Syp’s gaming goals for May 2021

April 2021 in review

• This was a really strange month of gaming for me. For a good chunk of April, I downshifted hard in terms of game time, generally feeling uninspired to log in. Instead, I worked more on projects and reading books.
• To help shake myself out of this rut, I went on a two-week Great Game Tour to explore some backlog titles. It was fun and the highlights were Albion Online, Offworld Trading Company, and Daring Dungeoneer.
• I kept poking and prodding my WoW Classic Warlock forward, getting her within spitting distance of level 58. Some days I would only log in to use up her rested XP and grind the same set of mobs. It wasn’t much of an adventure.
• By the end of the month, I fell back into typical MMO gaming patterns. I started a new Captain in Lord of the Rings Online and had a lot of fun with that, and I began to document quests I was doing in Elder Scrolls Online.
• I didn’t really make good progress in Curse of Monkey Island, alas.

May 2021’s gaming goals

• Until the prepatch arrives, I’m going to keep grinding a bit with my WoW Classic Warlock, to make money if nothing else.
• When the prepatch arrives — assuming it does in May — then I’ll start up my Shaman and begin a hard push to getting her Burning Crusade ready.
• My only goals for my LOTRO Cappy is to fully deed out every zone. I have dusted off my Lore-master as well and want to at least stick her nose into the War of the Three Peaks content.
• One ESO quest or objective per day, documented. This, I swear.
• I’ve been thinking about giving Wizard101 another go, perhaps as a fun limited-run series.
• And I am totally going to finish Curse of Monkey Island this month! I want to head into summer with a fresh retro game project.

Syp’s gaming goals for April 2021

March 2021 in review

• There’s no hiding it, this past month was all about getting really, really sucked into World of Warcraft Classic. The Burning Crusade Classic announcement and beta lit some sort of scary fire under me, and I worked on leveling both a Druid (20) and a Warlock (44) during this period. I also found a very nice guild and started working hard to make enough gold for epic and flying mounts.
• In Lord of the Rings Online, I got my Minstrel to level 118 (through Iron Hills), checked out Wildwood, and spent a fair bit of time just running missions.
• It was a really good month in Elder Scrolls Online, as my Warden hit level 50 and started in on Champion Points. I also did a full zone clear of Glenumbra and did a number of dungeons.
• I also tried out Magic Legends. Whee.
• Over in retro gaming, I worked on a series for Curse of Monkey Island.
• I’ve also been evaluating and deleting a bunch of mobile games that I downloaded over the months and left sitting on my phone. It’s got to hit that polished, pick-up-and-put-down sweet spot to earn tenure.

April 2021’s gaming goals

• With the Burning Crusade beta happening right now, I feel the pressure more than ever to get a level 60 on my account. So I’m going to buckle down, focus on my Warlock, and see if I can hit that target by the end of the month. I don’t think we’re getting the pre-patch until May anyway, and so I won’t have to face whether I want to start up a Shaman until that happens.
• In LOTRO, eh, hitting 125 by doing missions would be ducky. I’m not really that motivated to play right now, so I’m throttling back.
• I will be moving on to a new zone in Elder Scrolls Online, just haven’t decided which one yet. I have a whole bunch of quest strings to pull, so I guess I’ll pick one and hope for the best. Sooner or later, they all need to get done.
• I am going to set a personal goal to evaluate and blog about two non-MMOs that are sitting in my ever-increasing game libraries, just for variety’s sake and to ease my psychic guilt over ignoring them.

Syp’s gaming goals for March 2021

February 2021 in review

• Heh, looking back over my previously stated goals for the month, while the games I played mostly stayed true, what I did in them varied greatly across the board.
• So let’s talk about the biggest change, which is that I stepped away from retail World of Warcraft entirely. I’m not feeling it any more with Shadowlands and don’t want to keep logging in for the sake of getting chores done. Patch 9.1 isn’t calling to me in the least, and I have plenty of other things to do, so I’m fine with this decision.
• In Lord of the Rings Online, I level-boosted my Landroval Minstrel to 105 and started a madcap dash to get her caught up — at least in levels and through the main epic story. As of this writing, I’m still slugging it out through Mordor, which is just as wearying as the last time I was here. I am also officially done with the progression server.
• Burning Crusade Classic’s announcement at BlizzConline certainly fueled an already hot streak of WoW Classic gameplay. While I didn’t get my Warlock to 40 (I’m just level 29), at least I made some good progress and have the anticipation of the expansion to drive my enthusiasm.
• And I certainly did a lot of Elder Scrolls Online. Most nights, I’d log in, do a full quest chain or two as well as a random daily dungeon run. I’ve actually reached the highest level I’ve ever been in this game (38), even though I’m not fully through the first regular-sized zone. There’s so much to do here!
• I’ll admit that I totally slacked in doing retro gaming this month. I’ve built up such a lead that I can afford to take time off, but still, I felt a little bad about it.

