Final Fantasy XIV

Time to Loot Journal: July 2019

Looking back over the past month I’m left wondering… What happened? Where did the time go and what did I do? It seems like a lifetime ago that the health scare raised its head, and yet it was only a handful of weeks. The endoscopy is the end of this week and all going well will put this concern to rest.

Other unrelated sickness in the household has meant I’ve spent a week working from home, which I think lent itself to time blurring with the removal of a regular cadence of work and back, work and back to mark out the days.

Oh! Blaugust is coming though! Over the latter part of July I’ve been in a sort of warm-up exercise mode for it, posting if not every day then every other. It isn’t too late to sign up and jump into the Discord though. :)

Blog this Month

Published 18 posts this month. Up 8 from last. Second most posts in a month since I started Time to Loot (with first place going to February). My Blaugust goal is to hit a post all 31 days though.

I think I can do it — but we’ll see.

Life often has a way of sneaking up and inappropriately pinching your behind when you’re not looking after all. Someone should tell Life it’s 2019 and we don’t stand for that sort of carry on any more.

As for totals? This will make for 98 published posts. Almost broke 100 a month ahead of prediction! I have to say, quite chuffed with getting this far.

Most Viewed Posts

  1. Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
  2. Heart of Rage: Tips for The Monitor
  3. Blaugust 2019 is Coming!
  4. Starting The Horrible Hundred
  5. Humble Monthly: July 2019

I was right! The Heart of Rage post at last falls out of top spot. That was a pretty impressive run for it though I suppose. But now the Transport Fever starter guide has taken over with almost 4x the views this month than HoR.

Games this Month

RankGameHours% Gaming TimeChange
1Final Fantasy XIV29.938.5%↑2
2Lost Ark29.838.3%New
3Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey4.55.8%Returning
4Stellaris4.15.3%New
5Warframe2.83.6%New
6Astroneer2.53.2%New
7Devil May Cry 51.82.3%Returning
8Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice0.91.1%New
9Celeste0.81.1%New
10Parkasaurus0.70.9%New

July saw a total of 77.7 gaming hours, down 2.9 hours from June.

And in an almost complete flip from last month where the total active hours were way down from watching shows on devices other than the main desktop, this month saw an unprecedented high of 317.2 total active hours. This is up 141.1 hours over last month.

Much of the increase to total active hours comes from spending a little over a week working from home, plus some return to this device as a TV/Movie watching device.

For July, this means gaming made up 24.4% of the active hours, down 21.2% from last month.

Final Fantasy XIV

Talk about juuuuust eking it out for top spot. Less than 6 minutes difference between it and Lost Ark.

Final Fantasy will certainly still hold strong next month. But whether it will be #1 or #2 is anyone’s guess at this stage.

I’m still looking down the barrel of the vast majority of The Horrible Hundred to complete. But I’ll get there. I’ve just been horribly distracted by Lost Ark, and it’s all Mailvaltar’s fault. Don’t look at me like that, it is! ;)

Lost Ark

Perhaps rather cruelly, I first found out about Lost Ark some 4 or 5 years ago.

I’ve finally got a chance to dive in and try most of the base classes. And Oh my God, where has this game been my entire life?

The blend of MMORPG and ARPG is just so perfect. I’ve leveled two of the Warrior classes — Berserker and Warlord to nearly 30, and with a friend just joining decided to take a look at Bard alongside them.

Easy contender for top spot next month, but as I called out in the sneak peek — it’s by no means certain. Technically you cannot play this outside of Korea, so my account could be terminated at any point. It is going to be difficult in the extreme though to keep my mindset as one of testing and experimenting rather than dedicated though.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

The last episode of the Fate of Atlantis DLC dropped this month, spurring me back into AC’s rendition of Greece where the myths are real.

I’ve started my way into chapter 2 of the First Blade DLC.

