Category Archives: Personal

Swinging High

Posted on by
Reply

As I sit down to write this post I’m quite exhausted after an eventful weekend so if it turns into a bit of a ramble please bare with me. I spent most of Saturday shopping for new clothes and not playing games. I spent today hanging out with family on a rather special trip that we spontaneously planned a few weeks ago.

The IJ in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam right across the Central Station there’s a building that used to belong to the company “Shell”. I’m sure a part of the building is still used as office but they’ve also commercialised it where you are able to buy tickets to go to the top of the building and have an amazing view of Amsterdam and surrounding areas. I could even see parts of my own hometown up there, that’s how clear it was and how fare you could see. It was amazing enough to go up there but they also had an experience called “Over the Edge” where you would be strapped into a mechanical swing and swing over the edge of the building whilst enjoying a spectacular view. Ofcourse it was way overpriced and the whole swinging experience was only one minute long it was still a blast and I’m happy that I went.

On the Swing

And because I honestly don’t really know what to write about anymore I’ll leave you guys with a few more pics of Amsterdam as seen from high up 🙂

Blaugust Topic: Getting to know me!

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of Blaugust’s “Getting to know me” week I guess I could write another more personal post. I talk about personal stuff on this blog from time to time and it always feels a bit weird to tell your “life story” as it were to complete strangers online.

I mentioned earlier that I got my first gaming console, a Sega Genesis, when I was around the age of 6 and my first handheld around the age of 9. I never really was a big gamer growing up though. I was the outdoors girl that was always playing outside with my childhood best friend and her little brother. We grew up in an amazing small urban area with lots of green and lots of places to hang out as kids. We had trees and structures we could climb. There were parks with playgrounds nearby and we had mothers who didn’t work fulltime and thus could take us to indoor playgrounds or the forest to play. It was mostly a carefree time and the only time I really played my games was during the evenings when I couldn’t go out to play or when it was really really bad weather outside. 
At some point my bestie got a Playstation one and we would alternate between my and her house when it was bad weather and just play whatever console (or handheld) was available to us.

Around the end of elementary school I got my own computer and I slowly got into PC gaming as result. My very own computer was really a hand-me-down from my dad but I could play games on it that I loved so I was happy. Back then I really enjoyed the A2-Racer and Redcat games, both published by Davilex, a Dutch gaming studio. Google the titles and be amazed!
After that I slowly rolled into Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon and then ultimately the Sims. I was blissfully unaware of online games and I didn’t spend that much time playing games at all. I remember getting myself a Playstation 2 near the end of it’s cycle and a Nintendo DS a bit before that. Even though my DS saw a lot of game time, with Pokémon Black taking the cake with most hours played, my Playstation 2 never saw the love it deserved. I still have it together with a pile of games that I always inteded to play but alas. Maybe somewhere in the future I’ll find the time for it.

When I was around 17-18 I was introduced to World of Warcraft by my then boyfriend. I found it a fascinating game. It looked amazing, the world was huge, I could make and customize my own character and I was hooked on it from the first minute. I’m still hooked on it today. WoW has been the high and lowlight of my life. I’ve made friends through that game, even boyfriends, and lost people aswell. As I grew older I kept upgrading atleast my handheld. I still own multiple 3DS today (and 2DS). I also jumped on the Playstation 4 wagon fairly early on and I have gotten some decent gameplay out of that. I picked up a WiiU two years ago and have picked up a Switch last year.
 
I only now realize that I’ve put myself in a bit of a pickle where I just own too many consoles and too many games to really be able to enjoy them. The simple times where I only owned one thing are gone and making decisions on what to play become harder every day. This also has led me to try out multiple MMO’s over the years. Guild Wars 2, Wildstar, SWToR, the Secret World and FFXIV all passed the revue. Only the latter stuck. And even now I find it hard to maintain my presence in both WoW and FFXIV even though if I plan it right I should be easily able to play both. And that’s not even factoring all my single player games in. It’s probably a struggle that will never end for me and I hope that I someday find out how to handle my time better than I do now. And if I don’t well.. We’ll see.

Mechanical Keyboard: Got!

