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Kingdom Hearts 3 burnout and a new game started

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Last week has been a bit of a blur. Seeing as how I stayed up really late on Sunday to finish the Kingdom Hearts 3 story I managed to completely disrupt my normal sleep schedule for the rest of the week. I’ve been coming home tired for most of the days and on Thursday I was so tired that I went to bed at 20.00. I got a really nice amount of sleep in though so I woke up Friday more rested than I had been all week so I guess that’s a good thing.
I did manage to complete the Lucky Emblems section on the Gummiphone in KH3 on Wednesday evening meaning I unlocked a trophy, yay, and the secret ending. The ending itself was really short and a bit confusing. You see Sora waking up somewhere in Tokyo, apparently in the setting of another Square Enix game and Riku waking up in the world of Verum Rex, which we got a glimpse of during the Toy Story storyline. After that though I decided I had enough of KH3 for a bit and decided on starting a new game this weekend. I may return on a later date to work on some more trophies but for now that chapter is closed.

The new game I picked was a game I caved on during the 7 days of play sale from Playstation: God of War. I’ve been meaning to pick up the game at some point and with some encouragement from friends I figured I might aswell start it now that I’m done with KH3. I’ve not gotten far with playing yet, I think I may have only played for 2-3 hours between yesterday evening and this morning but a few things have already stood out for me.
First off the game makes my PS4 Pro sound like there’s a jet engine running. I normally keep the console in my cabinet with the door open so that there is enough air circulation for it to run properly. It’s quiet when playing most of my games, hell I barely noticed it when playing KH3 and that was with a disc inserted! However God of War is making it loud. I’ve turned my PS4 so that there’s even more room at the ventilator side but it’s not really helped much. I guess it just comes with this game and I’m trying my best to ignore the sound my console makes. It seems to particularly go into overdrive when I’m looking at the world map or when there’s the “cutscenes” where I don’t control Kratos. It’s something I’ll have to deal with I guess but I wish it wouldn’t be the case.
Secondly I really need to get used to the combat style. Coming off KH3 I was using the symbols a lot when fighting. X was attack, square was shortcuts for magic etc. I could jump in combat with triangle and dodge with circle. In God of War you attack and defend with your L and R buttons. X is for dodge rolling away and circle is for interacting with things in the world. It’s been a real adjustment and I’m noticing I’ve died a lot because I was mashing a wrong button to get Kratos to defend or attack. I’m playing the game on balanced mode because I do like a bit of challenge but I also still want to enjoy the story. I guess it’s the most common mode that people play.
So far I’m enjoying the story of Kratos and Atreus taking the ashes of their mother up the mountain. I’ve met Brok, the weapon/armor smith and I killed the stranger, whoever that may have been. I do feel like Kratos is too distant towards Atreus and I’m already kind of done with him calling his son “boy” the entire time.
Fighting with the Leviathan axe is cool though and I’m starting to learn how to use Atreus in fights more aswell so that’s a positive thing. Now I just need to learn to die less and I’m well on my way into another RPG adventure during the weekends. I’ll hopefully get a few more hours in later today as I come back from groceries and running errands.

It’s only two more weeks untill Shadowbringers early access starts aswell. I’ve unfortunately not played that much FFXIV this week due to me being just silly tired every night. I hope to catch some of that up this weekend though, when I’m not playing God of War. Currently my Goldsmith is sitting at level 57 and my Alchemist at level 41. I’m still on track to get one to 70 and one to 50 before Shadowbringers launches so I should be able to make my goals for FF for the month.

Kingdom Hearts 3: Done!

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After my post from yesterday I didn’t think I would be able to finish off Kingdom Hearts 3 this weekend. I had barely started San Fransokyo and I knew there would be a ton more story to come. To put it in perspective, I was about 23 hours played in at the time. Yesterday evening though I decided I’d pick the game back up again to get a few Caribbean related trophies, which I got. After dinner I decided that I wanted to finish San Fransokyo. The world was shorter than I thought and, unlike other worlds, you didn’t follow the story of the Big Hero 6 game but actually played in a fictional setting sometime after the movie. Maybe this setting is covered in the cartoon but for me it was entirely new.
It was a shorter world than I thought and I finished it relatively quickly. The final bossfight was interesting but not too hard and then I was faced with a choice. Push forward to the next part of the story or stop here?

