Finding New Goals

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.

Terror

I want to start this blogpost off with a few words from me personally about all that has happened in the past 24 hours or so.
First off, the attacks on Paris have made me sick to my core. It’s in times like these that you realize how close you actually are to a city like that (it takes me about 4 hours to travel from my house to the center of Paris by train, let that sink in) and how frighteningly close terrorism has actually come to a continent that is supposed to be safe to live on. The general feeling here is that these terrorists are trying to take away our feeling that we are safe in our own countries and it’s damn well working. Events like these only make me want to avoid the big cities in Europe like the plague, scared that something will happen.
So many innocent people’s lives have been taken by a few that by all means are no better than savage animals. They murdered… no butchered innocent people in one of the busiest places in Paris, people like you and me, that go about their daily lives and never get involved in politics or global scale things to begin with.
For me there was an added layer of terror in knowing that one of the people I love and care about most in this world not only lives right ontop of Paris, but could very well have been present in the Stade de France watching that friendly football match. I got very early confirmation that said person was actually unharmed and safe at home, but still. Everytime I see it slip by on the news I get cold and think of all the people who have not been this lucky and have lost a loved one last night.
Whenever you see on the news that there is trouble in the Middle East or Israel it doesn’t make that big of an impact for me because it’s so far away and I don’t actually know anyone there. But with all the recent happenings and knowing France (and Paris) have been the target of multiple attacks over the past year everything is suddenly much closer to home, up to the point that I’m actually dreading Monday since my friend will have to go back into Paris for work then… And I can only hope and pray he is safe and nothing will happen.

Gaming and Work
I’ve started my new job last week and am in the process of learning everything involved… Causing me to come home extremely tired and irritable. The only thing I want to do after dinner is head to bed and catch up on all the sleep I feel like I’ve been missing.
Because I’m forced to think about priorities it’s also becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to take a step back from World of Warcraft. The struggle there is becoming more and more intense for me and it’s pulling me under. People who I thought were nice turn out to be not so nice and I’ve lost respect for a lot of others… I don’t really know what to do with this. Mentally I’m just exhausted with that part of my life and the only thing I would want is to retreat from the raidteam and focus on the aspects of the game that still make me happy, instead of logging on frustrated and emotional because of everything that has been, and still is, going on.
It’s hurtful for me on a personal level because I feel like I have given my all for this guild over the past four or five years and I never got anything in return. My heart and soul went in there, I was officer/GM/raidleader for a while, I helped setup the new raidleader, handled things like roster balancing, raidrules, lootrules and everything that came with maintaining a raidteam. I assist our current raidleader with tactics and calling things out while still needing to be focused on keeping people alive on my Priest. It’s all a bit too much, especially when you get zero respect and acknowledgement for what you are doing, it just feels like a spit in the face.
Add to that the fact that I’m already exhausted when I come home after work now and you just get a very volatile mix that can explode any minute. My heart is bleeding over this situation and right now I’m not sure of anything anymore… Only that I no longer find any enjoyment in logging onto the game.

Instead I have been playing a lot of FFXIV again since patch 3.1 came out. I’ve been steadily leveling away on my Ninja, who will probably hit level 40 before the weekend is over and am doing the new beast tribe dailies on my Bard, who is halfway to level 52. I’m really enjoying the game again, especially now that a lot of the lagg issues have been resolved. I really think I will make this game my maingame again and will probably devote most of my time to getting my Ninja to level 60 and geared up, while also slowly plowing away on my other classes.

Next to Final Fantasy I’ve seen a ressurection in my Heroes of the Storm play. I’ve been playing atleast 3 games every day and have been enjoying myself immensely. I’ve picked up Johanna on my alt account and am currently wrecking face on Jaina on my main account. It’s so fun to play different roles and feel like you’re actually good at them. Whenever my team wins a game by good communication and gameplay I’m just super happy and feel like I’ve achieved much more than whenever I killed a new boss on World of Warcraft. I’m saving up for the next champion to buy and I’m very much leaning in the direction of Leoric, Butcher or Artanis. I’m sitting at 7k gold right now so it shouldn’t take too long to get that 10k gold together to buy either one of them. Especially since I picked up doing my quest with a fever. Sometimes I will do them on Quick Match on champions I’m comfortable on, sometimes I will choose to play vs AI because I either lack time or need to play a role I normally don’t play (warrior/specialist). Either way I make sure quests are getting done and gold is getting earned. I really want to own all the champions in the game, so I guess I still have some work ahead of me!