I’ve almost finished annihilating the Order of the Storm — Chapter 2’s addition to the Persian Cult — but I’m endeavouring to hunt a few final clues before the final engagement of the chapter. It is my hope that I can save this person rather than slaughter them. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it has been elsewhere in the story. So… Here’s to hoping!

The Others

Quite a hodgepodge here, as is my way. :)

Stellaris made a bit of a surprise return visit in the form of a 4 player game set in a small galaxy size, so that we could test out the recently released Ancient Relics Story pack which added archaeological dig sites that you could have your scientists work on.

Warframe saw a little bit of a revisit too after Tennocon. I still have much to do here, as even in this return I didn’t set foot onto Venus/Fortuna. I think I’m holding out for The New War and Empyrean to download into our hot little waiting hands.

Although I did discover today that there has been a little more added to the story of space mother (aka Natah)! It came alongside the Jupiter / Gas City revamp, and it is apparently quite telling of things to come in the New War story. I may not be able to resist doing that soon.

The rest on the list also make some degree of sense for me I suppose, but if you quirked a brow at Parkasaurus… Well. It’s a tycoon game for a start. I do also love those after all. But mostly, I have an 8-year old boy who still adores Dinosaurs. So this thing was about the best thing ever. For… *looks* …A bit under an hour. ;D

Current Games of Interest: July 2019

This one’s a little odd. Usually I have another game I’m adding when I do these posts. Not so this time. But I’ve been giving my games list on the sidebar the side-eye for a while. It is very much not accurate. Beyond even the point of thinking a game there might just hold out that little longer for a return.

Nope, they’re jumping straight into the ‘removed’ bucket this time!

Changes to the Game List

Added

  • None!

Remaining

  • Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  • Final Fantasy XIV

Nearly Removed

  • None!

Removed

  • Nioh
  • Transport Fever

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey saw the last chapter of its second DLC release just this past week, so I’ve spent a little extra time getting acquainted again. I still have the final two chapters of the first DLC to play through too, so there is a bit of life left in this one yet! :D

Otherwise, with Final Fantasy XIV taking more of my gaming time again it isn’t too surprising that other things are dropping out. Although that is only a part reason.

In the last journal I talked about how Nioh had been put on hold earlier in the month to allow my eldest son to catch-up so we could play it together co-op. Welp; that never happened. I could carry on with it singleplayer, but the momentum has been broken.

Then all the way back in the May Journal I noted that I would likely put a premature end to the Chasing Truck Fever series. I allowed for the possibility of carrying on with it in a more typical post format. But uh, clearly that didn’t happen.

So away they go!

Time to Loot Journal: June 2019

I don’t think I’ve provided an update on my work situation since the May Journal, so here we go. I’ve ended up not leaving after all. I had put my hand up to leave in order to take a look for something new out there. I needed a change, and if it saved one of my team from redundancy in the process all the better.

I’d signed the papers and it was a done deal — but then in the last couple of weeks before I was scheduled to go I was presented with an opportunity to take up a significant new challenge on a brand new product portfolio.

Pretty exciting, with a lot of new tech to learn and play with! Which is exactly what I was after. :)

Blog this Month

Published 10 posts this month, down 2 from last month. This was maintaining a fairly consistent 2 posts a week, although this one will make for the third post this week. Originally I had wanted to run 3 posts a week, but with how I currently run things that has turned out to be unsustainable.

How do I currently run things? Well — I think a separate post on that is forthcoming, but the gist of it is that I haven’t really carved out any time in my life for blogging. It has simply had to fit around out.

In any case, this post will make for 80 published posts. By the end of August Time to Loot should be sitting slightly over 100 posts, which I think will make it my most posted to blog — although still a fair while off longest running.

Most Viewed Posts

  1. Heart of Rage: Tips for the Monitor
  2. Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
  3. Humble Bundle: June 2019
  4. E3 Gleanings So Far
  5. When First Impressions Don’t Last

So my prediction of the Heart of rage post lasting in top spot for another month was true. That also probably wasn’t the most terribly difficult prediction to make. But last month I also wasn’t sure whether it would hold much beyond that.

