End of year is fast approaching, eh? Another month down, a little less than two to go. Probably our biggest project delivery of the year is done and dusted on the work front, having delivered in the last week. That definitely creates some room to breathe again but even so, I am holding out for the end-of-year break like crazy.
In the meantime, getting some Overwatch time in. And by ‘some’, I mean, ‘a great deal’.
Seriously, I’ve played more Overwatch in the past few months than I have since its 2016 launch. Before kicking off Overwatch again just recently, I had just shy of 90 hours played in matches, and that number is now up over 190 hours.
I now have quite a raft of heroes that I have more play time on than a lot of the games that pass my way and I’ve been branching out into doing the DPS role more regularly as well (although Support is still by far my most played).
So given all this, my goal results this month are probably not going to be too surprising…
Gaming Goals
October Gaming Goals
Overwatch 2: Complete the 150 game run for the ‘Hero of 2024’ Title
There is an Anniversary event running at the moment, where 150 games (although wins count as 2x games) will grant you a title. Truth be told, I’m a fair ways through this number already – but hey!
Yep, did it!
And then some… Got the next high game count title of ‘Quirkless’ which required 100 games (wins counting as 2x) which apparently would mean something to anyone who watches the My Hero Academia anime, as Overwatch had a crossover even with them last month.
November Gaming Goals
A new contender has entered the field for November. The next annual Call of Duty release landed on October 25th (by NZ reckoning). I wasn’t planning on picking it up, and I did manage to hold out for one whole day.
Then the fact friends were playing got the better of me, and I sunk the truly unfortunate amount of money they ask for each year for the opportunity to play their incremental update.
Turns out though, that at the very least, this update isn’t too bad. At least on the multiplayer front, I’ve not so much as glanced at the campaign so I couldn’t comment on that.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6: Reach Level 55 / Prestige 1
This is an old, but returning leveling system for CoD, but is new to me — essentially now, when you reach level 55, you can choose to ‘Prestige’, which resets your level and unlocks, but for each prestige you do, lets you permanently unlock one thing for all future prestige runs.
For this goal, I want to reach Level 55 (the maximum level per prestige, for the first 10), and then start the Prestige 1 journey!
I think this should be fairly achievable, even if I do continue to play Overwatch moreso than CoD.
Games Played October 2024
| Rank | Game | Hours | % Gaming Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Overwatch | 87.6 | 55.0% |
| 2 | Diablo IV | 38.9 | 24.4% |
| 3 | Call of Duty | 11.2 | 7.0% |
| 4 | Age of Wonders 4 | 10.3 | 6.5% |
| 5 | Wayfinder | 7.1 | 4.5% |
| 6 | Warframe | 2.4 | 1.5% |
| 7 | Chernobylite | 1.9 | 1.2% |
I did play Diablo IV one more time since I thought I was done. Went back in for another Torment 4 run of the Citadel, the multiplayer/co-op required dungeon sequence for more of the cosmetics it can drop.
But I’m still comfortable with dropping it from the sidebar for now, and replacing it with Call of Duty.
I’ll be curious what my Overwatch / Call of Duty time-split ends up looking like for November. It’s interesting, but of the two, I’m much more likely to get grumpy in Call of Duty.
Which is weird, when you consider that both the rounds and the individual engagements are so trivial in CoD. The TTK (Time to Kill) and round times in general are so quick.
No doubt a large part of this will be a difference in perception of my own skill in the two though. They also as a result of the TTK difference play very differently. Overwatch I’ve given 100+ recent hours to, CoD I have… not.
So we’ll see how it goes by the end of the month!
Books Read October 2024
I think it is fair to say that Michael J. Sullivan has shot pretty far up my list of favourite authors.
I finished (what is presently available) of the Riyria Chronicles, which covers in the 10 years that Royce and Hadrian have known each other come the start of the original series.
So this now brings me to Age of Myth (Legends of the First Empire #1) — I’m a little over halfway through it now, and I’m loving it. I was curious how Sullivan would do without reliance on the established relationship between Royce and Hadrian to carry the day — and the answer is: Exceedingly well.
The start of Legends of the First Empire feels very fresh, hitting just the right balance between dropping names from history that you might be familiar with having read the other books and giving you something something totally new.
The series plays into the fact that history (as it generally is) was written by the victors… And not necessarily reliably. This series therefore gives you a chance to see the ‘true’ story as it were, and I’m very much here for it.
I only prestiged once in my gaming life, the game being CoD Modern Warfare 2 (the original, released in 2009 I believe).
I’d reached level 70 so fast and was, as hard as it would be to believe if you’d see me play nowadays, so good at it that I though, hell, why not? Of course it helped that they offered a pretty nice reward for the first prestige rank (I don’t remember what that was though). Once I’d reached level 70 for the second time I chose not to touch that button again however.
I haven’t bought another CoD title after the first Black Ops, so I’m completely out of the loop. I heard the last one was pretty good though.
Anyway, good luck, have fun!
I wouldn’t be too surprised if my experience ends up being similar — prestige once, then never touch the button again.
Although the fact that you can pick your favourite ‘thing’ to keep permanently unlocked through future prestiges, and that weapon levels don’t reset certainly mitigates a lot of the impact from doing it.
With my fairly casual rate of play, I’m not levelling particularly fast, so we’ll see how it goes!
Definitely getting better again as play a bit more, but actually a bit worried that the quite high degree of difference in aim and combat feel from CoD vs. Overwatch that I may end up harming my Overwatch aiming skills, haha.
So far that doesn’t seem to be the case though!
We don’t get an end of year break, per se. I think we get 2 days for Xmas and a day for New Year’s Eve. But we do have Thanksgiving long weekend coming up and I stacked that with a week of PTO following it, so I’ll have 11 days off in a row, which is more consecutive time off than I can ever remember having while still being employed.
And man can I use it.
Tho sadly Indiana Jones and The Great Circle launches the day I go back to work. :( I’m sure I’ll find some way to stay out of mischief for 11 days, though. Maybe the new Flight Simulator!
Our company has a mandatory 3-ish week shutdown over Christmas/New Years. It definitely gets a fair amount of complaints from some quarters, but I love it.
Glad you’re getting a decent period of time off! It is so refreshing to do once in a while.
I so rarely do it for reason of gaming any more, but I suspect Monster Hunter Wilds early next year might be one exception to this general trend. :)