Taking Steps

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.

It’s Halloween!

It’s kind of funny how I get excited over an event that isn’t even celebrated officially here in the Netherlands. But seeing as all the games I’m currently playing have some sort of Halloween event going (except Destiny), I can’t help but feel a little envious when it comes to my US friends who actually get to celebrate this holiday for real.
It’s really interesting to see how every game has it’s own take on the holiday and celebrates it differently. (Warning, spoilers ahead!)

In FFXIV this year the developers have chosen to do a simple questline for All Saint’s Eve, as the holiday is called there, which rewards you with a nice glamour set, a pet and a mount. If you so choose there is also Halloween themed furniture to buy for your house or FC room. This time it’s paid with Gil whereas last year I remember having to farm currency from FATES to get things from the vendor.
Personally I enjoyed the little questline in FFXIV. It took me about 30 minutes to complete and I’m really happy with the rewards. And the fact that they actually offer a permanent kickass looking broom mount is something some other MMO’s can look at and learn from.

Speaking of other MMO’s. WoW still has it’s tried and true Hallow’s End with the Headless Horseman to defeat in the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard and a ridiculous amount of Trick and Treat bags spread out across the entirety of Azeroth. The core of the holiday event hasn’t changed much over the years, but they have been adding stuff like pets and toys and, this year, a costume for Pepe.
I have obtained all of the pets that this year’s event had to offer, but I have yet to see either of the toys drop for my Priest. I really hope I get lucky soon because it would be a huge disappointment I would miss out on stuff due to RNG.

Wildstar has it’s first real ingame event aswell this year: Shade’s Eve AND a hoverbord event that only lasts for 5 days. Unfortunately I have not arrived in Thayd yet with my Engineer or my Spellslinger, so I won’t be able to comment on those events just yet. But don’t worry! I will when I get there.

Lastly I managed to grab a special Heroes of the Storm portrait for watching the official stream with my Battle.net linked to my Twitch account. And they announced a special Halloween event ingame there aswell! So I’m seriously planning to get that.
Speaking of Heroes of the Storm, I am moving my project over to my main account. I don’t really play that much and I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of resources on my main account by not playing it. So I will continue to go for 100 games on Valla on there (I only need 31 more) and then I’ll pick out a new hero. Probably Jaina or Kharazim, but I’m not sure yet which of the two I prefer.

Raiding Attitudes

At this point in time I consider myself a veteran in not only MMO’s but also raiding in said MMO’s.
I started playing World of Warcraft in 2007 and was into raiding not long after. Starting out at 10 man Kharazan to eventually joining the best guild on the server at the time for progress in Sunwell Plateau. I have competed for realm firsts in Wrath of the Lich King and was raidleader for a significant portion of Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria.
In FFXIV I was raidleading together with our Paladin Tank (since we were the only ones who actually prepared for encounters) and this got us to Turn 9 of Coil when it was current content. Unfortunately our group ended there due to the sheer badness of two of our players which we just couldn’t carry anymore then.
In Destiny I’ve taken a backseat when it comes to the raiding. Shooters aren’t necessarily my strong point and I’m too focussed on actually hitting stuff that I’m able to call out postions or dps targets when needed.

In all these years of raiding I have noticed a trend that seems to be getting worse and worse. It could also be the people I raid with, actually I strongly believe it IS because of the people I raid with, but nonetheless… In the last years raids have become easier to organize (you need less people to actually form a good raidgroup, 6 man in Destiny, 8 in FFXIV, 10 minimum in WoW). Although tactics have become very intricate on some bosses in World of Warcraft with the acces to content before it’s live now there’s usually guides out there that will help you with new encounters, thus giving everyone a “headstart” on the raid before you can actually enter.
This has led, in my opinion, to a very elitist attitude among some of the people found in guilds. Not just the big guilds like (ex) Method, but also the smaller guilds who have different goals. I definately see it in my guild. We have a few veterans who are simply not used to guiding newer people anymore and don’t feel the need to do so either. Instead they get grumpy and hateful in private chats (this time it was our raidleading channel).
This, to me, is an extremely destructive attitude to have when it comes to raiding in general. With the flux of players and people taking a more casual stance to gaming and raiding overall I think a bit of flexibility is needed. Have a bit of patience with newer players, especially ones who have never done heroic content or are used to different tactics than your group uses. Everyone once started from the bottom and being elitist jerks (ha!) to them is not helping in any way.
But, one may argue, if they keep it to private channels… That shouldn’t be too much of an issue right? Well actually it is. Even in private channels. Being elitist and rude and condescending about your fellow players breeds resentment and a sort of segregation of players in a team where co-operation is crucial. It’s the perfect soil for burnout to grow upon and it’s a huge problem when it exists in a raidgroup. I really hope our group can get through it, but as it stands now I need to pray for a miracle because people’s attitudes are getting worse every time we raid.