I think now that next month we’ll see the HoR post fall into at least the second place spot.

Games this Month

RankGameHours% Gaming TimeChange
1DoTA Underlords28.335.3%New
2Nioh25.331.5%New
3Final Fantasy XIV7.59.3%↓1
4Forager5.97.4%New
5Borderlands 25.77.1%New
6Moonlighter4.96.1%New
7Dark Souls: Remastered0.91.1%New
8Slay the Spire0.81.0%New
9Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem0.60.8%Returning
10Baba Is You0.40.5%New

There was a total of 80.4 gaming hours this month, up 51.3 hours from May. Back to an almost ‘normal’ mid-90’s figure. Well. What I’m taking as normal anyway, but that was only based on two months (March & April) of data.

Where things get a bit more interesting is that the correlation between total active time on the computer and gaming time was broken this month. Total active time was only 176.1 hours, down 27 hours from even last month. Down a bit over 70 hours as compared to a ‘normal’ month.

Gaming made up 45.6% of the active hours, up 31.3% from May.

Now in graph form! While the data set is still very small, the current month is still quite an apparent anomaly. I think I can explain it though. In the previous months, my wife and I were using this computer to watch shows on as well, inflating the active time. This month we’ve been more likely to use her laptop or my Surface in bed to watch things instead. Because it’s frackin’ cold. Seasonal effect, it’s real! ;)

DoTA Underlords

I mentioned earlier discovering DoTA Underlords, bouncing off initially and then coming back for more. Way more. DoTA Underlords has filled that niche of game that can be played quite comfortably while watching a show, browsing, or being otherwise occupied on the other monitor.

I made it up to Smuggler III so far as rank thus far, but don’t let the fact that the multiplayer is ‘ranked’ scare you off. No-one is really looking at your play, you only vs. the other players in your match via AI controlled units in fact. I don’t know much longer I’ll keep playing it heavily– but I appreciate that it exists!

Nioh

My play time here has fallen away in the latter half of the month. I was hoping to play it multiplayer with my eldest son some more, so I halted my singleplayer progress while he catches up.

But uh… It’s taking him a while. Mostly because he still plays so much Fortnite. Please excuse me while I scream into this bag for a little bit. ;)

I’m at the beginning of the third island now, whereas I believe my son still has at least one more main mission on the first island.

Final Fantasy XIV

I’d hoped the launch of Shadowbringers would be a bit more exciting for me personally, but it has certainly been held back by the fact I know I still have so. much. more. to do on the ARR MSQ before I even get to see the last expansions, let alone this one!

No doubt I’ll still get my way through things, but it isn’t something I’ve been heavily investing time into as you can see.

Forager

The perfect skinner-box game. I wondered at first whether it might have a bit of a pacing issue getting started.

And it might — especially if you don’t know the general direction in which to head to unlock automation. But once you get it, things start ticking along very nicely and it is a very difficult to put down game. I think I said I was going to call it at around level 20, didn’t actually stop until around level 25 because I kept unlocking cool new technologies that I ‘just wanted to see’.

It’s still under quite active development too, only single-player right now but co-op is on the roadmap.

Borderlands 2

If you didn’t hear — Borderlands 2 released a new DLC this month with story that directly ties into the forthcoming Borderlands 3. ‘Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary’.

If you add it to your account before July 8th or there abouts — it’s free. It did highlight though how poorly some of the gameplay concepts of Borderlands 2 have aged. Don’t get me wrong — we still had a blast playing through it, but hoo boy. Bring on BL3!

The Others

I talked about these already, and recently — so I shan’t go into too much detail again.

