More Aimless Wandering

I wrote back in April about how I was wandering aimlessly between games these days, not making much progress on any of them.  At various times in the last six months, I've wondered whether the issue may be that I'm just losing interest in video games at this stage of my life.  I feel like I'm just waiting for some interesting new game to come out that I can bury myself in for a while, but I have no idea what that might be.

Right now, I'm bouncing back and forth between World of Warcraft, FFXIV, ESO, and Guild Wars 2.  With all the professions finished and no new content out, ESO is getting the short end of the stick from a playtime perspective.  After that, FFXIV probably has the 2nd lowest amount of playtime.

I did go back and do the new MSQ material, but I have not unlocked or tried the new alliance raids.  

In World of Warcraft, I stalled out in the middle of leveling my Demon Hunter.  In theory, the way renown works now should encourage me to do weeklies and world quests across more of my alt army.  In reality, I'm not motivated to do them at all.  

The most play time lately has definitely been going to Guild Wars 2.  I finished the main story quest for the new expansion on my Mechanist and have been working through it on my Reaper.  I've also gone back and started to work on getting my Mechanist caught up on the other story quests.  I also decided to go back and work on unlocking the Roller Beetle since it's the only Path of Fire Mastery I have left to do, and I'm earning POF experience as part of catching up the Mechanist.  Right now, I'm stuck on the saddle on the part where you have to kill the Ley Line Anomaly world boss because I can't seem to manage to get to it before the stupid thing ends up dead.  I was trying on the Friday after Thanksgiving, where there may have been a ton of people playing, so I will give it a few more tries during a period that's likely to be a little bit more dead.

Of course, I'm already on Dragonfall on the Mechanist trying to finish up Puff the Purple Crystal Dragon, so I don't have that much Path of Fire experience still to go.  Oh well.  I think Icebrood Saga is up next, which has its own mastery tracks, none of which I recall as being particularly interesting.  

I'll also work on unlocking the turtle mount before I start the Mechanist through End of Dragons, and after that, he'll be all caught up.  At that point, I can go back to finishing up the post-Tyria world completion stuff on my Reaper, at which point it will probably be time to switch to something else.

I feel bad for not using the anniversary event experience boosts to level alts like crazy in World of Warcraft, but I'm not exactly sure what the point is now, anyway.  It is a good reminder to go back and grab the Darkmoon Faire profession boosts for this month since it's time for that.

That's the update for now!

Cheers,

Joar

Diving Deeper Into Guild Wars 2

I have had minimal play time over the last couple of weeks because things have been pretty crazy at work, but when I have had the chance, it has been very focused on Guild Wars 2.  I recently completed the original release version of the main story and am now working through the new pieces of content that came out in the last couple of weeks.  

I'm enjoying this expansion a lot.  I am still completely unable to decide which character I want to focus on, so I'm just switching between my Mechanist and my Necromancer / Reaper.  

I've enjoyed the story so far, and it's been nice having a mix of old and new characters joining us, including someone we haven't worked with much in a while.  They've also done an excellent job of tying things in a little bit with the last expansion.

Once I get the content done on both, I'll probably finish all the main story content on my Mechanist and then finish all the post-Tyria map completion on my Necromancer.  That way, I can continue to switch back and forth without feeling weird about it.

I love the new Warclaw mount.  I know it's been in the game for a while for WvW, but I'm enjoying having it out in Open World and some of its new functionality. It's also nice how they incorporate some of that functionality into the story.  

I'm also enjoying my Homestead, although I have yet to invest much energy in decorating it. I was surprised to see that it's shared cross-character, which is pretty nice.

I'm curious to see where this story goes, but I'm enjoying my time in Guild Wars 2.

Cheers,

Joar

Adding Some FFXIV and Guild Wars 2 Activity, Plus an Update on WoW Leveling

I've interrupted my near-constant run of World of Warcraft lately to work on a couple of other things.  First, there's a new content patch for FFXIV, so I've started working through the MSQ on that.  I've gotten through the new dungeon (what the heck was that?), so I think I'm pretty close to being done.  

Then, since there was maintenance on Tuesday, I decided to go ahead and get the new Guild Wars 2 expansion and start working on that.  I've been using my Machinist for the last few expansions, but I think I've decided to return to my Necromancer for this one.  

I have yet to get very far, so it's too early to draw any significant conclusions.  But I should have more play time tomorrow, so I hope to get further along.

In World of Warcraft news, I finished the Paladin and the Shaman that I started afterward.  I leveled the Shaman primarily through Timewalking dungeons, and it was about 2 hours, or 25% faster than the regular questing leveling approach I've been using.  The Shaman was my 6th max level character so far in War Within.  

I also got the hunter pretty much fully geared, so I've switched to doing weekly stuff on the Death Knight to get him geared up.

Things may be slowing down a bit at work, which may give me a bit more play time over the next few weeks, so hopefully I can make more progress across all of these fronts.

Cheers,

Joar

More Leveling Progress

My play time continues to be limited, and as a result, very much focused on World of Warcraft.  I did manage to get both my Druid and my Death Knight to max level.  The Druid took about the same amount of time as the Hunter.  The Death Knight ended up being about an hour faster.  

For the Death Knight, I did go back and start knocking out a lot of the side quests that I had skipped the first time, particularly in Hallowfall, just to get the renown points from most of those.