Movies. Watch them!
Which brings me to another point. A lot of the people raiding with us right now have the same mentality to raids as they had in Vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade. You don’t have much prior knowlegde to fights and are mostly left to figure stuff out on your own… So you just head in blind.
This might have worked back then. But now it’s just really not an option anymore. There is so much going on at once in a lot of fights (Iskar I’m looking at you) that watching a movie or reading a guide or even the Dungeon Journal is almost mandatory. It’s impossible to go in blind and handle all the mechanics perfectly from the get-go. Unless you are extremely talented.
This leads to people making mistakes that wipe the raid… Which are completely unecessary if you had taken 5 to 10 minutes of your time to read or watch a guide on the fight. I can’t count the number of times I had to bite my tongue on Teamspeak or Raidchat when people made mistakes like these. It’s really annoying having to explain tactics over and over again to people who are just too damn stubborn to watch a movie themselves.
Especially in a raidteam where people are at most average I think it’s a MUST to atleast know a fight before you head into it. But apparently I am wrong and people should do as they please.
Which is fine.
But don’t start crying when we clock over 100 wipes on a boss…

The Motivation Proclamation

Since it’s 2am and I’m not getting a wink of sleep, I feel the need to write up a post which is meshing up every area in my life right now.
A lot of stuff has happened over the past few weeks and my brain can’t really keep up anymore. Seeing as I have this blog I might aswell write it down here to make sense of it, or not. Most of all I just need to get some things of my chest.

When real life mixes with games.
Right now I’m in a very awkward position when it comes to World of Warcraft. If I have to write down everything that happend in my guild and the people in it I probably could fill a novel so I’m going to go with the extremely short TL;DR. The GM of my guild is also my ex who I still have feelings for and who has been my best friend for the past 4 years. We had a huge fallout in January resulting in a very damaged relationship of which we are still recovering bit by bit. This isn’t much of an issue on it’s own and has nothing to do with the guild itself BUT he has become more and more inactive as time went by. And a guild where the control is in the hands of someone who has lost interest in the game is a guild that will fall apart. Which is what is happening right now.
The two officers who run the show have therefore decided to give our GM an ultimatum. Either he gives up being GM… Or they will leave and take probably the entire raid team with them to form a new guild when Legion launches. Knowing my ex, he will probably never give up his GM position for personal reasons so it will be most likely that we will form a new guild.
This however puts me personally in a very awkward spot. I don’t want to hurt my friend or bring more damage to our already fragile relationship by “backstabbing” him that way. Because I know him well enough to know he will perceive this as betrayal. Now I can’t really prepare him for any of it since it is not my message to deliver. But I don’t want to feel like this puts me in a compromising spot.
So far I have decided to stay out of it and go the way of “let it happen and see how he reacts” but I’m superscared he will take it badly, and take it out on me. And I don’t know how to handle it. Not that I finally have made some effort to log into WoW and make the game fun for myself again.

On the other hand I have been having real struggles motivating myself to log into FFXIV. The coil group that I had started with one of my friends isn’t really happening, partly because I just stopped logging in. I didn’t like the Alexander LFG and grinding the same two dungeons over again has really dampened my fun of the game. I also somehow don’t like having to play on my PS4 either. I can’t really raid on my PC due to intense ingame lag (which for some reason I don’t have on my PS4) but I prefer playing on PC because it’s just easier going. I can sort through my inventory faster, can just use my mouse to navigate through stuff and all of that.
I have logged yesterday after installing the base game on PC and ran around levelling my Machinist a bit, which was fun. I just really don’t know what I want to do with this game right now and if I feel any desire to keep on logging in. I’m not sure what it is about. Maybe it’s because I’m not very happy with some decisions people I know ingame have made recently or that I don’t feel at home in my FC anymore. Maybe it’s just a mix of everything of the above. All in all I don’t know if it’s worth keeping my sub anymore untill 3.1 launches atleast. I’ll have to seriously think about this the coming week.

