Syp’s gaming goals for August 2022

July 2022 in review

• While I didn’t exactly stick to my plan to play New World, Sims, or WoW retail this month, I was pleased to settle into a very nice routine juggling for MMOs and consistently working on blog posts for each. It’s made scheduling posts a lot easier so that I’m not scrambling each Friday to fill out the next week.
• With that out of the way, the games! The big surprise this month was going back to RIFT, one of my all-time favorite MMOs. I created a new Cleric, found a guild, and got busy questing my way through the introductory zones. This easily became my most-screenshotted game of the month.
• I kept up with my plan to bounce back and forth between my Minstrel and Captain on a nightly basis in Lord of the Rings Online. My Minstrel’s in her mid-60s in Mirkwood, while my Captain hit the level cap of 140 and put down another Gundabad zone.
• I signed up for a couple of months of WoW Classic, and after puttering around with a handful of new characters, I resumed questing on my level 60 Shaman. She pushed through more Burning Crusade content, finishing up Blade’s Edge Mountains and into Netherstorm.
• And finally, Fallout 76 sent me on many enjoyable (but familiar) early quests while also prompting me to accomplish challenges to get those SCORE rewards.

August 2022’s gaming goals

• I wanted to make some time in my schedule to give No Man’s Sky another go. With so many patches and improvements, this game deserves another shot. I would very much like to fall in love with it, if I can only “get” it.
• And while I failed to devote space to New World last month, I’m going to try again in August with a new character. Blunderbuss, here I come!
• I’ll be playing WoW Classic just to save up gold for my epic flying mount, but I’m going to throttle back in this quite a lot. Once I hit 5,000 gold, I’m shelving this until Wrath arrives.
• In LOTRO, I want to get a really good chunk of Mirkwood done on my Minstrel and hit level 65. I also want to finish up Gundabad on my Captain so that I can free up that character gaming slot for the Hobbit Lore-master in September.
• And as for RIFT, simply questing through zones and doing the puzzle for each will make me happy. My goal is to finish up two zones by month’s end.

Syp’s gaming goals for July 2022

June 2022

• June was a little more unfocused in gaming than I would have liked. Getting the whole house to myself for a week resulted in a glut of gaming time, which I spent playing through the entirety of the excellent Life is Strange: True Colors. It’s rare that I go on a start-to-finish gaming adventure in the span of a few days like that.
• Most all of my MMO gaming was spent in Lord of the Rings Online. I half-heartedly worked my Minstrel through Lothlorien while dabbling with many different alts — some new, some more established. By the end of the month, I settled on alternating gaming nights between my Minstrel and Lore-master on the Treebeard server.
• Speaking of full adventures, I went through a five-chapter campaign in Wildermyth. Good times and weird mutations were had by all.
• I tried and was largely unimpressed by Diablo Immortal.
• I had some fun with a new character in Fallout 76 but didn’t quite get the steam that I had hoped. It’s something to dabble with, I suppose.
• And I wrapped up Blackwood (finally) in Elder Scrolls Online, moving on to Dashaan.

July’s gaming goals

• The aim this coming month is to kick my gaming habits in shape — be more organized, more purposeful. This is in part due to a change in my schedule where I’m going to cut down on my nightly gaming to squeeze in an hour of walking.
• So with LOTRO, I’ll stick with this alternating nightly pattern between Minstrel (Treebeard) and Captain (Landroval). My goal isn’t so much to get to a certain level or zone clear but to stick with this pattern and see how it works over the course of a month. I’ve wanted to get back to doing at least a bit on a normal server just in case Treebeard poops out in the future or if there is additional high level content coming that I’ll want to play. Getting Gundabad finished by the end of summer would be great.
• After some deliberation on a different MMO to play, I’m going to go back to New World this month to check out the changes, roll up a new character, and see if I can find a friendly community there. If I can get to level 20, I’ll feel like I’ve done an honest day’s work.
• I’m also leaving the door open to return to World of Warcraft (retail), start up a fresh character on a server I’ve never played, and just pursue my own objectives. It’d be nice to have an MMO on my Macbook.
• And I’m going to work on a new Sims 4 project, perhaps as a recurring blog series. Been a while since I’ve played and I need something cozy, relaxing, and creative to enjoy. This should hit the spot.