I've started the Paladin next, and my plan there is to knock out the rest of those side quests, which are now mostly in the final zone.  After that, I'll probably just go back to leveling via Main Story Quests.  Queuing for normal dungeons tends to be too much of a shit show these days and my Brann isn't a high enough level to make leveling via delves as easy as I'd like it to be, making the xp per hour from those lower than just questing.

After the Paladin, I will probably do Shaman next and then Demon Hunter, which will give me all the professions available, although I can't remember the last time I actually leveled all the professions to max.  Note - going back and checking, it appears that Legion was the last time I did it completely, although it looks like I got fairly close in Battle for Azeroth and then got completely distracted by FFXIV.

Finally, in ESO I've continued doing the daily Enchanting Writ whenever I'm actually playing.  I'm probably only 2-3 days away from having it finally to max level.

That's the update for now!

Cheers,

Joar

War Within Updates

As mentioned in early September, my travel schedule with my youngest and a fairly busy work schedule has really limited my game time, so there has been little to report in this space.

I did manage to get my Hunter to level 80, and my Druid is sitting at level 78, so I've made decent progress on the alt front.  I'm continuing to move things along with gearing up my Warlock, although I'm mostly just enjoying doing weekly quests and knocking out increasingly higher-level delves.  I'm not super aggressive with that, either, though.  

I'm continuing to enjoy this expansion so far.  Once the Druid is done, I'll likely start working on the Death Knight next, followed by the Paladin.  

On leveling time, the Hunter was significantly faster than my Warlock, which is not unusual.  I'm still not sure what the quickest leveling path is going to end up looking like.   Delves provide a significant chunk of experience the first time through.  I've also been looking at how follower dungeons impact my xp per hour levels.  

I'm still logging into Elder Scrolls Online every day just to knock out a daily enchanter writ to continue to level up that final job.  I'm now at level 48, so getting close to being done with that.

I haven't looked at the new expansion for Guild Wars 2 yet, although I'd like to get to that eventually.

That's the update for now!

Cheers!

Joar

First Level 80 in War Within

I hit level 80 on my warlock in War Within this week.  His total time to level was 12 hours and 45 minutes.  Obviously not a leveling speed record because of initial congestion, taking time to read quest text and watch cut scenes, and generally not being efficient while enjoying the new content.  However, this was the fastest time ever for the first character leveled to max in a new expansion by quite a lot.  The previous fastest was Dragonflight at 17 hours and 26 minutes, and the previous fastest before that was actually Battle for Azeroth at 20 hours and 27 minutes.

I'm finishing up the campaign quests and then will start working on World Quests and running heroics to gear up for LFR, which started this week. I will likely try some delves as well just to try that gearing path.

Doing the side quests slowed me down, and as it turns out, they weren't needed for Pathfinder, so with my next alt, I will try to stick to the main story quests and throw in a few more delves and dungeons.

I'm continuing to enjoy this expansion so far.  I haven't started leveling any alts yet, and obviously not working on any endgame stuff, but I continue to have fun.  I'll be leveling my hunter next.

In FFXIV, I finished getting the raid weapon on my main.  The queues for daily roulettes have been extremely long, pushing me to switch to playing World of Warcraft more than I otherwise might.  As a result, I've stopped leveling alt jobs, and I probably won't return to that unless I start getting frustrated with WoW.

More Limited Game Time

 My game time has been much more limited lately, so there hasn't been much in the way of updates.  I'm still working on War Within, although I still haven't even hit max level on my main yet, much less started on any alts.  In FFXIV, I'm basically down to running the final boss of the raid each week for the weapon token and have done nothing to level alts there, either.

Two factors have caused this limit. First is my employer, which has historically been highly flexible regarding working from home. Our CEO has decided to mandate three days per week in the office to help improve company culture.  Adding an hour a day commuting for those is 3 fewer hours of playtime per week.  Plus, I played on the side whenever I was on particularly dull or irrelevant Zoom calls.

The 2nd factor has been because of the younger Joarling.  I have posted about his swimming and state championship earlier this year.  He is going into his junior year of high school, meaning college recruiting for him could start this past 15th of June.  While we expected him to get some attention, we were utterly overwhelmed by the number of schools that reached out to him.  We spent a month talking to many different coaches, researching schools, and narrowing down his list. Still, the end result is that he has seven official visits scheduled over the next two months with various universities around the country.

Only one of these visits is near our home, so for the most part, they all involve flying somewhere on Thursday and returning home on Sunday.  This means that for September and October, I'm effectively only working three days per week while spending the rest of the time accompanying him on these visits.  It's also causing him to get very behind on his schoolwork, so I'm also spending most of my time in the evenings helping him get caught up on homework and studying for quizzes and exams.  He goes to an overly demanding school that hasn't so far shown much flexibility in helping him manage this situation.

On the positive side, it's been a lot of fun so far!

(It had been pouring rain not long before this picture was taken, which is why we both look a bit soggy)

That is the update for now.  

Cheers,

Joar

Blaugust 2024: Preparing for War Within and Update on FFXIV

I've made some fairly decent progress in FFXIV recently.  All of my DOH/DOL jobs are now at level 100, so I can mainly focus on leveling and on knocking out the latest set of raid gear on my main.  I finished leveling Samurai and have started on both Paladin and Pictomancer.  The Paladin is at level 93, but not really much progress on the Picto yet.  