When the bed is too comfy.
Next to having ingame struggles I’m also struggling with real life again at the moment. The job I had was a temporary one and ended two weeks ago and I’ve been home again since. I still have volunteer shifts at the hospital but lately I can’t motivate myself to go at all. I don’t feel comfortable there and I wonder if it’s worth going when you’re not missed when you’re not there.
Add in serious bad weather (it’s been raining non stop here for the past 7 days) and my mood is getting more depressive by the minute. I can’t get myself to do even the simplest chores anymore (like vacuuming my room) and I’m restless in everything I do. Gaming isn’t really a distraction and if it is I can’t play something for more than an hour. The only thing keeping my attention lately is Destiny, but since the shiny newness has somehow subsided I find myself not really logging that anymore either.
Instead I find myself taking more naps during the day or staying longer in bed in the mornings, essentially “wasting” my day away. I’m not really sure if this is just a temporary thing or if I need to seriously kick this mood in the butt before it gets worse and I don’t get anything done at all anymore.
Because if this keeps up, I’ll be right back in the same dark place I was about 10 months ago and I don’t want to go back there anymore.

The Loner Syndrome

Every now and then I get a bit of madness in my head and all I want is to just be left alone. I want to be able to log a game, play it and not have to deal with any social interaction at all. I don’t feel like talking to anyone then and I get very grumpy when people try and talk to me.
Right now I’m having a few of those “Loner” days where I just want to be able to log a game (preferably WoW or FFXIV), do my thing and not have to worry about people. Be it friends, guildies or random strangers… I just don’t want anything to do with you.

I’m not really sure where these moods come from. Usually I’m a very social person, outgoing and slightly annoyed when I have no one to talk to in my games. But I guess sometimes it just gets to be a bit too much and I just want to retreat in my own little world, playing my own games.
The thing is that in MMO’s you’re never really alone and people will bother you, whether you like it or not… And I’m not sure how to deal with that. In groups for dungeons I tend to just stay quiet and go about my business, be that healing, tanking or DPSing. When you have friends online however and they start talking to you… It’s not easy to tell them that you just need some time for yourself.

I think it’s one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding logging FFXIV for the past weeks. Seeing as we want to start up the raiding group to run Alexander and whatnot I feel pressured to play. And once I feel pressured I lose all interest in playing. Which is a real shame because I love FFXIV to death. I just really don’t feel like socializing too much right now. Even raiding in WoW has become a task for me seeing as I’m one of the people calling out stuff on TS…
I just feel a bit socially exhausted I guess.

Blogging, blogging, blogging
Tied in to being socially exhausted I’m also in a bit of an awkward spot with my blog. I get ideas to blog at stupid times (like when I’m going to bed) and then try to put them off untill the morning… Only to completely forget about them again. I have too many things to write about… And not enough. It feels a bit weird. Maybe it’s mostly because a part of me still thinks that no one is interested in what I’m writing here anyway. Which shouldn’t be an issue because I started this blog for myself, to be able to write down my opinion about things, rant about silly stuff and be excited for upcoming games. And yet I want to be able to “deliver” to my audience. It’s a strange conundrum and one I’m seriously struggling with.
Add the fact that Blaugust may have exhausted me a bit… I just really don’t want to go back to only posting a few times a month.

FFXIV: The Rising 2015 (SPOILERS!)

SPOILER ALERT!

Right, now that we have cleared up the fact that this post contains Spoilers… I want to share my some of my screenshots from the Rising Event.

The cuteness!

I wish I worked at the 18th floor…

What the hell?

And we end with Fireworks!

Celebrating A Realm Reborn
I think this is the seasonal event I enjoyed the most in FFXIV so far. After doing the mandatory “go talk to X dude” quests you get transported to the 18th floor. Aka the floor the developers work on the game in the real world. It’s really nice to see them all thanking you and celebrating you as player of their game. (WTF at the guy riding the horse backwards though). It almost made me a little emotional.
Huge respect to Yoshida and the rest of the FFXIV team for making this game as awesome as it is and I hope to spend a lot of time in it yet.

A New Rythm

I’m trying to find a new rythm that works for me blogging wise. I’ve figured out that when I postpone my blogging to after dinner I’m often either too tired to blog or I’m being taken up by some sort of game that will last untill I go to bed… Prompting me to forget to blog again.
So today I’ve decided to take the 30 minute window I have untill dinner is ready to blog instead. Seeing as I type fast and I usually know what I want to blog about in advance this should give me plenty of time to put out a post AND make sense.

