A Month in Gaming
Contrary to my last A Month in Gaming post, I did actually end up buying a discount copy of Elsweyr and returning to The Elder Scrolls Online. And I’m rather glad that I did, because it has provided a welcome change of scene and an opportunity to do something different. However, you can’t just fire up ESO and dive right in. No sir. The first thing you have to do is update all your addons and if your starting a new alt (which I decided to do), ensure that your key mappings and custom settings are ported over. This process was a pain in the butt; however it did inspire a couple of blog posts. Creating a new alt is the perfect way to reacquaint yourself with ESO after a lengthy absence. In my case it has been 12 months. I decided to try the new Necromancer class and so far, it has proven to be both fun and rewarding. Rather than try to do a thousand things at once, I just started the Elsweyr main story and doggedly pursued it. The narrative is enjoyable and it was fun to see Cadwell as part of the plot focus. For practical reasons I’ve re-subscribed to ESO plus to unlock various DLC and I intend to continue playing for the next month or so.
Having successfully completed the Summer Event in Star Trek Online and earned the Tier 6 ship, I’ve decided to reduce my involvement with this MMO for a while. I’m somewhat bored with just grinding out repeatable daily missions for perk points and don’t have much to do at present. I completed Tier 6 reputation with Discovery Legends so am now just left with levelling alts until new content arrives. As the latest featured episode, Awakening, is not due for release for over a month (10th September) I’ve decided to just log in once or twice a week to farm some Dilithium and ensure I don’t get kicked from my various fleets due to inactivity. I’ll keep reading the subreddit and ensure that I don’t miss any news from Star Trek Las Vegas 2019. Just because I’m not actively playing a game, doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on in the wider community.
In some respects it a broadly a similar story with The Lord of the Rings Online. Since last November I’ve been steadily levelling a new High Elf Guardian and also playing through any new content added to the game with my level cap Lore-master. I’m beginning to slow down now mainly because my Guardian is fast approaching Mordor. I won’t say I dislike the zone but it is fair to say it is a radically different area to other parts of Middle-earth. There is a major gear check circa level 112 and the game feels demonstrably harder. Because I played through that area, this time last year, the stories and themes are still very fresh in my mind, so I don’t feel such a pressing need to push on. I shall again probably just log in a couple of time a week to finish playing through the Vales of the Anduin with my primary character. Hopefully there will be some news released soon regarding the next expansion for the game.
I suspect that my overall gaming activities will be somewhat curtailed this August. I’m involved in the Blaugust Festival of Blogging Event which is going to monopolise a fair amount of my leisure time. Also my son is getting married so I’m away from home for three days out of thirty-one. What I’m thinking of doing is trawling through my Steam and Epic Store game collections to see if there are any simple titles that I can explore that aren’t major time sinks. Such a project could also potentially provide good material for a blog post. As for gaming goals for August, I’m hoping that Blaugust may lead to some social gaming between those participating in the event. The initial hurdle is trying to find a game that everyone has and that is conducive to team play. I must admit it’s been a while since I played collaboratively with “new people” and the prospect sounds quite enticing. Let’s hope that some common ground can be found and that differing time zones can be overcome.
