A number of people are questioning whether Crowfall is asking for enough money to make their game. I don’t really care about that. (But I think they know what they’re doing.) My main worry is that they’re making an MMO that I won’t like. And they know it. I suspect that’s why they are crowdfunding like this: Real investors wouldn’t support making a game intentionally targeted at a small niche market that doesn’t include mostly-casual PvE players.

I think I’ll make this a “thing” and do a monthly progress report of all the MMOs I’m playing. I started running a time tracking program* called ManicTime so I can actually record precisely how much I’ve played every game now. FFXIV (22 hrs)**. I unlocked most of the new 2.5 dungeons and World of Darkness, however I haven’t actually gone into any of them yet. (To this day I’ve only done one level 50 dungeon-Amdapor Keep for the Relic quest.

Most of my time lately has been spent playing Banished, which is a city builder game that I picked up on a Steam sale for $6. This might be the best $6 I’ve ever spent on a game. I love this game. Historically, I am terrible at city builder games and usually give up on them quickly because it’s no fun to watch people starve to death. (That’s how my cities usually end up.

Thanks for the nomination j3w3l! I find these things kind of silly, but I guess it would be rude not to participate in the phenomenon that has taken over the MMO blogosphere lately. I’m such a perfectionist though it’s taken forever to put this together. :) Eleven quick facts about me: I’ve self-published a book on Amazon and sold over three copies. I used to write music and record songs in a home studio.

Syp generated some conversation and controversy by posting a somewhat strongly-worded post against procedurally-generated worlds, but I think he’s absolutely correct: If a developer tries to cut corners by substituting a computer-generated world in place of what should have been a hand-crafted world, it probably won’t be fun. I’m not sure which game he was talking about, but it might have been Crowfall or H1Z1, both of which embrace procedurally-generated worlds and claim to be MMORPGs.

Real life’s been kicking me in the teeth lately-I’m adjusting to a new work role/schedule and of course there was the annoying end of Daylight Savings. So my MMO gaming (and writing, and overall mental attitude, and almost everything else) has suffered. Oddly enough I’ve landed on Path of Exile as a mental tonic, a game which I had previously rejected as uninteresting all the way back in its nearly-perpetual beta.

ESO Unchained or Unlimited or whatever looks pretty good to me. I patched up and logged in for a few minutes to check it out. Six pets seems like a rather small selection. The cash shop is very unobtrusive-about the same as GW2-but it’s also very empty… I didn’t see anything I might be tempted to buy, like for example, the only thing I really wanted-more inventory space. Also, the 800 crowns I was given wasn’t enough to buy much of anything but health potions or maybe a pet.

Last time I did this. Note that some games aren’t on the following list because I have either a) forgotten about them, or b) never heard of them. MMORPGs I’m Looking Forward To These are games that I’m still anxiously awaiting the opportunity to play, because I haven’t yet seen or heard anything to wreck my enthusiasm. Black Desert. I keep seeing good things. Skyforge. I keep hearing good things.

March was definitely a low point in my 2015 MMORPG activity, but don’t panic. This is normal for me. There’s usually one or more months during the year when I end up watching television instead. Still, I accomplished a few things. In Rift, I continued to log in every few days to collect Minion rewards and send them out again. My bank and inventory is bursting with useless junk. In Final Fantasy XIV, I forgot to mention that I joined the cool blogger Free Company on Cactuar.

This happened to me while listening to a podcast during my morning pre-work routine: My mind was wandering while the podcasters were talking, then something in what they were saying about a game grabbed my attention and made me want to check out said game. But I had no idea what game they were talking about, so I had to rewind until I got to the very beginning of their discussion topic to find out the name of the game.

I thought I might start crossing over a bit and post more about my writing here on this blog. It seems to me that the subjects of MMORPGs and genre fiction are pretty closely related anyway. I am off to a terrible start in the April Camp NaNoWriMo event. I set myself a modest goal of 30,000 words (since I don’t think this story is a full novel), and I’m already about three days behind schedule.

I’ve enjoyed Star Trek Online quite a bit over the weekend. I’ve tried to play STO several times in the past but I could never get into it, but for some reason (boredom, probably) I’m “getting it” now. My heavily-armed away team takes on time-traveling bad guys from blue space. Perhaps it’s because they just started this Delta Recruitment event at the exact time that I began playing again. I abandoned my two previous characters (who were no higher than the STO equivalent of level 1 or 2) and made a new Star Fleet “Delta Recruit” dude.

