“I want you to introduce me to one of your online games”.

This phrase came from my SO. She have never played an MMO and barely played any computer/console game at all.

My first though was… “Ok. We will do this on weekend. Most probably she is not going to get hooked by it and the idea will just die there, so I will try my best, but it’s probably nothing too important”.

But the reality is what it is. In the following months, she is going to have a lot of free time. She will be at home and, for the most part of the day, alone. So finding something fun to do on top of her other hobbies may be a good idea.

Even if I think that she should be the one making the decision about what game to try, everything in the genre is really alien to her, so I’m trying to help her choose one based on her tastes. She tends to favor medieval/magical fantasy over sci-fi, definitely PVE oriented and (as every first-timer) worried about doing wrong in group content.

On top of that, as far as possible, I would prefer a game I already own or one that lets us run a trial (or F2P) so we can try a few games before deciding and buying/subscribing.

Let’s try to find a good game to fit with those qualities.

1. The first idea that came to my mind: Lord of the Rings Online. With the Legendary servers launching recently, there is going to be a lot of people on early levels. The story can be soloed easily, and we can duo in the evening when I am at home. But sadly, she don’t like Lord of the Rings.
2. Given that she struggles a bit with English, I suggested World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2, both translated to Spanish and both with local servers. Even if she enjoyed the Warcraft movie far more than I did, she didn’t look too keen to go into Azeroth.
3. One day, as I was browsing some blogs, her eye caught a Final Fantasy XIV screenshot and asked about the game. I did my best to explain about the FF lore without spoilers and she said that would be cool to try. The only “negative” I find in FFXIV is the mandatory dungeons to progress with the main story. And that led me to…

What if “online” is not a requisite?

Sure, being able to play together is a plus. And being online might help her not feel alone for long hours. But, at the same time, going into gaming via MMO’s could be disheartening, if you end in some toxic community that tends to “attack noobs” instead of “helping the newbies”. What if we seek for (offline) RPGs? The doors open to Dragon Age or The Witcher series, Divinity: Original Sin, other Final Fantasy titles…

Once there, I wonder… Why RPGs? What about strategy, adventure, puzzle games? What about some classics?

I anticipate that this weekend I’m going to reinstall, try and talk a lot about different games. I won’t probably play myself more than a few minutes but it’s going to be a hell of a ride on different genres, settings, eras… and hopefully, we will find THAT game that clicks and introduces her to this vast and amazing world.

As I anticipated on the previous post, this December I’ve barely played anything. My SO is having serious health issues that led to surgery and we’ve spent most of the time at the hospital. She’s back at home now, and slowly recovering, as a positive note.

Talking about the whole year and back on topic, the game I’ve been more focussed it’s been EVE Online. I came back to the game in September 2017 and after struggling a bit with the new meta, jump fatigue and a few other changes, I got to a confortable routine of knowing (aproximatelly) how to fund myself again and what to do in fleets (either gigantic TiDi fights or the ocasional fast roaming fleet).

In April I went (for the first time) to the EVE Fanfest and took the chance to be for 8 days traveling around Iceland (or a part of it). I came back in love with both the land and the people. During Fanfest I managed to put faces to some alliance mates and other players and, of course, was overhyped about what was coming next to the game. The whole trip was financially hard for me but, in the end, it was worth it.

August came and the Blaugust with it, which led me to start this blog. After about 8 years without writing, and in English for the first time. During September, we went on a Holidays trip to Malta and bassicaly abandoned it, but since October I’m writing again (even if not as regularily as I would like).

There’s been a handful of other MMO’s for me this year. I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, Star Trek Online, Guild Wars 2, Everquest, or Lord of the Rings Online. I haven’t been particularly immersed on any of them this year, with the possible exception of Lotro, where I joined a couple of days after the Legendary servers launched, but I had to stop playing because of RL issues. If I can, I still want to come back and be ready for Moria before it arrives.

2019 expectations

As I said, I want to come back to Lotro Legendary and keep up the pace with the expansions as they launch.

As I’ve read good things about the new SWTOR expansion I will probably come back, at least for the story (probably not for the end game).

Of course, nostalgia will hit again and I will try the WoW classic when it comes. I don’t know if I will be there in the long term, but… I will enjoy the ride for the first weeks.

Out of the MMO bubble, in the PS4, I’ve barely played Red Dead Redemption 2 yet, but I was having fun with it, and I intend to try Spiderman too.

Finally, I’ve been thinking about another blog (not gaming related, and written in Spanish), but I will not commit to it unless I feel satisfied with how often I write here, which currently I am not.

Have a Happy new year!

This morning, while I was checking my RSS reader, I’ve found a few posts (1, 2, 3, 4 in no particular order) about another blogger that I didn’t know (and I won’t link). Apparently, he (or she) was criticizing the Blaugust initiative.

Intrigued, I’ve decided to check his (her) blog, where I’ve found not one but two consecutive posts entirely devoted to bashing Blaugust participants. For some reason, (s)he is focusing all the rage on the most active participants. Maybe the rest of us are beneath his (her) level, or maybe (s)he decided to “spare us the pain”.

The bad part is not that (s)he is critic about the initiative or about the perticipants, the thing is the superiority complex that emanates from the text.

From the last paragraph:

One blog. That’s what I’ve gained from Blaugust and that blog wasn’t created by Blaugust.

You’ve decided not to participate in Blaugust. What were you expecting to get from it? What do you think Blaugust (or those of us that decided to be part of it) owns you? What are we (the rest of the world) are going to gain from your posts?

I’ve gained from Blaugust. I started writing again after many years, I’ve found a few blogs I didn’t know (more about that in a future post), I’ve interacted with other people that were in the same boat.

I know that for a lot of people that means nothing. 6000 million people in Earth and most of them gained nothing from Blaugust. But… did any of them lose something because of Blaugust?

Somebody starts a project. Or recycle an old project, it doesn’t matter. He is working on it for no profit. A group of people joins him. You can join or not. You can suggest changes, or a different approach, different dates…

But if you just don’t want anything to do with it… just let it go.

Waiting two months and then coming to smash it looks to me like a toddler that comes and destroys the sandcastle that his (her) sibling was building. I don’t have children, maybe that is the reason why I can’t cope with adults that act like them.