In most Steam sales, I have a fairly strict cut-off point of avoiding anything unless it is under $10. Over the past year or so, I’ve rarely found anything meeting that criteria that I don’t already have, so I was a bit surprised to find myself buying nine games in this Winter Steam Sale, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, The Walking Dead Season 2, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Democracy 3, Contagion, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Dominions 4, Thief, and Transistor.

I was looking over Massively’s choices of the best MMO launched in 2014. That’s a terrible list. Of those, I consider only two of them to be “legitimate” candidates: ESO and WildStar. And of those two, ESO wins because it is the more innovative of the two. (Only one of the Massively people agreed with me.) It’s sad to note, though, that I only played those two games for two months and one month respectively.

In case anyone is wondering, Dragon Age has eaten my life. Get that camera out of my face. I’m currently playing through Dragon Age II for the first time, after which I’m going to play Inquisition. So, no time for blogging, writing, sleeping, eating, playing any MMOs, or moving away from the PC screen for even a moment.

I’m determined to sit here and write a complete blog post. Inspired somewhat by j3w3l’s recent post, I’ve been thinking about ArcheAge. Thinking, that is, but not playing, because my work schedule has been ramping back up and ArcheAge is not a game you can play when you only have a little bit of time to play it. Not to mention the possibly-related fact that I’ve lost interest in it. I still log into ArcheAge once or twice a week to make sure my taxes are paid and to stockpile more tax certificates, but that’s about it.

Sitting down to write this, I can’t help but wonder why on Earth I signed up to write about community and gaming. I’m pretty introverted, so the idea that I might have anything to say about being a part of any community seems laughable. And to top it off, I don’t much like the Christmas season, either. But the nature of community compels me to write anyway. Despite my own anti-social nature, I still feel like I’m a part of a gaming community-a collection of people who share a common enjoyment of gaming, particularly the online multiplayer variety.

November is nearly over, which means NaNoWriMo is almost over for another year. As of this posting, I have some 1,500 words left to do before validating. (The story is nowhere near done, and I expect I will need to add another 40,000-50,000 words to actually finish the novel.) I’m growing a bit tired of Rift. I finished the main story and got my main Mage to 65, and my Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric are all sitting at 60.

One thing I’ve noticed in Rift’s Nightmare Tide is more pressure to spend money. I don’t mean in terms of a sales pitch; I mean in terms of making the game less tedious. Losing my head over Nightmare Tide! (Not really, it's a Halloween costume mask.) For example, two new things in Nightmare tide are Earring Slots and the Planewalker “attunement” which allows you to wear some of the new gear.

Hi! You may remember that I used to write blog posts. At least occasionally. Unfortunately this month two things have happened: Rift Nightmare Tide and NaNoWriMo. Those two things, particularly the former, are way more interesting than writing blog posts. But I thought I would take a break and quickly write down some stuff about things. Chatting with Arak near the end of Draumheim. Overwatch. Blizzard is making a role-based shooter (cough Team Fortress cough).

I’ve been playing nothing but Rift since the expansion came out.* If you even remotely like the game, you should definitely check out Nightmare Tide. I’m a little biased though, since I think Rift is the best themepark MMO out there, far surpassing WoW in every possible way. (Except in the amount of available content and player population.) A nice vista in Goboro Reef. Good things about Nightmare Tide: Ridiculously Plentiful Gathering Nodes.

I haven’t mentioned Bragtoberfest yet because a) I haven’t really had anything to brag about and b) I’m not a very braggy sort of person to begin with. I’ve never been one of those people that parade around banks riding high-end mounts and wearing raid gear to make everyone jealous. I usually wear rag-tag outfits that don’t match. But this is undoubtedly the braggiest thing I will accomplish this month so: I dinged 90 in WoW!

Nice aquarium, but where are the fish?

I feel like I’ve been giving the impression that ArcheAge is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it isn’t all sunshine and roses. I’m mainly playing it just because “it’s the new thing.” And I do enjoy the fact that you can progress by doing “non-standard” MMO things. But pretty soon, Rift’s Nightmare Tide is going to be “the new thing,” and then a bit later, Warlords of Draenor is going to be “the new thing.