I’m starting to get back into the swing of FFXIV. Over the weekend I played more than I have in ages. I finally got a chance to play a bit with the guild which was a lot of fun. My first priority is finishing the Main Scenario, what with the expansion coming and all, so I picked that up again. I had stopped at Thornmarch (King Moggle Mog or whatever) because, given my last experience with PUGing Titan (Hard), I had no wish to enter another impossible Trial, so I kept putting it off.

It’s been a big week in FFXIV. I finished out the 2.2 and 2.3 main scenario quests, getting through both the Leviathan and Ramuh trials with relative ease. Both PUGs beat them on the first try despite me not knowing what to do when Ramuh tethers you to someone else (hint: pick up 3 blue orbs like Pac-Man). Over on the Dragoon class, I finished the first relic quest to get my Zenith Gae Bolg spear, and also picked up the Onion gear set from Labyrinth (well, all but the belt, but you can’t see that).

Last Wednesday was a rough day at work* so I was too beat to try Turn 5 again, but Saturday the guild was kind enough to re-run it for me and we breezed through it like it was nothing. Thanks everyone! The previously-hated Dive Bombs were no sweat this time. Now I have the Second Coil of Bahamut unlocked for future escapades. (One of these days I’ll have to go back through Turns 1-4 just to see them.

Oh crap, I forgot to write one of these for April. Well, it’s not hard to figure it out. I started out playing mainly Star Trek Online and made it to, I don’t know, 30something I guess, and then I was bitten by the FFXIV bug again and spent the rest of the month there. Final tally: STO 34 hours, FFXIV 127 hours. (Though I’m sure at least 25% of those FFXIV hours were AFK time.

In my latest FFXIV ventures, I’ve done a number of level 50 dungeons for the first time, which is something I really hate, especially so long after they’ve been out. I just hate being “the new guy” in a dungeon, especially in FFXIV because it actually announces it to everyone. (Fortunately there is a reward to the other players for running with a new person, so nobody is likely to kick you out.

Slightly belated, but… How did GamerGate affect you? It actually didn’t affect me per se. I was a passive observer and it wasn’t discussed that much where I spent time on the Internet. I generally don’t read “hard-hitting” game journalism sites like RPS, Kotaku, and whatever others there are, and I definitely don’t venture into their comment sections. I think I only unfollowed one person on Twitter because of their relentless talk about GamerGate.

Two weeks into May, and after posting a talkback post, I realized that I hadn’t even mentioned The Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI). This is a good indication of how bad my blogging has been lately. But enough about me. NBI is a very cool effort to promote new blogs and to spread the word that now is a great time to start a blog if you’ve been thinking about doing so.

Experts Unlocked. With some help from the FC, I finished all three of the Expert dungeons so I can finally do the Daily Expert Roulette. Now the Poetics will really start rolling in! Ironworks Magitek Bow. I had finished two books of the Animus relic upgrade quest but at the rate I was going it would be another ten years before I would be able to upgrade the Artemes bow again.

With the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Heavensward coming soon (June 23), I thought I would put together a list of all the nagging UI issues that I hope are addressed in 3.0. It’s a testament to how good the game already is that I have trouble coming up with any significant gameplay issues to complain about-only these nitpicky UI faults. (Knowing how good Square Enix is at patch notes, I could probably go somewhere and find a detailed list of exactly what’s going to be in Heavensward, but let’s just assume there’s still some doubt about the feature set.

With the exception of a few interminable days at a work conference, I spent the entire month of May playing nothing but FFXIV. That clocks in at 180 hours or an average of 6 hours a day, which is pretty much the maximum amount that I can play any game in a month. (Many of those hours were spent AFK, in case you’re wondering-I tend to leave FFXIV online because it’s a pain to log in with the security token.

I’ve been dabbling with The Witcher 3 off and on since it came out, as I’m sure almost everyone who plays RPGs has. After playing The Witcher 2 there was no possibility that I wasn’t going to get the third installment. Anyone who has even a slight interest in single-player, story-based RPGs should get it without hesitation. That said, I haven’t yet been wowed or completely absorbed by it, but I’m enjoying it.

I’ve just about had enough of the Hard difficulty in The Witcher 3. It’s fine for normal encounters, but when it comes to bosses it’s over that fine line between challenging and frustrating. And it’s not because the encounters are actually too difficult, it’s because of two things: 1) The controls are not responsive enough, and 2) It takes too long to re-load from your previous save. The controls. Arg, the controls.