I decided to push forward and didn’t stop untill I finished the entire game.
As you can see from my report card at the top it took me roughly 32 hours to get to the ending. This was with detours here and there to get some trophies or to get some extra levels in on Sora to make the game a bit easier for me. The last few hours were a rollercoaster ride for me. (Incoming spoilers now!). After defeating the initial wave of Heartless at the Keyblad Graveyard it seems all hope is lost and Darkness wins. Sora is sent to the “Final World” where he has to collect pieces of himself so he can go back to his friends again. I wasn’t surprised that Square had to add atleast one seriously trippy level to the game and this was it. After you “collect” all of Sora’s fragments the buildup to the real ending begins. You need to save all your friend who were lost, and do exactly that. After that you go back in time and face the Heartless who beat you the first time around but this time you fight them. At some point you get help from all the keyblades of the Keyblade Graveyard which produces an awesome sequence, although my thumb really started hurting after mashing the triangle key for 2-3 minutes straight. It’s really cool how Square uses PSN names of actual people who own the game to help you defeat the gigantic big bad.
Then came taking down the members of Organization XIII. I made sure to outlevel them using the Battlegates provided at every save point. I didn’t face off with Xehanort untill I had gotten Sora up to atleast level 50. All the cutscenes inbetween of members fading away or, as Sora put it, getting to be recompleted again were very interesting.
The final battle versus Xehanort was intense. With the flying and swimming and just floaty stuff in general it was quite easy to lose track of my whereabouts. I managed to take him down, obviously, and was finally done with the game after 1AM. At that point I just set back and enjoyed all the cutscenes that played and let the credits roll out in their entirety. During the credits there’s also some adorable scenes from the Disney Worlds you visited so that was a nice added touch.

As far as the actual ending goes, things left me a bit confused. I didn’t really make the link to the four people in animal robes untill I googled it and apparently they appear in the Kingdom Hearts mobile game. I’m really curious as to who Luxu/Xigbar is and how Maleficent ties up into all of this. Did she help Xigbar get the black box? Is there going to be a new Organization? Even though Xehanort is obviously gone it seems that Square is leaving the door wide open for the story to continue.
As for Sora and Kairi. I’m not sure if he found Kairi and then disappeared or if they’re both still gone. I know that I can unlock a hidden movie from finding and photographing all the lucky emblems in the game so I’m going to focus on doing that next. I’m also not quite sure how they brought back Naminé. Wasn’t she locked up in Kairi’s heart? It’s once again really confusing and an obvious setup for another game in the series.
Now that I’m done with the mainstory I want to aim to get a few more trophies, even though I don’t think I want to specifically aim for getting the Platinum one in the near future. It involves a ton of grinding and after finishing the mainstory I’m not sure how much grinding I still want to do.

All in all I found the game to be enjoyable, even though shorter than I though it would be. When it first came out Square Enix mentioned that beating the main story alone would take 40-50 hours and to 100% complete the game you’d have to calculate over 80 hours played. Looking at my own time to beat and looking at what I still need to do I may double my playtime to 60 hours if I want to go for the Platinum trophy but nothing more. Was the game worth the full price? Definitely. I cried during the ending, I loved the worlds and I can see myself taking time to slowly work to that 100% completion because the game is just that fun to play. The music is great, the gameplay is fun if you aim for diversity. In theory you can just press X and win the game that way but it’s way more fun to use links and spells and all the specials you can use during fights like the Mad Tea Cups and Pirate Ship. The graphics are amazing and the game does invite to go back and complete it after you finish the main story just with how well the worlds are crafted and the plethora of secrets they still have.
With the announced DLC that’s coming in the winter I’ll have an excuse to hang onto my copy and start playing again then. For now though I can sort of “clock out” and scratch another game off my backlog when it comes to main objective completion.

As bonus I took a few screenshots from the final few hours of the game. They are a bit spoiler-y so watch at your own peril.

Kingdom Hearts progress… Finally

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With it being tropical humid temperatures outside I’ve spent my Sunday so far bunkered down in my house, playing games and just not really doing anything that would make me sweat. I’ve done enough of that yesterday when I went into town to do some shopping/get my eyebrows done and cleaned my house before my uncle and aunt came along. So today it’s a day for some relaxation, gaming, and doing not much of anything in general. Which is good because it has allowed me to put a few hours into Kingdom Hearts 3 again.

Last time I played I was about halfway through Monstropolis and still in monster form. I’ve finished that world now, and got the keyblade from it, and moved along to Arendelle with a sidestop in the 100 Acre Woods. It’s a small adorable world that consists of mini games to get through. As added perk you earn fruit/vegetables from playing said minigames so I see myself going back there again to earn more ingredients for the whole cooking mini game. Before I went to Arendelle I went back to Olympus to find all the King’s Emblems (imprints or shapes that look like Mickey Mouse’s head) and take some pictures the Moogles asked for. It’s really fun to go back to these worlds after you’re done with them. In Olympus you see Thebe being rebuilt and areas that were previously inaccessible are now free to roam. There’s still Heartless spawns to consider though, you can’t just run around the world without being attacked.