In World of Warcraft, I did manage to get my Alliance Druid to level 70 before early access dropped to War Within.  I'm not going to do any spoilers here, but I did manage to play a decent amount of War Within on Friday and got my Warlock to level 73.  A few general comments:

• I did the one initial delve that it has you do as part of the storyline.  That seemed fine, and I'm looking forward to trying more of those.
• I also did my first follower dungeon, which I really liked.  I didn't even have the tank set up to lead the party, so I was setting the pace for the group, which worked fine for me.
• So far, I'm enjoying the story and the content that I've seen to this point.  It's engaging enough that I probably won't spend much time in FFXIV for now.  

My play time for the next few weeks will be very limited. Over the course of September and October, we're doing a whole bunch of official college recruiting visits with the youngest Joarling, which will involve traveling Thursday through Sunday for about seven weeks straight. On top of that, my company has gone from allowing folks to work from home as much as they'd like to mandating a minimum of three days per week in the office, which is taking a big chunk of commute time out of my life.  On the upside, I'll probably be more caught up on the podcasts I like listening to.

That's it for now.  This Blaugust has been slower than usual for me with all the college recruiting prep for the youngest, but I'm hoping to pick up the pace with my posting a bit in September and October.  

Cheers,

Joar

Blaugust 2024: Updates on Warcraft and FFXIV

 In Warcraft, I got yet another character to level 70 using the Radiant Echoes - this time my Alliance Paladin.  That makes my 18th character at max level.  I'm running my Alliance Shadow Priest through the same process next.

After playing the pre-patch for a few weeks now, while I like the concept of warbands generally, especially as a massive altoholic, I'm not a big fan of the log-on screen itself.  I enjoyed having my characters organized by server rather than all together in one big mass.  It cut them up into much more manageable chunks.  Of course, this is from the perspective of someone with 49 different alts, so you're dealing with a much smaller group of characters, it's probably a lot better interface.

In Final Fantasy, I have only played a little since my last update.  I've gotten busy with work and then was out of town over last weekend for a water polo tournament with my youngest.  I have kept current on the new raid, and all I have left gear-wise from that are legs, one more accessory, and the weapon.  Then, I can just focus on leveling until the alliance raid comes out.

All my DOH/DOL jobs are at least level 97 now.  I have two at level 100 - Leatherworking and Goldsmithing, so I can do all my own melding now, which is good. 

Once War Within launches in a couple of weeks, I will take a break from FFXIV for a while. We'll see how long that keeps me engaged. I'll likely focus on that until the first raid tier is done, but we'll see how that goes.

That's the update for now.  I'll try to knock out one more post on Friday!

Cheers,

Joar

Blaugust 2024: Radiant Echoes for Leveling

I'm still primarily playing FFXIV, but I wanted to talk about using Radiant Echoes for leveling because I've tried it for some of my alts that are stuck at level 50.  I didn't try the event when it was first released, so my commentary is entirely based on the more cleaned-up version that's out now.  I've been finding it to be insanely fast for leveling.  It's taking anywhere from 3-6 minutes per level from 50 to 70, meaning you can get that entire stretch done in an hour or two.  

The bad news is that it is incredibly tedious, and you won't be at all geared by the time you get to level 70, but if that's not a big concern for now, it's a reasonable way to try to push a few alts over the finish line.  I have more than a few to go, and while I could theoretically knock them all out before War Within launches, I'm not going to.  While I currently have 17 max-level characters, after dinging 70 on my Alliance Warlock yesterday, I still have 27 alts sitting at level 50, two at level 60 (including an Alliance Paladin that I started working on today), and 3 that are below level 50 (mainly allied race characters that I started but never finished).  But I will probably get a few more knocked out just for fun.  We'll see how many it ends up being.  The Echoes in a zone that involve killing some kind of boss (not the final boss for the zone) seem to give more xp than the other ones, so it seems better to focus on those.

On the FFXIV front, I've been running the new raid regularly and am starting to accumulate a decent amount of gear.  I also have been continuing to level the Samurai, currently at level 98.  Most of my focus over the last couple of days has been making the level 97 crafting and gathering gear for my DOH/DOL jobs.  I'm getting close to finishing the intermediate crafting steps, so I'm probably only about an hour or so remaining to get it all knocked out.  I'll then restart my leveling and see if I can use that gear to get scrip gear once I hit 100.  Otherwise, I'll probably wait and work on the level 100 crafted gear later.

That is the update for now!

Cheers,

Joar

Blaugust 2024: Intro and Updates on FFXIV and World of Warcraft

For those of you who may be reading my blog for the first time because of Blaugust, I figured I'd start with a bit of an introduction.  I've been blogging about video games for over 15 years now.  This blog started as a way to talk about plans that I had for leveling a bunch of alts in World of Warcraft, as well as leveling strategies.  It has eventually expanded to cover quite a few other games I play, but it still tends to focus on casual gameplay and leveling alts.

If you'd like a little bit more detailed history of the blog, there's a pretty decent version that I did for Blaugust back in 2022:  https://wowaltaddiction.blogspot.com/2022/08/blaugust-2022-evolution-of-wow-alt.html

Since the last update, more than two weeks ago, I have been continuing to slog through alt jobs in Dawntrail and working through the new raid.  I finished leveling my Machinist and am sitting at level 96 on my Samurai.  Paladin will be up next.  I've also been working pretty hard on the various DOH / DOL jobs and have them all sitting between 95 and 98 (except Fishing, which is at 94).  So I'm making good progress there.  I continue to just use the Grand Company turn-ins each day for leveling.

