Alternatives to Azeroth

Good morning friends. We find ourselves in really difficult times, more specifically for those players who had a deep connection to World of Warcraft. One of the most interesting aspects surrounding the Warcraft universe is that there are so many players that were happily plugged into Azeroth without knowing much about the larger MMORPG scene. The game had a unique way of spreading from spouse to partner or to family members or maybe even to coworkers. The end result is that it created a large number of “Blizzard Gamers” that had never really played much prior to the game nor played much in addition to it. This morning’s post is specifically for the members of the Warcraft community that now find themselves in a troubling situation. For many playing Warcraft right now feels tainted, but at the same time the game became part of their self-care routine as a way to alleviate the stresses of the world.

Please note this is not a post telling people to abandon World of Warcraft. That isn’t something that I can tell anyone to do. Personally, I just can’t touch Blizzard products right now. Maybe if the systemic change goes into place and it seems like the company is on the right track again I can return, but for now, I am distancing myself. If you are feeling the same way, but also struggling to know what to do with your gaming time… this morning’s post is specifically targeted at you. As a long-time “WoW Tourist” I have played almost all of the MMORPGs that have come out throughout the years and I have great news for you. While Warcraft was consuming all of the discourse, there were a wide number of games that have quietly been gaining steam in the background. This morning I am going to talk about the games that I think specifically would be easy to move over to after coming from a World of Warcraft background.

The Lord of the Rings Online

This is one of the older games on this list and it is impossible to talk about without also talking about Lord of the Rings as a whole. This game was released on the heels of the extremely popular series of movies and had the challenge of creating a world that felt like said movies, but also had none of the licensing rights to the movie imagery. It is also very much a game of its era and if you were a huge fan of the way that Vanilla Warcraft and Burning Crusade felt, then you might possibly feel at home roaming this vast world. Enjoyment of the game however is greatly enhanced if you have a love of Tolkien because so many little details of the books are lovingly placed or recreated in this setting.

The story of Lord of the Rings Online is set as you being a contemporary of the Fellowship. This means throughout the course of its long tale you will be crossing paths with various members of the larger story. This gives the game leverage to let your character stray from the text, but still has a larger context of the events of the story we know so well. There are a number of extremely interesting character classes and rich crafting system and a functional but not phenomenal housing system. I think more than anything I fell in love with the world itself because it makes for an extremely interesting backdrop to your own character story. The game is showing its age, but especially if you were a classic player it might feel like home.

There is of course a free trial that lets you get in and start playing the game with an albeit limited set of character options and only the base content available. It has one of the more complicated pricing models in that each expansion is purchased separately, but there is a version of the game that includes the first six expansions for $59.99. If you choose to subscribe to unlock additional features it comes in at the standard $15 a month.

Star Wars the Old Republic

Did you ever want to play World of Warcraft circa Wrath of the Lich King but in a Science Fiction setting? Gratz then Star Wars the Old Republic is probably just the game for you. If you ever played through the much acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic RPG by Bioware, this game is set further down in that same timeline and as a result, references a lot of events from that KOTOR 1/2 setting. The only negative about Star Wars the Old Republic is that at this point in its lifespan it is largely a single-player MMORPG and has been retooled to support that playstyle. It features some of the deepest and most engaging storylines I have experienced in an MMO with each of the eight classes having its own completely unique character arcs that play out over the course of the base game.

It adds a lot of interesting things to the genre, like a Starfox-style arcade space combat mode and a deep companion system allowing you to customize them and augment your play. For example, if you are a squishy DPS and struggle while questing, then bring a healing companion or a tank companion to come to make that questing go a little bit more smoothly. There is a fairly rich crafting system, but it feels like it was largely abandoned once you left the base game. The game veers sharply into a completely single-player narrative once you reach the expansion content, but is still very much worth experiencing for yourself. It featured some really interesting group content at release but has been tuned in a way that most people just solo it these days.

There is a free trial that unlocks a limited subset of content and character options. One of the interesting things about Star Wars the Old Republic is that if you pay for a single month at $15, it permanently unlocks all of the expansion content and a number of the missing character options. Even more interesting about this game is it supports a $60 two-month subscription that does not renew, which tells me that Bioware fully understands that this is the type of game that folks dip their toes back into every now and then for a month or two at a time. There are ways to buy the game outright for $30 featuring all of the expansions, but really the better option is to simply pay for a single month of subscription time.