All in all I’ve spent around 3 hours playing and I feel like I’ve been making decent progress again. It’s the start of what I’m planning to do more on weekend days where I don’t have any other plans. Although I need to watch that I take regular breaks when playing and that I don’t forget to eat and drink, which has happened today. I’m not sure how long it will take me to finish up Kingdom Hearts 3. From what I’m aware of I still have atleast three more Kingdoms to play through: Arendelle from Frozen, San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6 and The Carribean from Pirates of the Carribean. I’m sure there’s more to explore after that and I can always go back to collect stuff from the older worlds when I don’t feel like advancing the mainstory. I think there’s a “true” ending as well, although I’m not sure how to get to that just yet. For now though I’m happy to get a few hours of play in, make a bit of progress and then put the game down untill next weekend when I have time to devote to it again.

As part of my goals set for this month I’ve also started up a game on my 3DS again: Detective Pikachu. It’s a game I had for a bit but never really touched up untill now. I’ve seen the movie two weeks ago and even though I know it’s inspired by the game, it’s quite a bit different from the game itself. I’m also of the opinion that, so far, the game is really hand-holdy and kiddie like in how it plays. I’m only 1.5 hours in, finishing off the first chapter, but I hope it becomes a bit less easy as the game comes along or that the story gets interesting enough that I don’t really mind the gameplay. I guess the main thing bothering me is the fact that the game forces you to go through things in a certain way, even though you’ve figured out the “case” early on. I guess it adds flavour and story to the game to do it like this but I also feel this game may have not really been for people like me who see the answers immediately and still have to go through the motions.

As final bit of news. I dinged level 70 on my Carpenter in FFXIV yesterday and managed to finish up both the level 68 and the level 70 job quests, so I can honestly say I’m completely done with that crafter.
If all goes well my Goldsmith should hit level 50 after reset rolls around today… Meaning I can move her along to Moogle dailies and start Alchemist on the Ixal ones. I’ve come to realize that the Ixal dailies can be done quite fast if you just ignore the fishing ones and pick up  everything else. It may sound silly but I just really, really dislike the fishing ones so I dodge those when I can. It’s made the Ixal dailies much easier to deal with for me personally so I think I’ll just keep to this strategy as I level more of my crafters.
Finally I’ve started to partake in the Moogle Tomestone event that is going on in the game from now up untill Patch 5.0. My goal is to get the Pegasus mount atleast and maybe the Namazu earrings. I’ve chosen to run Labyrinth of the Ancients for now because I want the tank set from there for glamour purposes. Once I get that set I will probably move on to Syrcus Tower so I can get the healing set from there. Unless I’m really lucky I think a bunch of runs will be in my immediate future just to acquire all the pieces of these sets alone. Since these particular instances only reward two tomes per completion I’m aiming to run multiple of them during week nights after I finish my crafting dailies. I’m not really sure yet what I’ll be running when I get both the sets, but I’ll see when I get there.

For now I’m happy with how this weekend is turning out for real life stuff and gaming stuff, and I can’t wait untill it cools down tonight so I can open all the windows and my balcony door and let in the cold.

Gaming Goals June 2019

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Seeing as how April and May have been really weird months for me I refrained to do anything gaming goal related for those months. But June is rolling around and with it I will have access to my PC again so I feel like I can start writing up some goals again for me to attain.
I have pre-ordered Shadowbringers and it comes out at the end of the month so once that date hits my focus will probably be completely on FFXIV and getting through the first few weeks of the expansion. However we are still four weeks off when that happens so in the meantime there’s a bunch of stuff I hope to achieve!

FFXIV

  • Level Goldsmith to level 70 and Alchemist to 50 (atleast)
  • Finish off leftover quests

WoW

  • Get up to speed with latest content
  • Play Classic beta?

Other games

  • Make significant progress in Kingdom Hearts 3
  • Beat Kirby Star Allies on the Switch
  • Make significant progress in Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee on the Switch
  • Make significant progress in Paper Mario: Color Splash on the WiiU
  • Pick a game to play on 3DS

Hopefully I can get really far with leveling my crafters in FFXIV. I will try to keep up with the job quests as I level up but I’m not too bothered if I let it slide. I can always finish those up later. If all goes well I’ll only need to level 4 more crafting jobs past the Ixali dailies by the end of the month, hopefully to never return to them again. I’m quite looking forward to getting my character to be an “omnicrafter” and I’m planning to definitely push up my gathering and crafting jobs to level 80 early on in the Shadowbringers expansion.