The first main callout here is that I added Slay the Spire to my list of acquisitions from this Steam Sale. I’ve only played one round of it so far in which died horribly in the 2nd chapter/area, but did at least beat the first boss! ;)

The second is that Wolcen received a fairly hefty content patch. Act 1 is back in the game. But at least so far it is utterly unrecognisable from the ‘Act 1’ we had in the Alpha. Whether the story strands will ultimately rejoin or whether those old strands have been cut and tossed to the wind I’m not entirely sure.

It’s still very much a case of, ‘Only buy if you wish to support the developers’. But it looks great. Some of that early promise which has been missing (in my opinion) since the transition from the Alpha to the Betas is finally starting to make an appearance again.

Second Go-Round with Nioh

Ahh yes. The genuine Edo-period ‘Valve’ helm.

This has been coming for a wee while. Ever since playing Sekiro, the urge to play Nioh again has been building. Making time for it has been another matter entirely. I have been playing a bit more this month than I did last month though. Although in case you’re wondering — no, you didn’t miss the first outing with the game. Well actually you did, I guess. But it wasn’t in the lifetime of this blog.

The last time I played Nioh would’ve been the tail end of 2017. I’d somehow missed the fact it had even gained itself a PC release, but jumped right on it when I found out. I pushed through level 2 (the ‘hell level’, for new comers apparently) and a bit beyond. I’d wrapped up through most of the second area in fact. With one, significant, exception.

Tachibana Muneshige — Invitation from the Warrior of the West:
Invites you to an ‘honourable’ duel, then proceeds to cheat like nobody’s business. CHEAT I SAY.

This bugger was the true ‘hell level’ in my opinion. Stopped me in my tracks. This time through, already beaten him and on my way through the third region of the game. Even though it’d been so long since I last played, I’ve strugged far less with it this time around.

In terms of everything else going on (or not going on, as the case may be)…

Changes to the Game List

Added

  • Nioh

Remaining

  • Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  • Final Fantasy XIV

Nearly Removed

  • Transport Fever

Removed

  • Tomb Raider

Assassin’s Creed is in a bit of a holding pattern until the third chapter to the Atlantis DLC is out (or is to be imminently out), but the hype for that moment is still high so I’m content to hold onto it.

Transport Fever is a bit more tentative. I acknowledged in the last journal that I wasn’t really happy with how the series was going. I thought I might take to the more general, intermittent style posting, rather than attempting it as a continuous story. But since then I’ve hardly touched it.

And Tomb Raider? Well, it’s fallen onto the wrong end of the Making Time equation. I’m still interested in it, and would like to finish the series. But now will not be the time for that it seems. It’s below the waterline in terms of time available vs. prioritised list of things I want to play.

I have no doubt it will be back… At some point. :)

Time to Loot Journal: May 2019

Well… May is a month that happened. While nothing as earth shaking as March, it was closer to home. In the respect that it was both to people I knew and to a degree it was from action I was executing. I’m talking about the restructure at work.

As a brief catch-up, I decided to take voluntary redundancy but that wasn’t the end of it. With the labour cost restrictions for the coming financial year… There was still headcount compression that had to happen within the remainder of my team. One in particular took it very hard and I haven’t as yet been able to place them anywhere else in the company. Nonetheless, I’ve been able to negotiate early release for those that want it and everyone is getting to a better place.

Still it’s not over though, and I’ve been offered a few interesting potentials to get me to stay. There is a lot to unpack mentally in this though, as I do in many ways still feel it is my time to go, and seek some change. In any case, enough of that. The point is — a lot on the mind this month which has kept me from really digging too much into games or blogging (from a reading or writing perspective) as much as I would like.

Blog this Month

For all that, I still managed to publish 12 posts. But they were rather heavily weighted toward the start of the month before things got hectic. Four posts in the first week of the month, then typically only 2 after that.

There are now a grand total of 71 published posts (including this one). It also marks the 6th month of posting! … Sort of. It’s hard to count January since I started so close to the end. Even so, I think I’ll take it. ;)

Most Viewed Posts

  1. Heart of Rage: Tips for the Monitor
  2. Nostalgia and Moving On
  3. Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
  4. Quitting WoW
  5. Kickstarter 10 Years Old

Well what do you know, all posts except for the Heart of Rage were actually from this month. I wonder how long before it falls from top spot though. I suspect it will last through next month, one after that I’m less confident about.

