FYI, I completed a 1000-word summary of Sovereignty, but I won’t post it here because it’s filled with spoilers, just in case it turns into a real book some day. It’s now abundantly clear that there is no place for my original story in the book. Not even as a side plot. One of the original driving forces for this book was: What if there was a culture of people who bred servants in the same way that we breed pets? (460 words.)

Today I am pondering what it means when combat feels “floaty.” This is one of the most common criticisms I’ve seen about ESO: “The combat is too floaty.” I’ve seen this criticism leveled against a lot of games over the years, actually. But what does that mean? I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was swinging my dual daggers in the ESO beta, at no point did my Argonian begin to float away into the sky*. (389 words.)

I’m not sad to see End of Nations go. The “MMORTS” genre did not inspire me to want to play that game, and when we later learned it was to be reshaped into a “MOBA” my interest plummeted even farther. (I simply do not “get” MOBAs - so much clicking.) Instead, I’m ecstatic to see Trion devoting more resources to Rift, Trove, Defiance, and particularly ArcheAge, a game that I am still looking forward to seeing sometime within my lifetime. (170 words.)

I’m a little annoyed with the loot in GW2. Loot basically rains from the sky in that game, filling your bags in mere seconds. I never thought I would say anything like this in an MMO, but: For the love of god, stop giving me so much loot! You can’t take a step without getting some kind of trophy bag. And when you open that bag, out spills two or three or six or ten more pieces of loot! (500 words.)

Just once I would like to play an MMO where it is easier to level a crafting profession than it is to level your character. Often it seems pointless to level a crafting profession because the equipment you make lags so far behind the level of your character. FFXIV is better than most games, but I’m experiencing it again. I wanted to meld my own materia for the level 50 Relic Reborn quest, but guess what? (335 words.)

Here’s my feedback to SOE regarding Landmark’s proposed monetization plans: Hey can I just pay you and not get spammed with advertising for potions and costumes? That would be super. Oh, and by the way I already paid you. Maybe factor that into your plans, too. Also, are you ever planning to increase the percentage of your game that is finished? It’s been at 60% now for a month. (Okay, that probably wasn’t fair. (209 words.)

This thought occurred to me one night while I was running around in a FATE group in FFXIV: Why am I enjoying this zerg but when I play in a GW2 zerg in Escape from Lion’s Arch I want to gouge my own eyes out? When I’m in a FFXIV zerg (or Rift, or most any other), I have a feeling of control. I’m filling a specific role, and when I execute my part of the plan, the whole group experience is better. (280 words.)

I don’t have a problem with Blizzard’s $60 for a level 90 character. It’s within reach, but high enough to keep it from being an impulse buy (for me, at least). I think I would only pay to level a brand new character. It seems like a waste of money to take a mid-level or higher character up to 90. If you’re a person who can play all day and night, I could see where $60 seems high, because you can probably level a character to 90 within a month of subscription time, which is $15 I think. (312 words.)

Hrm, well, this is the first day I haven’t had a workday post scheduled in advance in a long time, and I can’t find anything among my Drafts that is both finished and interesting. I can report the fascinating news that I reached White Mage level 50 in FFXIV last night. I had been buying Darklight Healing gear for a while, so I was able to quickly jump from around item level ~40 to item level ~60 in a span of moments. (270 words.)

Amazingly, I completed Titan Hard Mode in a PUG! Finally. It took around three weeks of trying. I stubbornly refused to use the Party Finder because, since I had spent so much time attempting it in a PUG, I wanted to finish it in a PUG. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make much sense. :) He's gooooone!! Yay! So I finally got my Relic Weapon. And I upgraded it, too. (83 words.)

I tried out a service called Pingzapper that might be useful if you’ve experienced weird lagging in MMOs or I guess really any game. The alleged problem is that your ISP might be “traffic shaping” your data in a way that interferes with games. They are almost certainly messing up your streaming videos as much as they can get away with, so it makes sense that they would extend that policy to other areas. (376 words.)

Still wanting to want to play GW2 more, but falling short. Here’s a summation of the new GW2 content: Same chaotic zerg fights, different location. I will give them credit for blowing up Lion’s Arch though. That’s cool. But the stuff you do in the blown up zone isn’t enough to pull me away from FFXIV. I still have no idea who Scarlet is. Or why Lion’s Arch got blown up. (223 words.)

So yeah, somehow two whole months have disappeared and I haven’t done much writing. It’s actually more intimidating to try to revise existing manuscripts than it is to try to write new manuscripts. Anyway, in order to spark some positive momentum, I challenged myself to write a 100-word summary of the plot of The Sovereign of Tel. That probably sounds trivially simple, but for me to zoom that far out from the story and give such a super high-level overview of it is quite a challenge. (459 words.)

When I was leveling the Archer/Bard, I often looked at Thaumaturges and Black Mages and wished I were them. They always seem to do more damage, and they just have cooler spells with their fire and ice and whatnot. And even more importantly, they actually have a useful Limit Break. (I would not wear the silly Gandalf hats, though.) Then I actually played a THM through level 15, and quickly changed my mind. (490 words.)

Yeah I pre-ordered the $79 Imperial Edition of ESO. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it? I didn’t do it for the Imperial race, which I don’t care about. I fully expect Zenimax to make that available for purchase later anyway. I didn’t do it because I’m an Elder Scrolls fan boy and I think ESO is awesome. (I tolerate TES and I merely think ESO is better than average.*) I mainly bought it for the horse. (671 words.)