And yet another minute…

Well, I think we answered the question I asked in my last post about whether I’d actually keep posting or not since I was out of the habit after having my pc crash when I played games for so long, and that answer is a big fat no.

Quick summary of what’s happened since last May is .. holding pattern with the occasional Warframe mission or FFXIV roulette. Tried out Guild Wards 2 for a few months but it never quite hooked me. the classes were varied and interesting and yet somehow none of them ever quite seemed to “click” with me.

I did about 1.5 months in New World when it released. I really didn’t plan to, as I was in an early test alpha — so early that all we had for weapons was the sword/shield. We got spears toward the end of that test. I think we might have had hatchets too. No “special skills” it was all about movement, heavy attacks vs the light combo (which made mobs stagger on the 2nd hit so you could actually get your 3rd hit off), and dodging or blocking. We could even build our own forts in claimed lands and build farms and whatnot in them so we could do all our harvesting in safety. Except for metals and oil. Still hadda run out and find those. You ran faster in light armor and faster still with your weapon sheathed, so anyone wanting pvp couldn’t catch you went with that. Inventory space was all about weight then too and a higher STR attribute increased carry weight, so me trying to be a miner/blacksmith put all my attribute points into STR and CON like a tank, despite running everywhere in light armor so i could outrun anyone trying to chase me and steal my ore….

Anyway…. reminiscing aside, I didn’t really care for the game in the test alpha, and even after they announced after it that they’d be adding pve elements instead of making it a pvp-only survival sandbox, I didn’t think there was enough game there to make it successful. But when it came out and people were talking about it and the pve actually sounded somewhat interesting I jumped on the bandwagon. Having more weapon choices was kinda fun, and a questline with a story was at least semi-interesting, but the inability to build your own base seemed like a big loss. Taking out the stagger that player hits caused so you can’t get your combos off anymore, while the mobs still stagger you felt like a huge step backward in combat fun. The revamped attribute system is better, especially with removing the inventory connection to the STR attribute. Making you not have to spend valuable leveling points in mining and blacksmithing so that you could just focus them on combat stats instead is also a plus.

And I’m still rambling about it….I didn’t feel any differently about the released game than I did the alpha. It was all right, but not great, nothing I wanted to keep playing, so… yeah. Done with that.

FFXIV released Endwalker and I really haven’t cared about it either. I enjoy watching “Lulu’s Highlights” of streamers playing it, but for myself… I read 2-3 books a week, and if FFXIV’s story was a novel, then I’d rate it decent to good, but that’s about it, so I’m definitely not one to fall all over myself about “the amazing writing” or anything like that. It find it to be enjoyable, but that’s really about it. Even so, I find myself disliking trials so very much that I tend to roadblock when a story trial appears. For Endwalker I’ve pushed to the end, but still have the final dungeon and trial to do before finishing the 6.0 MSQ. Despite that, I’ve got all the magic classes to 90 and am working on the ranged physical. Bard’s done, and I think I finished Machinist, but I’m not sure (showing you just how little I care…), and I still need to do Dancer after that either way. But I find myself just picking at the game here and there, playing an MSQ roulette maybe 4 or 5 times a week for leveling purposes and that’s about it.

And of course the new hotness is Lost Ark which I’ve been going at pretty hard for the past week or so. I bought a founder’s pack and got in the early access, but just picked at it then either. It wasn’t until last weekend that I decided to push at it. I got a sorceress to 50, but wasn’t quite feeling it. I’ve got a bard to 50 now also and am enjoying it, but it’s still not quite “clicking” either. I find that I tend to prefer ranged classes to melee anymore, so I’m thinking maybe a sharpshooter or a gunslinger to try next? We’ll see. I still have a lot of unlocks I need to do, so I think I’ll stick with the bard for a while yet and just focus on finishing through the story and working up my gear and the roster-level things first.