Syp’s gaming goals for June 2022

May 2022 in review

• When the great annals of gaming history will be compiled, what it’ll say for Syp’s gaming in May of the year of our Lord 2022 is, “it was fine.” There was plenty to do this month, and I even kicked off a couple of projects, but I also hit a restlessness that needed a juicy and exciting game to really get me on fire. Still looking, folks.
• Lord of the Rings Online was the title I played the most, as has been the case lately. I finished up anniversary content, scoring a bunch of housing decor and cosmetics, and then I turned my attention to doing all of Yondershire. I also worked on leveling my Lore-master into the 40s by finishing Evendim and then doing a bunch of missions.
• I wrapped up a chain of Dungeons and Dragons Online Menace of the Underdark quests and then quietly put the game back down for a while. Yup, time to take a break.
• I finally did a dive into Project Zomboid over several sessions, ultimately dying a whole bunch and being somewhat put off from the title.
• One unexpectedly delightful return was to Wildermyth, where I started up a new campaign with a new crew. I’m excited to share this with you.
• I started a retro gaming series on Baldur’s Gate 2 and then paused after writing up a post and a half because I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth committing ~100 hours to covering this huge CRPG. So I tucked that into my drafts folder, I’m just saying it here to note that I played about three hours.

June 2022 goals

• As I said up there, I’ll be working on getting through a five-chapter Wildermyth campaign and blogging about the whole journey here.
• Diablo Immortal is launching, so let’s see what we’ll see with that.
• I may expend some effort to finish Menace of the Underdark in DDO, but right now I’m in a holding pattern with that game.
• For LOTRO this last month before Treebeard goes to Mirkwood, I’m going to solely focus on my Minstrel by going through all of Lothlorien.
• I’m definitely going to pick up High Isle in Elder Scrolls Online and going through that expansion zone.
• I may also dip back into Fallout 76, perhaps with (of course) a new character. It’s been a while.

Syp’s gaming goals for May 2022

April 2022 in review

• Overall it was a chill month of gaming without much in the way of variety and juggling.
• Primarily, I devoted most of my time to Lord of the Rings Online. My minstrel dinged level 60 (current cap) on Treebeard, caught up on Bingo Boffin, and maxed out her virtues. She’s in good shape for Mirkwood. Then after trying out a variety of classes, I ended up dusting off my lore-master and worked on leveling her up. I also did a bunch of scavenger hunt quests for the anniversary.
• I tried, more or less, to do a Dungeons and Dragons Online quest every day. I actually did fairly well here! The whole month I spent on the Forgotten Realms quest chains, and I got many of them done and organized into blog format.
• I dropped WoW Classic for now out of a lack of current interest and spent a few sessions wrapping up Elder Scrolls Online’s Blackwood zone.

May 2022 gaming goals

• I snagged Project Zomboid at a discount a few weeks ago, so I’m going to be diving into this survival title and doing some blogging about it.
• In LOTRO, I want to finish anniversary content, play through the new Yondershire zone on both characters, and at least get my lore-master to level 50 with her LIs. That way she can finish Moria in June before the Mirkwood unlock.
• In DDO, I want to finish Menace of the Underdark and then move on to a new expansion.
• I’m very much open to adding a third MMO to this month outside of my same-old, same-old. The thing is, as of the time of this writing, I haven’t settled on something yet. I may even do some Sims 4 instead, get my housing on. I’m going to have to test the waters and see where my interest lies. Stay tuned!

Syp’s gaming goals for April 2022

March 2022 in review

• The big gaming shift this month for me was a return to Dungeons and Dragons Online. This proved to be an excellent move, as I got re-addicted to the packaged adventures and experiencing content that was completely new to me. I finished up Fables of the Feywild and transitioned right into Menace of the Underdark while my Artificer hit level 20.
• Speaking of milestones, my Shaman hit level 70 in WoW Classic and got her (slow) flying certification. At this point, she’s only got part of Blade’s Edge, all of Netherstorm, and all of Shadowmoon Valley to go.
• After treading water in Lord of the Rings Online’s Gundabad for a while now, I felt a change in course was wise. And so I returned to Treebeard with great gusto, picking back up my Minstrel and started in on Mines of Moria content.
• I did put in a couple of sessions into Elder Scrolls Online but failed to finish up Blackwood. Bad Syp.