Games this Month

RankGameHours% Gaming TimeChange
1Transport Fever9.131.1%↑3
2Final Fantasy XIV9.030.9%Returning
3Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey2.910.0%↓2
4The Division 22.48.3%↓2
5Battle Brothers1.65.3%New
6Sea of Thieves1.55.1%New
7Star Traders: Frontiers1.55.0%New
8Production Line0.62.1%New
9Absolver0.62.1%New

There was a total of 29.1 gaming hours this month, down by a whopping 68.6 hours from April. Not too surprising given the context of the month, but still! The total gaming hours is not much more than half the time I spent on just AC:O last month.

Total active time on the computer was 203.1 hours, down 65.7 hours from last month. Gaming made up 14.3% of the active hours, down 22.9% from April.

Transport Fever

I played through a few of the actual gameplay sections for the Chasing Truck Fever series (including one as yet to be posted).

If not for the series, despite still enjoying the game immensely I think it would have fallen a lot lower on the list in terms of time played. The series itself hasn’t been doing super well, which I suppose isn’t too surprising given the genre itself is a bit niche. May end up putting a premature end to it in that form, with my more general intermittent update style post.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV makes a triumphant return! … Well, it makes a return at least! Despite relatively few hours in it this month, there has been a lot of progress made.

I got my Choboco. Taught it how to fight. Learnt the way of the Bard. Completed another story dungeon or two, and made it to around level 36 or 37 now. As Mailvaltar correctly pointed out in comments though, this is still a long way off being able to participate in the new expansion content when it launches end of month.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

I feel like dropping only two places in ranking doesn’t adequately tell the story of just how much less played it was this month. It was almost 19x less time spent.

I posted earlier in the month when I finished the first chapter of the first DLC. Since then I’d decided to wait until all chapters of the Fate of Atlantis DLC are out before continuing. If that isn’t this month, it should certainly be the next, as Part 2 came out a week or two ago.

The Division 2

I had some hopes for the raid bringing my interest back around for The Division 2.

It didn’t, so I recently acknowledged that it was off my list.

I’m not to the point of uninstalling it, I definitely want to head back in for any additional story content they add throughout the year. But as something I regularly play, definitely done and I feel that would have been the case even without the additional context of the happenings this month.

The Others

Sea of Thieves

A few interesting titles to try this month. The XBox/Microsoft live pass thinger had a trial offer of 3-months for $1 — so why not? Gave it a go for Sea of Thieves.

There was a bit of fun to be had, but it didn’t really click with my friends or I in any meaningful way. Doubtful it will be returned to even with another 2 and a bit months on the trial clock.

Battle Brothers on the other hand, I like very much. I owe it to Syncaine for even being aware of its existence. Not quite sure how this one had passed me by for so long, but I expect when my gaming time starts returning to some semblance of normalcy it will feature more heavily. It’s a title that absolutely requires a bit of time investment upfront in learning to play, and does a very poor job of teaching necessary bits of information in the game itself.

Absolver

For Absolver… Boy am I glad I picked it up in a Monthly Humble Bundle rather than paying for it. At first I thought I might be able to click with it after all.

It seemed very responsive and I thought that the ‘lag’ issues discussed at the titles launch were either incredibly overblown or now fixed. Turns out neither was the case, there is simply a brief single-player only ‘tutorial’ section at the start. Once you’re through that, as an Oceanic player you just have no chance with half-second or more delays on input to response on screen.

Production Line I mentioned in the last journal as something I picked up alongside Transport Fever while in my tycoon craze phase. I gave it a bit of a try this month and it has a fair bit of potential. I haven’t picked up its DLC, ‘Doors That Go Like This’ yet, but I appreciate the name. Hehe.

