A Week in an MMO Life: Time away

Where most of my time has been spent in game.

The last two weeks I haven't played World of Warcraft or any MMO much.  As is usually the case, it isn't so much the game as it is not knowing what I want to do and real life getting in the way. 

For most of the last week I have been visiting my parents and they don't have internet access.  I visited Chik-fil-a one day to use their free wifi in order to do my garrison runs on my 5 characters that have a garrison and make sure none of the mail I send between characters gets deleted but I have managed to do without.  It has been good to spend time with my parents and let them get to know my youngest daughter better.

Prior to that, I still wasn't playing much.  I raised Kanter's (my Hunter) iLevel to over 635 with a nice upgrade from a garrison quest and I have plenty of parts for everything I want except for my gun upgrades for Kanter.  I finally raised my x to level two for my priest, Kantra, so she can have a tank as a companion.  It does make questing and gathering a lot easier on her and I now plan to do the same for my mage.  I don't think it would make much of a difference for Kanter since he hasn't had issues anything he has done, but for a cloth not pet class, I can see it as a big help.

This should have encouraged me to level my priest since it'll be easier and it will give me access to the Savage Blood from her barn needed for the gun upgrade mentioned above but I just haven't allocated the time to do it.  I also still have four Heroic Dungeon quests that I would like to get done with Kanter but I really don't like queueing for anything in WoW.  Part of my reluctance is that since I don't play that much I don't know the fights and I don't have confidence in my ability to contribute.  Also, I'd rather use my limited play time in an environment where I know I won't run across bad attitudes.

Since I started this blog, I wanted to be able to enjoy an MMO where I only spent one night playing it in a dedicated way.  That was the origin of this blog's name.  Right now, I am squeezing in time to do my garrison activities and, while I enjoy that, too, I don't have time where I am making real progress and once I get back home, I will try to set aside a night to do that.

A New Year: 2014 Data and 2015 Thoughts

2015 is here!  Happy New Year!

I have been reading a lot of end of year summaries and I decided there is value in being able to look at a post and see a review of the previous year and thoughts on the year to come for myself.  Hopefully others will enjoy it as well.

This Blog

Blog posts total:  66 (not counting this one)
Blog posts in 2014: 28
Blog posts in 2013: 24
Blog posts in 2012: 14 (My first year blogging)

Eventually I'd like to post once a week but I'm fine with just over every other week and I'm glad I made a few more posts this year than last.  It shows that I'm not losing interest.  This is a casual gaming blog and it wouldn't be casual if I was posting every day.

Games Played

As of 12/31/2014, Raptor shows my game time as:

Dungeon Defenders		6.5 hrs
Hearthstone		1 hr
Civilization V	1 day	2 hrs
Mass Effect		2 hrs
Minecraft		1.25 hrs
World of Warcraft	43 days	4 hrs
Cook, Serve, Delicious		2.75 hrs
Dust		1.25 hrs
Total	44 days	19.25 hrs

I didn't record these hours last year, so I don't know what was from 2013.  Not surprisingly, World of Warcraft dominated my time (96% of my time recorded by Raptor).  As you can see I sampled several other games but other than Civilization V and possibly Dungeon Defenders I didn't really get involved in them.

Other games played:
Final Fantasy XIV
Don't Starve Together
Plant's vs Zombies (phone and Kindle)
The Tribez (phone)

I'd estimate I played a few hours each of Final Fantasy XIV and Don't Starve Together (Beta).  I have set up tracking for Don't Starve since I expect to be playing it more with my daughter.  I'm not counting casual games like Sudoku or 2048 (my blog, my rules).

Other 2014 events

Gamersgate was a big event in 2014.  I hope we have confronted the ugly side of gaming and that it didn't just become a chance for many people to talk to those that agree with them and entrench their positions.  If enough people condemn the treatment of women within some games and by many in the game community it will change, even if it won't go away all at once.  Even though I don't play as much as many others, I still consider myself a gamer and that we shouldn't let some people usurp that label with actions I and most others who play games won't accept.

Looking forward to in 2015

I'll be interested to see how long I keep playing Warlords of Draenor.  I have exceeded 630 iLevel so I could raid with my guild, but I'm not sure I want to.

The only new MMO I think I might play is Shroud of the Avatar.  It is possible I will go back and play Star Wars the Old Republic.  I have two characters there and since it's free to play it would be pretty easy to try it out again.

Once my activity in WoW settles down it may be a chance for me to enjoy some single player games or games with my daughters again.  We played Dungeon Defenders and Minecraft some (two of my daughters now play Minecraft, but I've never played it much myself). I have 24 games on my Steam wish list but even though many just went on sale, I didn't think I'd be playing them soon, so I decided to wait.  As of today, the most likely one for me to get is Banished but if I get in a strategy mood and don't want to play Civilization, I might play Age of Wonders 3 once the price goes down to $10 or less.  I played a lot of the first two versions.  I would be surprised if I pay much more than $10 for any single player game (I paid more than that for Don't Starve, but I received two copies, so I still paid less than $10 per copy).

I enjoy gaming and I expect it to remain a part of my life, but I have learned to adapt it to the other things happening around it in my life, rather than the other way around.  Whatever 2015 holds, I am sure it won't be something I expect, but that is one of the pleasures of life.