I missed one raid cycle of the new raid because of vacation, so I'm a bit behind. I've got a lot of tokens at this point, but it's been pretty spread out, so I haven't really upgraded much gear yet.  

I also finished the Caster, Healer, and Ranged DPS role quests and will knock out the physical dps role quests once I'm done with Samurai.

I'm still mostly enjoying Dawntrail, but I am running out of steam with this expansion. So, I may switch back to World of Warcraft on and off, particularly once the new expansion launches there.

On the World of Warcraft front, I haven't done much other than get the pre-patch up and running. I'm still working on the Alliance Warlock, and if I get the chance, I may try leveling him using Radiant Echoes. He's around level 61.  

Beyond that, I'm still logging on every day to do an enchanting writ in ESO to continue to level that last profession. It's sitting around 44 now, so I'm getting close.

That's it for now.   More soon!

Joar

Dawntrail Progress

Since last week's update, I finished the MSQ for Dawntrail and have unlocked all of the expert dungeons so I can start running expert roulettes on my Summoner.  The level 100 dungeons are challenging but not as hard as I might have expected, given the leveling dungeons.  So far, they just seem like normal expert dungeon fare.

Adding the extra fancy Bahamut summon to the Summoner rotation seems fine.  It obviously takes a lot longer to get through the entire cycle, and I'm not even finishing it on some fights, but it still seems to flow fine.  I'm interested in seeing some of the other jobs, though, and how they compare.

I have also started leveling the Machinist and have that job sitting at level 94.  Despite my thoughts on Viper, I think Samurai will still be up next, followed by Gunbreaker.  Once I get all the roles done, I'll probably do Pictomancer and Viper after that before knocking out the rest of the jobs.

I've also started progressing on the DOH/DOL jobs, which are all at level 91.  So far, I've just been doing GC turn-ins for the xp, but I may look at doing collectible turn-ins either instead or in addition.  It would undoubtedly help me accumulate scrip for max-level gear when I'm ready.

Beyond FFXIV, the only other thing I've been doing is logging in daily to do an enchanting writ in ESO, as I'm still working on leveling that to 50.  I'm currently sitting at 42, so not long to go.

Cheers,

Joar

Early Spoiler-Free Thoughts on Dawntrail

For the last 10 days since early release, I've been mainly playing Dawntrail as time allows.  Despite considering playing on my machinist, I've followed the typical path and leveled my summoner.  I've also been taking it pretty slow.  I'm sitting at level 99 and still have a bit to go on the MSQ.  Looking back, I think with Endwalker, it took me about 2 weeks to finish things up, so I'm probably running slightly ahead of that pace, depending on my playtime over the next couple of days.

Here are my early thoughts:

• I'm not all the way to the end yet, but I've enjoyed the story so far.  I'm far enough along that I think I can see where this is going, but hopefully, I'm surprised.  There have been some good, unexpected surprises and character arcs that have really kept me engaged.
• The music, as always, is fantastic.  
• The dungeons and trials seem a bit overtuned for story content.  I haven't tried a ton yet, but I ended last week completely stuck on the level 99 dungeon.  That seems to be a general consensus among many players I've talked to.  
• There are at least two new areas in this expansion that would make for fantastic player housing, so I hope they consider that. 
• I've started playing with summoner, and the class changes while leveling are incredibly minor. There's a bit more at max level, so I'll have to reflect on that later in a blog post.
• I've been collecting Aether Currents as I go to unlock flying in each zone, and that hasn't been too hard at this point, which I appreciate.

After I finish the MSQ on the summoner, who will almost definitely hit 100 well before being done, the plans next are to knock out role quests for caster dps and healer and then start working on a job of each type to add to that.  That's likely going to mean Machinist, Samurai, and Gunbreaker like it has in the past, but I'm thinking about swapping Samurai for Viper just to try that.

I'll also start working on all the crafting and gathering jobs.  Like previous expansions, I usually just level those gradually by doing daily GC turn-ins.  Those generally give a ton of experience and are a reasonably casual way to level all of those within a few weeks while still working on other stuff.  The only exception to that is fishing, where I tend to level mostly through Ocean Fishing.

In other game news, before Dawntrail dropped, I got my Alliance Hunter to max level in World of Warcraft and started leveling my Alliance Warlock.

In Elder Scrolls Online, I still log on every day just to knock out a quick Enchanting Writ to keep working on leveling that towards 50.  It's my last profession, currently sitting at level 40, so it's not long to go.

That's the update for now!

Cheers,

Joar

Happy 15th Blogoversary!

I'm a day late on this because of the weekend, but yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the start of this blog.  

 

I've done quite a few retrospectives on this blog's history over the last few years, particularly during Blaugust.  

Here's a pretty good summary that I wrote up about two years ago:  https://wowaltaddiction.blogspot.com/2022/08/blaugust-2022-evolution-of-wow-alt.html

It is pretty unbelievable to think that I've been doing this for so long.  What started as a blog about leveling alts in World of Warcraft now covers many gaming topics.  This will also be my 550th post, which is pretty hard to believe.  

For those of you who read this even occasionally, thank you for sticking with me over the years!

Regular Gaming Update

Right now, I've been playing many different games, but I'm not really focused enough on any of them to have much to report.

