Tag Archives: PC

Nearing Completion

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Character in field of flowers

I’m so, so terribly close to getting all my battle jobs to level 80 in Final Fantasy XIV that I can almost smell it. Right now my Gunbreaker is just shy of level 78 and I need to do most of my roulettes still this reset, which I’ll probably do tomorrow since it’s already past midnight and I’m really sleepy right now.
I’m hoping I will be level 80 by the weekend, get my Amaro mount and then drop the mad grind that I’ve been on for the past two or three weeks. Granted I could have gotten this milestone a lot earlier but I’ve been on hiatus in FFXIV a bit so it didn’t happen when I originally tought it would.
Being in the middle of the first week of another two week holiday though means I have ample time to get this done while also steadily working away at leveling my crafting jobs with the “new” Dwarf beast tribe dailies. I’ve gotten my Carpenter to 80 so far and my Weaver isn’t far behind. Seeing as I never really enjoyed the whole Ishgard crafting grind I’d rather opt into leveling my crafters this way, slow and steady wins the race right?
I also need to find a new sort of “daily” routine when I don’t have any more battle jobs to level. I think I may just stick to doing ex-roulette for now and the weekly clears next to the crafter dailies. I want to gear up my jobs and the only way to do that is to get through the latest content. I may do a bit of level roulette on my tanks for the achievement but I’ll see when I get there.

Next to completing a long standing goal in FFXIV, I’ve also been making more progress towards filling up my Pokédex in Pokémon Sword. I’m now down to needing only 38 more Pokémon for the base dex completion and I’m going over to my best friend tomorrow who owns Shield and trade a bunch of version exclusives with him. Which then leaves me with only a handful of Pokémon I still need to catch on my own. Yay! After that I’m going to turn my attention to the Isle of Armor and the Pokémon there so I can get my awesome crown and be ready for the Crown Tundra DLC that’s not too far away now either.
If I manage to complete this Pokédex it will be the first time I’ve completed a Pokédex in a Pokémon game ever. The closest I came to achieving this feat was when I was still a kid and playing my copy of Pokémon Blue. I was up to 146 Pokémon caught for the dex but for some reason I resetted my game after that, much to my regrets. Afterwards I’ve never come close to completion again, with the best try on Pokémon Black but that were just so many Pokémon.. That I basically gave up after over 70 hours played.
In Sword I’ve clocked in around 65 hours now, making it the game I’ve put the most hours in on my Switch by far. I dare take it even further and say that if I cross the playtime I had on my copy of Pokémon Black with Pokémon Sword it will be the single player game that I have spent the most time on of all time.

Finally I’ve been slowly working through my backlog again. The latest title that I’m working on is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Me and my best friend both own a copy of this game, me on my WiiU and he on his Switch. I figured it would be nice to go through the game at the same time so we can share our triumphs and frustrations. Little did I know that he would be way more frustrated than me. Even so frustrated that he has switched from normal mode to Funky Mode so that the game was doable for him. I don’t have this luxury on the WiiU and as such I’m playing the game on the original difficulty level. I’ve made it up to the boss of the fourth world, meaning I only have two more worlds to go after I defeat it. I’ve not really been doing a completionist run so there are a lot of levels that I have yet to unlock and a lot of collectibles to get. However my main goal is to just see the credit roll so I’m not really fussed about skipping these. I just want to stripe another game of my backlog. And with the tempo I’m going that should be doable by the end of the week aswell.

All in all it feels nice to be completing so many things at once. It’s mentally rewarding and it gives me the chance to set new fresh goals afterwards! But first it’s time for some much needed sleep.

Sandy’s Sunday: What A Long Strange Week It’s Been

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As predicted in my look ahead post from last week the training week at work absorbed a lot of my time this week. We had a program every day, although some days the program was only 2-3 hours and some days it was all day. It sure didn’t help in feeling less tired since I managed to get home exhausted everyday with the lowest point on Wednesday where I literally fell asleep after dinner. I guess I needed it.