Posted on by
Reply

Today has been a bit of an odd day. It started off with my bra breaking as I was riding my bike towards the station. It’s seriously one of the most annoying things to have happen to you as woman and because I didn’t want to turn around I knew I had to head into town during my lunch break to buy a new one. I finally found a very well fitting bra when doing this though so I guess in a way it’s a win.
However after having bought said bra I realised I left my vest at the store and, not wanting to go back and pick it up, I went into town once more after work to buy a new one because I felt too embarrased to go back to the bra shop and ask if they still had it (this was about 4-5 hours later mind you). Luckily for me I tend to not spend too much money on clothing and this particular vest was an oldie that needed replacement anyway so I’m not too shaken up about losing it.

I planned to eat a bite of dinner and then take the first train home but those plans were ruined aswell with my train not going so I was stuck around town for another half hour before the next train would go. Because most shops had already closed up at this point I found myself wandering into the MediaMarkt (which is a big electronics chain here in the Netherlands/Europe) to spend some time looking at headsets, games and keyboards. Now I had been thinking of getting myself a mechanical keyboard for a while but I found the prices to just be too ridiculous. Paying 150€ for a keyboard? No way. However apparently Logitech has released a budget model Mechanical Keyboard that came down to about €97, which is maybe 20 more than I paid for my own keyboard.
After doubting a bit I decided to pick it up and take it home with me. It’s the best purchase I’ve done in a while. The keys are super responsive and I don’t have to press down very hard to get the keys to register. It’s lighter on my hands and I feel like I already make less typos because the keys simply register faster. It’s also very quiet, it doesn’t make more sound than a normal keyboard, and very sturdy since the body is made of aluminum. This also gives it a really clean, sleek look that I absolutely adore. 

It also comes just in time for the launch of BfA. I can’t wait to play my Rogue or Paladin on this baby!

When Gaming is Unhealthy

Posted on by
2

Today I took of my mother’s wedding ring. I’ve had this ring on my left middle finger for years. I’ve never taken it off. Yet today I have. Because today I realized that if I don’t take it off now, they may have to cut it off my finger in a few years if I keep going the way I do.

I’ve never been an extremely skinny person. Well maybe as a kid. I used to be a gymnast and would train two times a week followed by competitions on the weekends. I also swam and played outside a lot during those days. I was skinny then. Healthy, happy and pretty strong for a girl my age. 
When I hit puberty I started getting curves. I had, and still have, above average breasts. I suddenly got hips and I started to get a bit chubby. However with our mandatory gym classes and me dancing two times a week you didn’t really notice. During high school I’ve never once felt fat. I’ve never once felt the need to lose weight or to look at myself in the mirror and feel like my clothes didn’t fit me right. I was normal, or as normal as you could expect any 16 year old to be. I also didn’t game.

When I started University I also started to gain weight. I spent a lot of my time gaming and quit sports alltogether. I managed to get back on track around the end of my education when I was working for the Dutch National mail. Especially the two months of summer where I would be delivering mail 5 days a week. I walked 3 hours a day then, atleast, and was at a healthy weight which made me happy. I didn’t game as much then and was much more focused on my social life and being healthy.

Right now however I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. So heavy infact that it’s starting to give me issues. I have a lot of backpains. I’ve developed asthma. My legs, and calves in particular, hurt a lot when I have to walk for an extended amount of time. My feet have gotten wider and I have painful spots on my toes that I’ve never had before. All in all I am in the worst shape of my life and I have no idea where to start breaking this circle. A large part of it comes down to me not getting enough movement in during the day. Especially on the weekends where I like to sit and game a lot I notice that I should be up and about instead. It’s hard and it’s affecting my health. I’ve always noticed a correlation that I become unhealthy when I spend more time on games. Games are a way for me to escape the harsh reality that I should not sit on my ass all day and evening and instead do something more healthy with my time. It’s hard to motivate yourself though, especially when just sitting down and gaming is so easy.