March 2021’s gaming goals

• I really don’t anticipate changing my current course or the three MMOs I’m playing, but hey, we all know how plans tend to go!
• For WoW Classic, I really want to hit level 40 at a bare minimum and get my mount. I’m so tired of running! If I can close out the month in the mid-40s, I’d be even happier.
• For Lord of the Rings Online, getting through Mordor on the epic and at least making good headway through Northern Mirkwood and Dale-lands. Top goal there is to finish Dale-lands (epic book is mandatory, side quests and deeds optional).
• And for Elder Scrolls Online, I’m gunning for level 50! No other big goals at the moment other than to keep momentum going. I would like to deck out a house, I’ve been putting that off.
• Over on mobile, I’ve been playing some Cat Quest, so I wouldn’t mind getting deeper into that. Previously I’ve only lightly played it, and it’s such a good action RPG that it deserves more investigation.
• Finally, for retro gaming, I want to get in at least two more posts about Torchlight II. I haven’t decided if I’m finishing the game or not, but it is a lot of fun!

Syp’s gaming goals for February 2021

January 2021 in review

• This ended up being a really weird and surprising month for me in gaming, both in good and disappointing ways. I had originally planned on playing mostly retail World of Warcraft with some Warhammer Online on the side, but my interest in the weekly WoW routine flagged and I only logged into WAR a couple of times.
• I didn’t even put as much time into CRPGs, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Pillars of Eternity 2, that I expected to.
• I had a mini-burnout in the middle of the month and stepped away from gaming for a few days to refocus and recover.
• What helped me pull out was to restructure the month under the theme of “fresh start.” In particular, I started new WoW Classic (Warlock) and Lord of the Rings Online (Minstrel) characters to go through these games anew. That ended up being a whole lot of fun and got me out of my stale routine.
• I upgraded my graphics card to a Ti 1080 due to my old one being… old.
• I did have several fun play sessions in Torchlight II for a retro gaming series, so there was that.

February 2021’s gaming goals

• Since I’m having fun in this new groove, I’m going to keep going for it. In WoW Classic, I would like to get my Warlock to 40 by the end of the month with the ultimate goal of capping her at 60 for a future Burning Crusade transfer.
• I’ll keep on investing some time into World of Warcraft, probably to finish up my Death Knight’s covenant campaign and then maybe working on getting a different character to 60. But I’m definitely throttling back here. I may just do the bare minimum weeklies for a while.
• In Lord of the Rings Online, heck, I’d be happy if I got all three of the newbie zones completely done — deeds and all — and maybe Lone-lands too. Yeah, Lone-lands finished by the end of February. That’s a good goal.
• I’m heading back into Elder Scrolls Online with the goal of finishing up Western Skyrim — really excited to be back!
• For retro gaming, I’ll stick with Torchlight II for the time being.

Syp’s gaming goals for January 2021

December 2020 in review

• By and large, a majority of my gaming time this month was taken up by World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. I got both my Druid and Death Knight to 60 and bounced back and forth between them as I started to get into the core gameplay loop.
• Midway through the month, I realized I did need a second game for variety’s sake, so I picked back up Star Wars: The Old Republic with the limited time goal of finishing up Knights of the Eternal Throne by the end of the month. Mission accomplished!
• I dithered a little in Octopath Traveler (I’d say four or so sessions) while still in the early game, collecting party member stage.
• For retro gaming, I dipped into Mystic Towers for a bit to experience a title I’d never seen before.

January 2021’s gaming goals

• For World of Warcraft, I would really love to get into a good weekly groove while figuring out ways to pursue mini-goals, such as snagging toys and transmog.
• For my one-month limited project, I’m going to finally pull the trigger on Return of Reckoning and check out this WAR server. The last time I played WAR was (I think) 2009, so it’ll be a real blast to the past.
• I also want to start picking through my enormous backlog of free and purchased games on Epic, GOG, and Steam. My goal is to at least try TWO of these in the month of January and write up posts on them.
• I may… I may pick back up LOTRO to work on the progression server. I’m not fully decided on this yet. I don’t want to abandon my Minnie, but at the same time, my enthusiasm for doing Gondor and Mordor is pretty low. I may just put her in stasis and focus on my max-level Lore-master when SSG makes the Three Peaks DLC available for purchase with LOTRO points.
• I’m most excited about some alternative gaming options. I picked up Cyberpunk 2077 over the holidays and would like to give that a whirl, and as for Retro Gaming, I have Kroz and Torchlight II loaded and ready to go!