In spite of all of this I managed to finish off the main “story” in Cat Quest on Monday evening. Now I just need to tackle all the remaining dungeons and the few side quests that still remain in the game. And get to level 99 of course. I really enjoyed this game for what it was. An RPG-light with lots of fun jabs at other games and so many amazing cat puns. Now that I finished the main story I unlocked New Game+ and “Mew” Game, which is a game type where you can set certain parameters like not being able to wear armor or not being able to level up and play the entire game at level one. Even though this sounds very interesting, and I’m sure many people are thrilled about this type of stuff even if it is just for the exclusive rewards that come with it, I don’t think I’ll go back and play those game modes. I tend to be one and done once I finish a game and I may go for 100% completion if the mood strikes me within a single game mode but I just don’t like replaying the exact same game but on a higher difficulty setting. I guess this is why I don’t care for trophies that require me to play through a game multiple times on my PS4. So yeah. Cat Quest was fun and adorable and a game I can scratch, pun intended, off my backlog.

Playing through Cat Quest on my Switch has also kind of reinforced the belief that it has become my preferred console for single player games. Being able to play on my big TV but also take it on the road with me has helped so much in completing games that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Even though I also use my PS4 a lot I notice that I’m just having much more issues finishing games on there compared to on my Switch. I guess we’ll see this year how many games I actually finish on what console. For now I need to look for another game to sink my teeth in and I’m still deciding what it will be.

Next to Cat Quest I’ve also been spending some time playing World of Warcraft this week. I did the Timewalking Dungeon event before the reset on Wednesday and got a nice trinket upgrade on my Warrior. I also did a +2 Mythic to open up a chest and I managed to unlock and get through a big chunk of 8.3 quest chain this morning. As such I have the legendary cloak unlocked and can start working on upgrading it so that I can tackle more challenging content in the horrific visions. I realize that my Warrior is kind of shitty geared still so I will need to work on that if I want to make a serious push in that content.

All in all I’m happy that things will go back to “normal” the coming week, even though I have my annual review tomorrow and I’m preparing for it to be not as stellar as previous years. Oh well.

Sandy’s Sunday: Sore all over

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As I’m sipping on a cup of coffee (okay okay, it’s a latte) I feel slightly guilty for not going to the swimming pool today. Honestly though I could barely get myself out of bed this morning. I’m hurting all over, especially my legs, and the idea of taking my bike up to the pool and then having to exhaust myself even further was the one thing I didn’t feel like doing today. So instead I’ve decided to take the day “off” so that my body can properly recover from all the workout stress I’m putting on it and then instead go to the pool tomorrow night and still get that swimming half hour in.

Because of this decision I had my morning opened up to do some other things. The first task on my list was log into Guild Wars 2 so I could unlock the proper episode of the Icebrood Saga for my account before it moves on to the next one somewhere this week. My account is littered with randomly unlocked living world episodes, kind of depending on when I logged in. Since I still want to sort of make some progress in Guild Wars 2 I figured it would be a good idea to atleast log in on time to unlock all the living world episodes, so that’s what I’m intending to do. I also teleported my Ranger to Divinity’s Reach for the Lunar New Year event and will check that out somewhere later today to see what it’s all about. So far the only thing I’ve noticed it’s that it’s doing horrible things to my graphics, probably something to do with the constant shooting of fireworks and the crowd of people amassing on suc a small spot in the town. Oh well.

I also took the time to push my Warrior closer to level 120. When I logged off yesterday evening I was sitting on about 40% into level 118. I started up the quests in Drustvar, after completing everything in Tiragarde Sound, and queued up for Tol Dagor since I had a quest for that aswell. I have to say that queueing up as DPS isn’t as painful these days as it used to be around launch. I think I waited a max of ten minutes for this dungeon to pop this morning? The same held true for Freeport which I ran yesterday, I almost got an instant queue to pop there which really surprised me. I did both dungeons without too much effort and could hand in both quests that helped level up my Azerite Necklace aswell as give a big chunk of experience. Because of that, and the Horde assault that took place this morning in Drustvar, I actually dinged level 119 pretty fast. So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m not sure yet if I want to push to 120 today since I have to do a lot of chores still and having a clean house and stuffed fridge take precedent over leveling an avatar up in a game.
What I am going to do though is play a bit of FFXIV to get my Bard through the daily Trust dungeon and Pixie stuff aswell as download the DLC to Kingdom Hearts III so I can start playing that. I remember how happy I was when I finished KH3 but also that the ending was rather unsatisfying. I hope this DLC can give me a bit more closure on that front. I will most likely do a post about it once I’ve played through it.