I’m trying to take more breaks from my games. I try to spend more time on the crosstrainer we have in the attic. I try to spend my lunch breaks walking in town so that I get a bit of movement in. I don’t really live in a very wooded area or an area where you want to go outside and walk. Yet I think I’ll have to find some way to enjoy myself outside and away from games more. Before they do actually have to cut off jewellry…

Norway, Blaugust and BfA prep

Posted on by
Reply

It has been kind of all over the blogosphere but Blaugust is returning and I will participate. We have a lot of mentors, participants and people who are totally new to blogging so I’m sure it will be a nice event! All made possible by the awesome Belghast who is hosting the event and who is also keeping tabs on who is actually participating. We’ve even set up a Discord and I have to say it’s a merry band of people (old and new!) already. I’m really looking forward to reading new blogs and to update my feedly with more people to follow over the coming weeks.

Today happens to be the final day of my small vacation week. Even though I’ve been absolutely melting the entire day (and having to clean in this extremely warm weather!) I’m happy to go back to work tomorrow where the airconditioning is cool and the people are I actually like engaging with. The last 7 days however I didn’t spend melting away in my room behind my computer, but discovering Southern Norway and all the beautiful nature it has. And because they say a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some of mine to give an impressio of my trip!

Forests Lake Red panda Houses Town view Harbor view

I’ve had an amazing week with lots of outdoor activities and yet come back more relaxed than I’ve been in forever. We have taken a lot of walks in town buto also went out to walk/hike in nature. We visited the zoo and went on a boat trip to see the many islands that form the Norwegian archipelago. All in all it was an amazing holiday. No bad weather. Nice people. Good food. Beautiful nature and lots of fun. The only real downside that it lasted only a week!

During my time in Norway I’ve also spend a good chunk of the evenings playing Octopath Traveler. Because really after being out and about during the day you don’t really have the energy to do much at night. I anticipated this and brought my Switch with me. This served as an Octopath machine but also allowed us to play some Kirby: Star Allies together, which was a blast.

I’ve come back rested, with a little less money and a lot of good memories and also a shitton of motivation to work on myself, my blog and my education in IT land, but these are topics for other posts.

And now in Gamerworld…
The final topic I want to address in this rather short blogpost is my BfA prep. I’ve completely missed the prepatch launch due to being abroad, but judging the amount of bugs that came along with it I’m sure I didn’t miss that much.
I’ve logged in all my characters this morning to get my Honor level up and decide the talents for atleast one viable specc to play on each of them. I have a post in the pipelines about my Mage Tower adventure and why I failed to get “Field Medic” and another post on how I plan to spend the weeks leading up to BfA launch. So stay tuned!

June 2018 Goals

Posted on by
Reply

Druid class hall flight form

I’ve had a rather active month in May. I started working fulltime in my new position. I’ve jumped back on the FF wagon since the new patch dropped. I’ve been chasing Mage Tower challenges (and am currently sitting on 10/36 done) and my most recent unlock in World of Warcraft has been the new flight form for my Night Elf Druid. You get this instead of a Class Hall mount and I have to say it looks really good!

Looking ahead at June I find my game time to be rather limited. I work 40 hour weeks now so I only have time to game after dinner really, cutting my evenings short to about four hours. I also want to make it a bi-daily habit to go onto our crosstrainer (respectively weekends, Tuesdays and Thursdays) effectively cutting short my gaming time even further since following a workout I would obviously need a shower. There’s a few single player games I’ve picked up that I want to finish, I’ve been rewatching Grey’s Anatomy from the start and I’m reading my way through the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. All in all I’ve started a lot of projects over the past month and I want to use June to complete some of them, be it game related or not.

Gaming Goals June 2018

World of Warcraft

  • Get Rogue to level 110 and finish the first leg of the Class Hall Campaign
  • Do Mage Tower challenges on as many class/specs as I can. The ones I really want: Guardian/Feral Druid, Elemental Shaman, Holy Priest.
  • Unlock more Class Hall mounts.

WoW looks to be basically continuing what I’m already doing. I’m still focusing on completing as many Mage Tower stuff as possible but seeing how Legion is only about 2 months away things are starting to look a bit dire. I’m hoping Blizzard decides to permanently enable the Mage Tower at some point but I doubt it. So I’m trying to double down on gearing up my alts and getting stuff done. Luckily getting to about 920 ilvl isn’t that hard anymore and most challenges are doable at that gearlevel even without optmized gear. I also want to finish up leveling the last class I need to 110 and inbetween unlock a few more Class Hall mounts.

