Syp’s gaming goals for November 2023

October 2023 in review

• On the surface this month was several weeks of reliable, routine MMO adventures. But under the surface, I continued a trend this year of casting about in familiar and unfamiliar games to try to find any sort of attraction, excitement, and… future possibilities? There were a lot of one-and-done logins this month to take a personal assessment of a title, only to leave it be for now.
• So what did I play? We’ll start with LOTRO, which was quite the eventful month. I pushed hard to get my Minstrel all the way to the level cap and end of the epic in preparation for Umbar (happily achieving this). Secondary to that was rolling my very first Mariner and trying out this class for myself. So far I’m just level 20, but that slow speed is mostly due to really taking my time and doing all the zone quests.
• I spent some time in WoW Classic, first wrapping up some adventures in the hardcore mode and then rolling a new Draenei Shammy for Wrath Classic. Both of these showed me that my interest in WoW, such as it is, definitely lies with Classic these days and not retail.
• I returned to Fallout 76 with a new character and started to have an absolutely great time in the game. This time around I’m really taking my time and fully exploring all these environments — all in my cardboard robot armor.
• New World finally saw my face again after the initial expansion crush and some login problems. I picked up my level 27 character and continued through the second zone, eventually joining the Syndicate faction. Purple for life, yo.
• My casual go-to this month was Rimworld, because it’s such a relaxing, zen-like game when I don’t want to think too much.
• I did not end up playing a lick of Baldur’s Gate 3, despite trying to work up to it many times. I have a real mental block there and haven’t connected very well with that title. I want to tho!

Gaming goals for November 2023

• With the Corsairs of Umbar expansion (probably) coming out this month in LOTRO, taking my Minstrel through it is my primary focus. I don’t want to rush, so I’m not setting any hard goals. Just, y’know, see all the sights, do all the quests, and deed deed deed. I’m really looking forward to it!
• For New World, my main desire is to get into a regular pattern of play and really savor all of the quests and areas. I’d like to be getting through zones a bit quicker, but we’ll see how that goes. And more Fallout 76, just keep exploring the map.
• For WoW, I’m letting my sub lapse until I see what comes out of Blizzcon. If I see an exciting future for retail or (especially) Classic, the chances are good that I’ll come back. But if it’s predictable or same-old, same old… then I probably won’t. I miss being in the thick of this game, but I’ve got to see some change in the current status quo.
• Back Burner games: SWTOR, GW2, Palia, Wayfinder, EVE. Just stuff I’m thinking about, nothing more. And, y’know, Baldur’s Gate 3.

Bio Break Mix Tape: Jessica Lea Mayfield, Morcheeba, and more!

It’s the start of the week, so why not start it off right with some great tunes? Enjoy your latest Bio Break Mix Tape, a random collection of awesome songs that I’ve discovered lately and want to pass on to you to enjoy too…

New World: Not all pirates wear parrots

Moving on to Everfall in New World, I checked into the inn… and then kind of wanted to stay there. I don’t hear people talking about this much, but New World’s inns are downright cozy. As in, I wouldn’t mind actually spending the night in one, even if it didn’t have wifi.

A few weeks ago, there was a bunch of people bickering in general chat over the $30 cost of the upcoming expansion. I think that those pretending to be offended that Amazon, which has barely charged for anything in this game up to this point, would ask for thirty bucks for the pack are just argument baiting. Especially in light of last year’s Brimstone Sands release, which was on the level of an expansion and given to everyone for free.

I did scoot out of the way for the expansion launch, as I wasn’t buying it on Day One and figured the whole server situation would be a mess for a while. Actually, there was a stretch of time where I couldn’t log in at all, as the game kept hanging on the loading screen. Eventually I had Steam do an integrity check of all my files and that seemed to fix the problem.

Provided that I stick with New World, I may have to buy the expansion this winter just to get a mount. In the meantime, I’m off to yet another mysterious ancient ruin to carve up its inhabitants with my rapier.

I will say that out of all the MMOs I play, New World has the worst optimization. It takes forever to actually load, and whenever I’m in a semi-populated area, the screen starts chugging. I am simply not used to seeing anything like that, and if it wasn’t for the fact that away from other players this game is pretty playable, I wouldn’t be sticking around.

WoW Classic: Classic fall comfort gaming

It’s kind of crazy — in a good yet maddening way — that we right now have no less than four versions of World of Warcraft running. There’s retail, Wrath Classic, Classic Era, and Hardcore Classic. Each has their fans and pros/cons, but as retail holds little interest for me these days, whenever I feel the desire to WoW rise, I head back to a version of Classic. I’m keenly interested in what Blizzard has in store for these servers, but as we won’t find that out until November (perhaps), I figured I’d scratch a developing itch and roll up a new Wrath character.