In terms of what is coming, we have a late June launch for the new FFXIV expansion, so that will likely be absorbing most of my time from that point forward.  I'm not sure how focused I'll be on getting each job to max level again, but I will at least do all the DOH/DOL jobs and one of each type for the combat jobs.

Following FFXIV, we have the new World of Warcraft expansion in late August.  That should give me plenty of time to complete what I need to on FFXIV before War Within launches.  After that, there will likely be a new Guild Wars 2 expansion somewhere down the line.

Since the last blog update, I've finished the new content patch for Elder Scrolls Online on my Magicka Templar and have done about half of it on my Arcanist.  I've also been working on map completion on my Templar.  Just working my way through it alphabetically.  Because it's at least easy to figure out what comes next that way.

I also started playing Diablo IV and have gotten my Necromancer to level 24.  I'm having a good time with it so far.  It seems unwise to have added another game into the rotation, but what the heck.

In World of Warcraft, I've gotten my alliance hunter to level 60 and have started on the Dragonflight content.  The Shadowlands leveling path seems a bit off.  Doing main story quests works fine until about level 56 or 57.  After that, you're better off switching to dungeon leveling, as the quest xp scaling seems way off.

The plan for the next couple of weeks until FFXIV launches is to gear up my Machinist job in case I decide to level that right away.  I will also do the same thing for my Horde hunter in World of Warcraft since that will likely be the second character I level in War Within.  I may wait for whatever gear catch-up system is coming pre-launch for that piece, though.

That is the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

And Giving Diablo IV a Shot

I wanted to like Path of Exile; I really did.  I probably didn't give it the shot it deserved, but it was just way too confusing to figure out what I was doing for me, and I felt squishy in the early levels.  I downloaded Diablo Immortal onto my phone recently and had been enjoying that, so I decided to try Diablo IV.  Really, it will be just for a few days until the new ESO content drops.  So far I've been enjoying it.  

World of Warcraft

In World of Warcraft, I finished leveling my MOP Remix warlock to level 70.  The total time played was around 16 hours, which I'm not sure is all that great relative to just leveling normally in retail.  It has been a long time since I've leveled a character from level 1, so I don't have any good recent data on that.  I'm sure it would go faster with my next MOP Remix character, if there is one.  I'm running short on character slots though, so that may not be in the cards.  The MOP Remix character was my 48th character, so I only have two slots left unless they removed that limit at some point while I was off playing other games.  

The MOP Remix character was my 14th character to max level in Dragonflight.  Far short of the 43 that I ended up getting to max level in Battle for Azeroth, but a lot better than the 7 or so that I ended up finishing in Shadowlands.  I may keep working on leveling some of these guys until the new FFXIV expansion comes out, but we'll have to see.  

Once I was done with the Remix, I grabbed a few of the interesting mounts, including two original MOP ones that I wanted - the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent and the Astral Cloud Serpent.  On top of those, I grabbed a Mushan, a Juggernaut, and one other.  It puts me up to 411 mounts now, which seems more than I could ever really appreciate.

ESO

In ESO, I've continued to work on leveling enchanting on my main.  It's at 26 now, so I still have a long way to go, but I'm not in any big hurry with that one.  I also finished creating and upgrading gear for the other two characters I plan to run through Gold Road - my Arcanist and Sorceror.  

When I downloaded Diablo IV, I completely forgot that I had intended to go back and work on weaponsmithing in Guild Wars 2, so I may spend some time trying to do that.

Although, I was honestly doing that so I could create my own Sigils, but now that I've looked at it for Runes, the material cost for Runes and Sigils isn't wildly less than what they sell for on the Trading Post, so not sure why I need to invest the time on that.  It would take a while to pay for itself.

That's the update for now. 

Cheers,

Joar

Trying the MOP Remix

I'll cover this update by game since I've been somewhat active in pretty much everything except FFXIV in the last few weeks:

World of Warcraft

In WoW, I finished up my mage and my evoker, so I now have a character of every class at max level.  I may also try to get an alliance character to max level before the next expansion drops, but we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I've been leveling a character using the Mists of Pandaria Remix and having a lot of fun with it.  It's a really cool ARPG-type system that really makes the whole process a lot of fun.  I've finished Jade Forest and am now in the Valley of the Four Winds.  I recently hit level 32, so I feel like I'm making good progress.  I saw something that showed what levels you should be in each zone, but I haven't paid much attention to that.

Elder Scrolls Online

I finished getting provisioning, jewel crafting, and alchemy to level 50, leaving only enchanting undone.  I could spend a lot of money on cp160 glyphs and knock it out quickly, but I'm not in that much of a hurry.  And if I run three characters through the new content, I'll probably end up with plenty of glyphs to deconstruct.   

Guild Wars 2

So I ran my main characters, the Engineer and the Necromancer, through the new content for Guild Wars 2, which was the final piece of the Secrets of the Obscure expansion.  It was a bit underwhelming for the final piece of an expansion.  I haven't tried the meta event in the final zone yet because I haven't seen all the pieces line up to unlock it yet.  

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Drifting Aimlessly Between MMO's

It has been longer than I would like since my last blog post - three weeks.  Part of that is because work and school have kept me fairly busy.  The other part is that I'm having trouble finding inspiration in games to try at this point, and most of my usual "Big Four" games that I play are all in a bit of a content drought at the moment, at least for the next month.  The new big content release for Elder Scrolls Online starts in early June, and then Dawntrail drops at the end of June, so everything should be good once we get to that point, but for now, I'm finding it hard to come up with something to engage in.