April 2022 gaming goals

• Right now my passion and interest is about 80% LOTRO and 20% DDO, so I’m going to approach this month that way.
• In LOTRO, the only question is how far I’ll make it through Mines of Moria. I definitely want to hit the current level cap of 60 so that I can start doing dungeons with my kinship. If I do even half of the expansion, I’ll be happy… but I bet I can do more.
• I’m trying to go for one good DDO quest a day. That seems like a good cadence, and my April goal is to get all of the quest chains (and expansion) done in Forgotten Realms’ Eveningstar.
• In WoW Classic, eh, I’ll just keep poking through Burning Crusade zones. Getting Blade’s Edge Mountains done is a must, and perhaps a good chunk of Netherstorm.
• I would like to, yes, get Blackwood done in Elder Scrolls Online. I figure that even one really good afternoon session might knock it out if I can find a Saturday for that.
• I am thinking about picking up Project Zomboid as my bonus game experience for the month. If not, I’d like to blog through another Wildermyth campaign.

Syp’s gaming goals for March 2022

February 2022 in review

• By the middle of this month, I got really frustrated with my general aimlessness and lack of drive this year so far, so I started to kick myself in the butt a bit more to be focused on achieving goals. That translated in part to gaming, where I wanted to actually Get Stuff Done instead of wander from game to game.
• As I wanted to, I did try out Lost Ark and found yet another ARPG that looks real pretty… and doesn’t hold much ongoing interest for me. I think that if I want an ARPG at this point, I’ll go back to Torchlight 2 or Diablo 3 (or wait for Diablo Immortal).
• In Lord of the Rings Online, I took a break from Gundabad to explore the rather excellent Angle addition to Trollshaws.
• I pushed through all of Terokkar Forest in WoW Classic, getting my shaman up to level 67 and adding a pet or two to her stable. I even ran a dungeon, which I think is a first for TBC Classic.
• Part of this month’s focus was to get through the Clinton FARM quests in Fallen Earth, which I squeaked in under the wire. A lot of deja vu with this, especially the mine parts.
• I briefly logged into Guild Wars 2 and fiddled with various characters, but nothing that lasted or sucked me in.
• I chewed through a bunch of fun Blackwood quests in Elder Scrolls Online.
• I played both Darkside Detective games and had a blast with that adventure universe.
• Geez, now that I list these, I actually played a whole lot more games than I thought I did!

March 2022 gaming goals

• After some consideration, I think it’s time to jump back into Dungeons and Dragons Online. I was toying with the idea of rolling up a Necromancer (which I’ve never played in this game) but will most likely pick back up my Gnome Artificer and continue her journeys through Fables of the Feywild. I also want to draw up a list of zones and associated quests to see what I haven’t done yet — and start checking them off.
• I would like to hit level 70 in WoW Classic, ideally by the time I wrap up Nagrand, so that I can have three future zones of quests with bonus gold rewards waiting. Also, I *need* flying at this point.
• I need to make some good progress in LOTRO’s Gundabad. I feel like I’ve been treading water in that first area and want to move on to new regions. So let’s put a goal of doing at least two new zones there.
• Elder Scrolls Online? Let’s finish up Blackwood. Yeah. That’ll work.
• And I’m going to review at least two console games on my little retro handheld.

Syp’s gaming goals for February 2022

January 2022 in review

• Honestly, this month felt like a really messy start to the year. Between the post-holiday blues, a bad snowstorm, visiting company, and a week of sickness, my whole schedule — and my drive to accomplish goals and projects took a big hit. This is to say that I wanted to do more this month but ultimately ended up falling back on comfortable habits and a lot of procrastination.
• That said, I did make a good amount of progress in Lord of the Rings Online on my Captain. I took her through the War of Three Peaks, Blood of Azog, and into the first part of Gundabad. I think she’s 135 or so, and doing just fine for herself.
• I only did a little bit on my SWTOR Operative, although I did get her all the way to the start of Onslaught and wrapped up three planets’ worth of datacrons.
• Elder Scrolls Online adventuring saw the conclusion of Greymoor’s base expansion and the start of Blackwood, including snapping up the two companions for play.
• I didn’t get in much Fallen Earth at all, to my dismay.
• I wrapped up a RimWorld series and had a good time setting up a handheld pocket emulator with all of my favorite retro video games.
• I also spent a week trying out Crowfall (which really wasn’t to my taste).