With my PC back in the fold I’m definitely going to resub to WoW and play my Paladin or Mage and continue leveling my (Void Elf) Hunter for the Heritage gear. Next to that I hope I may get a Classic beta invite so I can get a chance to sniff the flowers when it comes to that. I’m not actively seeking to play Classic but I might stick my nose in and see if I enjoy it. I’m not 100% sure what class I’ll be rolling. I’m having major doubts between Nelf Druid and Human Warlock. I’m not interested on playing Horde side for now.

I’ve set some really ambitious goals when it comes to non MMO games. There’s just so many games that I’ve started over the years and never finished that I feel like it’s time to carve out blocks of my week to work on that. My main focuses are the games that I’ve been playing in more recent times and complete those, after that I can start reaching further into my backlog and pick up other games to play. I’ve left Monster Hunter World off this list for now, even though I am playing it in bits and pieces. The game hasn’t really hooked me fulltime yet but I do enjoy it for what it is.

All in all I feel these goals are definitely obtainable throughout the month. With a 3 day weekend coming up aswell as having a bit more structure in my evenings it frees up game time, that I definitely eagerly will grab.

Physical keyboard again!

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For the first time in a couple of weeks I finally have a physical keyboard to work with again so I figured I might aswell pump out a blog post. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures for this one so you’ll just have to do with words.

I’ve had a two week hiatus off work where I settled into my new home and tried to find a new rhythm for life in general. It included a bunch of gaming, watching TV shows and movies and reading books. It also included a lot of anxiety about leaving home, lots of cleaning of the new place and getting adjusted to life on my own. All in all I think I’ve done a decent job so far. The only things I need to work on now are making sure that I eat properly during the evenings and start up my workout schedule again. I have taken the first few babysteps to achieve this by going out for a walk after dinner every night. For now the walks are only about 30 minutes long but I hope to go up to an hour. It’s a great way to digest my food and clear my head, especially now that I’m back at work with all the chaos and stress that accompanies that. I don’t take my phone with me on these walks, just my iPod with some music and my house keys and that’s it. I really hope to expand on this by going to the gym during the weekends but I’m not there yet.

As far as games go. I’ve been spending a lot of my time playing FFXIV. My Carpenter is currently sitting on level 63, my White Mage has gotten a nice weapon and is sitting around ilvl 375. I have collected all the items from the crossover event with FFXV and I’ve picked up finishing off all the ARR relics again. Right now I’m in the middle of the questline on my Warrior and once I finish that I only need Scholar to be done. For now I’m focusing mainly on completing these quests and leveling my crafters. I’m sure my Carpenter will be level 70 before the month is over and I have already started doing Ixal dailies for my Goldsmith which I want to bring to 70 next. For the rest I’m just waiting out my time untill the new expansion launches. I’m planning to level my White Mage first through the story but I’m also really interested in picking up Dancer.
As far as other games go… I’ve made some decent progress in Yoshi’s Crafted World. I have collected 3 out of 5 gems and make sure to get as much collectibles as possible during my first playthrough of a level. Of course I will need to go back to the flipsides to find all the Poochy Pups and collect all the flowers and other things but for now I’m focusing on getting through the worlds and claiming all the gems. I have to say that the level based on a Haunted Mansion is my favourite so far, I’m hoping there is one that can top it.

Against all the deals I made with myself I picked up a new game aswell: Monster Hunter World. I’m really interested in the franchise and I need something to do besides the classic MMO. After messaging Belghast on Twitter whether it would be a good time/deal to pick up the game now I just went ahead and purchased it. I don’t understand most of the systems yet but for now it’s nice to be able to drop into quests that complete fairly fast and see immediate progress as result. I’m sure that things will pick up in difficulty soon but for now I’m enjoying myself and taking a really relaxed approach to the game.

I do notice that I miss my computer in more ways than one. I miss playing WoW and I may want to take another stab at GW2 but unfortunately I won’t have access for another 3 weeks or so. In that time my main gaming will come from my consoles which isn’t too bad considering I can play on a comfy couch while watching a nice big screen now.

In non gaming related news I’ve finally gotten round to watching some films and series. I watched Avengers: Endgame in the theatre two weeks ago, great movie by the way, and I watched The Social Network last weekend. Next to that I’m watching Lucifer on Netflix and of course Game of Thrones. Only one more episode to go and honestly I’m really disappointed with this final season. Everything is super rushed and it feels really underwhelming. I don’t agree with all the story line endings and I really hope that if the books ever get finished they’ll be better than this hot mess.