Syp’s gaming goals for December 2020

November 2020 in review

• By and large, this month was a prep month for World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands, followed by a week of actually playing the new expansion. I finished getting three characters to level 50 and geared them up with the pre-expansion event.
• One goal that I was happy to achieve was to wrap up Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings Online on my progression server Minstrel. The new “storied tales” version of the Helm’s Deep fight was much improved over the old epic battles.
• Apart from that, the only other series gaming I did this month was to invest a few hours into the opening of Octopath Traveler. It’s a very attractive JRPG in a lot of ways and I’m looking forward to exploring more of it.
• The only retro gaming sessions I did was to wrap up a short series on Maniac Mansion for next spring. It was… fine? It was fine. Fine.

December 2020’s gaming goals

• I’ve cleared my schedule this month to focus on one and just one thing: Going through World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. At the pace I’m going, I’m estimating about a week, more or less, per zone, so at the least I want to cap out at 60 and get through all the first four leveling zones by the end of the month. Anything past that — crafting, covenants, gearing, dungeons, Maw, Torghast — is a bonus.
• So that just leaves some side gaming during my lunch break. I want to continue journeying through Octopath Traveler, for sure. I also want to start in on a retro gaming series playing through 1994’s Mystic Towers, which is one of my missed opportunities that I’m looking to rectify.
• I’m still internally debating which side MMO project I want to tackle for January, so I’m just going to continue to have that discussion with myself until I announce it with next month’s gaming goals post.

MMORPG projects on deck for 2021

One thing that I’ve really enjoyed this year was getting my entertainment more organized, mostly in the form of making lists. When you’re pulled in many directions and lack the time to go in all of them, it does help to make a list of books, TV shows, movies, and games that I would, at some point, like to engage with — and then prioritize them. The list means that I won’t forget about them but that they’ll be there when I am seeking new options.

I’m anticipating that, for the most part, the rest of 2020 will be spent playing Shadowlands in World of Warcraft. But there’s always the new year to come with plenty of time ahead. And I know that I will want to diversify my MMO gaming to keep from going hardcore burnout in WoW, so I’ve been making a list of some projects that I might want to consider at some point in 2021.

In that respect, I’m going to try a different approach to MMO juggling than before. The idea is that every month I’ll have an “anchor MMO” that I’ll play (a regular game that I’m playing indefinitely until I’m bored or burned out with it) and then a “project MMO” to focus on for that month and just that month (with a time limit set to it). Some of the projects that I’m considering include:

• Playing through the entirety of a DDO expansion (I have four I still haven’t done?) from start to finish.
• Getting my SWTOR Sniper through the base game and maybe one expansion past that.
• Giving Wizard101 another go.
• Getting my World of Warcraft Classic character to level 50.
• Starting a new character in Fallout 76 to see what the leveling changes feel like from the ground up.
• Checking out The Division 2 after hearing really strong word-of-mouth.
• Going through a whole ARPG journey from start to the endgame (Path of Exile, Diablo III, or Torchlight III).
• Trying out the Return of Reckoning WAR server.
• Heading back into EverQuest II for a while.
• Leveling up a City of Heroes character through story missions.
• Finish the Greymoor expansion in Elder Scrolls Online.

That’s all too much to do at once or even by slicing up the month into a million slivers, but if I was only playing two games a day, I could give a project a good chunk of time (at least 30-40 hours during that month). So we will see how the new year goes, but I’m really warming up to this concept.

Syp’s Gaming Goals for November 2020

October 2020 in review

• Easily the biggest gaming event for me this month was World of Warcraft’s 9.0 pre-patch. In addition to keeping my transmog selling business alive (which resulted in one free token for me!), I rolled up a new Gnome Hunter and took her from 1 to 50 in the streamlined leveling experience. Worked a lot of building up her garrison and even decorating it with Halloween stuff.
• I puttered a bit around in Lord of the Rings Online, working on pressing my Minstrel through Helm’s Deep, but didn’t quite make it to the finish line.
• Torchlight III came out and I played it for a week, but it really wasn’t that exciting or even blogworthy in the end.
• For retro gaming, I’ve been going through Maniac Mansion, an early LucasArts adventure title.
• But yeah, that’s about it for gaming this month — about 90% of my time was spent in World of Warcraft, and most of that before the patch, which meant I was pretty much only farming dungeons. This all sounds lame to put down in a post, but I had a good time and wasn’t bored at all.

November 2020’s goals

• While there’s the temptation to roll more World of Warcraft characters, I have a lot to do on the ones I already have to forestall this decision as we head toward the November 23rd release date.
• On my Druid, I’m going to work on unlocking flying in Battle for Azeroth (why not), build up a good battle pet team, and switch her professions over to enchanting.
• On my Hunter, I’m going to finish all of the regular Warlords of Draenor quests, build up the garrison, and level up her engineering.
• Despite downshifting in LOTRO, I don’t want to leave entirely. If I can make more progress or even finish Helm’s Deep on my Minnie, that would be smashing.
• There are some other MMOs on deck as possibilities this month, such as SWTOR and ESO, but I’m just going to keep them there until or unless I get restless that I feel the need to pop into one.
• I bought Octopath Traveler on sale this past week, which got me really excited to play through it. Heard LOTS of good things about it, so that’s next on my list once I finish up Maniac Mansion.

