Tag Archives: FFXIV

Gaming Goals: September 2018

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Hovering meditating paladin World of Warcraft

I’ve not done one of these posts in a while. So I guess I’ll bite the bullet and try to set down a set of goals for September. Most will probably involve Battle for Azeroth but who knows what I come up with as I write this post! Seeing as my Paladin just hit 120 aswell I can scratch out any leveling goals in WoW for now and focus completely on endgame content.

World of Warcraft

  • Finish off the remaining quests on my Rogue. I’ve gone through all the zone stories and I’ve done about 90% of all sidequests but my questlog is still quite full. I want to focus on tackling everything I can find and finish it up, even if it’s a “Wanted” quest in the middle of nowhere in Vol’dun. I also still have my War Campaign to finish off but that one ties in to my next goal.
  • Get my BfA reputations to Exalted on my Rogue. I will only need Revered to get the count in for the Pathfinder part 1 achievement but I want to aim for Exalted purely so I can unlock the sweet mounts and Dark Iron Dwarves
  • Finish off the last remaining zone story on my Paladin. I’ve finished Vol’dun and Nazmir so far which leaves me with Zuldazar. I’m not planning to tackle every single sidequest here just yet but I do want to do the story arc in the zone so I can unlock the Mythic dungeon at the end.
  • Gear my Paladin and get her ready to run Mythic+. This was a goal for BfA to begin with so I’m sticking to it. Luckily I have some friends who can help me get started with the gear grind so I should be okay there.
  • Get Alchemy and Engineering to 150 BfA skill. I’m pretty sure that Alchemy will go a bit faster but I’d love to get my Engineering leveled up a bit more aswell, I need to have the goggles!

Final Fantasy XIV

  • Level my Machinist to level 70 and do all job quests. This goal is slightly cheating because I’m already level 69 but it’s going on the list regardless.
  • Level my Weaver to level 70 and do all job quests. The Namazu beast tribe will hopefully help me with this and I really would love to have atleast one crafter at 70 to begin with.
  • Pick another Battle class to level and pick another crafting/gathering job to level after completing my first two goals. This one should speak for itself. I’m leaning towards leveling Black Mage after I’m done with Machinist so that I will have all ranged jobs at max level (and it will give me the Goddess of Magic title). As for the next crafter/gatherer I’m doubting between Carpenter, so that I can start decorating my house, or Fisher so that I will have all gathering professions maxed out.

That would be my MMO goals for this month. I’m trying to keep them small and doable because I will have a busy month ahead of me with lots of birthdays and a ton to do at work. I’d like to add a final goal to my list which would be:

  • Make progress in a single player game and blog about this. I’m not sure what game it will be yet but any game will do at this point. I really want to start tackling my backlog and setting this goal will hopefully have me start doing that while also providing material for my blog.

The need to play solo

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I’m a social person. I pride myself on being an extravert and enjoying the energy of other people around me. If I’m at home alone a lot I get depressed and I’m at my happiest when I’m in a big city surrounded by people and the buzz of city life. But sometimes I need some alone time. I’m not always super social. I’m not always looking for company of other people. Sometimes I just want to do my own thing without anyone else getting involved in it.
This is when I put my Battle.net as “show offline” or flee to my Au’Ra alt in FFXIV. Because I don’t want to talk to people. Because I don’t want my friends to “quick join” my dungeon queue. I just want to be left alone and do my own things without anyone interfering. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I’m so focused on getting something done that I can’t or don’t want to also be my usual entertaining self. Maybe it’s because even as an extravert I need to recharge my batteries a bit with some alone time.

When I was doing my Mage Tower challenges I’d often show up as offline to my friends. The whispers I tend to get were distracting me and I also didn’t really want to engage in any social chatter while trying to get these challenges done. I’ve done the same with finishing off the “Pride of Kul Tiras” questline on my Rogue. I went offline because I didn’t want to break my immersion into the quests and I certainly didn’t feel like ruining my queue times because people wanted to join when they saw me queue up for Waycrest Manor and Tol Dagor. Sometimes I just need to fly solo and that’s okay. I’ll be available another time.