Neverwinter

Neverwinter is a bit of a mixed bag, but I feel like it is worth talking about nonetheless. The first two games in this sequence started their lives as a subscription model game and then were later converted over to free to play when the market proved that there could only be one “WoW”. Neverwinter on the other hand released as a purely free-to-play vehicle… and as a result, I would classify it as very “freemium”. You are going to be deluged with a bunch of nonsense that is associated with paid unlocks and priced-to-own features… including so many varied currencies that it is difficult to keep track of. if you can ignore all of this, the core gameplay loop is extremely enjoyable and it offers a more action roleplaying game take on what is the tried and true World of Warcraft formula.

The game releases content at pretty regular intervals and the moment-to-moment gameplay is enjoyable. Trying to sort out what it actually costs for anything from the store is completely incomprehensible. If you are looking for a fun game to get in and play for a while but don’t plan on it turning into anything more serious then Neverwinter might just be the ideal fit for you. It requires setting up an ArcGames account, which means that you are going to have to deal with Perfect World nonsense, but pending again that you can overlook that I’ve personally had a lot of fun with it. This is a game that I don’t see recommended as very awesome because you need to be willing to overlook a lot of those free-to-play flaws to find the diamond among the trash heap.

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is without a doubt the best deal in MMORPGs. I can say that statement without irony or subterfuge because the game legitimately is a “buy the box” and play the game type experience. The only caveats that I need to include with it, is that the game itself is vastly different from any other MMORPG on the market in the way it feels and the types of content that is available to the player. If you were a loremaster in World of Warcraft and got joy in ticking things off a list, then this might be the perfect game for you. If you loved World Quest content, then again this might be the ideal experience because pretty much the entire game is the equivalent of a World Quest. Guild Wars 2 presents you huge maps with lots of activities on them and reoccurring group events that you get credit for as you move your way towards “map completion”.

The game also does an excellent job of making sure there is always some objective that you could be working towards, presenting you with a menu of different achievements and collections to go out into the world and complete. It has an extremely rich crafting system and instanced nodes so you are never actually competing with players for resources. The gameplay itself however is a bit of an acquired taste with a character being made up of not only the class you choose but also the specific weapon combination you choose to go with it. I have to admit I have played a lot of Guild Wars 2 in spite of the fact that I still don’t really get the core draw of the experience. It has rich and acclaimed story content, that I have largely bounced off of, but those who love this game they are extremely devoted to it.

If you were a big PVP player in World of Warcraft this game is known for its rich Realm vs Realm vs Realm gameplay. Essentially think Alterac Valley, but something that people actually queue for and participate in as you have a big epic battle with other players over resources. Never really been my cup of tea but I know there are a good number of players that play Guild Wars 2 almost exclusively for this content.

Essentially as it stands right now there are two ways to buy into the experience. The first is an edition that includes the base game and the first two expansions for $29.99. If you are willing to spend a bit more you can buy a new multi-pack that includes the upcoming End of Dragons expansion releasing in February for $49.99. In addition to this, there is of course a cash shop with a large amount of account unlocks and cosmetics, that are in truth purely optional content. Some of the things like unbreakable harvesting tools are the awesome quality of life improvements but provide no real benefit over the base breakable tools in the game. Well worth giving a shot if you have never played before because it might just be the game you have been looking for.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Now we are getting into the games that I assume anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows I will be recommending. Something you need to understand about this game is that I love Elder Scrolls Online. I was a friend and family alpha tester, have two characters named after me, and have played it off and on since it was released. I am more than a little biased about this game, so you need to understand that going into this discussion. ESO was a critically panned game that managed to gain traction and absolutely mail a regular cadence of content releases. Essentially each year there is one large expansion and three smaller content drops, essentially meaning that every 3 months or so there is something new and exciting to engage within the game.

Classes in Elder Scrolls Online are more suggestions than actually locking you down to playing a specific role and if enough time is spent in the game you can earn more than enough points to buy your way into multiple functional specs. I personally main a Dragon Knight, and I can play that as DPS, Healer, or my role of choice Tank. The crafting system is probably my favorite from any MMORPG and the content is laid out in such a way that effectively all of it remains evergreen. Each zone drops specific gear sets and you can take a blue item and upgrade it all the way to the highest tier. This means players are always out in the world participating in content regardless of the zone, making the entire world feel vibrant and alive.

