December Gaming Check In

 

Emerald Dream

Another post to help me keep track of my gaming.  I see it was approximately three months since my last post, maybe that'll be my new normal.  Then again, I'm playing World of Warcraft again, so maybe I'll feel compelled to write more.

So, after about a 10 month absense, I decided to resubscribe to World of Warcraft.  The main driver for me was that 10.2 (Guardian's of the Dream), the last major patch for Dragonflight was live.  It is also true that the announcement of the next three expansions starting with The War Within at Blizzcon made me feel more hopeful about World of Warcraft's future with Microsoft.

Going through the 10.1 (Zarlek Cavern) and 10.2 (Emerald Dream) content was pretty quick on Kanter and gave me normal flying which helped me get my Alchemy and Herbalism to max level (100).  Now that I have it, I'm not sure that I'll use it much but it isn't something I like to do with each expansion.

Once that was done, I wanted to get up to level 60 on Kantro, my warrior.  I was hoping to do it with the Necrolords Covenant in Maldraxxus but when I used Chromie time to set myself back there (it had moved me to Battle for Azeroth as the default) I didn't have any of the Covenant quests available.  It looks like with the Dragonflight expansion, they for some reason moved the Covenant quests to level 60 at which point it makes sense to be doing Dragonflight.  In any case, he was able to pretty quickly move from level 52 to level 60 in Shadowlands doing a few daily quests and has now moved on the Dragonflight.  Maybe I'll go back to try to see the other Covenant stories but it's doubtful.  Even though I've seen pretty much all the Battle for Azeroth stories, I'll probably use it to get to level 60 my characters in the 50s.  If I end up doing it before The War Within, which is doubtful.

I will probably get Kanter to level 11 renown with the Iskaara Tuskaar since I enjoy the fishing and cooking aspect but I'm not sure I'll extend when my subscription ends in January.

In other gaming, I've dabbled in different games on the Playstation 5, but nothing has stuck since I did Horizon Forbidden West and the expansion in the first half of the year.  I still have my daily Animal Crossing session (and out of my 162 hours on the Switch in my year end summary, 160 of them were playing Animal Crossing).  I'm doubtful how much I'll play in 2024 since I've now seen all the seasons having started in December 2022.

For any of you still reading my blog after all the gaps, I hope you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a good year of gaming in 2024.

August Check-in

 

My Diablo IV Bear Druid with two Wolf friends

August is here which means Blaugust among those I follow.  I knew I was on vacation for the first two weeks of August and the first week I'd be away so I didn't have much inclination to join.  That said, I'm happy for the others who are still blogging and for Belghast for keeping this tradition going that I have participated in in previous years.

July saw the release of Diablo IV which I bought on release for the Playstation 5.  I only have a gaming laptop these days and I'm not inclined to update it often, so for new releases, my Playstation is my best bet (and it wasn't cheap, but it was much cheaper than a current gaming PC or laptop).  I played it with one of my daughters and we were enjoying it but ran into a difficult spike and one of the early bosses.  I'm pretty sure we could work around it but it's more difficult because we have leveled past where we are expected to be but don't have the gear that would match our level.  I also chose Barbarian thinking it would be a good companion for a more squishy character my daughter would choose, but I'm thinking most of the other options would have been more fun.  I've played gone past that in my solo play through on a Druid and just got my wolf companions so I'm sure I'll have more fun on that character.

I did make an exception to get Palia on my computer and even hooked it up to the TV so my daughter and I could play together more easily (by playing together, I mean one of us watching while the other controls the character).  My daughter plans to be an entomologist so 'Bug Scouts' was a big draw.  We caught our first bugs but haven't played much since.

At this point, I'm excited to get Baldur's Gate 3 when it comes out for the Playstation in early September.  I'm hoping my daughter will enjoy playing it with me since it supports 2 player co-op.  Besides Diablo, I'm still playing Animal Crossing but I think I've done most of what I want to do. I've dabbled in a few free or cheap games recently.  I got Oxenfree for $2 on the Switch and played it enough to get an idea what it was like but I'm not sure I'll go back to finish it.

Tipa and Wilhelm both reminded me it is nice to have a record of what they've been playing so I'll try to make these periodic posts to keep track of my gaming life.

Horizon Forbidden West Complete

End of Burning Shores

Mainly a note that I recently completed Horizon Forbidden West and the Burning Shores expansion.  I played it on Easy mode since I only have limited gaming time.  I did very much enjoy it and thought it was worth it, particularly since my daughter played it as well.  I did almost all of the side quests but didn't do very many of the collections.

Finishing it made me feel justified to purchase Diablo IV.  I played the original game not long after it came out and played a lot of Diablo II.  I didn't play much Diablo III (played a little with my daughters but they didn't want to keep playing) but thought it was worth seeing the new game.  I have a coop game with my daughter and another I'm playing solo but we haven't gone that far into the campaign.  So far she seems interested in continuing.

I am still playing Animal Crossing New Horizons almost every day.  I felt like I had done most of the unlocks, but two more happened in the last few weeks though I have no idea what triggered them.  I started playing around Christmas and I know there will be the opportunity for mushrooms in November so I probably keep playing until it's been about a year just to see the different events.

