Tag Archives: Blizzard Games

Finding New Goals

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Quitting raiding in World of Warcraft has been both liberating and a very emotional experience for me. Ever since I achieved max level on my very first toon in the Burning Crusade I have always been in a raiding group. I’ve never stepped down from an active raiding roster or guild and the only lulls in my raiding career have been because of inactive people which left me with no possibility to raid outside of pugging.

Now however our raiding group was very much active and more or less stable and just walking away from that has been odd. In a way it feels like I gave up on my goals for WoW (which was mostly killing heroic Archimonde before the next expansion comes out) and I’m struggling to cope with the sense of logging into a game without clear endgame stuff to work towards. Ofcourse raiding isn’t the be all and end all in World of Warcraft (or any MMO for that matter) and with the addition of patch 6.2.3 gearing up itself has been made significantly easier with the reintroduction of valor points. But for me it’s not about the gear. It’s about the goal that I had set when we started the expansion: to clear all endbosses on heroic with this group of raiders. And it’s weird to let that go, even though it is probably the best decision I have taken for myself in a very long time.

So now I feel like someone adrift, someone in search of new goals to work towards and new ways of enjoying a game where my entire career has been about raiding in one form or another. I think I might try to pug my way through heroic Archimonde at some point (I was a tiny bit too late with subscribing to FriendshipMoose unfortunately) and I’m sure I will see him dead somewhere before Legion hits. I’m also free to devote more time to some of my other characters that I personally enjoy way more to play, but that I never really got a chance to this expansion. So I’m levelling my mage and I’m planning to do some Timewalking on both my Hunter and my Warrior.
Next to that I’m also relocating my focus towards other games. I’m intent on getting better on Hearthstone.. Which essentially means playing more, unlocking all my adventure wings and keep on unlocking more cards.
There’s also the thing that I would love to get my hands on all the heroes in Heroes of the Storm, which mostly requires me to atleast work my way through all the quests I get and level my heroes to level 5 for the gold you get then. It’s a bit tedious at times, but I enjoy myself immensly when playing that game, even if I’m on the losing team. I just need to find someone who I can play Cho’Gall with so I can unlock that for myself aswell and then I’m even more happy.

The major thing I did, ever since patch 3.1 launched, is pick up FFXIV again with a fervor. I’ve been steadily working my way through the new Vanu Vanu beast tribe quests everyday (and am now rank five or six I believe) and am levelling my Ninja which is my new favourite class. Currently she is level 46, but I get some challenge log bonuses when I do my low level and guildhest roulette today so in theory I should be well over level 47 after I log off later tonight.
I haven’t really picked up doing ex-roulette again, mostly because I don’t enjoy my Dragoon as much anymore as I did, but I think I’ll try to make up for it over the coming few days because I want to start saving up gear for when my Ninja dings 60… And what better way to do that than with some Esoteric pieces?

All in all I’m trying very hard to adjust to a more casual approach of games where I find the fun in other things than endgame raiding. In FFXIV it seems to be working out well, I really want to level all my battle classes to max level and start on the new relic so that will keep me going for quite a while.
In World of Warcraft I’m sure I’ll find my way around somehow somewhere… But for now even logging that game just feels weird and I can only hope that will pass soon.

Taking Steps

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Even though my head is killing me I felt the need to write a blogpost today since a lot of stuff has happened over the past week.
Let me start with the big news: I landed a fulltime job for a longer time. This means my days of scavenging the job market are more or less over and it takes a huge weight off of my shoulders. I’ve been looking for a steady job for over a year now and have not been very lucky so far. I had some temp jobs that were fun, but never lasted longer than a few weeks so the disappointment after they ended was often big. It also meant I was never financially stable enough to actually spend money without worrying about it.
I’m starting this new job next week (the 12th) and it will run for atleast 6 months but probably closer to a year. I won’t be getting a world star paycheck, but it should be enough for me to get some financial breathing space and start saving up to buy a car or maybe look for a place to live.

Ofcourse I had to celebrate this milestone in my life so I went and splashed some money that I had saved on a tablet. I picked the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, which is probably the best tablet in it’s segment together with the iPad Air 2. Only a lot cheaper than said iPad. So far I’ve been very happy with my purchase… I ordered a case for it so it won’t scratch and I’ve been using it already to just stream or play some Hearthstone in bed in the evening.

Gaming wise I’ve picked up FFXIV again after the big server overhaul that Square Enix did for the European Data servers. I actually have a better connection on my PC than my PS4 now (only marginally though) and I’ve been happily chipping away leveling my Rogue/Ninja on Moogle and my Machinist on Cactuar. I notice the ping difference a lot. On Moogle everything runs smoothly and I’ve discovered it’s only a 22ms ping, whereas I have a 500ms connection to Cactuar…. It really shows in gameplay.
In WoW it’s the same old story with my raiding group. I’ve mostly been focussing on making a lot of gold so I can keep on paying my sub with WoW-tokens. Seeing as they are slowly going up in price I’ve had to adjust a few things in my garrisons… But seeing as I make about 1,5k gold a day without any issues I should be fine with gold for a while.

I’ve turned my back a bit on Destiny and Wildstar. Not because I don’t like the games, but more because I just can’t find the time to play. Add to the fact that my Playstation Plus also expired and I feel less and less the need to log into Destiny at all.
For Wildstar it’s mostly the “where is my time” thing. I’ve been working on a temp assignment for the past two weeks and when I get home I’m just tired and want to relax. Since Wildstar is a very engaging game to play I often just cannot get into the mindset needed to play. Seeing as I will start working fulltime soon I will either have to figure out a play schedule again or just push Wildstar a bit to the back. Trying to keep up with 3 MMO’s isn’t as easy as you think it is!

On the other hand I’ve been playing a lot of Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. Heroes mostly because I want the pumpkin portrait, Hearthstone because by all means it’s a slow paced game which I can play on my phone (or now on my tablet) without having to turn on my PC. I can just sit, relax and game and that’s what I really need at the moment.

In the health department I’m managing to go to the gym more frequently. I was supposed to go today, but since my head feels like someone has smashed it into a wall I figured being on a treadmill is one of the last things I would want to do. To help me reach my goals I ordered a Fitbit Flex (since I’m spending money anyway…) to see how much exercise I actually get during a day and how my sleeping pattern is. I really hope this will motivate me even more to be more aware of my health, especially how much time I spend on “burning calories”. I do start to feel better already and I’ve lost 2 kilograms (about 1 pound?) of the 15 I want to lose atleast.

All in all I’ve had a very positive week. A lot of stress has disappeared now that I’ve gotten my job and am more motivated to do stuff in general. Now I just need to turn my attention to actually finishing school and then I think I can finally start living life the way I wanted to: stressfree and happy.