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!

Syp’s gaming goals for August 2020

July 2020 in review

• Lord of the Rings Online started the month in a great spot with the release of the Great Wedding update. I had fun exploring the festival and got about halfway through the epic book, but then all of the Troubles hit the servers and I backed away from the game until it got fixed.
• I probably spent most of my gaming time this month in World of Warcraft trying to level up my Druid and Death Knight to get them ready for Shadowlands. Also got me a nifty katana weapon skin and my Hearthstone mount.
• Speaking of treading water, I dutifully logged into Fallout 76 most days to do as many of the easy daily challenges that I could to progress on the season. I’ve gotten quite a few good prizes, and spent some of the ATOMs I’ve gathered on a Red Rocket garage for my homestead.
• Was kind of hoping to do more gaming overall… but I guess I didn’t. Well, I did wrap up Sam and Max Hit the Road for retro gaming, but at this point those post are scheduled so far out that you won’t be reading any of those posts until next year. Seriously.
• One of the reasons for less gaming time in July is that (a) we took a week to go camping with no internet and (b) I was spending more time working on my movie/TV reviews site, Mutant Reviewers, and reading books.

August 2020’s goals

• I’ll tell you, one of the effects of all this LOTRO downtime is that it’s really, really made me want to play the game. So if and when LOTRO gets going again, I’m going to finish up the new epic book and work on some more deeds until the next progression server unlock happens. I also will buy the new Rohan housing when it arrives and will be spending some fun times decorating that. I’d love to be spending more time adventuring in Western Rohan as the month goes on.
• My World of Warcraft goal is pretty well-defined: Get my Death Knight and Shaman to 120 by the end of the month. Gear them up if I have extra time.
• Fallout 76 will continue with the daily challenges and not much else until the One Wasteland patch arrives.
• I’m eyeing Star Wars: The Old Republic more and more these days, especially with the resurgence due to the Steam launch and my somewhat recent playthrough of KOTOR. I might try my hand at a new character.
• I’ve shelved Torchlight III until the game commits to not wiping any more. Not sure if that’ll be soon or a long time for now, but I’m not going to spend time playing it if that’s the case.
• I might be going through another run of The Outer Worlds in preparation to the new DLC coming in a month. So excited that’s happening!
• For the next retro gaming series I’m going to explore, I’m going to an RPG, so I think that Anachronox will be next on tap.

Syp’s gaming goals for July 2020

June 2020 in review

• I’m ending the month in a very different place than I had anticipated. I barely played Phantasy Star Online 2 at all — just wasn’t that appealing to me — but I did fall right back into World of Warcraft with a brand-new account and a new Druid to level. I got my Worgan to level 45 and started to map out a plan of how to catch up for Shadowlands.
• Lord of the Rings Online was a big month of treading water by doing nothing else than deeds on my Minstrel. I got all of Eriador’s deeds done and started in on Moria and Lothlorien, but to be frank, I’m ready for some actual new questing content.
• I also got into doing some RIFT for the first time in two years. Nothing hardcore — I just missed it and wanted to revisit an old favorite MMO.
• I throttled back on Elder Scrolls Online a little, doing about one Greymoor quest a night along with some antiquities. One of my guildies helped deck me out with a great suit of stamina gear, and I switched my Warden over to being a bow-using ranger type. I haven’t finished Western Skyrim yet, nor have I stepped into the underworld.
• Thanks to a week vacation at a cabin with no internet, I managed to wrap up my Knights of the Old Republic playthrough about a month earlier than anticipated! Right now I actually have retro gaming posts written and scheduled through the end of 2020.
• I bought and tried out that indie survival game Among Trees, although it’s got a long way to go before being fully cooked.

July 2020’s goals

• Speaking of early access, I picked up Torchlight III, mostly because I was encouraged by all of the content and fixes that are going into this week’s patch. No huge goal here, other than to try it out and see what there is to see.
• My overarching goal of the month will be to level up my World of Warcraft Druid as much as I can. I don’t have Battle for Azeroth on that account yet, so I’m holding off on that until I can buy Shadowlands and get BFA for free. But still, getting to 90 or so would be a good sign of progress.
• I’ll keep doing my one-quest-a-day in Elder Scrolls Online, see if I can’t get antiquities to the next level.
• LOTRO is busting out its new wedding event/content update this week, so you better believe I’m going to be all over that with (wedding) bells on.
• And Fallout 76’s first season starts this week as well, so I’m going to table all my quests until the One Wasteland patch comes out and just do seasonal stuff. See how far I can get on that game board.
• For Retro Gaming, I’m going to tuck into Sam and Max Hit the Road. I never played it, so it’ll be a new experience for me.