Here is the update on what I have accomplished.  I finished getting my Warden to max level in Elder Scrolls Online, so I now have a character of each class at max.  I think Templar, Arcanist, and Sorceror will be the ones I continue to play new content with, so I'm working on making gear for them all.  I've also been working on leveling professions on my Templar main, who already had Clothing, Blacksmithing and Woodworking at max level.  Jewelcrafting is getting a bit close. Alchemy is around level 30, and the rest are pretty far behind.  But it is something that I can focus on for the next month.

In World of Warcraft, I finished getting the Dream Wardens to max renown.  I'm also working on leveling my mage and my evoker, the last two classes that I need to get to max to have one of each class at max in WoW, something I didn't manage during Shadowlands.  The mage is sitting at level 66, so not too much longer, and the Evoker is still parked at level 60.

I also went back and did some raids in Final Fantasy to fill some gear gaps on some of my other jobs.  It's hard to get too motivated to do much of that since most of them will be quickly filled with poetics by the time I get to leveling them.  

I also periodically log on to Guild Wars 2 to do random stuff.   I'm still working towards non-original zone completion on my main, so I poke at that occasionally.

Work has been crazy because of a reorganization, and I now have exactly one week left to finish my Master's Degree in Accounting with a focus on Data Analytics. I'm not even sure why I'm doing the Master's Degree at my age, other than I don't have one, and I have thoughts of teaching at some point as I'm getting closer to retiring from my regular work.  In any case, I have two group projects due this coming Sunday to finish things up, so those are taking up quite a bit of my time.

Those are the updates for now,

Cheers!

Joar

Necromancer Done. Only Warden Remains

 I managed to get the Necromancer to level 50, so now only the Warden remains.  He's currently sitting at level 39, so it's not too far to go.  I've also continued to work on the remaining professions on my main.  I've gotten Jewelcrafting up to 45, but Alchemy, Provisioning, and Enchanting are far behind.  Once I finish with leveling, I'll probably just bear down and knock them all out in one go rather than doing a little bit using writs every day.  

The Necromancer was decent all the way through.  The way Blastbones operated changed while I was in the middle of leveling, so that sucked a bit, but I found other stuff that worked for me.

If I had to pick just a couple to play regularly, it would likely be Templar, Arcanist, and Sorc.

I also downloaded LOTRO, although I haven't had much chance to try it yet. I'm barely into the introductory tutorial.  

Finally, in World of Warcraft, I'm continuing to work on Niffem and Dream Warden rep. I'm about 1,000 rep away from having Neffem done, and I just hit 17 renown on Dream Warden, so I'm not super far away on them either.

Finally, we were in the path of totality for the solar eclipse today, so we got ourselves the safety glasses and went down to a local rooftop bar to be social and enjoy the experience.  It was a pretty cool thing to see and experience.  I'd post pictures, but there are hundreds of better photographers than me all over the country who did a much better job than I ever would.  

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Elder Scrolls Online Updates

Elder Scrolls Online is where I'm investing most of my playtime.  I finished up the Dragonknight yesterday.  Like the Nightblade before, it is also not my favorite class to play, but it was fine down the stretch.  I did most of the 45-50 stretch by working on main story quests rather than doing strictly dungeon runs, so that actually made it a bit more bearable.

I continue to work on both the Necromancer and the Warden.  The Necromancer is around level 41 and almost done, and the Warden is sitting around level 26. Once I have those two done, I'll finish the remaining professions on my main, and then I need to find something else to bury myself in for a while.

Dawntrail won't be out until late June, so I will likely have at least a month where I need something else to dedicate myself to.  We'll see what that ends up being.

I also maximized all my riding traits on my main in ESO.  I'd just been quietly stopping by the Stablemaster daily as part of doing the writs to level crafting and finally got there.   

I didn't bother even touching the pirate thing in World of Warcraft.  I still log on periodically to do world quests and progress the rep on the last two factions that I have to go to, but there's not much left to do in game.

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online Updates

I continue to balance my playing time between Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2.  I finished running my Reaper through the new Guild Wars 2 content.  What I really need to do next is focus on grabbing the rest of the mastery point abilities I need across all the expansions.  I thought the easiest way to do that was to run various characters back through the story quest, but I really don't think that's the most efficient way of accumulating experience in those zones relative to just doing zone events and things like that.  I might do some of that on alts.  Like right now, dual-wield mace rangers are entertaining to play, although I'm expecting that to get seriously nerfed in the next week or two.  

I need to find one more Central Tyria mastery point, and the Karka Queen thing is probably the easiest thing for me to grab quickly.  

However, even with spending more time on Guild Wars, most of my time continues to be spent in Elder Scrolls Online.  I finished leveling my Magicka Nightblade to 50.  It's not my favorite class I've leveled so far, but it was okay.  My Dragonknight is at level 37, and the Necromancer is at level 31.  I'm going to start working on the Warden next.  I'm thinking about leveling that one as a dungeon healer primarily, so we'll see how that goes.  I haven't been a huge fan of Dragonknight so far, either.  I probably should have leveled him as a tank, but I'm not confident enough in the dungeons yet to do that.

