Tag Archives: Gaming

The Motivation Proclamation

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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.

I Am Legendary (Spoilers!)

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A bit of screenshot spam today. For anyone still on the quest MAJOR SPOILERS! Right. 
So I finally managed to finish off my Legendary Ring on my Priest after failing the damn ship mission 4 times and being 3 tomes short for the past two resets. I decided to bite the bullet and do a wing or two in Looking For Raid and hope I’d be lucky enough to get the remaining tomes I needed. Luckily my RNG pulled through and I got a tome from all three bosses of the first wing of Hellfire Citadel.
I really liked the dialogue with Cortana (who had fallen evil unfortunately) telling her HELL no when she wanted my ring. And the little ceremony Blizzard put in for the Alliance side is seriously well done with the spirit of Velen speaking to you. You also get a nice little glow buff for 10 mins. 
But mostly I’m just super happy I managed to complete the Legendary quest chain more or less on time. Now I can benefit the raid with an extra healing ring!

(Bad) Habits

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So I did a little overhaul with my blog today. And I have to say I’m quite happy with the result. I felt like it needed a change (especially my header image) and I’ve always been fond of dark themes over light themes… So I took the plunge and this is the end result!
I hope you all like it aswell, I will probably tweak a bit more in the coming weeks (I need to find out how to add social media buttons without it looking horrible) but for now I think this is the style I want to roll with.

The Heroes Project
Is still very much alive actually. I’ve been getting some games in on Valla today and having a blast fiddling around with different builds for different maps. I really like the Hungering Arrow into Giant Killer build for the Eternal Conflict map. Poking out enemies as they are trying to kill one of the Immortals is a really nice thing to do on Valla and makes her an invaluable asset to the team. Whereas on other maps like the Dragonshrine and Garden of Terror it’s much better to roll with a Multishot build seeing as there is much more teamfighting and teampushing involved and you want to hit as many target as possible as hard as possible.
Then ofcourse there are other things to consider. For instance the type of champions you get matched up with. Is there a healing support? Are you sure he/she can keep you up during teamfights? Will there be warrior (tank) heroes that can take the damage for you? Will you land in a scenario where you will have to solo lane OR where you have to duel a lot? This all influences the build on Valla, more specifically if taking selfhealing talents like Hungering Arrow and Vampiric Assault are worth getting or not.
All in all I’m learning more about playing this champion and getting even more skilled at her than I already *cough* was. Or atleast I like to assume so.

(Not) Going to the Gym
As I may have mentioned before… I’m immensly struggling with my weight for the past 2 years. I’ve gained and gained and gained and it’s gotten to the point that I don’t fit into half of my clothes anymore. It sucks and it’s really dragging me down mentally… 
But I guess I’m also to blame myself. I have a gym membership, but it rarely sees any use. I just can’t motivate myself to go often. I go maybe once a week or once every two weeks and that’s it. Usually I use excuses like having a headache, feeling like it’s too late on the day to go, being to “busy” doing other things. You name it, I’ve come up with it. While in reality I’m just being lazy and really  need to get my act together and go. I will have to if I ever want to fit back into my pants. I’m really out of ideas to motivate myself though. Rewarding myself didn’t seem to help. Setting goals doesn’t really seem to help. 
I just really need someon to kick my ass to go every day. And that seems to be my biggest problem.

The Loner Syndrome

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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!)

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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.

I Survived Blaugust… And more!

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So. Belghast did a nice tally on his blog yesterday and I came out of the bus as one of the Blaugust Survivors. Which means I’ve written atleast 15 posts during Blaugust. I’m pretty happy with it. I had hoped I would make it to the full 31, but as I explained before my real life got in the way of things and well that was that. Even then, posting 24 posts on a blog that normally sees only about 7-8 posts a month is pretty amazing in my book, so I’m pretty happy with myself.

September Gaming Goals
As promised, here’s the actual purpose of my post. My gaming goals for september!
Blizzard Games:
  • Finish Legendary ring on Sarelly in World of Warcraft
  • Battle my way to the highest rank possible in Hearthstone
  • Unlock wing two of Naxx and BRM in Hearthstone
  • Get my Seasonal Crusader to level 70 in Diablo III
  • Continue Heroes Project. 100 games on Valla. Pick up new hero.
Other games
  • Level WHM to 50 in FFXIV
  • Finish off act 2 in Mickey’s Castle of Illusion
  • Play through FFX on PS4 (as far as I can).