All in all it’s been a very busy couple of weeks and being back at work where it’s just a gigantic chaos isn’t really making anything much better.

Wrapping up: Baby steps edition

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In the spirit of setting my own casual goals I’ve started to wrap up some endgame content in FFXIV. Even though I had caught up to the 4.4 story I hadn’t touched 4.5 untill tonight. With some help from a friend I tackled the new dungeon and got the 4.5 story done. I’ve seen a few interesting plot twists, including the real identity of “Shadowhunter” (spoiler! it’s Gaius, yes, that Gaius) and am now patiently awaiting the final patch where supposedly I turn into the Warrior of Darkness. My gear still remains on the bare minimum to do content however. As of right now I’m sitting at ilvl 364, which is only 4 above the bare minimum needed. A big part of this is to blame on my weapon which is sorely lacking behind compared to all my other gear. So my big focus right now lies with upgrading said weapon and I have a two-route option to do so.
The first one is to farm Tomestones, the Mendacity kind to be precise, and kill Kefka three more times. I finally managed to kill him for the first time on Sunday and I have to say the fight wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. So that’s Sigmascape wrapped up and a new minion, scroll and weapon possibility to chase. I also count that as baby step number one because I know I’m sorely behind on this content and I do want to see Omega through to the end.. So I expect some more catching up in the future.
The second route is to keep on farming Heaven on High. You need to exchange your gear strength for 10 tokens and I’m currently sitting at 2 with the possibility of getting 4 more, which still leaves me with 4 to get. The weapon is a slightly better one than the one I get via farming Kefka (it’s a 5 ilvl difference) and the queues for farming Heaven on High aren’t actually that bad. It’s quite easy to just take an hour of my time and run 3 Heaven on High instances and pray for tons of silver chests. It also nets me Mendacity and Genesis tomestones which I can then use to purchase more gear for my WHM or my alt classes. My priority though lies on getting that weapon upgrade so that is what I’ll be focusing on for the forseeable future.

In other baby steps news. My Blacksmith made it to level 30 which means I only have my Alchemist and Leatherworker to go. Since I’ve decided to take the lazy route and just level it up via Ixali dailies I don’t expect them to be 30 in a day. Basically the Ixali dailies give about two levels when I do all of them per day and it takes me about an hour to do them. Right now I’m not really pushing myself to do them every day but whenever I feel like it and it seems to work out for me. The progress is there, just slow and it’s really a task that I do if I don’t find anything else to do.

Next to FFXIV I’ve been slowly pushing up my Nightborne Mage in WoW. She’s just hit 90 tonight and I’ve done about 10 levels of progress in Mount Hyjal alone. I’ve not taken a character through that content in a very long time and I have to say that about 8 years later the story still holds up and the zone is still nice to level through. Chucking bears out of trees, rescuing animals, riding a gryphon while lancing Twilight Scum out of the sky. Killing black and twilight drakes. It’s so much lore that has gone to the background with WoD, Legion and now BfA. It makes me nostalgic for what Cataclysm was and how much fun I had raiding Firelands and Dragon Soul. It was interesting to see the struggle between the Twilight Cultists and the Legion. I forgot that they actually weren’t the best of friends. Now I’m on the doorstep of Warlords of Draenor and I want to get that done as fast as possible. As far as leveling goes it’s my least favourite expansion, simply because of too many Orcs… Especially on Horde side. I hope I can keep the zones I need to do there limited to a minimum but I guess I’ll see when I get there. Only 20 more levels to go for my Heritage Armor atleast so that’s a nice goal to work towards.

In Kingdom Hearts I’ve gone through Toy Story world and have landed in the Kingdom of Corona, aka the world of the Disney movie Rapunzel. I’m still having a blast playing through the game. I’ve been trying to unlock as many things as I possibly can and have made a ton of headway when it comes to the cooking section and the classic mini games section. Unfortunately I’m not that good with spotting the Mickey Mouse heads so I’m probably going to look up a guide once I beat the game to get all of that stuff done. I’m hoping to finish the Kingdom of Corona somewhere this week and move on to whatever world is next. It’s a time consuming game, I’m only 10 hours in and I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface, but I can’t wait untill I see how the story plays out. Hence I’m avoiding spoilers and any Kingdom Hearts 3 related content like the plague online. I want to see and finish this in my own pace. Even if that pace is baby steps.