I likely will get back into both FFXIV and World of Warcraft at some point.  Right now, grinding out renown on those last two factions isn't enough of a motivator for me to go back to World of Warcraft, and I'm not sure what I'd do in FFXIV at this point.  

So that is the update for now!  

Cheers!

Joar

State Champ, Initial Thoughts on New GW2 Content and More ESO

 I'm getting a third post for February in just under the wire.  Thank goodness it's a leap year.  I've been traveling a lot recently, which has cut down on my play and blogging time.  As I've mentioned, my younger two kids are both competitive swimmers.  My middle son swims for his University, Carnegie Mellon, and my youngest swims for his local high school.  I was in Chicago two weeks ago for my middle son's conference championships.  

He finished 7th in his main event, the 50 Free, which was disappointing as he was leading at prelims.  However, on his relays, one of his relays finished 2nd, and two of them finished 3rd, which was a good outcome.  He has qualified for the NCAA National Championships in 4 events - the 50 Free, the 200 Free Relay, the 200 Medley Relay, and the 400 Free Relay.  Those are happening in Greensboro, North Carolina, near the end of March.

Last weekend, my youngest son won the Ohio State Championship in the 50 Free and 200 Medley Relay.  His team also finished 2nd in the 200 Free Relay.  It was a fun weekend, and we're very proud of him.

In gaming news, I ran through the new Guild Wars 2 content on my Machinist.  The story in this expansion continues to be pretty good, although I miss some of our old friends from earlier expansions.  That's one thing that FFXIV does really well.  The events in the zone are a lot of fun, and the storyline is challenging and engaging.  I've also started through it on my Reaper, so we'll see how that goes.  

In Elder Scrolls Online news, I continue to work on leveling those three alts.  My Nightblade is at level 38, the Dragonknight is at level 38, and the Necromancer is at level 24.  I'm continuing to work through Main Story Quests in their Zones and then doing the Daily Dungeon.  I also tried doing the Daily PvP thing to see if the bonus xp from that would be worth doing.  I may try it again, but I did two different battlegrounds and finished last both times, so I got no bonus xp.  I did get a couple of decent pieces of gear, though.

Beyond that, I have yet to play World of Warcraft or FFXIV.

That's the update for this week!  Cheers!

Joar

Continuing the Alt Leveling Run in Elder Scrolls Online

 For the past week, when I've had some play time, I've mostly continued my run at leveling alts in Elder Scrolls Online.  I got my Sorceror to level 50 and am now working on a Nightblade and a Dragonknight.

As I mentioned last week, I intended to start the Nightblade as a Stamina spec and try doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood content along with the Daily Dungeon and PvP stuff to level him.  I think I've decided to switch back to Magblade and go the regular MSQ route for leveling instead.  I just think I'm not a sneaky sneaky style of player.  I much prefer just charging forward and smacking things.  Or at least blooping them from a distance with my spells.

The Dragonknight also seems fun so far.  Right now, the Nightblade is sitting at level 22, and the Dragonknight is at level 13, so I have a way to go on both.  After that, I will do a Necromancer, and then I might try leveling a Warden as a healer just for something different.

I also hopped back into World of Warcraft to continue getting renown on the Niffem guys and the Dream Wardens.  I reached Renown level 18 on the Niffem, which let me snag their mount.  As one of the hundreds of mounts I now have in Warcraft, I'm sure it's fine.

I'm still not really doing anything in either Final Fantasy or Guild Wars 2 these days.  Guild Wars 2 has more content coming out later this month, so that may change, at least for a while.

Playing Mostly Elder Scrolls Online Lately

My intentions of sticking to a once-per-week blog posting schedule were quickly thwarted by some business travel two weeks ago and then a rough week last week getting caught up.  However, we're back this week.  

I came down with the flu this weekend, so my wife has me quarantined in a guest bedroom as our youngest son is coming into high school championship season for swimming,  and me getting him sick at this point would not be well received!  

So I might even get more than one post per week to get at least partially caught up.

In terms of video games, I've beey playing Elder Scrolls Online this week.  That's one of those games that I am always really comfortable with but just don't find myself playing that often.  I've decided, like with most other games that I play, to go ahead and try to get a character of each class to max level.   My original main, which is a Magicka Templar, has been there for quite some time, and I just finished getting a character of the new Arcanist class to max.

I'm now working on a Sorceror and after that, I plan to work on a Nightblade.  The Sorceror is sitting at level 45, so almost done with that one.  I have them spread out pretty well between the various factions, so that will give me different storylines to play.  I've been doing a random dungeon once per day as well because that's huge experience.  Beyond that, I'm just trucking along with the various storylines in different zones.

I'm thinking about having my Nightblade be Thieves Guild / Dark Brotherhood to see if it's possible to level that way.  I'm guessing it's probably not, but it's worth giving a try.  I've also debated setting foot in some of the DLC Dungeons now that my Sorceror is level 45, but will have to see if that's even possible.  I'm not sure if those give higher levels of xp or not.

I haven't really done much of anything in Final Fantasy once I got my Island to level 20.  I've been logging in to World of Warcraft periodically to do Niffem and Dream Warden world quests, but that's about it for there as well.

That's about it for today!

Cheers,

Joar

New Content In FFXIV and World Of Warcraft

Warning:  There may be spoilers for the new content for both FFXIV and 
World of Warcraft included in this blog post.