Final Fantasy XIV

  • Get my Machinist to 70 and start leveling something else
  • Get my Weaver to 70 and start leveling another crafter
  • Play on my Au’Ra and progress through Heavensward story

I’m trying to keep my FFXIV goals light. Right now I’m just doing dailies and ex roulette for cap and that’s it. My Machinist is sitting on level 68 now though and I think I should be hitting 70 sometime next week if I continue on doing what I’m doing. The same goes for my Weaver. She’s dinged 64 today thanks to the Namazu quests and I’m hoping to push her to 70 this month. Then I will need to start working on another crafter, I’m probably going to go with Carpenter since that one is level 37 and I want to get it to Heavensward so I can take advantage of the Moogle quests.
You also may have seen me mention my Au’Ra on Twitter. My Moogle FC unfortunately has disbanded and moved, in large part, to Cerberus. Not wanting to transfer my Miqo I instead opted to bring over my Au’Ra. She’s still in the start of the Heavensward Story so my goal for now is to slowly push through that as Monk.

Other games

  • Progress in Mario+Rabbids
  • Progress in Monster Hunter Stories

Seeing as most of my attention is going into my MMO’s I don’t have that much time for other games. However Mario+Rabbids seems to have me hooked for now and I’ve already made it to world 2-6 in the mainstory. This is also what I want to focus on moving forward this month. I hope to be able to make it through atleast the rest of World 2 and hopefully a good chunk of World 3 aswell. I’m really enjoying the game and can’t wait how it turns out.
Monster Hunter Stories is one of those games that you really need to bite into for a longer time to understand the concept and to just get through the story. I’ve made my N3DS my Monster Hunter machine for now (save games are stored on the console rather than the card) and I’m planning to play this on the train and during any form of transportation/inbetween time. It’s a nice bright game and I do want to see how it plays out.

Real life and non game related goals

  • Finish the second book of the Farseer Trilogy
  • Clean out and rearrange some cabinets
  • Use the crosstrainer more

I’ve alluded to these goals at the start of my post but I want to start working on my health a bit more, so I want to use the crosstrainer we have on the attic on a more regular basis. Weekend mornings seem to be ideal for this and I want to take atleast two nights a week on the thing aswell. I may expand my routine later on with some strength exercises but for now some extra cardio to build stamina and start losing weight is the way to go.
Another thing I want to be doing over the course of the year is continue cleaning out our attic and more importantly start picking out things of mine that can go. I’ve been told that my apartment will be done sooner than expected (June 2019 instead of September 2019) and it’s time I start making lists of things I still need and things I already have and things that I want to get rid of. I don’t want to end up like my dad with a house full of stuff so I need to think long and hard about what I want to take with me and what not. As bonus perk this helps my dad aswell with getting rid of things from the attic, thus creating more new space.

Finally I’ve kind of found my reading vibe again and I want to continue that. I’m over halfway done in the second book of the Farseer Trilogy and I want to atleast finish it and hopefully start on the third. I’ve unexpectedly fell in love with the series and I know there’s more trilogies ahead for me to buy, which has me quite excited. However I have a bunch of other books that I still need/want to read first so I’m probably going to hold off on more books in the saga untill I’ve read all the other ones I still have.

All in all I’ve tried to keep my goals realistic. With me class hopping on WoW (and focusing on one class at a time) I can do most of the daily stuff there in less than an hour. The same goes for my Final Fantasy XIV dailies. That leaves me with 1-2 hours a night to spend on whatever else I want. I can read, I can play more of WoW/FF if I feel like it. I can choose not to game at all and just relax with my tablet and a show. I just hope that when July starts I’ve made a lot of progress in all the things I want because then I’ll have even less time to game due to vacation and more business at work. For now though it’s time I logged off and started cleaning my room. The dust seems to be everywhere! If you’re interested in more productivity tips and managing time effectively, consider checking out microstartups.org.

Why’s My Life So Boring?

Posted on by
Reply

Retribution Challenge Weapon

I’m having one of those weekends where I feel like my life is going by too fast and I’m wasting my time doing useless stuff. And with useless I mean lying on bed or spending a lot of time dallying in a game while not really making any progress anywhere.
Which is odd because I’ve been slowly ticking off goals for World of Warcraft (see the above screenshot of my proud Paladin and her Retribution Challenge Weapon) and managed to actually finish a game within a week of buying it. And yet I feel useless and bored, not to mention fat and ugly.

