes of Creation, I’ll eat my hat. He’s way too excited about this game not to be getting paid. (472 words.)

Hard to believe it’s been four years since The Calamity. I don’t normally care that much about these anniversary or holiday events, but when I saw the wind-up Gosetsu I knew that I had to have him. Not that I ever take out minions in the game or anything. It’s just the principle of the thing. I had it in my head that The Rising wouldn’t be starting until after the Tuesday patch, but this morning (Sunday) I logged in and everybody was talking about it, so I went to Ul’dah and sure enough there was the NPC. (220 words.)

My last post was some time ago, so I thought I would update everyone on my writing progress. Um. Well. You see. It hasn’t been great. I did participate in NaNoWriMo 2016, and I did win, so that was something. I wrote 50,000 words on a historical fiction novel set in Belgium during World War I. I’ve never written historical fiction before so it was a big stretch. I felt completely unqualified, but I pressed on and tried to stick with what I knew and avoid obsessing about the little details that I was sure I was getting wrong. (291 words.)

When I heard that there was a new version of Stephen King’s The Mist available to watch, I ran to my nearest cable box and found the ten episodes of season one buried in Spike TV’s video on demand on FIOS. The Mist has always been one of my favorite Stephen King stories. It was a novella at the beginning of the collection Skeleton Crew. (Survivor Type is the other memorable story from that book. (600 words.)

Here’s another post based on a MassivelyOP’s Daily Grind: What’s Your Comfort MMO? I find this to be a somewhat odd question, because I generally like to have a constantly-changing game experience, as opposed to an experience that is always the same. I am the kind of person who likes to learn and try new things all the time (within the boundaries of crippling anxieties, of course). This is why I try out most new MMORPGs if I can. (513 words.)

Here’s another post I wrote a long time ago but never published because I forgot that I wrote it. Previously I gave a high-level summary of the Stormblood story, but now I want to dive deeper into more detail. There will be huge, massive, unbelievable, mind-shattering spoilers here that go far beyond anything that was in the previous post, so you’ve been warned. The biggest plot problem I remember: There was one point in the story when our heroes had to watch while Yotsuyu terrorized some villagers. (2087 words.)

A recent MassivelyOP Daily Grind asked the question: “Do you like being lost in MMOs?” My answer is generally no, I never want to my progress to be impeded by not knowing where to go. But it depends on the situation and/or the game. Here are two recent examples: When I think about my experience playing through the remainder of the GW2 Heart of Thorns story, I was lost a lot in the Maguuma Jungle, and it was aggravating. (350 words.)

Yesterday morning I finally returned to my Ringed City DLC blind playthrough videos after a two month break. The first thing I encountered was a dragon boss, Darkeater Midir. I died. I decided to go a different direction. :) I ran into Judicator Argo and his entourage of Dark Spirits. It took a couple of tries but I got through that ordeal to a woman whom I assumed to be Princess Filianore. (380 words.)

I see this question or a variation of it pop up fairly often in my Twitter timeline: “I’m thinking about streaming. What do you want to see?” Most recently @Jaedia brought this up yesterday: I'm pretty chill. What would you guys think of chill streams playing like.. story-driven games, things like visual novels, Undertale, etc.? — Jaedia Claus (@jaedia) August 20, 2017 I’m not an expert on this, and I’m sure my preferences on streaming don’t align with the majority of kids today. (702 words.)

One thing that happens when you make a conscious effort to post every day is that half of your blog posts turn into diary entries. “Dear diary: Here’s what I did today. Well, yesterday.” Yesterday I completed the Moria Epic Story and officially returned to the world under the sky in Dimrill Dale, attaining level 60 in the process. I got to revisit the Watcher in the Water deep in the bowels of Moria. (596 words.)

My Hunter reached level 59 and the famous Bridge of Khazad-dûm yesterday-what’s left of the bridge, at least. I was following the side quest of a dwarf Svanr who was on some kind of pilgrimage to see all of the Mines of Moria, and we got to the Bridge. Then my character took his first steps back outside in seemingly forever. It’s surely been over a year of real time since before my Hunter entered Moria. (280 words.)