Dragonflight Paused (for now)

 

Max level (again)

Nothing major to post but I wanted to note where I left Dragonlands and what else I'm playing.

It took me about 2 weeks to reach max level in Dragonlands and another week playing less to finish the initial questline.  Generally, I like it and I even enjoyed some of the activities like finding lost ducks but, once I didn't have a goal I stopped logging in.  Eventually I realized my subscription was going to expire soon, I check, it had expired the day before and I decided it was I sign I didn't need to be playing now.

I wasn't subscribed since I had a free month and I wasn't sure whether to subscribe or, if I did, whether to subscribe for more than one month.  This decided it for me.  I have a vacation scheduled for the  middle of February so I'll probably resubscribe after that for a month and see how much I play.  I'm interested in leveling some alts and, possibly, my Dracthyr.  There is also a roadmap (good for them) and there should be some new content coming out but I'm not very interested in the Trading Post that just came out and I'm not sure if anything else will be available in March.

I did go back and play some more of Horizon Forbidden West.  I hadn't played in months and I was just at a critical plot point when I left.  With some looking up controls, looking up hints, and replaying parts, I was able to finish this section and move on to the next section of the plot but it was frustrating.  Hopefully I can play more regularly so I don't need to relearn it again.  I'll need to decide if I want to do some of the side quests I skipped to increase my level and, hopefully, allow more people to participate later in the game (at least that is how it worked in Horizon Zero Dawn).

I am also still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons most days.  There were pretty clear next steps up until about a week ago but now there is a more vague 'improve your island' in order to have a concert there.  I'm not even sure I want the concert so I'm not as motivated as I was.

Back in World of Warcraft for Dragonflight and other Gaming

 

Side content in World of Warcraft Dragonflight

As has been my pattern, I bought the latest World of Warcraft expansion once it came at a discount (and I've been posting very little when not playing it).  This time, it was 30 days of game time rather than dollars off the expansion, but it comes to the same thing.  I bought it just before Christmas when it went on sale (in addition to three free days that you could play a Dracthyr (the new 'sort of' dragon characters).  They start at level 68 and the introductory story was fine (didn't seem quite as elaborate as the Pandarens (race), Death Knights (class), or Demon Hunters (class), that were previously introduced.  But I was ok with that.  Nice to get an extra character that I can use in the new zones.

I think I played for two days and reached level 61 and decided I wanted to play Kanter, my first character, a hunter, so I went ahead and purchased the expansion then.  It was nice to know I was going to have a good long break where I could explore the game when I wasn't working.  My break ends today as this is posted (on 1/4) though I have now caught COVID so my work will be limited tomorrow.

I thought the first zone, Waking Shores, was very good.  I did all the quests to get the two achievements and it seemed like pretty much the perfect length and kept me interested.  Scenery was very nice as well.  However, that immediately changes with the second zone, Ohn'ahran Plains.  One sign of how uninteresting I found it was there is a point where they send you on quests about the four tribes of centaurs and then they ask you questions about them.  I had no idea, even though I had read the quest text.  I looked them up without any remorse since I'm really not interested.  There has only been one dragon so far in this zone and I'm ready to get back to the dragon stories.  I'm not sure why they decided to do this but it feels like filler.  Maybe it can't be all dragons all the time (though it might have been better that way).

I'll wait to fully judge the zone when I'm done with it (I'd guess I'm half way at level 66) but I'm already looking forward to the next zone or at least when we get back to the green dragons (ostensibly why I'm there).  My hunter seems like easy mode as usual and I'm definitely ok with that.  I know I've died through inattention but nice just to be able to play the game and not worry about min/maxing.

In other gaming, I bought one of my daughter's who will be going to college next year her own Switch which meant I could play Animal Crossing on the old one.  I'm finding it very relaxing, just playing it a little bit every morning.  Reading some things online, it seems like people tried to find the shortest way to get things done but I'm glad to take it at a relaxed pace.  I was able to visit my daughter's island, which was nice as well.  Gathering iron for the next quest is taking some time but the game doesn't penalize you for just playing a little bit every day.   However, it was quite fun to have a house and the museum on the same day a few days ago.

I'm a little stuck on what to play on our PlayStation 5.  I was primarily playing Ghost of Tsushima.  I think the game so far has been great but it seems like it would take forever to finish it, particularly since my primary objective is to visit all the fox shrines.  Really good ideas in this game but I just don't have the focus for it now.  I stopped playing Horizon Forbidden West pretty early in the game and I think I'll go back to it but there are also so may free games I have available on the PlayStation through Plus Extra that part of me would just like to dabble in them (tops are probably the two Spiderman games, the three Mass Effect games, and the Bioshock games but there are many).  I was also really enjoying the original Borderlands game with my two daughters and it would be nice to go back to that.  Right now they are focused on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.  It's been nice having Pokemon be a annual Christmas tradition for the two of them and, now that we have two Switches, there is more they can do together.

Thanks to anyone still reading my blog after my many breaks.  I hope all is well.  I believe COVID will be a relatively short disruption (I'm very glad to be fully vaccinated).  I do enjoy writing when I'm actually playing and MMO.  Not so much otherwise.