As you can see, a much shorter list than my previous ones and it’s mostly evolving around Blizzard games. I seem to spend most of my time there anyway so I guess it’s only logical.
I think the biggest challenge from these will be finishing off my legendary ring on Sarelly and leveling my Seasonal Crusader on Diablo. My motivation to do either is very low at the moment. I’m half and half burned out on WoW (I really only log it to raid these days) and Diablo is on and off for me. I log for an hour or so, do some bounties or a rift and log back off again. I don’t really feel the need to play with anyone either (seeing as that will only turn into boosts atm) and I’m mostly grumping and sulking my way through the game. But I really want the seasonal rewards so I guess I’ll just have to suck up and level at some point.
Another thing I really want to start doing is play through one of my many console games. I bought FFX/X-2 remastered and barely touched it. The same goes for Thief, FF Type-0 and Destiny. Seeing as I’m in a bit of a solo mood I figured I’d pick one of the Final Fantasy’s and just start playing from there. I really want to start finishing off games before I invest into new ones. This goes for my PS4 and PC equally since I have a Steam Library filled with games I barely touched as well. And there we land at the Mickey game. I really wanted to finish Act 2 last month, but I guess I’ll have to do it this month.
I’m unsure why I’m so fussy about playing solo/offline games. I really like them, I just can’t seem to focus my attention on playing any of them though.
The big spend
I really, really, really tried to keep my spending to a minimum this month. I wanted to build up a reserve with all the money I earned from having a job… But when I saw this Animal Crossing edition of the new 3DS XL I caved and pre-ordered it. 
I still have an old 3DS (the first version actually) and although it works fine I notice that it’s aging. It’s slow, the games take longer to load, the internet connection is slow and the screen isn’t as clear as the newer versions. So yeah. I caved, I preordered and it cost me a bit of money… But it’s too damn cute to let slip!

A New Rythm

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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

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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!

It’s aliiiiive! And back on Azeroth… – Blaugust day 4

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So I’m finally done with reinstalling my PC from scratch. I think getting Windows 8.1 installed and fully updated has taken me a total of 6-7 hours, primarily due to having to go through the painful proces of installing Windows 8 first.
Anyway everything works again. My games are all reinstalled and I’m ready to rumble in the jungle. Or something.

Azeroth
Remember how I said in my 2nd day of Blaugust that gaming is a bit like crack? World of Warcraft is the biggest of them all for me. It’s my core game, my first MMO ever, the game I have been playing for the longest and where I’m the most comfortable. And it has drawn me in again.
I have to admit that the new expansion announcement has gotten me slightly excited. Especially if the new leaked class is true. So, like everyone else who’s still interested, I’m anxiously awaiting what Blizzard will bring us.
In the meantime I have been itching to pick up a Hunter again. Unfortunately for me I just really can’t be arsed to pick up the one on Dragonblight and my other two are on Darksorrow and Stormrage respectively, servers I don’t visit anymore. So I hopped into character selection and created a new Hunter on Draenor: Aylanna.

The name itself isn’t very original. My hunter on Dragonblight shares the same name. But don’t change a winning formula right? I have gotten into a real level frenzy and am currently level 20 after levelling my way through Ghostlands. I have just made the journey to Undercity to deliver a certain package to a certain someone..

Sylvanas… So we meet again.

After playing mostly FFXIV and GW2 over the past few weeks being back on Azeroth feels rather weird. I forgot how cartoonesque WoW is as a game and sometimes the bright colours, and awkward angles, kind of hurt my eyes. But I’m back on a Hunter and that usually makes me happy. For now. 

