Making Plans

Spring came in with a bit of a rush around here. Seven posts in the first five days of April! Good going but it seems to have tapped my inspiration dry.

Scratching around for ideas I thought of all those posts I keep reading where people say what they did last month and what they plan to do next month. I've always wondered how they know. I rarely have a clue what I'm going to be doing half an hour from now, much less next week.

It would be useful, though, having a record. Maybe not of what I plan to do but what I'd like to do or even what I am doing instead of what I expected I would be. So in that vein...


What I'm Playing

Guild Wars 2.

Coming up five years this summer. Five years right now, if you count from the beta weekends. Sometimes I think I'm mostly playing because Mrs Bhagpuss plays but the plain fact is I still turn to GW2 first most days, whether Mrs Bhagpuss happens to be playing or not.

Doing my dailies is quite literally part of my daily routine now. I do them for three accounts every. single. day. Without fail. I like to knock a couple of accounts off between breakfast and going to work and then do the third in the evening. I am trying to resist adding the free account to the list. There have to be limits.

WvW is dire these days and yet still ridiculously entertaining more often than not. ArenaNet seem to have literally no idea what to do with the game mode. They fiddled with it 'til it broke. Now they're whistling and looking in the other direction.

Any point or purpose the "competition" ever had is currently in freefall since the combined body-blows of the systematic destruction of Server Identity and the hamfisted manual adjustments to scoring. Nevertheless the day to day, or more particularly hour to hour, engagements remain as compulsively exciting as ever.

Somehow World Bosses are back on my menu. I've been doing Tequatl every day, twice if I can fit it in. I generally manage a Frozen Maw and a Claw of Jormag most evenings. I'm not quite sure how that happened or why, other than it's fun.

Overall, GW2 is just incredibly comfortable and easy to play. Especially after a long day at work it's about as relaxing as a nice, warm bath and frequently about as much excitement as I can manage.

Lord of the Rings Online.

Completely unexpected. Never had the slightest intention of revisiting Middle Earth this spring, let alone leveling up two characters. It's become that game, the one I play at the end of the evening. Mostly I just do tasks, wander about, kill whatever gets in my way, do some exploring.

The zones are enormous. I remembered they were big but not how big. It takes forever to get anywhere, not just because of the distance from one end to the other but also the incredible topological complexity. Everything is layered and there's frequently no quick way from A to B. You have to go up and around and down and through and back again.

I've found lots of new nooks and crannies in zones I thought I knew. Not having quests to lead me by the nose means I go off the beaten track a lot and there's a lot of wilderness out there. I say not having quests - there are some. I can't work out why some are allowed for free, or not always. I do them if I find them but mostly I'm my own boss. It's refreshing.

Final Fantasy XIV

If the return to LotRO was a surprise this is more of a stunning blow. I pretty much thought I'd never play FFXIV again. I've logged in most days and sometimes I've played for a few hours. The free trial has turned FFXIV into something not unlike the game I thought it might be for a week or two back when I bought it.

Not sure if this will last but I imagine I'll dip in and out indefinitely from now on.

EQ2

This was my late night MMO until LotRO rudely pushed it aside. It's still hanging in there. I log in a couple or three times a week.

EQ2 will always be in play, though. I'll always drop in for the holidays. I even did quite a bit this year for Bristlebane Day and that's about my least favorite of the big ticket events. Any major update is going to pull me back in; expansions generally mean four to six weeks of playing full sessions most days. Here for the long run.

Everquest

I did play a little last month. Did a bubble and a half of 92 (or is it 93?) on my Magician. Another MMO I'll play as long as I'm able, although it tends to be in small doses these days.

What I Thought I'd Be Playing

Aion

I was enjoying Aion. It seemed like a solid, oldish school MMO with enough character, polish and content to hold my attention for a fair while. Only other MMOS have more of all of those things and something was always going to come along to distract me. I just didn't expect it to be an old something.

I will probably come back to this one. Maybe.

Revelation Online

Similar to Aion although I thought it had a quirkier style and it certainly better looks. Not a game I need to play in any way whatsoever but one that could always fill an idle moment. I expected to get a few weeks out of it, like I did with ArcheAge, Black Desert and Blade and Soul. Didn't happen. Law of diminishing returns, I guess.

What I Ought To Be Playing

World of Warcraft 

I got Legion for my birthday and that was six months ago. I really ought to use it before the next expansion arrives.

DCUO

This one's not really my fault. I was playing and enjoying it and then Daybreak trailed the complete combat and leveling revamp so I thought I'd pause it and wait for that...and I'm still waiting. Just do it, already!

Project: Gorgon

I kickstarted it but so far I don't believe I've even linked my account or replied to the email or whatever it is that I'm supposed to do. It was meant to go onto Steam Early Access, what, a year ago? Supposedly when that happens I won't be able to log in with my old details but since I haven't logged in for a year anyway that's not going to be a problem. I guess I'll wait until something actually happens and work it out then.


Dragon Nest

I get the feeling this one might not be around much longer so saying "I'll get back to it one day" probably isn't a solid game-plan. It's a really fun game and I was making good progress. It'd be a shame if I finally got round to making time for a session and found it wasn't there any more.

What I Could Be Playing

Rift, Allods, Black Desert, ArchAge, Blade and Soul...

They're all installed and the icons are there on the desktop. Probably about all I'm going to see of them for the foreseeable future but then a month ago I would have said the same about LotRO and FFXIV.



What I'm Going To Be Playing

Secret World Legends

Mostly out of curiosity and because everyone else will be. Unless it turns out to be very substantially easier, faster and more casual-friendly than TSW, though, I struggle to see why I'd play it over the original. Which I'm not playing. At least there's bound to be a blog post or several in it.

What I Wish I Was Playing

The freaking second GW2 expansion!

How much longer, ANet? How much longer? At least start the PR machine rolling so we can speculate. I googled for leaks or guesses about it yesterday and the very few I could find were mostly over a year old. I come from an SOE/DBG background, not Blizzard. I can't cope with these 2-3 year expansion schedules. Bash 'em out! Quantity over quality every time! You can fix it up as we play - it's the MMO way!

That'll do for now and I didn't even mention the mobile and non-mmo stuff. I'll save that for next time I can't think of anything to write about.