And finally, Star Traders: Frontiers — it’s still early access and has if not weekly updates, then near enough to. It’s one I poke my head into again from time to time, but will await a 1.0 release before embarking on a full play through. Nonetheless, it’s already an amazing title well worth your time. :)

FFXIV Back Again

This month has been very light on gaming. Mostly, I think, due to the changes at work. As I mentioned in that post, there were unavoidable impacts to my team where a few positions had to be cut and I know for one in particular this has been quite a heavy and heartfelt impact. Part of it is down to longer hours at work sorting through the process, including looking for redeployment options for people in other areas of the business sure. But I also find that in situations like this I unconsciously choose to drift from gaming.

Which might be a bit of an odd reaction when you consider a large part of the reason for the hobby is as a destressor.

But in any case! Updates to the Games of Interest are afoot. As the title suggests, Final Fantasy XIV makes a return. It seems the seeds I planted in the minds of a few friends when last I was playing finally took root and sprung to life. It was a near thing though, with Elder Scrolls Online’s Elswyer expansion now out I was pretty keen to dip my toes back in there, too.

But we’re also super close to the new content of FFXIV’s Shadowbringer expansion. I’m nowhere near ready at level 35 and running through the Realm Reborn’s main story quest — a mandatory linear chain of quests which you cannot skip or otherwise short circuit by simply leveling past. *grumble*

Changes to the Game List

Added

  • Final Fantasy XIV

Remaining

  • Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  • Transport Fever

Nearly Removed

  • Tomb Raider

Removed

  • The Division 2
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

AC:O I’ve taken a pause on while the DLC catches up. Episode 2 of Atlantis just released the other day, so roughly 5-6 weeks until Episode 3 is out concluding that series and I’ll binge through the lot. ;)

Tomb Raider is holding on for now, as I still have a clear intent to go back and finish the second and third games — whether that intent will materialise into action in the context of limited time and an MMO back on the table though… We’ll see. ;)

Sekiro should come as no surprise to be removed. It had been holding on by a finger nail for a while. While I wouldn’t say I bounced off it hard like my very first encounter with a Souls game, it failed to grab me very firmly either. I noted during the April Journal that playing it made me want to jump in Nioh instead. With Nioh 2 starting to make more of an appearance that feeling grows ever stronger. Perhaps it will end up replacing Tomb Raider? ;)

I guess what might come as a bit more of a surprise is the removal of The Division 2. I gave the raid a try in the hopes it would revitalise the game for me. It didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the raid is well constructed and the boss mechanics are actually interesting.

It was better than I expected, speaking frankly. But the decision not to raise the ilvl from the raid’s drops struck me as odd. Although I suppose even had they raised it, it would have been a short lived extension to the game. So! Making it official. The Division 2 is off my list for the time being. I expect I will want to visit again when more story content comes though. :)

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Added to the Game List and Other Surprises

Still in love with Photo Mode. This was taken after eliminating the last of the underling Cultists at sea.

Still not sure what the right rhythm for updating the games list is. Or even if there will be a ‘rhythm’ to it at all. I had intended to make updates on a monthly cycle but here we are with the second update this month. It has become clear that once a month isn’t going to fit with how my gaming stops and starts actually work.

If I had waited until next month to add Odyssey to the list for example, I’d probably already be done with it despite having had 3 or so posts on it so far with a few more planned.

Possibly a set of guiding principles would work better. But in order to get a full set, I think I’ll have to discover them over time. Although from the few months back at blogging? Here are the ones I’ve figured so far.

Game List and Categorisation Guiding Principles

  • Playing a game doesn’t necessarily mean I have to add it to the list — the idea is to include ones that have at least a little staying power.1
  • As a corollary to the above though, adding a game simply means I am playing it more than as a one-off. Being on the list doesn’t necessarily mean it will get a category or that I will even post on it (although it is likely).
  • MMO’s and ‘Games as a Service’ with long life expectancy (in general, not just my interest) will be categorised as individual titles.
  • More iterative series of games such as Assassin’s Creed and Tomb Raider will be grouped into a category for the series and tagged with the individual games.
  • In either case, a post about a given game or series will be categorised as ‘Other’ unless there are 3+ posts tagged for it.