Leveling her to 30 will be added to my bucket list. Seeing the fact that I’m kitted out in heirlooms, and leveled my way to 20 in about 2-3 hours, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. For now I’m prioritizing stuff on Final Fantasy and Guild Wars, but it’s nice to fall back onto WoW. It’s like having a comfort blanket…

PC Woes and stuff to do! – Blaugust Day 3

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The
Bad
I
had initially planned a post today about how I upgraded to windows 10
last week and how glorious it was running on my pc with no errors at
all. How I had to get used to having the start menu button back,
instead of swiping along the right side of the desktopscreen to get a
popup to shut down my computer. Alas it wasn’t meant to be.
Due
to a critical bug when switching resolutions in a game I had freshly
installed there was a conflict between Windows 10 and my Nvidia
Graphics drivers. I tried reinstalling them after getting my PC to
boot in safe mode (which by the way is almost impossible without a
recovery disc) but to no avail.
Queue
frustrated gamer lady and an unresponsive PC. I have had to reinstall
Windows 8 from scratch (which is the OS it originally came with) and
have spent yesterday evening and today updating everything and
upgrading it to Windows 8.1
Luckily
for me I still have my rusty old laptop. It might not play games, or
run streams but it has open office installed which allows me to type
atleast and a working Mozilla Firefox so I can upload my text into
the Blogger text field. So with no further ado, here is my Blaugust
day 3 post!
The
Fantasy
Due
to my pc issues I finally managed to get some time in on FFXIV again.
I play it on my Playstation 4 but haven’t really done anything with
it after returning home from Sweden. Seeing as I’m way behind on
farming Esoterics already I should be more active about logging in
and getting my cap, but for some reason I don’t really feel the need
to.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy FF as a game immensely. I
love my Dragoon and I’m in the process of levelling up my Bard
(mostly for retainer purposes) and my White Mage because I want a
healer up for shorter queue times. I have always loved the White Mage
more than Scholar, mostly because White Mage reminds me of Holy
Priest. The healing is simple and reactionary, or atleast it was up
untill level 50, and the job gear at the time looked seriously
pretty.
I
think I just need to get back into my routines of doing ex-roulette
and trial roulette for esoterics and low level and guild hest
roulette to level my White Mage.
My
Bard I intend to level on high level roulette and low level hunt
mobs. That should give me enough experience to work my way up to 60
steadily. I’m also really curious about the new Bard abilities. I
have mained the class throughout a chunk of Coil progression and
ranged shooty classes will always have a soft spot in my heart. Hence
my plans to get it to 60 aswell.
The
Gaming Schedule
Seeing
as how I’m starting a new job within a week I have had to think about
making some goals for my gaming and how I’m going to schedule this.
Running roulettes on FFXIV is rather time consuming (it can easily
take two hours) and I don’t want to be spending all my time on that
game alone. So I’ve made a list with gaming goals that’s pinned to a
board and which outlines what I want to work on for now. Seeing as
it’s also more or less one of the writing prompts I’ll share the list
here for now and let you guys know when I have worked through most of
it.
The
List
  • Get esoterics capped
    on FFXIV each week
  • Do Low Level and
    Guildhest roulette on my WHM untill level 50 (current level: 37)
  • 100% Complete Kessex
    Hills on my Ranger in GW2
  • Complete level 20
    personal story on my Ranger in GW2
  • Do Hearthstone Dailies
  • Get Hearthstone Rank
    20
  • Play through Super
    Mario Bos 2. on my 3DS; World 1 to start with
  • Play through Mickey’s
    Castle of Illusion, world 1 and 2 to start with
As you can see the list
mostly involves doing dailies (Hearthstone, FFXIV) and play through
some games I’ve had in my possession for a while now but haven’t
really done anything with. Since platformers are usually no brainers
I figured it’s easier to set goals for them. The gameplay is basic
and usually easy to pick up after not playing a while, unlike RPG’s
where I completely lose track of what I’ve done and what I’m supposed
to do after not logging in for an extended amount of time.
The
Laptop
Seeing as I’m not sure
when my PC will be fully up and running again, and since this used to
be my university laptop and it’s really nice to type on, I might keep
writing my blog posts on here. I can always add screenshots later if
I want (right?) And since it’s a small laptop (Asus Eee-pc) I can
take it with me and work on the road. Win/win! For now it allowed me
to not miss out on day 3 of Blaugust, so we atleast have that.