Time to Loot Journal: December 2020

While undoubtedly we all know on an intellectual level that no arbitrary switch in date will bring with it immediate change for the better, there still seems to be a feeling of symbolic importance to the changing of the year. The ability to put the bad of 2020 behind us even if just for the moment in anticipation of the coming change for better.

So a very Happy New Year to you all!

I’m not really one for resolutions as such, but if any come up over the month of January I might take a look at them in the review of that month. For now… December?

Well- at least from a gaming perspective December is fairly easy to summarise: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

Not only have I never spent so many hours in a single game within a month since I started tracking back in March 2019 — I’ve never spent so many hours gaming full stop. Like… There’s no other month even remotely close.

Holidays have been both a help and a hindrance here, as in NZ we can still travel around domestically so still have been out and about visiting family and away from the PC somewhat. So this means the hours have come out of time I would’ve normally spent doing other things. Reading. Watching TV. *cough* Sleeping.

In any case, I digress! Will get to the gaming time soon. First, the goals!

Gaming Goals

December’s Goals

• WoW: Craft my first legendary!
  No ilvl requirement for it, could be a 190. I need to look more into the pros and cons here, especially given it IS possible to upgrade a legendary later on. But I still might wait for the 230 (I think it is?) variant. Plus… This also relies on actually getting the legendary memories I want, which in turn — as a frost mage — means hoping the right Torghast wings open up. So we’ll see!
• WoW: Complete every dungeon on Mythic 0 (or higher)
  Should be easy enough, I reckon!

Er. Yep.

Achieved these. Several times over, in fact. I’ve crafted three legendary items now. All of which are still just ilvl 190 though. This is by power of the fact that I started out as Frost and later changed to Fire. Frost had two different legendaries to craft depending on whether wanting to do Single Target or Multiple Target damage.

I have a choice to make this month though, on which one(s) to progress to higher ilvls. So far? Pretty well enjoying Fire, so I think Firestorm might be the one. There is the slim outside chance though that I might also craft Fevered Incantation though. It allows itself to be crafted for the head-slot; which Firestorm doesn’t. Will provide better stats as a result as the head is one of the high itemisation point slots.

In terms of Mythics; completed all on Mythic 0 pretty early on into the month and have started pushing keys although nothing too crazy yet. A few +7’s, but usually floating around the +5-+6 mark.

January’s Goals

• WoW: Upgrade at least one legendary to ilvl 210
  I might be able to push to 225, but probably not if I do end up crafting myself a Fevered Incantation as well. So I won’t push for more than 210 just yet. Perhaps 225 can be a stretch goal. ;)
• Blog: At least one non-WoW post made for the month.
  I’m beginning to settle the WoW playtime down somewhat I think, returning to a slightly more normal rhythm with the initial frenetic rush falling away. So, time to get something other than WoW up! (At least once!)

Games Played in December 2020

Here, take a look:

October data tracking was broken for the month but wouldn’t have shown anything remotely on this scale. Looking back over the full data set — the largest play-time month ever was September 2019 with 143 hours played.

Eesh.

It wasn’t all WoW though, a few others — particularly around month end — started to creep in too.

If someone had told me I would play more WoW than Cyberpunk 2077 on the month it released, I would’ve thought them crazy. But here we are. I haven’t refunded it and don’t intend to. I quite enjoy what I’ve seen, but like The Witcher 3 before it — it’s clear it needs some time for fixes and enhancements.

So I’ll give it a bit of time for that and return to it in the future.

With the exception of Last Epoch and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order; the rest are Christmas purchases that I’ve dabbled with a little. Starwars Jedi: Fallen Order is a Christmas gift from my brother whereas Last Epoch I’ve owned a while. The Rogue base class came out earlier in the month and I gave that a spin.

And as an aside; might I just say they’ve done a fantastic job of the Rogue? To such an extent that I wonder whether another pass might be required on some of the older base classes in the game as playing them is night and day difference between the design sensibilities on display here.

Last Epoch is a title I’ve been meaning to give more attention to for a while though. It has come a long way since its initial Steam Early Access release where it looked incredibly poor quality in almost every respect to now.

The only one on this list that I may not return to at some point is Immortals: Fenix Rising. It wasn’t bad per se. But also just not particularly inspiring of further delving when heaped against all other options available.

The Blog

6 posts published for the month of December 2020. My lowest yet. Still… Given how much time spent gaming, in retrospect this isn’t particularly surprising. I probably should’ve added ‘Blogging’ to my earlier list of activities sacrificed in order to boost the gaming hours that substantially.

I don’t feel too bad about it though on reflection. Don’t get me wrong- I do want to be doing more. Not only here blogging for myself on Time to Loot; but also in terms of being an actively participating community member. Perhaps moreso that latter than the first in fact.

I think I’ve put to bed, for now at least, any immediate concerns over simply drifting away for months at a time like I have in the past. Couldn’t really tell you why. But I’m glad for it nonetheless.

As a total? Time to Loot has 353 published posts as at the end of December 2020 (so not including this one). That’s ~152 posts throughout 2020.

Most Viewed Posts

1. Deep Rock Galactic: The Solo Experience
2. Damnit… RMA Required on my RTX 3080
3. Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
4. Remnant vs. Dark Souls
5. Humble Choice: December 2020

And that’s the wrap-up for the month!

I think something more specific to the wrap-up of the year might be warranted too at some point, as I’d like to share my version of Belghast’s Games Played in 2020 post. I picked up the idea from him last year, and have been rather dutifully updating my spreadsheet since with the exception of October where I lost my gaming data.

So that’s coming soon! :)