Gaming Goals: February 2019

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I can’t believe January is over already. Time seems to fly by these days, even if I’m spending significantly less time in games and more time watching Netflix and relaxing. Not playing as much games has also caused me to bit a bit more relaxed in my head and has gotten me going to bed earlier and fall asleep faster. The past week I’ve only played for an hour or so each night and it’s been great. I’m sure that at some point I’ll get back to gaming a bit more again but for now the game time is low and other activities time is high. I’ll see where it heads since I am going to formulate a few goals for this month. But first lets look back at January.

Gaming Goals

  • Level Dark Knight to 70 in FFXIV and complete all Job quests DONE
  • Level Samurai to 70 in FFXIV and complete all Job quests DONE
  • Nintendo GotM: Pokémon LetsGo. Technically cheating this one a bit but I want to finish it up in January
  • Playstation GotM: Spyro 2: RIpto’s Rage. I’m aiming for 100% completion and the platinum trophy here

So I’ve accomplished two of the goals on my list being the FFXIV related ones. I’ve actually spent a lot of time in January to getting these goals done and it’s taken up most of my gaming time. It’s also caused a bit of a gaming burnout to the point that I’ve not touched Spyro 2 at all and I’ve put in the bare minimum in Pokémon LetsGO. I did manage to get the 6th badge but I stalled out afterwards, which I’m actually quite disappointed about. I’m not sure what causes me to put down games and just not return to them but it’s a thing I want to stop doing.

Other goals

  • Book of the Month: Roger Daltrey – My Story (Thanks, Mr. Kibblewhite!) DONE
  • Show of the Month: Luther

So I finished up the book really early in the month and it has been a nice read. I watched the first season of Luther in full and am now halfway through season two. I have been watching other shows on Netflix however and finished “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” and “Consumed” in full so I got a bit more worth out of my Netflix for the month. I even managed to jam in “Carmen Sandiego” which I thoroughly enjoyed aswell.
All in all I’m quite happy here even though I didn’t get to finish the show I wanted to.

So now that we have January out of the way let’s look forward to February!

Gaming Goals

  • Playstation GotM: Kingdom Hearts 3.
  • Nintendo GotM: Pokémon LetsGO
  • Get all my crafters to 30 in FFXIV and complete all job quests upto and including level 30.
  • Level my Nightborne Mage in WoW

So ofcourse the game of the month for Playstation is going to be Kingdom Hearts 3. I’m about 5 hours in and I want to play through this game so much. I love the worlds, I love the fighting, I love the story. I’m itching to explore more of it and to get it completely played through by the end of the month. I’m lifting Pokémon LetsGO over to February so I can work on completing that aswell. Again I made it to the 6th gym and I really just want to get to the Elite Four atleast.

In MMO land I want to keep my goals light. The only thing I really “want” to achieve in FFXIV is to get all my crafting classes to level 30 and have all the job quests up untill that point completed aswell. I’m currently sitting on level 27 Blacksmith, level 24 Leatherworker and Level 21 Alchemist so that’s the three jobs that need to go up. I go up about two levels when doing all the Ixali dailies that I can and to complete those I only need an hour or so… So it should be a very doable goal.
As far as the leveling in WoW goes. I just really want atleast one Allied Race to max level. My Nightborne Mage is sitting at level 78 now and I’m not really setting a goal for myself level wise but I would like to be over 78 at the end of the month. Maybe I’ll get all the way to 120, maybe I’ll only make it to 85, I don’t know. I just want to spend a bit of time leveling and enjoying some of my favourite older zones again.

Other Goals

  • Book of the month: Ship of Magic (Liveship traders book 1)
  • Show of the month: Luther/Designated Survivor

I’m starting a new book and a new trilogy all in one go. It’s the second trilogy I’m going to read that’s written by Robin Hobb and it takes place in the same world as the first one only with different characters. I’m really curious how these books are compared to the ones I’ve read so I’ll report back as soon as possible when I’ve finished the book.
On the shows front I want to finish watching Luther and then start watching Designated Survivor again. I started that show at some point but kind of trailed off after ten episodes or so. I like the show and I want to watch more of it so that’s the plan.

All in all I’m mostly going to focus on the big game of the month which is Kingdom Hearts. Since I’m in a minimal gaming jam right now I’m trying to keep my goals light and attainable and will probably focus on doing other stuff instead. I guess I’ll see how far I’ve come at the end of the month!

Goals: January 2019

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After my big yearly look forward post here comes the smaller monthly one. I’ll keep it short and sweet.