February 2022’s gaming goals

• With the expansion and FOMO and all that, it’s probably time to give Guild Wars 2 another shot, if only to see if it can reel me in or spit me out. Not going to buy the expansion unless I get settled in there, though.
• Lost Ark comes out this month and I most definitely want to put this through the paces to figure out if it’s for me or not.
• Getting two more Gundabad zones done in LOTRO would be a bare minimum of an accomplishment. I think I’d like to be done with Fate of Gundabad by, oh, April or so, but I can’t ignore that there’ll be a new zone to visit in February either that could be distracting.
• Might blog about trying out some retro video games on my little emulator device.
• In Elder Scrolls Online, I’ll be focusing solely on Blackwood adventuring. Don’t think I’ll have that done in a month, but I’m sure I’ll make some really good headway.
• Fallen Earth? Yes, I shall do some of that. Repurposing last month’s goal, which is to get all of Clinton FARM’s quests done.

Looking back at Syp’s gaming journey in 2021

Hey, look at that, another year done! Today is both the last day and last Bio Break post of 2021. Figure that this calls for a little self-indulgent reminiscing before charging into 2022.

MMORPGs

Let’s take a look at MMOs first, since that’s my primary focus for video gaming. I read back through all of my gaming goal posts and whipped up a little chart to show which titles I was engaged with at any various point during the year:

At the start of 2021, I had all but completely lost interest in retail World of Warcraft and strongly shifted to WoW Classic. This held a lot of interest for me through the launch of Burning Crusade Classic and right up to the Blizzard scandal breaking. Haven’t touched either game since, although I do sorta miss Classic from time to time.

Lord of the Rings Online was a mainstay of the year aside from an early summer break. Things really took off for me in the fall when I got into the Treebeard progression server and invested a lot of time in a character there. While I haven’t played War of Three Peaks or Gundabad, I feel like I got a good year out of that title.

Elder Scrolls Online was another mainstay of the year at the start and end, although always to varying degrees. Sometimes I was really, really into it, and sometimes it was a “eh, I’ll log in once a month to dawdle around.” I also tried one last, big push to get into FFXIV, going all the way through Stormblood but arriving at the same place I always do with this game — feeling that it’s bland and not really for me.

I bounced off of New World far faster than a game I was so greatly anticipating, which is the biggest personal disappointment of the year for me. I was delighted, however, to return to the world of Fallen Earth and ended the year really pumped for SWTOR.

Some old favorites, such as DDO, GW2, RIFT, and Star Trek Online, got little to no playtime this year from me.

As usual with MMOs, it’s the memories and shared experiences that I’m going to take away as far longer lasting than any in-game accomplishments. I mean, if I could repurpose all of that WoW Classic or FFXIV time which amounted to an abandoned character, I would do it. But it’s just how it goes, and I’m glad that I at least got to meet some great folks and bang out a few blog posts about them.

Other games

It really wasn’t a big year of gaming outside of MMOs for me, although there were a few exceptions. Wildermyth turned out to be as amazing as everyone said it was, and I want to return to it soon to blog another campaign. I quite enjoyed returning to do another blog series on RimWorld. Tried out Pillars of Eternity 2 — liked it, didn’t stick with it, should come back some day. I might’ve dinked around in Cyberpunk 2077, I don’t remember.

I only did two retro game series this year — Torchlight II and Curse of Monkey Island. That’s an all-time low for me, but I kind of needed a break from doing those older games, so I took it. Not quite sure when I’ll return, but I have hopes that it’ll be something you’ll read in 2022.

Most of the mobile games I played this year were the same old ones — Bloons TD 6, Clash Royale, Battle Legion, bit of Shattered Pixel Dungeon.

Books

Really didn’t get as many books read this year as I wanted, either in print or audio. I’d really like to change that next year.

Let’s talk print, first. I loved going through the remainder of Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch series for the first time. Far From the Light of Heaven was a great scifi mystery in space, The Last Graduate was an excellent follow-up to Naomi Novak’s magic school series, Hollowpox was fine but not quite as enthralling as the first two books in that series, Velocity Weapon wasn’t quite up to everyone’s high recommendations, Spellbreaker was fine. I started a ton more books that lost my interest — I’m not going to force myself to finish something I don’t like.