In this case, I went a little outside the normal Syp playbook and brought a new Shammy to the field. I was rewarded for my noobness by being hit with a satisfying wave of nostalgia. There’s nothing quite like the Draenei starting zone to do that to me, what with the dreamy atmosphere, that haunting soundtrack, and all these moths to kill. Transports me right back to 2007 and playing in this area for the first time after procuring the Burning Crusade expansion at a midnight sale.

It’s certainly a weird time to enter an established server where 90-95% of the population is at endgame, but what the heck. There’s a 50% XP buff running and the dungeon finder is in, so I’m not anticipating a harsh ride to the top. This is more “having fun for now, seeing where it goes” kind of dating situation.

I like how small and intimate these starter islands feel. They might as well exist in their own dimension for how unconnected they are to the rest of the world.

Gold is a significant concern at this early stage. I need money for bags and to fund my professions (alchemy/herb) and spells. I find that I’m frequently bottoming out at zero, but sooner or later I should be able to generate more than I’m spending.

One thing that I’m absolutely loving about WoW Classic is that it works amazingly on my Macbook. There aren’t a lot of MMOs that do, and of those, there are only a handful I like, and of those, not too many work well with only keyboard and trackpad. I keep my Macbook ultra-portable, so no mouse for it. With WoW Classic, it’s remarkably simple to use with 80% of keyboard input and the trackpad for looting and item interaction.

LOTRO: Sing me to the level cap, my old friend

Tasking myself with doing one chapter of LOTRO’s epic every day until I got it done turned out to be far easier of a challenge than I had anticipated. In about a week, I zoomed through Gundabad with my eyes set on King’s Gondor — and Umbar beyond. Maybe it usually seems longer when you’re trying to do all the side quests and deeds alongside of it? Probably.

While Chapter 10 of Gundabad is a snoozefest of endless cutscenes, Chapter 11 is incredibly well-done. I particularly like how the team figured out some interesting ways to move the camera and give us a different perspective from time to time.

Before I left Gundabad for good on this character, I made sure to do the pilgrimage deep underneath to go see the three giant sleeping Deep Claws. There’s a long, windy path that goes off that underground tomb, at the end of which is a bit of jumping to get to this view. It’s so worth it.

With a sigh of relief that my Minnie is now ready (more or less) for the expansion, I gave myself permission to give my newfound Mariner some more time. She’s my relaxed, do-everything, take side trips character, so let’s not blame her when she gets diverted by a local player festival in Bree.

Since I had so many tokens left from last year’s Fall Festival, pretty much all I did this year was buy out the new stuff and go, “Well… guess that’s it?” At least it netted me the Elk with the Comically Long Antlers. Feel like this thing is going to clamp down on my head and skewer me.

Bio Break Mix Tape: Meiko, Brian Fallon, and more!

It’s the start of the week, so why not start it off right with some great tunes? Enjoy your latest Bio Break Mix Tape, a random collection of awesome songs that I’ve discovered lately and want to pass on to you to enjoy too…

Fallout 76: Wasting away again in West Virginiaville

Another autumn, another trip back to Appalachia in Fallout 76. It felt like a good change of pace, and the fact that so much of the wasteland has gone unexplored by yours truly haunts me.

Right away, I could tell that there’s been a few changes since last I played. For starters, the area around Vault 76 is now populated by feral ghouls instead of those little laser-shooting Chinese robots. That’s totally fine with me, as I hated the little droids. And for another thing, there’s a big red donations box which I assume is there so that higher level players can donate stuff to newbies. Don’t mind if I help myself!

I do love the look of the classic Vault jumpsuit on a new character, especially when you start tacking all sorts of gear on top of it. She looks like she’s ready for the challenges ahead, don’t you think?

With this fresh start, my approach is to take it casually, steadily, and easy. Half-hour sessions here and there where I identify an objective — a mission, an unexplored place, something to craft — and do it to keep pushing that needle of progress forward. I was really impressed with this person’s house, which was a weird mixture of jail, slot machines, and a creepy animatronic clown out front.

It’s a robot doggo! Such a cool look. I really wish that Fallout 76 let you have pets and companions that traveled with you.

LOTRO: Clicking with the Mariner

Now that I’m level 140 on my Minstrel, I feel like challenging myself to pump through the Gundabad epic at a good pace. The goal I’ve set for myself is one chapter of the epic every day, which should get me all the way to the end by the middle of the month. More or less. But it doesn’t mean that I won’t stop for some sightseeing along the way!