I think my depressive mood comes down to my less than ideal living situation and the fact that I lack the motivation to change anything about my life right now. My house is being built and I can’t move out untill next year. I’m still quite overweight but I can’t seem to get myself to start working out seriously and working on losing that weight. I’m also staring at a contract deadline which basically means I should find a new job by October 1st. Something I really really want aswell but I can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything. I feel mentally exhausted and I’m not sure how to turn it around right now. I think the best thing I can do is focus on tackling one thing at a time and right now my health, and the slow deteriation of it, is my number one priority. Because next to being simply overweight all that extra cushion I’m dragging around is causing me other issues. I’m short of breath, my feet constantly hurt, my back hurts and I honestly look ridiculous in any clothes I’m wearing. Looking at myself in the mirror becomes harder by the day and I’m desperately finding a way to get motivated to lose weight.

I have considered tying gaming and working out together. Especially during weekends I just don’t get enough exercise/movement and so I’m thinking of a system to make sure I do not sit on my ass and game all day. I’ve been trying to apply it to my WoW sessions where I am taking breaks whenever I level up on my Rogue (which is rougly every 45 mins). During these breaks I either go get a drink, clean a bit of rubble from the attic or spend a few minutes just walking around, stretching and maybe walk up and down the stairs a few times just to get some movement in. I want to progress this further and stand on our crosstrainer or do some strength exercises inbetween my gaming sessions. Anything to start getting healthier again and be happier with the way I look and feel, seeing as this body has to last me atleast another 40-50 years.

In gaming land however…
I’ve been scratching off a lot of goals. I’ve completed 8/36 Mage Tower challenges now and I hope to be able to complete three more the next time the Tower rolls around. If I’m able to do that it means I have all the Mage Tower appearances for Monk, Paladin and Warrior and 2/3 for Hunter. Although the challenges still aren’t a walk in the park they’ve become significantly easier by gearing up my characters. I’m really close to getting the MM Hunter challenge done but I’m trying to get a better legendary than the ones I have in the hopes that it will help me actually kill off the stupid challenge. I’ve also picked up leveling my Rogue, who is my last class not on 110 yet, and I’ve made some pretty great strides today going from level 82 to almost level 87 in a few hours of play on and off. From level 90 onward I will be duoing up with a friend and we’ll make the final push to 110 together over a weekend, something we’ve been doing with a lot of our characters.
In terms of gameplay I don’t really enjoy Rogue all that much, there’s a reason why I’ve practically not touched this character since Wrath of the Lich King, but I want to get it to max level for completion sake so I will.
I’m also making a point to log into FFXIV once a week to do some beast tribe quests and to log into my house so that I don’t lose the plot. Even though my interest in the game has been waning a lot I’m not letting my sub lapse because I know I will get burned out on WoW at some point and will most likely return to FFXIV more fulltime then. In the meantime I’m super slowly leveling up my Machinist and just fiddling about getting my Beast Tribe rep up, I’m almost done with the Ananta now which means I can soon buy the pretty Gryphon mount. But since I’m only logging once a week or so it’s been going at a snail’s pace. Oh well.

In non MMO land I’ve bought Kirby Triple Deluxe on impulse Friday the 4th and finished it last Thursday. It reminded me of how much I love Kirby games and how nice and relaxing they are to play. I’ve yet to finish Star Allies on my Switch but seeing as I completely got sucked in by Triple Deluxe I’m taking a bit of a break and focusing on a game in an entirely different genre: Monster Hunter Stories. I’ve only started playing this game today so I’m not that far in but from what I’ve experienced so far it’s MH Light with a mix of Pokémon. It still has the Monster Hunting aspect, you still get a shitton of crafting mats and there’s a ton of sidemissions to do next to the main stuff, but this game actually has a story to follow and the gorgeous, colourful graphics had me hooked immediatly. I feel like this is by no means a simple game, but I’m determined to plant my feet in it and make progress this week and hopefully understand a bit more about how I have to actually play the game and if this may get me into other games in the Monster Hunter franchise.

