Gracie Status Update

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.

Valentione’s Fun

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Valentione’s Fun

I don’t always do the seasonal events in FFXIV. They are usually fun and silly, so I enjoy them. Somehow I don’t quite have the same completionist streak in that game that I do in other MMOs though. Anyway I was totally prepared to skip the current “Valentione’s” event, until my friend asked if I wanted to queue for it together.

Valentione’s FunI’m super glad I said yes! A lot of times in FFXIV the seasonal events have you either do solo quests, or run fates out in the world. This one had you queue for a two-person instance to see how “attuned” your characters are to each other. We had to solve a maze while tethered together, and then do a card patching game. We ended up being a favorable match! I never doubted it, we’re two awesome femmeRoes.

Valentione’s FunIt was quick and fun and at the end of it we each got one half of this ridiculous chair mount. We took them out for a spin together. They are so ridiculous and I love them. They each have one silly wing on the back, and they can fly. I am so happy I took the time to do this event with a friend!

February 2018 Gaming Goals

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Another month of gaming is in the rear view mirror. How did I do on my goals, and what should I do in February? Let’s find out!

January Goals in Review:

WoW: See every Legion raid at least once, even if it’s just LFR. Nope. I’m a bit closer now. I’ve done everything except Antorus. I just need to work up the nerve for a few more rounds of LFR.

Destiny 2: Finish the Osiris storyline. Done!

Diablo 3: Finish that last set dungeon already dang it. FINALLY DONE!!!

Horizon Zero Dawn: Start playing the new DLC. Technically done. (I started but didn’t get very far)

Hollow Knight: Get to an ending. Nope. I mean I’m at the last boss maybe? But haven’t been able to defeat it.

February Goals:

WoW: Do all the wings of Antorus LFR. This will finish off my leftover goal from January.

Get exalted with one of the Argus factions. I haven’t done the math, but hopefully it is possible to do this in one month. I’m revered with one, and honored with the other for now. I want to get at least one finished before I preorder and start thinking about allied race alts.

Hollow Knight: Get an ending. This is one of those things I just need to throw a few dedicated hours at. I am technically at an ending, but want to upgrade my nail one last time before beating my head against the boss fight any more.

FFXIV: Catch up on the new MSQ, dungeons, and raids. As I noted earlier this week, I’m still a few ilevels away from being able to run the new raids. A month should be plenty of time to get caught up.

Pyre: Finish the game. This is my pick for the Aggrochat game of the month, so I should probably finish it before we record that show.

Will I get any of these things done? Who knows!!

Patch Days are so “Fun”

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I was super excited about FFXIV’s new patch that arrived yesterday. As is often the case with FFXIV, there was so much new stuff that I couldn’t even remember everything that was coming. I ran home from work and hurried to get everything installed and ready so I could try out new stuff with a friend. And then I hit a brick wall.

I logged in and spent a few minutes unlocking the new raid first thing. I really wanted to see it, since I love FFXIV’s raids and this one has bosses based on one of my favorite FF games. Raids are also the only way I could play with my friend with us both in our preferred roles (we’re both healer mains). Unfortunately once I got it unlocked, I couldn’t actually queue. My item level is too low.

We ended up running one of the new dungeons instead, since I could actually do that and they drop gear that will help get me closer to being able to join the raid. My mood was ruined though, and I suspect I wasn’t very good company. Instead of being excited to see the new dungeon, I was annoyed that I had to play SMN instead of SCH, and that I was missing out on the raid.

Once we finished I ended up spending some time messing around with the new glamour system and that made me feel a bit better. I’m hoping it will be relatively painless to get geared up enough to catch up. This exact issue is one of the reasons I bounced off of FFXIV last expansion, but I’m not quite ready to give up on it again yet.

The kicker of this story is that after my disappointment and bad mood I went to look at the shiny new races they added to WoW…and couldn’t. There was a bug going around where none of your characters would show up on the server list or login screen, and I was lucky enough to experience it. I took it as a sign that I should do something else, so I spent the rest of the night working on my creative thing for the day instead.

Here’s hoping tonight is a better night for gaming!