Changes to the Game List

Added

  • Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Remaining

  • The Division 2
  • Tomb Raider

Nearly Removed

  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Removed

  • Far Cry: New Dawn
  • Final Fantasy XIV

AC:O really came out of nowhere for me. I’d always wanted to go back but had more realistically (or so I thought) resigned myself to it living on in the long list of games started and never completed. There is a certain joy though in playing a single-player title over voice comms with friends, especially one with opportunity for emergent experiences and divergent story paths.

It took over making progress in Rise of the Tomb Raider, but I expect I’ll be making a return there once I’m done with the AC:O DLC.

I’ve also not had a lot to say about The Division 2 of late. With the delay in the Raid until next month, this will likely continue to hold for a bit. The gear stratification issues I highlighted before the release of World Tier 5 are still at play for me.

I reached a point where I’m happy with my build and gear. Any further optimisation that might be achievable wouldn’t be worth the effort in light of the knowledge that the raid is almost certainly going to raise the ilvl available again.

Sekiro veeeery nearly joined FFXIV and Far Cry: New Dawn in being removed. I’ve not touched it since the beginning of the month, and with the current view on what I’ll be playing next, I’m not sure it will change.

Still… I’d like to play some more Sekiro. If I recall rightly, I put it on pause right before the first major boss. So that’ll be fun to relearn when I return. ;)

Anthem off the Games List

Tomb Raider (2013) — Revisiting my campaign from years ago. Hurrah cloud-saves.

I resisted moving Anthem off the side-panel ‘Games of Interest’ block even after declaring my time done with it in the immediate future. I resisted in large part because I was still interested to see how it would unfold from here. How the early roadmap might play out.

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t care. I can’t care. You might have seen the Anthem expose article from Jason Schrier already, if not, Asmiroth wrote a most excellent condensation of the article. Asmiroth covered essentially everything I would have, had I not been distracted by another post topic on the night.

The revelations of the article give me a mixed sense of optimism that — if given the time — that the Anthem ship may yet me turned around. That’s a mighty big ‘if’ truthfully. But it isn’t this doubt that is the other part of the ‘mix’ I was talking about. The other part is a sense of betrayal. The much vaunted dev transparency for Anthem was a sham. An absolute have.

The worst part is of course being an active participant in the sham. There were many clues early on. I don’t just mean in hindsight, either. When the revelation was made that there would be no inventory, no loot display, nothing of the kind while ‘playing’ the game was made. When this was presented as a ‘design’ decision I remember thinking it incomprehensible that any developer — especially one experienced with RPGs like BioWare — would actually make that call.

When the demo rolled around and there was a load screen to access the inventory? That suspicion clicked more firmly in place, and yet still hope was held onto. Ah well. Live and learn. I still hope to be able to reinstall some day in the future for a great, more complete experience.

Full Changes to the Game List

Removed

  • Anthem
  • The Elder Scrolls Online

Nearly Removed

  • Final Fantasy XIV

Added

  • Far Cry: New Dawn
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
  • Tomb Raider (2013)

I didn’t login to The Elder Scrolls Online at all last month, with Final Fantasy XIV taking the MMO spot in my life. Nothing has put me off ESO, it’s entirely likely I’ll be back. Just… not now.

FFXIV itself is living on the edge with no major activity from me in a while. Still. I hold hope that I’ll get back to it again soon. Not having to do any side-quests is such a win for me.

As to the others I added? I suspect they’ll be short-lived, all being one-and-done campaign style games. Tomb Raider I’ve gone right back to the start of the current trilogy though. I never quite finished it at the time, but going to give it a go again now that the entire series is available. :)

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