For now though I’m going to sign off here and hopefully catch a good night’s sleep. I predict a ton of gaming and cleaning in my future tomorrow and I prefer not to have laid awake half the night before that.

Frozen Friday

Posted on by
Reply

Normally I’m so dead on Friday evenings that the only thing I want to do is lie down and sleep, doesn’t matter if it’s only 19.00. Today though I have a bit more energy and I would want to churn out a post because it’s been a bit of an odd week for me this week.

First off we’ve been dealing with a serious cold front coming in from the East that has basically made going outside a very painful chore. With temperatures dropping to -8 degrees Celsius (which is about 17 degrees Fahrenheit for my US friends) during the day, and the wind making it feel like -18 instead it was really no fun having to step outside. I had to conquer the cold for work and some hospital visits aswell but ideally I tried to stay inside as much as I could. I’m really not built for this weather and I notice it impacting my mood a lot, making me very grumpy and mostly in the mood to just lie down in bed and be warm.
I guess you never really appreciate having a mild climate untill the moment it’s taken from you and you have to deal with temperatures you’ve not really experienced since early childhood. I guess the one thing I can be thankful for is that we’re not stuck with a ton of snow, something the UK is dealing with right now.

You would think having this horrible weather outside would be an amazing excuse to spend some time in games but I’ve not really felt the gaming groove that much this week. Maybe it’s because of feeling cold almost the entire day or maybe it’s because my mind has mostly been with University and work stuff but I just couldn’t get myself to sit down and game. I did however pick up some new game related stuff that I’d like to share a bit of here.

I enjoy collecting things. Be it games, books or collectibles, I enjoy when something is well made and looks good on my shelves. Even though I know I shouldn’t by as much dust collecting stuff I still can’t seem to control my impulse buying, expecially when it comes to stuff that doesn’t only look good as decoration but also serves a purpose for games. I have an enormous Disney Infnity figurines collection and I was immensly sad when Disney decided to pull the plug from that franchise. However I found a new love in Nintendo Amiibos and am slowly growing my collection. The two newest additions are some of the newer Breath of the Wild Amiibo and I’m just amazed by the detail that Nintendo has put into making these. The archer Link looks absolutely amazingly detailed and the Zelda is probably the only real iteration of Zelda that I can really appreciate.
I didn’t actually intend to buy these guys when I went to my regular Game shop this week. I was just heading there to pick up the codes that would allow me to download Palkia and Dialga on my Pokémon Moon and Ultrasun games respectively. The sales rep was minding his own business untill he suddenly mentioned he had some Zelda amiibos lying around that he had ordered for himself but decided to cancel. Knowing that they would sell fast he offered them to me first and after one look at them I was absolutely sold. I think this line of amiibos in general are the best ones made so far and I don’t regret buying them whatsoever. What they exactly unlock ingame is not really clear to me. It looks like equipment and some consumables but I didn’t really buy them because of that anyway.
I do hope that they’ll get some sort of use outside Breath of the Wild but only time will tell on that one.

Even though I’ve not really been in a gaming vibe over the past week I do hope to make some progress in WoW and FFXIV over the weekend. I’d love to knock out some levels on various characters and classes and feel like I’m slowly ticking of goals. Especially with Battle for Azeroth inching closer there is a lot of stuff I still want to do. I hope I can. But we’ll see. For now I’m going to focus on getting through the weekend, play hopefully some games, get some exercise in and clean my room again because somehow during the week it just becomes an enormous mess.

 

Sunday Summary: Jan 29-Feb 4

Posted on by
Reply

I wanted to blog yesterday about some of the issues I have with WiiU games being ported en masse to the Switch. However because of a hiccup with my host my blog wasn’t accessible so I’ll save that particular post for a later date.