It may sound weird to want to play solo in an MMO. Maybe it is. Maybe I should instead focus on playing some of my single player games when I feel like this where I know I won’t be bothered by anyone. But I like playing WoW and FFXIV and I like being able to do what I want on my own terms. Especially WoW is an excellent solo experience. Ofcourse for some stuff I may have to group up with strangers but I’ve never really had issues with that. Most of the chatter in random dungeons or in this expansion Island Expeditions is virtually non-existant. People don’t really talk and if they do it’s often only a “hello” or “goodbye”. It suits me fine. I can just focus on doing my own thing, which is get through the dungeon without dying while doing decent dps, and still get my goals done for the day. Sometimes I like to queue up with friends an have a ton of banter instead. And maybe sometimes I will choose to play that single player game and not be online for a while. This would also help me slowly plough through the enormous backlog of games that I have built up over the years. With the new WoW expansion settling in, and me probably spending less time on it over the coming few weeks, I may go into solo mode a bit more and play Octopath Traveler or a game on my PS4 again.

For now though I’m putting myself offline anytime I need some breathing space and will enjoy the game solo.

Sunday and chores

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It’s a bit of an odd day today. As I realized that I hadn’t post anything since Thursday I figured I’d get back on the Blogging horse. I had set a goal to write a post everyday during Blaugust but unfortunately real life has gotten in the way and I’m okay with that really. I may schedule a few extra posts to see if I can make up for the days that I’ve missed but I’d have to check how many posts I actually have up so far and I’d have to come up with ideas for posts and well… My brain seems to be a bit too tired for that to happen right now.

I’ve been spending most of the morning going back and forth between World of Warcraft and cleaning the bathroom and my bedroom. I usually do my “chores” on Sunday because I like having a clean room when starting a new week on Monday and every now and then I add the bathroom to my routine aswell. I’m guessing as I move out and really have my own space I’ll clean a bit more often but for now I’m happy with my weekly dust and vacuum sessions. It also makes the day not completely about gaming, which is nice. I feel the need to “descreen” a lot these days and cleaning helps do just that. It lets me zone out and relax while also getting important stuff done. It may not be a favourite pastime but atleast the bathroom smells like lavender now, my sheets are fresh and clean and there is no more dirt and dust on my bedroom floor.

I mentioned swapping between gaming and cleaning and as far as gaming goes I’m making some strides on my Rogue to finish up the Alliance side of the expansion story so far. I’m finally doing the “Pride of Kul Tiras” quest chain after finishing up the last two chapters of the Stormsong Valley quest achievement yesterday. I’d expected to be dumped in a scenario of some sort but so far I’m actually in the middle of a gigantic questchain that spans all the new zones and three separate dungeons before leading up to the final dungeon, which is apparently a Mythic only one. With my item level being only 303 I’m still far away from clearing that one but atleast I’m making progress!

I’ve also dipped into FFXIV this weekend to complete the Moonfire Faire event before it would go away today. It was a nice short questchain and rather fun to do. I know a lot of people did the extra jumping puzzle to get on top of the event tower but I passed on that one. I was only interested in getting the new emote and the new outfit on both my characters so I did that and logged back out.
I did make sure to visit my house on my Moogle character since there has been a bug going around that you lose your house way faster these days. It would be such a shame for me to lose my home now that I was finally able to buy a small plot after borrowing money from a friend. I hope to get a bit more time into FFXIV the coming months (preferably until the end of the year) and start decorating my house and level my remaining classes. I’m so close to getting Machinist to 70… I really should hop back into this game again.

June 2018 Goals

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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?

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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.

