Friday, January 2, 2015

Start As You Mean To Go On


I don't do New Year's Resolutions like Syp does. I don't really do Predictions like Wilhelm. I do, however, occasionally come up with some vague goals, like Keen.

This year I came up with a few that sounded like they might be feasible.

1. Spend a bit less time playing GW2 and a bit more time playing other MMOs. Any other MMOs would be an improvement. GW2 pretty much ate last year. And the year before that. A few new MMOs would be good. Or at least some different old ones.

2. Write more short blog posts. Shorter, anyway.

There's a synergy there. Or a failsafe. One of those. If the posts take less time to write then there's more time to play so I could get more games in even if I still played just as much GW2. It's a theory.

It all started well enough. Second day of the year and I'm level five in an MMO I've never played until couple of days ago and last night I re-installed an old MMO I've dabbled with once or twice without ever getting far. I'd say more about those but:

3. Don't start raving about MMOs I've only played for five levels and then, after two or three posts where I come off sounding like a children's TV presenter on Ecstasy leading an EST seminar, never mention them again. (Actually that's more of a Resolution than a Goal now I come to think about it...)

So, we'll get back to those new/old MMOs if and when I actually play them long enough to have an opinion on something beyond the tutorial. Maybe. Meanwhile...

GW2 had a sale. Character slots were 600 Gems. Down from 800. It was a 24-hour sale. There were only 10 hours left!  I bought one.

I had an excuse a reason. The two account plan has worked wonderfully for ages and it's still great for some things but the more ANet balance around the unity of the Account, not the Character, the more that plan frays around the edges.

Specifically, I do a lot of WvW, and it would be really nice to have all those ranks stacked on the one account. Unfortunately my two favorite WvWers are split, one on each - the super-defensive ranger on the one, the hyper-offensive elementalist on the other. I've been planning to start a second Ele on the ranger's account for several weeks. I was waiting for a sale on character slots. I was betting there'd be one at New Year. I won that bet. Now I have to level him or her.

Oh well. Let's be positive about this. I have a lot of experience scrolls lying around. It takes no time to get to 80 these days. It shouldn't up my GW2 hours that much more. Probably.

And this post is quite short.

8 comments:

  1. I like your taste in character races, they're all asura or charr!

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  2. No humans? Not even a Norn? *grumble*

    I find people who play multiple accounts and hosts of characters fascinating in a detached, viewed-from-afar sort of way. I can't comprehend the desire to manage stables of creatures and stats on a personal level, but it's fun to watch others and process it cognitively, such as the player with one of each class/race combination at maximum level. There's a German player out there with 30-some Mesmers devoted to storing 25,000 candy corn each (and perhaps another dozen for quartz) with the remainder of his 64 slots taken up by the characters he actually plays. I have one character slot for each profession and I'm wondering whether that's a bit much - I have enough trouble mastering and gearing up one character. The character slot sale is, however, probably among the most economical means of acquiring additional storage space...

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    1. My Ele on the other account is a Norn. I also have a Human thief and a Sylvari Guardian there. I have all the races and all the classes just not all on one account.

      I do occasionally stick to a single character in an MMO - I played Fallen Earth for several months with just one and I only have one character in The Secret World that I really play. Generally though I think you need at least a dozen!

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  3. Your relationship with Guild Wars 2 is kind of funny to observe. If you spend a lot of time playing and are having fun, why exactly do you want to play less? Is the part of you that is critical of the game annoyed that it's still so much fun? Do you think it will make you a better MMO player to have experienced more different games? Do you think it will make your blog more interesting?

    Also, why wouldn't you want to make decisive judgements about a game purely on playing the tutorial? It's what everyone else does... ;)

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    1. All of the above! There are two specific reasons why I play so much GW2. Firstly it is one of the most comfortable-to-play games I have ever played. It looks gorgeous, takes little to no attention, has a reasonably wide rang of moderately different things to do and is busy and chatty. All of that makes it ideal entertainment and relaxation after a day at work. Secondly Mrs Bhagpuss plays it even more than I do and that has some kind of gravitational pull even though we don't actually do all that much together in-game in a practical sense (unlike other MMOs we've played where we duoed extensively).

      The main reason I would like to play less GW2 is because I would like to play more of other MMOs because there are so many good, or at least intriguing, ones out there. The time to do that would have to come from somewhere and the options would be Work, Blogging or GW2. I'd rather it was GW2.

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  4. Just wanted to say this post title is almost poetic. I've read it at least 5-6 times but keep forgetting the exact wording. That's a good sign for a really good lyric.

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  5. Great title - very lyrical. Speaking of sales, I just sold my collectors edition of GW2. Yes the one that went for $250. It's been sitting on the shelf since release day. eBay had them going for <$100 so considered myself fortunate to get $75 for mine. Was gathering dust, now it's money in pocket. Yes don't ever bet on the same horse as mine.

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