Evaluating August
First off I want to start with evaluating August as a gaming month for me. I have set some goals and I have attained a few of them:

  • Get rank 20 in Hearthstone. I did this one on two accounts actually. It’s a quick and easy goal and I have to admit that it only took me one evening to do this.
  • Unlock first wing of Naxxramas in Hearthstone. I have defeated all the bosses by now and unlocked some really nice cards. The only thing left open is the Druid Class Challenge which I have some issues with figuring out.
  • Finish the Garrison campaign on my Priest (Sarelly) in WoW. I basically took one evening to just grind out all the quests that were still up in Tanaan. So an easy goal to attain.
  • Level my Draenor Hunter (Aylanna) to level 30. Again, I just put a nice relaxing evening of levelling in and was level 30 before I knew it. I think I’m actually sitting on level 35 right now, without putting in a lot of effort.
  • Finish World 1 in New Super Mario Bros. 2 for my 3DS. Did this one while travelling to a friend. It’s fun to play on the road and I was done with the world before I knew it!
The goals I didn’t attain:
  • All my FFXIV goals. I have barely played FFXIV the past month. I will probably set some new goals for this game, but not as many as in August.
  • My GW2 goals. The moment I got a job I completely stopped playing Guild Wars 2. There’s just not enough hours in the day. I might pick this up when my schedule has a bit more room again.
  • Mickey’s Castle of Illusion Act 2. Same story as GW2. Didn’t look at it at all!
  • Level to 30 on Destiny. I haven’t actually touched my PS4 at all in the past few weeks. I feel so sad! But time is money and all that stuff. Just didn’t really have the time or energy to work on Destiny on top of everything else really.
Project Heroes
I really want to prioritize this project in September. I want to finish up my 100 games on Valla (I’m somewhere around 15 at the moment) and pick up a new champion to master. It will probably be Kharazim, but I’m not 100% sure. For now I will probably make friday night my Heroes night since I have other obligations during the other evenings of the week. Other than that I foresee my schedule getting a bit more room the coming few weeks so I will have a bit more time to play Heroes overall. 
Blogging involvement
Another thing I want to try to do is read more blogs. I’ve really only got 3 on my Feedly at the moment and click on a few posts here and there that interest me, but I would like to get more involved into the blog-o-sphere. There are a fantastic bunch of people involved there and I would really like to be a part of it more than I have been so far. So I will probably be more active on Anook, Twitter and Player.me
As for now I’m wiping my to-do list clean and starting over for September. On which I will post more tomorrow.

The Grand Finale – Blaugust day 24

The grand finale. It’s been a race, it’s been a marathon, but the last day of August (and thus Blaugust) is here.
It has been a hell of a crazy month for me. I landed my first real fulltime job (that will probably end this friday), I’ve had a really busy social life and I’ve had to re-evaluate myself and some of the goals I set while under pressure of time.

I have realized that my heart still belongs to World of Warcraft, even though I might critique and say goodbye to the game every now and then. I have started a crazy Heroes of the Storm project, that I do want to see through! I’ve gotten better at Hearthstone and have enjoyed playing some Super Mario Bros. on my 3DS again. I have evolved from a hardcore “I want to do it all” player to a more casual one with gaming taking up a much smaller role in my life for the time being. And surprisingly enough I’m more than fine with that.
Looking back to the start of the month, I might have set a bit too ambitious gaming goals for myself. I’ve barely been able to keep up with most of them and I’ve really only done the WoW and Hearthstone ones and I’m cool with that. I will re-evaluate my goals for September in my next post, probably being a lot less ambitious, and strive to complete as much as those as I can. Some will be a repeat performance (like getting rank 20 on Hearthstone), others will be new… But I won’t spoil just yet.

Next to my own gaming and blog adventures I have discovered a lot of new blogs and new people. It’s been a blast reading all of you. Even if I couldn’t actually read ALL of you. You are all amazing people and keep on doing what you’re doing!

I am a bit sad that I didn’t make blogging all 31 days of August. I missed out on exactly seven days. However the reasons that I have been unable to blog all bring smiles to my face and thus it was worth it. Daily blogging might not really be my thing, but I have enjoyed blogging regularly and, by some of the really kind and positive comments I have gotten throughout the month, I think you readers have enjoyed my blog aswell.
I like to keep going strong and blog regularly after the Blaugust madness is over. I really don’t want to fall back to only one or two posts a month, I have way too much to say for that.
For now though. Goodbye Blaugust!