I’ve been dinged in comments for not having experienced the PvE game after level 30 and misleading everyone about ArcheAge. While the game might be rosey for people under level 30, they say, the “real” game begins at 30, and after that milestone, they say, then the game turns into a PvP gankfest. Well as of this post I’m level 40, and I’ve spent many hours questing in Cinderstone Moor and Halcyona, and sailing around on the ocean.

Previously on Calleil Diary: First Five Days, Next Four Days. Calleil Day 10, Tuesday After I got home from work, I built my Harpoon Clipper ship! It took about 1700 Labor in total, by the way, which was just about everything I had at the time. Oh also I believe it cost 10 gold just to set up the dry dock, which was an unexpected cost. The order of packs you need to use is Lumber, Iron, then Fabric.

Continuing my diary of ArcheAge on Calleil, the newest, emptiest North American server. To make a long story short, it looks like most of the land in safe zones was gone about a week after the new server came up. So if they start a new server and you want some good land, get ready to sprint for it. (The really prime spots.. those cool lone houses up on hills.. are probably gone within 24 hours.

(Updated with the rest of the screenshots I meant to include.) If memory serves, Trion brought up the NA Calleil server on Sunday afternoon (Eastern time). Since the queues on Naima were horrible at the time, and there was little or no chance that I would ever find a place for a house or farm there anyway, I decided that I would make a character on Calleil to see how fast property disappeared.

ArcheAge continues to top the list of most popular posts and search terms on my blog for some reason, so I feel like I should say something about the head start. Suddenly player collision doesn't seem like such a great idea. Make way! Coming through! I played a bit over the weekend, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, I kept getting disconnected due to the persistent server issues, and for another, I didn’t particularly want to spend all of my time staring at a queue screen.

I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game. Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do.

I noticed that I never reported the results of trying to un-learn the use of Invert Mouse. After about two weeks, I was no longer fighting my muscle memory and could play MMOs unhindered. After about a month, I felt like I could aim pretty well again in shooters where precision is important. It’s now been nearly six months, and I feel like I’ve never played any other way. So it is possible to switch, even if you’ve played with Invert Mouse all your life.

Is something I know very little about. I re-downloaded the game and eagerly logged in. Combat was here! Finally something to do besides dig up ore! My claim was long since gone, which was fine because it had nothing on it except some crafting tables. I ran to the crystal hub thingy in the middle of the map-an object that I still don’t know what to call-and found the right table to craft a weapon.

I generally try to avoid industry politics on this blog, unless it relates to in-game politics. (Like raiders versus casuals.) Which is why I don’t have much to say about the recent kerfuffle known as GamerGate. But I will say that I fully support equality and inclusiveness among gamers and I find personal threats against anyone loathsome. I try to cling to the possibly naive belief that truly despicable people are a very small, very loud minority.

To be fair, here’s one thing that FFXIV doesn’t get right: I just re-installed it, subbed up, and jumped in again. (I went crazy and got a 3-month sub because I have some money coming in again heh.) I’m installing it on a different PC from when I last played it, so maybe you can guess what happened. All of my settings, keybinds, and HUD configurations were gone. Even the character-specific configurations like my gear sets were gone.

Well, here’s a topic. From Rowan Blaze: Why Have I Touched The Sky? Sort of a meta-blogging topic. So my second challenge for you, Dear Reader, in these few days of Blaugust: Why did you title your blog what you did? Do you think the name still fits? My first name for this blog was Melanthius. I still think that’s a cool name that rolls off the tongue, but it doesn’t have any inherent meaning when you look at it.

Continuing my journey through cutting edge games from two years ago (also games I’ve already paid for), I’m finally playing Far Cry 3, previously purchased in a Steam sale. I enjoyed the first Far Cry. Well, I say that now, but when I look back on what I wrote about it in 2009, apparently I only thought it was “okay.” … I’ve also started FarCry 2 for the PS3. The story is nothing like the original FarCry, sharing only a name that honestly has nothing to do with anything.

What’s the best subscription-only MMO out there right now? If you could only pick one to maintain, which one would it be? (By the way, the possible answers are: WoW, EVE, WildStar, ESO, or FFXIV.) This is pretty easy for me to answer, actually: Final Fantasy XIV. Hands down. No need to even talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s a lot to do, it’s updated often, it does every MMO mechanic (that matters) exactly right, and it’s cheaper than the others at $12/month.