Endgame Viable

I don’t have much to talk about. Just not in the mood for writing.

Daylight is rapidly disappearing, which always puts me in a foul mood.

I’m in the midst of receiving radiation treatments on a breakout cancer spot in my right pelvic bone. It’s going well. Though I have no way of knowing one way or another, to be honest, since again, it’s all happening at a cellular level and I feel none of it.

Radiation treatments are incredibly easy, at least the ones that I’ve gotten. You just lie there while the machine works on you, and you see and feel nothing during the process. Then you leave. It would be easy to convince oneself that literally nothing happened, except for the fact that it’s a lot of trouble to go through for a ruse.

Games

I heard there was a new World of Warcraft: Forever announcement. I can’t really tell what it’s supposed to be, but I signed up for the beta. I think it’s like WoW Classic but … different? WoW Classic but on an alternate timeline? WoW Classic but like if there had been a different expansion from Burning Crusade?

It’s like a fork of the original WoW Classic going off in its own direction. It’s not clear what need it’s serving. I guess it’s serving the “make everything like it used to be, but better” crowd. But couldn’t they have achieved the same thing if they froze WoW Classic at the original game?

I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at the “it’s about making friends and playing together” nonsense in the announcements. Are we still doing this? It’s been so, so many years and game designers are still thinking we’re going to meet new friends inside our MMORPGs? It’s like listening to a politician talking about the everyday needs of their constituents, when they’ve clearly never been inside a grocery store in their life.

(I’m of the opinion that friends are made outside the game, and those relationships are brought into the game from the outside. Nobody is looking for new social relationships inside games anymore.)

Speaking of MMORPGs, over the weekend I played some more Final Fantasy XIV, continuing my hopeless quest to finish recording the Endwalker and Dawntrail expansions before Evercold launches. Storywise, the Scions finally got into the Space Ark and went to space. They’ve arrived in Ultima Thule and walked into what I can only describe as a survival horror situation. I’m getting pretty close to the end of the pre-patch Endwalker story.

And I’m enjoying this part of the story. For all the silliness in Final Fantasy, they tackle some sophisticated themes from time to time. Currently it’s all about existential nihilism. It’s been a recurring refrain of the expansion. If it’s a certainty that all life will eventually end in the heat death of the ever-expanding universe, what is even the point of living? Fun stuff like that.

I was gleeful to see that I was able to complete the Mothercrystal 8-person trial with a party of NPC Scions rather than having to enter the Duty Finder to find a PUG. That’s the first time I’ve seen that in FFXIV. I don’t know if that’s a new phenomenon or not, but I previously thought they couldn’t or wouldn’t do the trials solo like that. (A quick search reveals the next one won’t be like that. Bummer.)

I can’t imagine I’m going to finish Endwalker and Dawntrail by the end of the year. Almost every single main scenario quest is a full gaming session for me.

It’s probably not a great idea to plan to play Evercold when it launches anyway. The last time I played a FFXIV expansion at launch I spent most of that time sitting in queues.

Surely they can’t keep making these quests so very, very lengthy going into Dawntrail and then on into Evercold? Can they put somebody on their development team to ensure that quests take no more than 15 minutes when you read all the text out loud? But no… it’s 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, two hours.. there’s just no limit.

Sports

The NFL season has begun. The Washington Commanders predictably lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in their season opener, however they were at least in the game the entire time, and had a chance to tie in the end, which was somewhat surprising.

But still, after their shocking run to the NFC Championship game in the 2024 season, the Commanders have fallen back to their standard cursed level of play where they mostly look pretty average and lose most games by one score or less because of a crucial dropped ball or missed field goal or blown tackle, and it feels pointless to waste any energy watching their games.

I watched the U.S. Open women’s and men’s finals over the weekend, the first time I’ve done that in a million years. Tennis sure has changed since the last time I was into it. It’s … a lot faster. To the point where it’s not that fun to watch. Also, every tennis player now appears to be a 7 or 8 foot tall linebacker.

Okay that’s enough of an update.