The Goal is Set: Unlocking Skins

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Fury Warrior challenge skin unlock

I’ve been addicted to World of Warcraft again. After not playing for most of Legion I’ve jumped back in again for the past few months and started a grind that seems to be nigh impossible, yet I want it done badly.
It all started with me making an overview of the things I have already obtained in Legion, on what characters and what I’m still missing. As I write this post I am down to three classes left to level (Warlock, Death Knight and Rogue) and I have obtained a boatload of Artifact skins. Getting seriously back into WoW has been a mixture of circumstances. I’m currently playing a lot on the Horde side with one of my best friends aswell as trying to get that Mythic+ 15 done on my Warrior on Alliance side. I’m actually having a lot of fun again and only play with the people I want now. Couple this with a severe decline of interest in FFXIV, Eureka has been a serious disappointment for me, and I find myself on Azeroth a lot once again.

One of the things that has me pulled back into WoW, next to playing with the right people and an immense collectors’ drive, is the fact that I can make progress towards something on any character I happen to log and don’t need to spend a lot of time doing it. Aside from the Mythic+ madness I’ve been solely focused on leveling all my classes to max level, do their class hall campaign, unlock the class hall mount and grind out Hidden Artifact skins. On top of that I finally managed to get my first two Challenge skins (the Fury Warrior one pictured above) and I feel like I can actually get done what I want to before Battle for Azeroth hits. In FFXIV if I want to level my Machinist I will have to queue up for roulettes because doing only the six available Beast Tribe dailies every day is too slow. In WoW I’ve been doing invasions, which grant atleast a level and take about 15-20 mins to do, aswell as just doing the main story line in the zones. I can literally play for 30 mins and make progress. In FFXIV that’s usually the time it takes for me to even get into a dungeon.
Even though WoW is a bit more chaotic at endgame, seriously Blizzard needs to stop throwing all these quests at me as I ding level 110, it’s also somehow less time consuming to get what you want, granted you need to plan very carefully so you don’t get sucked into the game and waste three hours doing nothing, which is something that tends to happen in MMO’s.

I’m chunking up my WoW time effectively, dividing it towards what I want done for the day and making sure I get it done aswell. Sometimes this entails running a Mythic+ or two for gear and progress towards getting the +15 on all my characters. Sometimes it’s doing a few quests in the Legionfall campaign so I can unlock another Class Hall mount. On my Warrior I’ve been diligently doing all my Emissary quests for the caches, but also all the PvP World Quests to edge closer to that new Prestige level. I plan to take my Paladin and my Priest through the Argus campaign in the near future so I can get proper gear and maybe start working towards tackling the Mage Tower challenge on them aswell. I can make this progress in tiny amounts, usually I don’t have more than 2-3 hours of game time a day anyway, and still slowly tick goals off my spreadsheet.

Compare that to running Eureka for three hours and maybe advance an elemental level or two… I feel like I can get more out of my limited game time in WoW right now.
It’s not to say I’m abandoning FFXIV outright, it will probably be my weekend MMO, but I will be playing it a lot less than I was a few months ago. I still plan to get all my classes to level 70, eventually.

For now though I’m working on a rather prestigious WoW project that I hope I can see through to the end: Obtain every Mage Tower Challenge skin in the game and do M+15 on all 12 classes. Why? Because those are the only skin variants (MT base and +15) that Blizzard will remove with BfA. And so I am going to work my butt off to get them all before that happens.

Current status: 0/12 M+15; 2/37 Challenge skins. Wish me luck!

 

March Gaming Goals 2018

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Wow, I’ve kind of straight up abandoned my blog somewhere at the start of February. I have no idea what exactly happened. Maybe it was writer’s block, maybe it was just a lack of willingness to sit down and type. Whatever the reason I’ve not looked at my blog at all the past few weeks and I do feel slightly guilty about it.
I want to take this chance though to look back at my gaming month and look ahead to the best month in the year, March!

Monk Class Mount & Pet

February has been a mixed bag for me with a lot of MMO time and not that much time for anything else. I did make some progress here and there though and I guess I’d want to share this with you guys!