For now though it’s time to get dressed and get to cleaning!

When things click

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I always really enjoy reading other people’s blogs. The way they passionately talk about their hobbies and games and make me feel I’m right there with them enjoying the same things they do. I’m not nearly as eloquent with my blog posts nor do I feel like I have a compelling way of writing but I aspire to be interesting nonetheless.

With my cold slowly going away, I only still have a nasty cough left, I’ve slowly gone back to normal life proceedings. Right now I find myself spending Monday evenings watching movies. A certain channel on Dutch TV has “magical Mondays” where the theme of the movie is Fantasy. So far I’ve seen Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Fabulous Beasts and Where to Find Them and tonight it’s the first movie of the Harry Potter anthology. It’s nice and nostalgic and even though the commercials drag this movie out for way longer than it should be I find myself not annoyed by them. Instead I use that time to get little things done around the house or, like right now, get a bit of game time or blogging time in. It’s nice to just sit on the couch and stare at the TV on a Monday, it’s usually a busy day for me at work and I just want to unwind and not think too much about things then.

On the topic of gaming I’ve found a nice balance between playing World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft Classic and Link’s Awakening. For some reason things just seem to click and I feel I’ve found a bit of balance doing what I’m doing. In FFXIV I’m focusing mostly on leveling my crafters right now. My Culinarian has hit level 64, which is pretty nice, and my Blacksmith passed the level 40 mark. I expect that to be 50 around the weekend and my Culinarian to be either just shy of 70 or at 70. Which means I can put that to the side and pick up Armorer to take through Ixal dailies. I’m not really focusing on leveling my Monk during the weekdays but I’m getting plenty done during the weekend. As such I’ve hit level 75 and have been raking up Moogle Tomestones by running Main Scenario roulette. I’m not quite sure what I want to buy with them yet but it’s nice to have them in my back pocket when I do decide what I want.

In the World of Warcraft I’ve been spending my time making sure I do my Emissary quests every day aswell as trying to get my Mechagon dailies in often. So far I’ve been quite succesful and I think I only have about 7 or 8 days of Mechagon dailies to go untill I get Exalted reputation with them and can basically drop doing those dailies altogether. I’ve been logging into my Warrior during the weekend aswell and have gotten her up to 114. A Horde invasion was happening as I was leveling her up and to my surprise they give a nice boost of experience just like the Legion invasions did. Even better these invasions leave an hour buff which increases experience gained by 10% in Kul Tiras or Zandalar. It makes leveling a whole lot easier and faster and I hope next time I log my Warrior another invasion happens so I can partake in it again. With this I’m confident that I will be 120 in no time after which I have to decide if I want to gear her up and get her to the same level as my Rogue or be satisfied with getting to max level and then focus on something else. I doubt I will be able to do the latter though. I’ve missed playing my Warrior and I’m happy to be back on her so I think I will stick to her a bit longer and get her properly geared and work on various professions while doing so. Most notably Blacksmithing and probably Archaeology since I’ve not touched that this expansion yet.