It’s pretty amazing how fast you can blaze through the epic if you’re at or over level and don’t get distracted. The chapter a day thing went pretty well, usually translating to about an hour per day (more or less). Transportation and cutscenes constituted a bulk of the time, to be honest.

ONE HOBBIT TO RULE THEM ALL

After a few days with it, the Mariner started to click with me. It’s such an odd and wonky class, but the DPS output is really respectable and the extra tricks/abilities are very useful. I love rounding up mobs and then Breath of Fire right in their faces to melt them down. And the ports! By level 15, I had three quick travel options to various low-level zones, all with virtually no cooldown. I don’t think I’m going to spend a single LP on this character’s travel skills.

I will say that the general theme of the Mariner is definitely clicking with me. I like the more rough-and-tumble swashbuckler lifestyle, and it’s driving me to want to create all sorts of appropriate outfits for her. In the meanwhile, she’ll have to look over her conquest of the Shire and be content before moving on.

Every few days, I try to work on a new outfit for her. I’m up to four, so about halfway there. I’m trying to go for a different look than I normally do, something to mesh with the action-oriented nature of the class. This one is all about buckles, straps, and a touch of cold-weather preparation.

Even though I wasn’t pushing myself very hard with this character, I blasted through all through Shire, Ered Luin, and eastern Bree-land in fairly short time, deeding them all out. Once I hit level 19, I was getting some more of my enmity deeds, so I paused to get those done because the skills were worth having (especially the “play dead” one).

It’s such a cozy reunion whenever fall rolls around and I get to lurk in this mystery room in the Haunted Burrow for a month.

What I’m hoping to hear from next month’s BlizzCon

Is it just my perception, or is there a palpable buzz rising about next month’s BlizzCon? I’ve seen more and more people discussing the upcoming convention, often in an optimistic and hopeful tone. The general sense is that a few months ago there wasn’t much interest in what Blizzard had to say, and now we’ve tilted into a sort of breathless anticipation of some major announcements or revelations.

It hasn’t been either the best or worst year for Blizzard, instead containing both highlights and low points. Diablo IV was a pretty splashy and profitable release, Dragonflight’s actually kept a pretty strong release cadence, and Hardcore Classic’s been an unexpected success. On the other hand, Overwatch is heavily struggling, retail WoW isn’t generating large amounts of sustained enthusiasm, Heroes of the Storm is virtually dead, Starcraft hasn’t been mentioned in eons, and the gaming community’s seem to have moved on from talking about Diablo IV as obsessively as it was over the summer. Tack on the ongoing lawsuits and Microsoft buyout, and it’s a big ball of uncertainty.

So what’s next? Maybe it won’t be much of anything. I think the worst thing that can happen is if Blizzard comes out, delivers a barely adequate presentation, and gives us a lame set of reveals — WoW Classic Cataclysm, a tepid next expansion for WoW, more of the same with Diablo. A decade ago, that might’ve been enough. In 2023, it’s not going to cut it.

Blizzard really needs to be bold and splashy, which are two things it isn’t traditionally strong in doing. Having Chris Metzen back at the head of the Warcraft franchise is a huge get for Blizzard, and I think a whole lot of people — including, to be honest, myself — are putting a lot of faith in him being able to push these games in bold directions. Maybe it’s way too soon for his presence to have any impact, or maybe we’re playing into a cult of personality here.

We do know that we’re getting the launch of Warcraft Rumble on November 3rd, which delights me to no end. I’ve been looking forward to this mobile title, and I hope that it’ll at least be a strong sleeper hit for the company. Past that? It’s a lot of conjecture and wishful thoughts.

My biggest hope is that something will be presented to make either the future of WoW Classic or even retail WoW exciting. With Classic, this can really only be a “Classic Plus” scenario, which is something the community’s been pushing even while Blizzard’s delivered no response on the topic. I guess a new Season of Mastery would be something, but that’s still catering to the hardcore raiders more than the casual community.

And what retail WoW could say or do to slough off my apathy and suck me back in, I have no idea. Even housing isn’t a guaranteed win (although it would go a long way!). It feels like WoW’s lost its mojo and enjoyable progression, and I can’t begin to fathom what it’ll take to bring that back.

In any case, I am looking forward to BlizzCon because it will answer a lot of questions for my continued interest in these games. If it’s not meant to be, I’d like to know that now so that I don’t end up stringing along my expectations. But if there’s something that genuinely demands a re-engagement with either version of WoW, then that could be a literal game-changer for me this winter.

Bio Break Mix Tape: Transvision Vamp, Wild Colonials, and more!

It’s the start of the week, so why not start it off right with some great tunes? Enjoy your latest Bio Break Mix Tape, a random collection of awesome songs that I’ve discovered lately and want to pass on to you to enjoy too…