Time to Loot Journal: Blaugust 2022

by Naithin · Published August 31, 2022 · Updated August 31, 2022

With the completion of this post, I can call close to the challenge of Blaugust 2022. It will be my 31st post in 31 days. Mission complete!

Krikket’s wonderful layout for the Blaugchievements

Well… Core mission! This year, we also had Blaugchievements. I think going over them in detail, I’m going to save for the truly post-Blaugust wrap-up, but I will say: I think I actually hit Platinum!

There is only one that I think might be contentious for me to claim: Pickup Group.

Belghast’s description says:

Pickup Group – This one is gained by playing a game or joining in an external event with other Blaugust participants. We have the “Gaming-Together” channel and sometimes groups come out of that, and there was some discussion about someone hosting a one-shot pen and paper game. The whole goal here is to get you mingling with other members and building permanent bonds.

How I’m claiming it?

The XCOM 2 Succession Game. Kluwes, UnwiseOwl and I are still going strong.

The potentially contentious point is that this isn’t a synchronous experience. We’re not jumping into voice or the like. It’s asynchronous, a game experienced together but shared over time.

I don’t think the description explicitly writes this out, but is it close enough to the spirit of intent?

I’m saying yes — but if Bel or others have another view, I’ll listen. :)

That’s a post for another day, though! But… probably, not tomorrow. I’m taking a break, dangit!

Looking Back

One Year Ago

Oh man, what a different place the world was last year! Well, ‘world’ as defined by New Zealand. Actually — Just Auckland, New Zealand. Because we were put into Level 4 (home isolation) Lockdown to halt the spread of COVID-19. Just a short year ago, the Government of NZ still thought the lockdown early, and lockdown hard approach was the right move.

The boss — and dungeon run — that finally made me believe.

I found that last lockdown difficult — but also had some fun with Quiplash with my team at work to keep in touch with something a little more lighthearted!
Had another annual stab at ESO — Some WoW guildies and I went for another romp ’round the lands of Tamriel, which reminds me… We still haven’t done that for 2022 yet… And there is a new expansion out… Although honestly, the size and scope of ESO’s expansions still irk me greatly. I can only imagine most of the budget is going into fully voicing everything??
Uploaded the last part of my Dark Souls: Remastered run — I didn’t know it was my last part at the time. I certainly wasn’t finished. But my attempts at ‘Playing to a Schedule‘ were starting to chafe. So I stopped. But now… With Elden Ring completed… Might I start it up again? (Probably not.)¹
I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, the FFXIV community really was as good as people were saying — I won’t lie. I was fairly convinced it was a bias-effect going on. MMOers are MMOers, right? … Well; perhaps not. That run is still burnt into my mind. Uh- ‘burnt’ in a positive way.

Two Years Ago

There wasn’t a Blaugust, exactly, this year. We’d already done it as Blapril! August did find itself host to Belghast’s Promptapalooza instead, though. I participated, but not every day. Checking the official timeline, and yep — we were in a Level 3 (home isolation, but uber eats is allowed!) lockdown for the latter half of August 2020 as well.

Posted the final entry in the Cities: Skylines Blogger City Project — OK, now I just think August might be the month my series’ go to die. As with the Dark Souls one above, I didn’t know this would be my last when I posted it. I just ran out of steam naming things down to such a micro level.² Still kinda tempted to do it again, but just keep at naming districts, though!
Lost Ark in the West finally received some substantial news — although it was still by no means a sure thing. They never even referenced Lost Ark by name! But we knew… We knew.

Gaming Goals

August’s Goals

I didn’t set any. I haven’t for a few months now, and I figured Blaugust was going to keep me plenty busy without adding any extra pressure.

But the successful completion of Blaugust has shown me that it’s probably OK to start diving back into setting goals again. So!

September’s Goals

Deciding to set some is one thing. Deciding what to set is wholly another! I’m pretty out of practice at all this. Will my interest in X4 see me through the completion of a goal? And even if yes, what goal? I’ve already got a station which I thought might make a good one!