Looking back at July 2015…

• I was playing Marvel Heroes as Ant-man, delivering my first impressions of Project Gorgon, being a Bounty Hunter in SWTOR, wondering if WildStar had a political message, and revisiting Star Trek 25th Anniversary.
• There were six things that bugged me in MMOs I liked, an internal conflict going on with playing FFXIV, expansions that became the superstars, a Twitter war over Shark Week among MMO studios, and difficulty approaching new MMOs.

Looking back at July 2010…

• I was playing the then-disappointing Star Trek Online, going into LOTRO’s Moria for the first time, adventuring through Dragon Age, and feeling unstuck from Guild Wars.
• I said that I didn’t want to become a gaming cynic. dealt with the fallout of Blizzard’s ill-conceived RealID, wondered why we keep returning to World of Warcraft, got very excited at the prospect of SWTOR space battles, talked about my favorite Atari 2600 games, looked at EverQuest II’s free-to-play model, wondered about Guild Wars 2’s prospects, and was strangely prescient about 38 Studios.

 

Syp’s gaming goals for June 2020

May 2020 in review

• Well, another wonderful (ahem) COVID quarantine month in the bag — it’s so strange to think that we’ve been in this new world for two-and-a-half months now. At least things are slowly starting to reopen in Western NY, so there’s some hope that this summer won’t be experienced solely behind closed doors.
• I’d say that my gaming time pretty much remained constant. I mostly rotated through three titles, giving each about 45 minutes a night apiece.
• Elder Scrolls Online got a strong resurgence from me, partially thanks to the next expansion and partially thanks to generally engaging storytelling and a pretty world. I worked on hunting down some final quests in Northern Elsweyr and did some lengthy prologue quest chains.
• Over in Lord of the Rings Online, I finished up the relatively short Wells of Langflood zone on my Lore-master, played around with a baby Hobbit Hunter, and did some deed hunting on my legendary server Minstrel.
• And in Fallout 76, I reached level 25, picked a faction to support (Settlers), built a small cottage, and explored some fun quest chains.
• Since I’m way, way ahead in my retro gaming play (in comparison to what is being posted these days), I’ve been playing through Knights of the Old Republic (light side).

June 2020 gaming goals

• I’m 100% into trying out Phantasy Star Online 2 and seeing how that whole experience goes. I’m optimistic, but not riding all of my hopes and dreams on it. I’ve been encouraged by hearing pretty good things about those playing it, so if it grabs me? I’m willing to be swept along… or just dabble, if that’s all my interest or time allows.
• With Greymoor out for Elder Scrolls Online, I’ll definitely be working my way through the new expansion before doing anything else in the game. I really want to try out the Antiquities system as well and see if that might be a fun side activity.
• Lord of the Rings Online remains a toss-up. I’ve actually been having fun just casually deeding on my Minstrel, so I might continue that until Helm’s Deep or another content patch drops on the live server. And no, I won’t be doing the new PvP world. Not my thing.
• For Fallout 76, I would like to get to level 30 at the very least and get deeper into the ally and faction systems. When the first season comes out, I’m going to charge into that full-bore.
• KOTOR’s probably going to take me two more months to finish at the rate I’ve been going, so that’s what I’m aiming to do.

Junes of the past

• In June 2010, I was having some mindless fun in City of Heroes, getting mad at Turbine’s Pando Media Booster, playing DDO with the Massively guild, examining morality in video games, partaking of a funeral in LOTRO, getting ever more hyped for SWTOR (but not for WoW Cataclysm), and processing LOTRO’s F2P announcement. I also got my very first Kindle this month!
• In June 2015, I was playing Planetfall, Fallout 2, and X-Wing for retro gaming, figuring out where Guild Wars 2 lost me, being all Squirrel Girl during Marvel Heroes’ second anniversary, doing some WildStar interior decorating, trying out ArcheAge and Villagers and Heroes, going up the floors of The Secret World’s Orochi Tower, absorbing SWTOR’s Knights of the Fallen Empire announcement, commenting on World of Warcraft’s flying about-face. I also started getting back into cycling at this time and tried building a new PC.