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