For audiobooks, a lot of it was listening through old favorites, such as Harry Potter, Dark Tower, Jurassic Park. I did The Last Watch, which really let me down after reading all sorts of kudos for these books. Locked In was a decent enough scifi yarn.

Other than books I read to my kids and some for church, that’s about it. I totally slacked on reading!

See you on the flip side

That’s it for Bio Break this year. Thank you thank you thank you for reading my often silly and insignificant ramblings. I look forward to sharing a whole lot more in the months to come.

And if you haven’t, check out my cult movie review site, Mutant Reviewers, MMO music podcast (Battle Bards), and Community Rewatching 101 podcast.

Syp’s gaming goals for January 2022

December 2021 in review

• This felt like a fun and “full” month of gaming, even as the Christmas season made things far more hectic and busy than usual. I’ve been getting used to my Macbook, grabbed three titles from GOG (Spellcaster University, Baldur’s Gate 2 enhanced, Loop Hero), and snagged most of the 15 days of free games from Epic (notably Vampyr, Shenmue 3, and Mutant Year Zero).
• In Lord of the Rings Online, my Captain worked her way through the Minas Morgul expansion and got to level 128, while my Treebeard Minstrel topped out at level 50 and got through almost everything in the base game. I also did a whole bunch of Yule Festival activities to get cosmetics for my minnie.
• I ended up getting pulled back into Star Wars: The Old Republic in a big way. I experimented with some new characters but ultimately decided to pick back up my Operative for the time being. She ended up going through Iokath, which was brand-new content for me.
• Elder Scrolls Online activity took a bit of a dip, but I did plug away at more Western Skyrim questing during these weeks.
• I am ashamed to say that I only got a few Fallen Earth sessions, mostly due to being at the bottom of the totem pole and limited time.
• Otherwise, I started up a new RimWorld playthrough series that’s going pretty well!

January 2022’s gaming goals

• I’ve got a post coming early next week about 2022 plans in general, but I’ll say right here that I would like to dig through more of my gaming backlog in the coming months, MMOs and otherwise. But for the most part, I’m going to keep on going with the current games that I’m enjoying!
• In SWTOR, I want to get through at least two planets on my Operative and hit level 75.
• In LOTRO, I’m focusing down on my Captain for the time being. If she bridges the content gap to (and even through) War of the Three Peaks, I’d be happy.
• In Elder Scrolls Online, I want to finish up Western Skyrim and move on to Summerset.
• In Fallen Earth, I want to wrap up Clinton FARM.

Syp’s gaming goals for December 2021

November 2021 in review

• Can’t believe that we’re already turning into the final month of the year, but here we are! Overall, it was a solid (if not overly exciting) month of steady gaming.
• The MMO I spent the most time on this month was Lord of the Rings Online on the Treebeard server. My Minstrel rocketed up to near-50 while chewing through all but the last handful of zones in Shadows of Angmar. Lots of questing and deeding — perhaps too much, if we’re being honest, because I started to lose some steam for it by the end of the month.
• It took me a whole month, but I got through Elder Scrolls Online’s The Rift zone and then transitioned into adventuring through Western Skyrim. It was always a good time, playing this, it’s just that I didn’t put in as much as I was hoping.
• And while I was extremely pleased to get Fallen Earth back, I only had time to do all of the quests in a single starter town (Midway) while doing some other stuff, like crafting a horse, to set up my character.
• I wrapped up a Wildermyth campaign, which was pretty darn cool!

December 2021 gaming goals

• I think I’m more or less on track for getting most of Shadows of Angmar done in LOTRO, including the epic story, but I’m not 100% sure I’ll finish it by the end of the year. That said, I’m going to try while hitting level 50 and wrapping up some much-needed class deeds. I’m also going to be doing some side work leveling up my Captain on Landroval, see if I can start getting her closer to Gundabad. Currently she’s in the middle of Minas Morgul.
• Western Skyrim is in my sights in Elder Scrolls Online — continuing with this Nord theme! — and getting that single zone done is my minimum for the month.
• I want to move on to a second starter city in Fallen Earth and complete it as well.
• Apart from that, I’m chewing on some other possibilities for the month, including SWTOR, RIFT, or maaaaybe WoW Classic depending on what happens with Blizzard. There aren’t any other big end-of-year releases that I deem a “must play,” so I think I’m going to cruise into 2022 more or less as I am now.