  • In World of Warcraft I’ve gone above and beyond the goals that I had set for myself. Not only did I level my Shaman to 110, I’ve also leveled my Horde Priest and Horde Monk to 110 and finished both of their Class Hall campaigns respectively. On my Monk I’ve gone even further and also made the push towards the Class mount because I really REALLY wanted that tiger. So yeah, I’m down to four classes that still need to be leveled to 110 and five classes that still need their Class Hall campaign finished. I’m currently working on finishing my Shaman’s campaign while also trying to level my Mage, who is sitting at 104. All in all I feel I’ve done a lot in WoW and I think the majority of my MMO gaming time will be spent there in March aswell.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV I’ve leveled my Summoner/Scholar to level 70 as I hoped I would. I’ve barely touched any of the other classes though, except for a few crafters that I’ve gotten up to level 30 (Armorer, Culinarian and almost Blacksmith). I’ve done my beast tribe dailies here and there and did the first wing of the new Omega raid but otherwise the game didn’t really keep my attention much.
  • In single player games I’ve not actually played that much. I’ve continued a bit of Yo-Kai Watch, dabbled a bit in Persona 5 and started Dragon Quest Builders on my Switch. For some reason my willingness and energy that I want to put into games is at an all time low so besides MMO’s I’ve not really played that much at all.
  • IRL I’ve not lost the weight that I wanted to lose. I had hoped that I would be able to go outside a bit more but especially the past week has been unbearable as far as temperatures go so I rather stay inside than go out and freeze to death.

What am I looking forward to in March?
Well first of all I’ll be celebrating my 29th birthday halfway during the month. I had kind of agreed to not wanting a birthday present, but maybe my Dad will surprise me nonetheless. I can also finally pick up my diploma at the University, an event which I’ve been looking forward to for the past four years or so. It finally closes a very stressful chapter in my life and I would love to finally feel stress free in that regard.
I’m also starting the search for a new job since I feel like I’m not really where I should be at work anymore. I’m kind of grumpy, do not enjoy my tasks anymore and don’t feel inspired by the people I work with. All signs that it’s time to move on and luckily I will get some help from one of my managers. I also really want to get on track with working out more so keep your eyes out for some fitbit news on my Twitter and maybe here on the blog.

Now to the actual topic: Games.

  • I want to keep up what I’m doing right now in World of Warcraft which is work towards getting Exalted with the Argus factions on my Warrior and gear both my Warrior and Monk so I can run high level Mythic + dungeons on them. I really enjoy doing them on my Monk and I actually predict that I’ll be getting to higher level M+ on her than on my Warrior. I also want to get my Mage up to 110 and finish the Shaman class campaign. I’m thinking of leveling one of the new Allied Races but I’m not sure yet. I’d rather focus on getting all my remaining high level characters to 110, which are Warlock, Rogue and Death Knight after I’m done with Mage.
  • In FFXIV I want to check out Eureka. The patch is coming in two weeks and probably (finally) has the Stormblood Relic weapon tied to it so I’m definitely going to check out all of that. I also want to level atleast another class to level 70. As it stands right now it will probably either Machinist or Black Mage or maybe even both. I’m also slowly nudging my Crafters up so if I could get all of them to level 30 atleast that’s another goal I can strike off my list.
  • I want to spend a bit more time on both Persona 5 and Dragon Quest Builders. I absolutely adore playing both games and I feel like I need a serious story game and a lighthearted one side by side right now and those two games fit the bill perfectly. I know that especially Persona can be quite long before I finish it but I still want to play it, it’s just that good. For the rest I’m unsure what I’ll do with my time games wise. I’ve picked up the latest Layton game recently and am hooked on all the tiny mini puzzles that you get as daily downloads, but the mainstory isn’t that appealing to me yet. I may pick it up as distraction from the more story driven RPGs.. I do like solving the puzzles.

