March 2018 Gaming Goals

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Oh, is February over already? It feels like this year is going by way too fast. I was out of town for over a week this month, so that’s my excuse for not meeting all of my gaming goals.

February Goal Review:

WoW: Do all the wings of Antorus LFR. Done! I barely remember it, because LFR is not that memorable. At least it unlocked the new story stuff in Silithus.

Get exalted with one of the Argus factions. Done! I actually finished them both!

Hollow Knight: Get an ending. Nope.  I barely picked this game back up.

FFXIV: Catch up on the new MSQ, dungeons, and raids. Partial Credit. I have caught up on the questline and dungeons, but still haven’t done the new raid stuff.

Pyre: Finish the game. Nope. Although, I still have a couple days left to do this before our game of the month podcast.

March Goals:

WoW: Finish off the TBC raid transmog sets for my priest. This is pretty RNG dependent, so I’ll count this as a win if I at least run both raids I need every week this month.

Level one of my allied race alts to 60. I unlocked all 4 available allied races, and made an alt of each. Now I just need to decide which one I want to level first.

FFXIV: Catch up enough to run the new raid stuff. I don’t feel very motivated to do this, but I would really like to at least see these once before the next patch cycle.

Furnish my house. Yes I bought a house when they were re-opened to individual buyers. Now I need to spend even more gil to make it feel a little more homey.

Diablo 3: Help my friends get their murder bears. I finished the basic season journey and got my cosmetic rewards right away, but I have a few friends who are not quite there yet. I want to make sure I help them out before I get bored and wander off until season 14.

Monster Hunter World: Catch up to my friends. This feels slightly impossible since everyone is still pushing forward. If I want to be able to do relevant things with my friends I’m going to have to try.

I finished more of my February goals than I thought. Let’s hope I can do the same thing this month!

AggroChat #192 – Essentials of Grind

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Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Nephsys and Tamrielo

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This week we went a little off course from our normal show.  In truth we are all largely playing the same games we have been playing for the last few weeks.  Instead Ashgar proposed a topic where we discussed what makes a grind work in a game.  This eventually devolves into a discussion of mostly Monster Hunter World because it seems to have a really great grind mechanic.  We also discuss traditional JRPG grinding, MMO grinding, and a bit about why the Destiny 2 grind isn’t really working out.  Tune in and grind your faces off!

Topics Discussed:

  • Grinding in Games

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Reading Challenge #82: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

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I had plenty of time to read while traveling last week. That means it’s time to update my challenge list again. This time I’ll be talking about The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, first published in 2001.

This book was charmingly odd. It has a bit of everything from time travel to alternate history, with a dash of steampunk thrown in for fun. The plot follows Thursday Next, a literary detective and veteran of the alternative history Crimean War. She gets recruited to a higher-ranked agency to help catch Acheron Hades, a wanted terrorist who Thursday had as a professor in college. If you think the name is silly and a little on the nose, it is. The names, and the general worldbuilding in this novel, make the whole thing feel off-kilter. It takes some getting used to but the effect serves the story. This is a world where some very strange things can and will happen.

Thursday confronts Hades, but he escapes through the use of his magical powers. She is left injured and reeling from the loss of several of her team members from the mission. While in the hospital she encounters herself, from the near future, who tells her to transfer back to her home town. When she does, she gets sent on a path that eventually leads her back to Hades. But first, we’re introduced to some of her family. Most importantly for the plot, her uncle is an inventor who has devised a way to let people enter into books.

Hades, being a villain of the mustache-twirling variety, steals the device and murders a minor character from a Dickens novel because he can. Since he had stolen the first edition, the effects of the murder are rewritten in every copy of the book around the world. He makes his demands, and holds as hostage the titular character from Jane Eyre. Thursday must confront him again, rescue Jane, and return her to the novel. She also has to do all this while evading and thwarting the government-driving megacorp that wants to steal the Prose Portal for their weapons division.

 This book was so odd it took me quite a bit longer than usual to get into it. However once I did, I was hooked. There were really only two things that diminished my enjoyment of it, and they were both my personal failings, not the book’s. I think I would have gotten much more out of it if I knew more about the political climate in the UK. I also know I would have enjoyed it much more if I had ever read Jane Eyre. Instead I sort of vaguely knew of the characters, but I didn’t really know their stories or care about them. It made the core of the book’s climax a bit hollow for me. That said, even without knowing the source material at all I still thought The Eyre Affair was a fun read, and would recommend it.

TL;DR: A madcap detective story in an alternate history with a literary bent. It was fun and entertaining, but I’m betting I would have liked it even more if I had read any of the novels that feature in the plot.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Rating: 4/5 stars

Next up: The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson

Dragged onto the Bandwagon

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I’ve made friends with some beautiful, amazing folks through playing video games. Sometimes this is a double-edged sword however. For example, over the past few weeks a couple of my friends have engaged in a relentless peer-pressure campaign to get me to play the new Monster Hunter with them. It’s not that I don’t want to play the game, I desperately do. However, money, time, and personal reasons meant I was planning to wait for the PC release. Unfortunately waiting was making me miss out on all the fun of roaming around murdering lizards with my friends right now. So I have been deluged with videos of palicos being adorable and stories of monster slaying and nonsense.

Anyway last night the dam finally broke and I found myself logging in and being overwhelmed by character creation (how do I choose what my adorable kitty pal will look they’re all so cute???) and weapon options (I don’t know what most of these do and I don’t have the patience to try them all before I go murder monsters). Thanks Bel.

I only got to play for a few hours but I can already tell this game has the potential to reach obsession levels. It seems to have a good mix of satisfying gameplay, crafting, and cosmetic goodies. The biggest thing I’ve killed on my own was a great jagras so I’m obviously still figuring things out but it was incredibly satisfying. I’m learning how the monsters work and I’m getting better at my chosen weapon (bow). It felt great to go from taking over half an hour to kill one while getting intensely beat up by it, to tracking one down and taking it out in a few minutes without taking a scratch. If the game keeps that core loop of learning and progress I will definitely be in for the long haul.

I can’t wait to really sink my teeth into this game over the weekend and start tackling some bigger prey.