Hmmm…

I really don’t think you’re supposed to aim a mini-gun like that. Pretty sure, in fact, the whole point is that you don’t *need* to aim it!

Oh! A bit left field, perhaps, but:

XCOM 2: Start a new campaign!
All the way through the succession game, I’ve had a bit of an itch to play more than the game has allowed. But I’ve been reluctant to do so, from a desire not to play without mods or, worse, to risk corrupting our current game with mod data inadvertently. But! I think vanilla XCOM 2 is actually pretty OK after now having played it a while. So, I’ll just do that. :)
Cities Skylines: Start a new blogger city!
Scratching another itch and following on the theme of new beginnings. It seems oddly appropriate as a theme, as I do feel quite refreshed and ready to start again in a more normal fashion upon completion of Blaugust.

Games Played August 2022

Rank	Game	Hours	% Gaming Time
1	X4: Foundations	21.8	52.2%
2	No Man’s Sky	5.8	14.4%
3	Elden Ring	3.2	8.0%
4	Dwarf Fortress	3.1	7.6%
5	The Ascent	1.9	4.8%
6	Songs of Syx	1.8	4.5%
7	Citizen Sleeper	1.0	2.4%
8	Vermintide 2	1.0	2.4%
9	XCOM 2	0.7	1.8%

Links are to posts about the game in question which were made this month — where multiple posts were made this month about a game; may link to the category instead.

Giving something new a try — stolen shamelessly from Krikket’s own end-of-month post style. I don’t think I want to replace the table entirely, as having it in text makes for easier searching, but as an addon? Maybe!

My overall time spent playing games this month was less than I expected it to be, but reflecting on it now, I can see it. Even if it was only Blaugust to contend with, that alone takes a significant chunk of what might otherwise be game time!

There was a patch earlier in the month where I very nearly (OK, let’s be honest, I did) run dry of content to cover from the lack of hands-on time with any sort of game for an extended number of days.

The major omissions here are both Monster Hunter: Rise and Stardew Valley, both of which (at the time of writing) are over there on my sidebar as ‘currently playing’. No Man’s Sky sort of took over the Multiplayer-with-Friends job for a time there. NMS I’ve since removed from the sidebar, but I’m not ready to do the same for Rise or SDV yet.

Let’s see how the coming month goes!

Books Read August 2022

I think at this point… It’s pretty clear I’m not going to hit my goal of reading 15 books this year, even if I do count each of the books within The Great Leveller as a separate book. Which would be fair; they were first published that way!

My slow-reading slump is continuing, mostly because a lot of my reading time is as I lay down to sleep. And, of late, I’ve been falling asleep almost immediately upon head hitting the pillow.

This isn’t a bad thing per se. I could probably do with the rest, but, yeah! Making reading slow going.

I’m still in the first of the three books contained within The Great Leveller, although I feel I must be close to reaching its end. I’m torn between not wanting it to end and the last shreds of hope for hitting my goals however. Hah.

At the very least; this says I am enjoying it a fair bit even if the tale being told is certainly on the grim side of things. Although I suppose when it comes to Abercrombie, this is really only to be expected.

The Blog

Welp… It’s safe to say… I pushed more posts to a published status this month than I have in a long, long while. Last Blaugust, in fact! 31 new posts (including this one) this month, bringing the total published posts on Time to Loot up to 587.

Posting every day over Blaugust has certainly helped push my site stats back in an upward direction — a bit over double what I had been managing with my prior perhaps 2-posts a month schedule. Certainly nothing like my peak, but that’s OK. I’m still enjoying myself which is the main thing… And while I’ll go into this more in the coming days, as I think I’ve already said in this post, Blaugust… worked, for me. I do feel revitalised. Refreshed. Which is an odd thing to say at this end of things, perhaps. But it’s true.

I’m looking forward to what the coming months bring.

This was posted during Blaugust 2022, the annual blogging event hosted by Belghast. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.

The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in year-round!

Footnotes

But never say never.
I was naming streets! Sometimes even individual premises. Although it was fun to be able to see someone driving into work at Rakuno’s power station or head to Kim’s school. :)

Time to Loot Journal: Blaugust 2022