Alpha

I’ve had a quite productive week this week, both in and outside of gaming.
I’d like to start off with my real life endeavours because they are much more important, and interesting, than my gaming ones. So this week I finally was able to fix the last things for Uni and I can finally apply for my Master’s degree now, making me an official MSc! It’s taken me a while and some of the things weren’t necessarily my fault. For instance I handed in my Master’s thesis at the end of November (November 27th to be exact). It took untill December 20th to get my grade for that and then it took my Uni untill January 25th (YES THAT LONG!) to actually submit the grade into the system. It’s all been a very frustrating ride, especially since I knew I had to switch Master tracks because I accidentally entered the wrong track in September. Yeah that was my own fault. However this has been solved and after a very, very, very long wait I can finally say I’m done with that. So big party for me! Sort of. I guess I’ve celebrated by getting the Battle for Azeroth pre-order. I’ve also been working a bit more this week and it’s been a bit of a weird week over there. Basically I’m still uncertain what will happen to the department where I work for. I have a contract untill July 1st and no idea how things will look after that. I’ve also talked to my interim manager a bit and she’s given me some advice when it comes to improving my communication skills. I will take this advice to heart, especially when I may be in the position where I have to apply for another job. All in all I’ve had some breakthroughs this week on a personal level and for the first time in ages I finally feel at ease.

In games I’ve been mostly bouncing back and forth between FFXIV and World of Warcraft. I’ve been leveling my Summoner aswell as trying to unlock all the 4.2 content. I’ve played through the mainstory quest and I have the quests to unlock the new ex-roulette dungeons. I’ve also unlocked the first part of Sigmascape but I don’t really feel like queueing up for that just yet. I know I’ll miss out on the first reset of new tomestones but I’m having so much fun on my Summoner that I have a hard time tearing myself away from the leveling stuff.
I’ve also gotten myself the upgraded yellow scrip weapon for Botanist. I’m not actively chasing Botanist and Miner gear but the weekly hand-ins from M’naago allowed me to buy the Botanist weapon and upgrade it in one go.

Windwalker Panda Monk artifact weapon

As a surprise I’ve been spending more time in World of Warcraft that I thought I would.
I’ve unlocked both the Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren and made one of each race on Draenor (my main Horde server). So now I have a Nightborne Warlock and a Highmountain Shaman that are standing by to be leveled somewhere before Battle for Azeroth launches. I’ve also been playing a ton of Warrior just so I can try to get my Argussian Reach and Army of Light rep to exalted. Unfortunately I’m only honored with both so it will take a while yet.
In the screenshot above you see my Monk getting her Windwalker Artifact weapon. A friend of mine is on the same quest as I am: do all class hall campaigns before BfA. He had a level 100 warrior, I had a level 102 Shaman. We’ve decided to team up and right now I’m sitting halfway to level 107 and I should be able to get close to 110 tonight after we finish Stormheim and maybe Highmountain. Playing Monk again has been a blast. Windwalker has turned into a really fun spec to play and I can see myself spending some time on this after I ding 110. Mostly because I really want the awesome Tiger Class mount they get. For now thought I’m slowly working through the Class Hall campaign and hoping I will ding 110 sooner rather than later. Atleast I have a buddy to level with and who boosts my queues since he plays Protection.

Inbetween the leveling frenzy in my MMO’s I’ve also been playing through Yo Kai Watch bit by bit. I’m about 7 hours into the mainstory now and I feel like I’ve only started to scratch the surface. It’s a more in-depth game than I imagined and much less of a Pokémon clone than I thought it would be. I’m still not really sold on the whole battle mechanics but the story is nice and I find myself returning to it again and again. It also helps that I can play it in short bursts on the train.

All in all I’ve had a nice week. I made progress in real life things. I gamed quite a lot. I’ve been trying to be more healthy. I’ve tasted sushi for the first time and I’m having fun playing WoW again. The only thing to make this even better if I can find some time to play either my WiiU or Switch a bit. Maybe next week.

Sunday Summary: Jan 22-Jan 28

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been doing some new things since the new year that I’m very pleased with. One of them is stop eating at restaurants when I’m actually full. I used to eat untill my plates were empty, three courses long, because I felt it would be a waste of money otherwise. Now not only do I feel the need to empty out the table/plates, I also don’t order three courses anymore. I feel like it’s much worse to come home after having a really lovely night and spend the time in bed in agony because of feeling nauseous or having stomach cramps from overeating.
Another thing I’ve been doing is taking general notes of what I’ve been up to during the week so I can translate that into a blogpost. Most of these things tend to be gaming related, since this is a gaming blog after all, but I also take note of significant real life things so I can incorporate that into my Sunday Summaries aswell.

So without further ado, what have I been up to this week?