I've spent the time that I've had this week primarily working through the new content in both FFXIV and World of Warcraft.  The early part of the week was still spent mostly on Elder Scrolls Online, where I've gotten my Arcanist and Sorceror to level 37.  

FFXIV

I hopped right into the new MSQ for FFXIV as soon as it became available.  The new character introduced was fun, and I like the new female Hrothgar model, but I still miss Zero.  I hope we see her brought back at some point.  It was pretty short and followed the FFXIV model of tugging at the heartstrings at a couple of points, but it did an excellent job of setting up the transition to Dawntrail.

I also knocked out the latest installment of the Hildibrand quest line, which I enjoyed.  It was completely silly and ridiculous, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was an entertaining end to this particular installment.  My one complaint with the whole questline is that creepy little Lalafel stalking Nashu everywhere.  I'm not sure I noticed it early on in the Hildi chain, but someone pointed out that the little creep is in every cutscene, hiding somewhere and stalking her.

Sort of made me want to go over and nuke the little shit, but that didn't appear to be an option.  I was disappointed that there was no ending group dance scene with the quest chain itself, but I suppose I'll get over that.

Once that was done, it was off to knock out the final stage of my Manderville Relic weapon.  I got a ridiculous dance scene for that, which took a bit of the sting away, but not by much.  

The new weapon looks stylish, so I'm happy with that.  I've not yet completed the final installment of Tataru's quest line, so expect thoughts on that next week.

World of Warcraft

I logged on and did the Gilneas thing.  That was fun, although a bit formulaic.  Go to this area, kill 12 guys, click 6 things.  Now go to this area, kill 12 guys, click 6 things.  Yeah, I get it.  Feels like we're losing a lot of senior leadership across both factions.  

It allowed me to try dragon-riding in the old world, which was absolutely spectacular.  The speed with which I could get from one end of the Eastern Kingdoms to the other was really fun.  I have not done the new Bel'ameth zone yet, so more on that to come.  I'm also very interested in trying the follower dungeons and figuring out how helpful that will be for leveling alts.  

So very early on for me, but it's been fine so far.  It's not exactly a 5-star review, but I'm pretty good with fine now.  

At least for now, I'll be continuing to level alts on ESO and then logging in to knock out those few last bits of content in WoW and FFXIV.  I still have Niffem and Dream Wardens to finish on the Renown front.  Niffem is at 17, and Dream Warden just hit 15, so it's not too far still to go on either.

Cheers,

Joar

More Elder Scrolls Online Than Normal

I've been playing more Elder Scrolls Online recently than I have in a long time.  After a bit of a burst late last year, I've gotten a little tired of leveling alts in World of Warcraft.  I also realized that Elder Scrolls is the only game I play regularly where I don't have an alt of each class at max level.  So, I've started to work on that.

I have an Arcanist at level 27 and a Sorceror at level 33.  The Sorceror is one that I had already started a long time ago, but I also picked up Arcanist recently.  As the most recently introduced class, it seems a bit overpowered at the moment, so I figured it would be good to level it while that was still the case.  I'm just running home faction main story quests and the daily dungeon queue on the Arcanist.  

For the Sorceror, I went to Vvardenfell and picked up that expansion content, just for something different since that class is the same faction as the Arcanist.  Both are fun to play and have been relatively easy to level.  I'll probably try a stamina-based build with something like Warden next, just for something different.

In Final Fantasy, I'm essentially logging on each day to fill up my workshop queues.  I'm about 3/4 of the way through level 19, so I anticipate having my Island Sanctuary at max level in the next day or two.  There's new content dropping next week, so I will shift some time from ESO to Final Fantasy for a little bit.

In World of Warcraft, I'm working on leveling my mage, who is currently at level 64.  After that, I just have the Evoker to finish up, and I'll have a character of each class at max level, which will be the first time that's happened since Battle for Azeroth.  Beyond that, Joar is basically fully geared, and I'm just working on finishing up Renown with the Niffem guys and the Dream Wardens.

I'll have a decent chunk of play time next week, and then I'm traveling the following week, so my play time will be minimal.

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Gaming Goals for 2024

A lot of new content is coming out this year that will keep me busy on the gaming front.  While we don't have specific release dates for most of it, there are definitely going to be a few more content patches in Guild Wars 2, a new minor content patch and a new expansion for FFXIV, several new content patches and a new expansion for World of Warcraft.  I'm also assuming there will be something new for Elder Scrolls Online, but all they've announced so far is a big in-person event in the Netherlands in April for their 10th anniversary.

The first piece coming out is the 6.55 patch for FFXIV, which is expected in the next week or two, followed by the new content patch for Guild Wars 2, scheduled for late February.

In the meantime, I plan to level my various World of Warcraft alts.   I'm also finishing the Niffem and Dream Walker renown on my main.  Once that is done and his gearing is done, I may also work on gearing up the hunter.  

Since leveling alts has gotten a bit tiresome only 10 characters in, I've also decided to level some alts in Elder Scrolls Online.  It's the only game I play regularly where I don't have a character of each class at maximum level, so that seems easy enough to rectify.  I've started with Arcanist to power through that while it still looks overpowered.  After my normal Magicka Templar, I have a Sorceror at level 30, but everyone else is basically just starting out.  

My other commitment for this year is to get closer to posting something once a week on this blog to have more consistency, but we'll see how that goes.  Last year was the highest post total since 2015, so I'm coming around a bit.

That's it for now!

Cheers,

Joar