Field Report - Play ALL The Games

Wow guys, it's been over half a year (8 months!) since I last gave an update on what I'm up to. Why haven't you said anything?! I'm sure you're dying to know! Enough with all the videos of me pretending to heal and what not that I post on this so called blog, and back to a little good old face to face (well uh... computer screen to computer screen) talking, shall we?

Last time I took some time to tell you about what the heck was going on around here, which at the time I barely knew myself, I felt like my WoW gaming was definitely coming to a very slow end. Slow, because I don't really want to quit. I still have fun in WoW, but thruth is I play it less and less. But I think I am cutting ahead here, let's get back to June 2012. Life was looking up, WoW was somewhat looking down. I had just gone through a long playing period of "The Dying of the Guilds" (hey that's a pretty good movie name), where I just swapped from one guild to the next and watched them crumble around me. Admittedly not from one week to the other, but maybe that just made things worse in a way. Just as I got comfortable in one guild it felt like it was time to pack my bags and find a new one. It killed a lot of things within me, but especially my desire for progression raiding. Also my work schedule didn't really allow it. Now, finally, it seemed in the end that I found a guild that fit me. Apparently they did have some guild drama where a lot of the raiders left leaving them back on 10 man where they had been a pretty decent 25 man, but you know what? I didn't even notice. And I am really glad at that. So what AM I doing in WoW then?

World of Warcraft
The answer is, not much really. Nowadays I log on once maybe every other day, do a couple of dungeons on my alts and after no more than an hour I am satisfied. I raid on average once every ten days to two weeks. Eventhough I had a short period where I absolutely loved doing dailies (yes even me, although I've basically never done dailies before because they're so boring) and logged on every day to do at least that, nowadays I literally only do a dungeon or two every other day. Although I knew this day would come I couldn't really picture it in my head, but now I am there and I am quite happy with it. I still can't really get myself to quit WoW because I am STILL having fun with it. I still love, love, love to heal on priest. Really, I do. My work doesn't allow me to raid very often but I don't even want to. Four hours every other week is fine by me. My guildies are lenient and nice, they suit my current gaming needs just perfectly.

All this time not playing WoW has led to something I've been longing to do for 7 years of being hooked on WoW however - play all the other good games that are out there. Before I finally felt like I was somewhat done with WoW (not just yet though) I just couldn't really find the time. Although there are loads of games I love to play, WoW was always just a little more interesting. So what have I been putting my time into lately?

Kotor2
I remember watching my brother play Kotor (the first one) ages ago thinking "that looks pretty fun". For some reason I had a fear of any but the kindest of games (the ones without enemies), a fear that I've finally overcome with the help of WoW among other things (I think actually growing up helped a lot too). So I decided that I wanted to play Kotor2, remember vaguely the story of the first game. Mostly I remembered really liking the combat system, and I was right - I do. There are a lot of things about Kotor2 that makes me pull my hair in frustration though, especially all the bugs and crashes that anyone whos played it is well aware of I am sure. I intend to do a little write up on the game when I done playing it however so I won't go into too much detail with it here. Let's just say that that game should be grateful it is as interesting and fun to play as it is, or I would never be arsed to try to plow through all those weird crashes I am having with it.

Guild Wars 2
I bought GW2 just a month or so after release, tried a race I can't even remember the name of right now and decided I didn't really like it. A couple of weeks ago however I thought I would give it another shot, probably after reading some sort of review or article on it (those always peak my interest). This time I did a Charr Warrior and that definitely suited me a lot better than the Necromancer I had been. There are a lot of things I like about GW2, and I think they've done a good job with getting me to want to discover the map and do the quests. Giving you almost everything for a one-time sum is just extremely generous when I compare to how much money I've put into WoW. I can only hope more MMO's try that because unfortunately another monthly cost is what is keeping me away from trying games like A Secret World. What I especially love about playing GW2 is how extremely noob I am at it however. This might sound strange but it makes me think about all the noob players I've encountered in WoW, how it amazed me that they knew so little about the game and also (at least some of them) seemed so uninterested in learning. Now I am walking in those noob-shoes myself and I totally get it.

As I play GW2 I am mildly interested in grouping and dungeoning, or even finding out how and when to do those things. I am perfectly fine with playing GW2 as a solo game that happens to have other players crossing my path every now and then, at least for now. I did join a guild, but mostly because I accepted some things that came up on my screen. And also so that I could ask someone about things I don't understand in the game. I have little to no interest in crafting or selling things on the Auction House (that I assume exists, I don't actually know!). I just got my first Trait, or so I think and I don't have a clue about what to do with it. I run around and bash enemies, but biggest goal with the game being to discover the world really and I have missed that feeling. Nothing is important or feels like a must-know or must-do. I am glad with doing everything wrong, probably gearing like a muppet but as long as I can kill stuff I am happy.

Pokemon
I've pretty much continously played some sort of Pokemon game ever since I got my hands on a Pokemon Blue. So far the only generation I haven't played is the second one, with Gold and Silver, but I will remedy that soon as I've got Soul Silver now. Currently I am playing Fire Red however, and loving it of course. I also decided to buy Pokemon Conquest after reading some good reviews on it and it is actually loads of fun. I agree with the people who say that it manages to combine Pokemon and strategy gaming although it does seem impossible. It is a fairly simple strategy game, which suits me. I actually quite like Strategy games and have tried many different, from FF Tactics to Disgaea, but I don't always have the patience with all the tinkering. In a way Pokemon Conquest is a good way to get started on strategy games and I might give my other ones a new chance once I am done with this one.

Console games
I started out as a console gamer actually, it's only in the later years that I've gotten into computer gaming. Nowadays I actually prefer the computer when it comes to newer games. My interest in ps3, xbox 360 and the wii (and now wiiU) is very limited. I just can't bring myself to pay that much money when I only want to play a handful of games, most annoyingly obviously is that I want to play a few on each console.

I am playing a lot of older games for consoles nowadays though. I'm only really missing a Sega Mega Drive to be able to play all the cool old games, and for some reason my NES doesn't want to work at the moment. The last couple of months I've been playing some PS, PS2 and Gamecube games (mostly Resident Evil, but I hope I will get around to playing Suikoden V and finally finishing FFVII), and also recently plugged in my SNES for some Super Mario World action.

And a little bit of this and that
And then there are a load of other games that I give a half an hour here and there. I started playing Settlers 2 again just the other day, I don't know how many hours I've put into that game in the past. I'm playing SimTower too, damn that game is addictive. I used to love it as a kid. I've been playing quite a lot of Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers too. I really love MtG and only wish I had someone to play it with, but this is a decent substitue. The fact that you can't really build your own decks doesn't bother me. I've been away from the game for so long I wouldn't know where to begin anyway so this is the perfect way for me to just jump into it to get a little bit of MtG fun when I have 20 minutes to fill somewhere. I did buy Skyrim some while ago but I feel that I'm already juggling too many games in the air and need to finish some of them before I get started on that one, as I suspect that might want a whole deal of time from me. My plan is to get Kotor2 done and then get started on Skyrim, it's not going anywhere so I'm not really in a hurry.

In other news I am really, really looking forward to the new 3d pokemon game, X & Y, but who isn't right? I have a DS but not a 3DS (the bf does though) so either I'll have to buy one or if I can contain myself I will wait until he is finished and play after him (but who am I kidding).

How is the gaming treating you guys anyway?