On the WoW Classic front I’ve taken a decision that I think will give me more joy than anything I’ve done in the game so far. Initially I wanted to play the game on a class I don’t really play in retail to make the experience fresh and have a bit of a “what if” moment. However I soon found that I don’t really enjoy playing Warlock. The farming for Soul Shards is tedious and the standing still and casting, or wanding in most cases, while hoping my Voidwalker would retain aggro got dull fast. I tried a Druid afterwards and although I really enjoy playing Restoration, no matter what expansion or setting, it’s not a viable spec to level with. Thus I’m relegated to Feral which is less than enjoyable. I just want to heal. Let me heal!
As such I’ve done a bit of thinking and if I want to capture the nostalgia that many of my friends, and fellow bloggers, feel I should instead level up a class that feels like second nature to me. If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time the first class that would come to mind would be Warrior but I remember how absolutely terrible it was to level up back in the days so I’m going with my second big love in Azeroth: Hunter. On Retail I have three level 110 hunters with a fourth on the way, my Void Elf lady.
The moment I logged onto my Hunter in Classic something just clicked and felt right. Having my arrows back. Having a quiver again. Training Aspect of the Monkey, and later Aspect of the Hawk. Doing the level 10 taming beasts quests and subsequently taming my own pet for real. Hell even the dead zone inbetween shooting and melee all felt like a warm bath. I was instantly back in 2007, leveling up my Hunter and enjoying taming everything along the way. So now I’ve committed to my Hunter and am quite happily running along finishing off all the quests on Teldrassil. I’ve not been this happy in Classic since it launched so I know I made the right decision here and I hope to push my Hunter up to 40 as soon as I possibly can.

All in all I’ve quite found my groove and feel in a much more relaxed state of mind than I’ve been in the past few weeks. I’m happily bumbling through my MMO’s and playing Zelda on the side. I’ve found my “click” and I will do my best to hold on to it as good as I can.
Oh and as an aside. How on earth the ending of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone got approved as a kids movie is beyond me. He literally makes a guy turn to dust. What the hell parental advisory ratings?!

USB issues and back online

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After waiting on my table for 10 weeks it finally got delivered last monday. This means that I now have a proper place to eat aswell as having a desk for my pc. As I was setting up  my PC I realized that I didn’t have a network card installed that could handle WiFi. Seeing as how I really wanted to use my computer as soon as possible I ordered a WiFi adapter and had it delivered yesterday. At first it seemed to work fine but once I logged into World of Warcraft to play around a bit I noticed that I was getting frequent disconnects. At first I thought it was the adapter itself losing connection but then it seemed that my USB port was intermittently cutting power to the thing, thus causing my internet to disconnect.
After poking around a bit I realized my front facing USB ports seem to be the culprits. I’ve since moved the adapter to the back of my PC and it seems that has fixed the problem for now. I’ve not had a disconnect since so let’s hope that it will be working flawlessly for now.
Eventually I will probably get an onboard WiFi internet card but in the meantime this adapter will have to do.

What this all does mean however is the fact that I have my PC back in action and thus I can get back into Azeroth, something I immediatly did as you can see in the picture above. Unfortunately I seem to not be one of the lucky people to get access to the Classic beta so the goal of me playing a bit of it this month will probably go out of the window, unless I find an invite in the mail somewhere in the coming weeks.
It feels nice to be back and picking up my characters again. For now I’m going to focus on the Mage and getting her up to speed with all the new raids and other content. It’s really funny how, after almost 12 years, I feel like I’ve come full circle playing Mage now. It was the very first character I created when I got my hands on WoW and even though I found it to be extremely squishy, I always really enjoyed Mage throughout the time that WoW has been around. I’ll probably forego rolling one once Classic is out, I just can’t deal with the Vanilla squish but nonetheless I’m more than happy to play it on the regular servers.

Next to getting back into WoW I’ve also reinstalled Guild Wars 2. I’m not really sure why, I think it’s mostly to do with the morbid curiousity about the game that seems to surface every now and then. When I bought Guild Wars 2 I really enjoyed it for what it was but after a while I started to miss the standard MMO tropes that came with being a WoW player since forever. Not really having the whole tank/healer/dps setup was odd and the lack of dungeons and raids (at the time) was really frustrating aswell. The story was compelling, but just not compelling enough to keep me coming back. Over time I’ve reinstalled the game a few times and even though I would always tell myself that this time I wanted to stick to it longer and level up more I never did.
This time though I’m just gonna dedicate a few hours a week to just playing the game and make some progress towards higher levels. I may even pick up the expansions when I get towards the end of the “vanilla” content, but I’ll have to get there first.

All in all I’m quite content to have my PC back, mostly so I can sit down and use my own keyboard and mouse instead of a silly laptop plus it’s giving me incentive to sit down and blog a bit more again. So expect more posts to come!