My Gaming Goals

  • Level Dark Knight to 70 in FFXIV and complete all Job quests
  • Level Samurai to 70 in FFXIV and complete all Job quests
  • Nintendo GotM: Pokémon LetsGo. Technically cheating this one a bit but I want to finish it up in January
  • Playstation GotM: Spyro 2: RIpto’s Rage. I’m aiming for 100% completion and the platinum trophy here

I want to finish off the big level race I started somewhere in October. I only have Dark Knight (lvl 55) and Samurai (lvl 50) left and I’m positive I can level up both jobs before the end of January. Blue Mage will get introduced into the game aswell and if I finish up leveling these last two jobs I will probably have a jab at that. I still have my leveling buddy for most evenings so chatting away while we do roulettes should, in theory, make time fly by.
As far as the Nintendo and Playstation games of the month go I gave myself some slack to get started on this. I’m well over halfway in the Pokémon game and Spyro shouldn’t take me more than 10-15 hours to complete just like the first game.

Other Goals

  • Book of the Month: Roger Daltrey – My Story (Thanks, Mr. Kibblewhite!)
  • Show of the Month: Luther

I’ve started reading Roger Daltrey’s autobiography and I want to finish it this month. My dad is an avid Who fan and has ingraineed this into me growing up. The book is actually a quite fun read and I am zooming through it with relative ease. I highly recommend people to read it if you have any affiliation with the Who as band.
A show that has been on my radar for a while now is Luther. I’ve never actively followed it when it was being broadcast over the past few years but now it’s on Netflix I may aswell watch what they have to offer. I am planning to watch all seasons this month simply because they don’t have that many episodes so this should be a walk in the park.

I could end up doing more than is on my goals list since I’m giving myself a lot of slack this month but who knows. Maybe this month will be busier for me than I think in advance.

Looking Forward: 2019

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2018 is at an end and 2019 has started. The year has flown by with me accepting a new job, watching my house get built, ramping up my working hours and finally getting the contract I was hoping for. I’d say 2018 has been a quite succesful year on many fronts and I hope to carry this positivity over into 2019 in both my real life and the gaming world.
I don’t really want to make a big “look back” post but instead a big “look forward” one with what I hope to accomplish in 2019.

First off: Live a more healthy and happy lifestyle
I am the first one to admit that I’m lazy. I don’t really enjoy working out and any task I do I will take the route of the least amount of effort. It’s been eating away at me so I want to start changing this step by step so I will be calmer, healthier (both physically and mentally) and more ready to take on life and anything it throws at me. Starting now I’m going to work on the following things:

  • Seriously start losing weight. Right now I weigh in around 81kg (178,5lbs) and I want to drop down to 55kg (121lbs). This is my ideal weight and something I want to strive for to achieve and maintain. This means that I will need to really start working out and eat healthier. The second part should get much easier starting in April because by then I will be moving out and will no longer be on the junkfood heavy diet my dad maintains in his household.
  • Take better care of my skin. I have seriously dry skin almost all of the time. I tend to slack with maintaining skincare and it’s something I should step up on.
  • Plan my days better at work and at home. I tend to take things as they come which means I’m very disorganized. I want to plan my days better so that I know what I want to do on set days. It’s a way to optimize my use of time but also to help me create order in the chaos that is my brain.
  • Learn to do more with make-up and hair. Right now I basically wear mascara and do nothing with my hair except brush it. I want to do more and have different looks for myself. I like looking the best I can so I want to make work of that.

Secondly: Have a succesful move into my own home
In April it’s finally happening, I’m moving into my first self-owned home. This requires preparation on multiple fronts. I need to pick out all the furniture that goes in aswell as start sorting through my stuff here at home. Anything that I deem I don’t need anymore will either go into the trash (when it’s broken, discoloured or just plain too old), donated to either goodwill or friends or maybe sold when it still fetches a decent price. I want to take a few hours per week to focus on this and leave behind as little as possible when I move out.
Ofcourse I’m also planning a few days to pick out furniture, curtains and other necessary stuff aswell as look at insurances, internet providers and electricity companies. All in all I have a very busy time ahead with this.

Books, series and other hobbies
I want to make a goal to read atleast one book a month. I’ve set up a goodreads account and will enter this goal there aswell. I’m probably going to be focused on the Robin Hobb books for completing this but it’s whatever tickles my fancy really.
The same goes for series. I want to watch more Netflix just so I can justify paying for it. I want to discover new shows and movies and maybe blog about those a bit instead of games.
Finally I want to pick up embroidery again and finish a few pieces that I’ve started. I want to assemble all the Nintendo Labo stuff that I bought and be more creative with things in general.