In MMOs
I’ve been leveling a lot in both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. After dinging my Miner 70 I’ve picked up Fisher and leveled it up to level 44 this week. I’ve hit a bit of a rough patch, namely the 35-45 levels but I hope I can get through that next week and push my Fisher up to level 50 atleast. From what I can tell the level 45-50 bit is already less painful and in Heavensward if you just fish for the Leves the leveling shouldn’t be too bad either.
Since I got a bit bored with Fisher though I’ve turned my attention to some battle classes again, and mostly Summoner. When I picked her up this week she was sitting just shy of level 59. Right now I’m halfway through level 62 and steadily making my way towards level 70. As added bonus my Scholar automatically levels along with it, meaning that when I do hit 70 all my Healing classes will be max level. When I’ve had some downtime inbetween running roulettes and beast tribe dailies I’ve picked up my Black Mage to run some Palace of the Dead. She’s currently level 51 and I really want to get her to 60 fast so I can get rid of the level 50 set. All in all I feel like I’m picking up the pace of leveling in FFXIV again and this makes me very happy. However this week also marked the official death of my static group, meaning I probably won’t raid in the next patch. Or atleast not cutting edge. I will probably try to pug some groups and see how that turns out. For now though my focus is on leveling mostly.
In World of Warcraft I’ve not done that much. I’ve been doing some dailies on my Warrior and logged my Paladin here and there. I didn’t even do any of the Timewalking Dungeons yet this time around and I’m not sure if I will before reset. I have however picked up leveling my Shaman again and she’s currently sitting on level 102… Where I’ve stalled out due to having to do the quest for the Enhancement and Restoration Artifacts. I know I will have to bite the bullet at some point and I probably will… If only to be able to continue with the Class Hall Campaign.

In Other Games
I’ve not played that much outside of my MMO’s to be honest with the exception of Yo Kai Watch 2. Even then I’ve spent maybe 2.5-3 hours playing it so it’s not that big of a deal. However in console land there have been some changes. I picked up the N2DSXL Pikachu edition which has gotten me more hooked than I would have initially thought. Maybe it’s also nice to not have a home menu littered with games that are distracting and maybe it’s due to the fact that it’s new and I adore it but I’ve been spending all my Yo Kai Watch time on that handheld as opposed to my 3DS. It’s also because I have to change the system language to English to be able to play it properly (Yo Kai Watch in Dutch is awful) and I don’t want to switch back and forth on my main handheld all the time. Making this Pikachu edition an ideal middle ground.
I’ve also taken the time to reinstall my WiiU. It’s currently sitting in a corner of my room, close to a power outlet, and I’m planning to mostly play on the gamepad. Seeing as I like lounging on bed in the evening anyway it’s a perfect solution and I will finally get to work on that backlog a bit, starting with Breath of the Wild.

In Real Life
It’s been a busy week for me last week when it came to real life stuff. They have officially started building the apartment complex where I will be living on Wednesday and they had a special event with all the buyers of the apartments. It was a nice little gathering, slightly ruined by the rainy weather. We’ve buried a treasure chest with messages from people in it so that when these apartments eventually get torn down and they start digging they’ll find messages from 2018. I loved the idea and my message is certainly in there.
On Friday after work we had a dinner with the department and a ton of ex-colleague’s as a sort of goodbye for everyone who left the past 6 months. It was also the official goodbye dinner for my old manager. We had a really nice evening filled with good Mexican food and laughter and afterwards a few of us relocated to a bar to have some drinks. We all greatly enjoyed seeing eachother again and we’re planning on making these dinners a bi-annual thing. Just to see eachother again, hear what everyone is up to and because we have such an amazing atmosphere in this team it’s really a joy to meet with them.
This also meant I was home late and quite exhausted. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world though.
As for the weekend. I’ve been doing my usual chores and I’ve written down my planning for next week. I’ve gotten a bunch of gaming magazines from one of my ex-colleagues on Friday and I’ve been reading them aswell. Other than that I’m following the LCS and am slowly picking my way through all the things I own and cleaning them out. It’s an ongoing project and one that needs doing because 1: I own too much stuff and 2: I don’t know where half of the stuff I own is. It also helps me in narrowing down the stuff I still need to buy in the coming year for my apartment, so it’s a win/win situation overall.