All in all I mostly want to use this month to further my real life goals and maybe pick up some gaming on the side. I’m in a bit of a slump anyway and I feel like I should do other stuff than spend most of my free time playing games. It’s a phase that will probably pass, but for now expect a bit less gaming from me and a bit more real life stuff.

Sunday Summary: Jan 29-Feb 4

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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.

Gaming Goals: February 2018

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Sylyndra: Nightborne Warlock

Yesterday I caved and pre-ordered Battle for Azeroth. Unfortunately for me I could only unlock the Horde Allied races since I’ve not earned the proper achievements for the Alliance ones. This will be something on the list as goal in February, but I will talk about that a bit later on.
Lets look back at what I’ve done in January first!

  • In World of Warcraft I’ve gotten my Warrior to Prestige level 2, finally unlocking the PvP skins for my Artifact weapons. So goal done! I’ve also finished the Argus campaign (well technically I finished it today, but I’ll count it!) so goal done! I’ve cleared Tomb of Sargeras on LFR, but unfortunately didn’t clear Antorus. I’ve done the first wing but stalled out after.
    I’ve not touched my Paladin at all this month and I think it’s a bit of a shame. However with little time to play I would rather focus on getting everything done on my Warrior that I want done so I’m not too disappointed by the whole not attaining goals on Paladin.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV I’ve leveled both my Miner and Botanist to level 70, so goals done! I’ve also brought up Fisher to 44 but kind of stalled out there. Instead of piddling around on my Machinist I’ve been leveling my Summoner. She’s currently level 63 and going to 70 slow and steady.
  • In other games I’ve not touched Xenoblade Chronicles at all unfortunately. I’ve been strangely captured by Yo Kai Watch 2 though and am slowly making my way through that game as we speak. I’m about 7 hours in and probably halfway through the story. I’ll see where that takes me.
  • In non gaming goals I have read “The Wise Man’s Fear” so goal done! I didn’t however manage to finish off Lie to Me or watch the new season of Black Mirror.

I managed to strike off a few things off the list for January for which I’m grateful. I didn’t accomplish everything I hoped I would but I’m getting there. Slow and steady. I did a bit more than I planned to do in FFXIV and a bit less in WoW. Let’s see how this balances out in February.

  • In FFXIV I’d like to get my Summoner/Scholar to 70. I also want to unlock and experience all the 4.2 content. I also want to nudge Fisher closer to 70 and, if I get Summoner up quick turn my attention back to Machinist to get another class to 70. I may also want to power my Black Mage to level 60 purely so I can get rid of the heinous level 50 casting set I currently run with.
  • In WoW I want to get Exalted with the Argussian Reach and Army of the Light on my Warrior so I can unlock the Alliance allied races. I also want to clear out my questlog and do the Antorus raid in LFR. I may want to level my Shaman a bit so I can start working through another class campaign, but I’ll see. Again this depends on the time I have available to me.
  • In other games I want to continue playing Yo Kai Watch and hopefully finish off the mainstory. I may dabble in Breath of the Wild aswell seeing as I have reconnected my WiiU.
  • In the non-gaming world I want to focus on getting back into shape again. My goal for this month is to lose atleast 2 kilograms (4 pounds ish). I am quite overweight for my length and I’m starting to feel the necessity to slim down again. Eventually I want to drop 15 kilograms (30 pounds ish) this year. If I can attain 2 kilograms per month I should be on this goal somewhere at the end of the summer. Hopefully it will go a bit faster than that though.

Again I’m making small goals for February. With work being crazy stressful I just don’t know how much time I will actually have to game, seeing as I tend to fall asleep when I get home. Most of my progress will come from days off and during weekends, which are also days where I have to do chores or make appointments. So yeah, my actual game time isn’t actually that much.
I guess we’ll see how far I’ve come when it’s February 28th.

Sunday Summary: Jan 22-Jan 28

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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.