Games
This is where the big focus lies beyond trying to change my lifestyle. There are a few major goals to be had for me this year:

  • In FFXIV I want to level all the available jobs to 70 before the expansion hits early summer. I only have two battle jobs left and then it’s focusing on crafters. I’d really like to be able to just dump all my old gear before the new expansion so I will probably focus a lot on this particular goal for the first six months of this year.
  • In WoW I want to play with my friends and help them at endgame. I want to level atleast one Allied Race to max level on Alliance Side and I want to give my Warrior the love she deserves. I’m sure I will post smaller goals for WoW throughout the year but the big one is to just connect and have fun with people again.
  • Nintendo: I want to pick one game per month on one of my Nintendo consoles to play through. This can be on my 3DS, Switch or WiiU. I own so many games spread across those three systems now that I just really want to start tackling the backlog. For the first few months it’s going to be either a Switch or 3DS game since my WiiU is not plugged in but after I move I want to add the WiiU to the rotation. This means I want to have atleast 12 Nintendo based games finished by the end of the year.
  • PS4: Same as Nintendo really. I want to pick one PS4 game per month to play through and hopefully end the year on 12 games finished. When it comes to games like Spyro or Crash Bandicoot I’m not counting the entire trilogy as one game but the games in the trilogy as separate games.

With bouncing back and forth between two MMO’s and taking a serious jab at my backlog I feel I should have enough material to write about each month and finally feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of my backlog.

All of these goals will help me get a more structured year in where I can actually tell peple that I’ve made progress in life. I want 2019 to be the year where I become a better version of myself both online and offline. I want to get stuff done and I want to aim for happiness.
And I have 365 to accomplish this.

Homes, hacks, patches and funerals

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As you can deduce from the post title I’ve had a very exhausting week. A lot of things happened that are gaming and IRL related and I need to get it all off my chest.

So let’s start with the good!
I had a look at my new apartment on Wednesday. It’s coming really close to being done at this point. My bathroom is as good as ready, all ceilings are ready, and it’s basically putting in the floor heating, floor, kitchen and painting the walls that needs to be done now. They suspect we can move in sometime during April, which is 5 months earlier than the initial date. I’m stoked! I am finally moving out into a neat little apartment and be a complete adult with my own life. Yay me.
I took lots of pictures and got to know some of the neighbours and it was all around good fun. I can’t wait to move there in a few months and I’m already picking out my furniture and making lists of everything I need to buy. I’ll probably do the same thing my coworker did and just take 3 weeks off to move and get settled in.
One of the things I had on my list I can scratch off because to day I picked up my Playstation Pro and traded in my old one. 4k games here I come!

In mentioning the Playstation I come onto my second subject of the post: hacking. More specifically people piggybacking on an existing Playstation Network account. They basically make use of your PSplus subscription and download the games you’ve bought. Apparently this has happened to me sometime during 2016 seeing as in my 5 year PS4 review FIFA 17 suddenly showed up as one of my top 3 most played games… While I don’t own it. After some digging I figured I’d been the victim of the specific type of hack I just described. There’s never been any purchases on my account that weren’t made by me but now with me getting a new Playstation I’ve taken a ton of measurements to make sure my account is freshly protected. I have had 2-step verification for a while but I specifically went into my Sony account and deactivated all devices, changed my PW and set up a new security question. I also took all payment details off the account. If someone tries anything funny now I’ll notice and hopefully this should keep my account safe for the future. It was kind of a scare to realize my account has been used by someone else but luckily nothing malicious every happened so there’s that.

In the realm of gaming I’ve not been able to put that much time into games this week. My warrior is level 68 in FFXIV and slooowly going towards level 70. I’ve been meaning to pick up the second game of Spyro but really couldn’t be arsed to sit down and play. I’m also aware that patch 8.1 is out in World of Warcraft and honestly I’ve not even been interested in logging on and seeing what Blizzard has added for the patch. I will probably poke my head in somewhere around Christmas because I have a week off then and enough time on my hands to play a few more games than just FFXIV and Spyro. Square Enix released the 4.5 patch site for FFXIV so I guess that’s a thing aswell.

Finally some sad news. I’ve been having a few ill family members, some more serious than others. One of them was one of my aunts who has been fighting a lung disease for most of her life. Unfortunately during Friday night she passed away while being surrounded with loved ones. The funeral should be either coming Friday or Saturday. If it’s Friday I probably won’t be able to make it due to work, Dutch time off around funerals is surprisingly strict and will completely depend on your manager when it comes to funerals of non-immediate family. I hope I can make it so I can say goodbye but I’ll guess I will see once the date for the funeral is set.