Syp’s gaming goals for October 2020

September 2020 in review

• September ended up being a decent gaming month without much in the way of great change or exciting developments. I found myself mostly gearing up for Shadowlands in terms of my game time and focus, but I had some side projects here and there.
• I certainly failed to reach my goal of level 30 in WoW Classic as I’ve been grinding my Hunter (she’s just 22 as I write this). I did get a lot of Engineering done on her, I think I’m around 180 or so, so I feel like some good groundwork has been laid.
• As I said, my attention in World of Warcraft retail ramped up significantly. I finished many of the main BFA storylines to help unlock allied races, started running world quests for profit, and even switched my Druid over to engineering. I also pre-purchased the expansion and started to give thought to my alts.
• Lord of the Rings Online was pretty much just a whole lot of Helm’s Deep questing. Nothing exciting, didn’t finish it, I’m not even to 95 yet. GET OFF MY BACK ABOUT IT.
• I didn’t spend any time in Fallout 76, despite my intentions. Want to. Just haven’t yet.
• SWTOR time is tapering off, although I’m still working on getting my Agent through the core storyline.
• Over in retro gaming, I’m muddling through Eye of the Beholder 2 for a series that should come out next spring. It’s not the easiest combat system in the world, let me tell you.

October 2020 gaming goals

• For World of Warcraft, I want to earn enough money for another WoW Token, level up BFA engineering somewhat, and maybe start a new alt in the pre-patch era. Then there’s the Shadowlands launch at the end of the month, but no goals set for the first couple of days other than just to… play it.
• For LOTRO, I want to finish up Helm’s Deep on the progression server.
• Since Torchlight III is launching, I’ll definitely want to get in some time with this. Get my “game legs,” so to speak.
• For SWTOR, finishing up Chapter 3 would be both Jim and Dandy!

Syp’s gaming goals for September 2020

August 2020 in review

• It was a decent month for gaming, with some MMOs entering rotation and others leaving. I did take advantage of a GOG sale to snap up a couple of CRPGs I’ve had my eye on — Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity 2 — but felt bummed that my computer wasn’t good enough to play Microsoft Flight Simulator. Maybe in the future when I get a new graphics card.
• Lord of the Rings Online was a mixed bag. On one hand, the new update brought us Rohan housing and Helm’s Deep for the progression server, giving me plenty to do. On the other hand, rampant server issues kept me away for a week. I did get a Rohan house for my Minstrel and plowed through several quest hubs, so I’m not completely behind.
• Two returning MMOs kept me vastly entertained this month. The first was WoW Classic, which went from being an itch that I wanted to scratch to becoming a daily staple. I worked on a Forsaken Warlock, getting her up to near level 20 while also leveling up her Engineering skill.
• The other was Star Wars: The Old Republic, which saw me step back into the boots of my level 30ish Imperial Agent from a couple of years ago to resume her story. It’s been a good time so far, nothing mindblowing, but then again, I’m retreading a lot of familiar ground.
• I did stop playing Fallout 76 for the time being — the daily board game progression thing wasn’t utterly compelling, and right now I’m waiting for the One Wasteland update to arrive.
• After a whole lot of internal debate, I started in on Eye of the Beholder 2 for my next retro playthrough. It has a hugely positive reputation as a D&D dungeon crawler and will make for an interesting blogging experience.

September 2020’s gaming goals

• I don’t anticipate a lot of changes to the lineup of these three MMOs, so I’ll start with WoW Classic. My goal there is to get to level 30 and maybe get Engineering to 200.  I am so not in any sort of hurry when I play this, but I would love to get a mount and some keystone talents before I die of old age.
• When the pre-patch arrives in World of Warcraft, I’ll certainly return there to do the events and maybe start working on leveling up a new character to see how that process goes. But really, I have my Druid ready for Shadowlands, and that’s going to be my main character, so I’m not scrambling.
• It’d be really cool if I could finish both chapters 2 and 3 in SWTOR to get the class story done and move into the expansion, but that might be a little too ambitious for the time available.
• If LOTRO can get more stable, I’ll try to see how much I can get done of Helm’s Deep. That’s another one that I do want to put in the “done” file so that I’m not worried about catching up if SSG decides to start releasing Gondor in a month or two.
• I’m also going to be playing through Tyranny after hearing some positive word-of-mouth on it. Time to be a bad guy!