If you were a PVPer in World of Warcraft, this also might be a landing place for you given that it has an entire game mode centering around huge battles to seize control of Cyrodil. Three factions vie for control over Forts and Keeps, all while trying to earn the right to conquer the Imperial City in the center of the map. These campaigns come in seven days and thirty-day flavors and involve players needing to not only take territory but organize the holding of territory during off-hours. For those who are not into the big campaign, Cyrodil still serves as an interesting but dangerous land to explore and well worth doing so for all of the sky shards and little mini-dungeons found there.

Pricing for Elder Scrolls Online gets a little bit contorted. Essentially things are divided into two categories, Expansions which add large new areas to the world along with a new starter experience, and DLC which adds dungeons, raids, and smaller areas. There is an expansion every year and it comes with a standard new game price tag associated with it. DLC is purchased through the crown shop and is somewhere in the $15-$20 price tag depending on how elaborate it is. Alternately you can pay a $15 a month price tag which unlocks all DLC for the game along with your “ESO Plus” subscription. I keep this active if I am playing because it also gives you an unlimited crafting inventory allowing you to harvest until your heart is content without ever worrying about bag space. There is a multi-pack that includes Morrowind, Summerset, Elseweyr, Greymoor, and Blackwood for $59.99 which is the ideal way to buy-in.

Final Fantasy XIV

We have reached the point in this post where we finally get to the game that you all expected me to talk about before you clicked on the link. Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best games on the market and also one of the most endearing comeback stories the games industry has ever had. I say this with no hyperbole intended, this is probably the best MMORPG on the market and it is for a lot of reasons. This game is still a passion project of the team responsible for turning this game around from abject failure to overwhelming success, and for the most part, all of the key players are still actively engaged in creating new content. This team also sets the bar for transparency in information and honesty with its player base about what is going to work and what is not going to work. Players don’t always get what they want, but we often get a better understanding of why exactly we are not getting it.

The challenge with Final Fantasy XIV however is that it feels very much like playing an alternate universe version of World of Warcraft. There is no denying the influence that Warcraft had on Yoshi P while working on this game, but also at the same time there are just a lot of things that work completely differently coming from the Everquest derived lineage of Final Fantasy XI. Additionally, this is a game that was designed with the limitations of the PlayStation 3 in mind, so a number of the systems just don’t work quite in the same ways that a PC-focused MMORPG gamer would expect them to. Then there is the story gating of content that I talked about yesterday, and even though the said story is phenomenal… you cannot progress through good chunks of the game without making your way up to a specific point in the Main Story Quest or MSQ.

The reason why I love this game and keep coming back to it though is the community. There has been a careful focus by the team working on the game to lay the groundwork of shared struggle and kindness throughout the game. There is subtle social pressure to do good and be friendly, in the hopes that maybe just maybe at the end of a group activity you get a commendation from your players. Like it sounds silly, but in practice ends up curbing a lot of the animosity and toxicity that I have seen in other games. The content is also structured in a way so that doing older content is both enjoyable and rewarding and when you have a brand new player those rewards are increased. This has created an effect where running with a brand new player is actually sought after, rather than something you fear. Sure you need to spend a bit more time explaining mechanics, but you are going to get more of the end game currency you are chasing as a result to make it worth your while.

That is not to say that the game does not have its low points as well. Casual PVP is great and I find it very enjoyable, but I am not the traditional PVP player. From what I understand it is nowhere near as highly tuned as other games and as a result those who are more focused on that gameplay get frustrated by it. Housing in the game is one of the coolest systems, but because of the way that it is structure it is prohibitively expensive and just plain unavailable due to demand for most players. Apartments and Free Company rooms exist, but they feature a limited subset of the options that a traditional house would include. One of the huge benefits of the game is the ability to play every single job on a single character, but this is also somewhat of a double edged sword. Leveling your first job comes extremely quickly as you follow the MSQ, but alternative jobs are left hanging forcing players to significantly slower ways of leveling them.

All of that is pretty manageable, but without a doubt the most frustrating part about the game is the account system. Square created a system that would have felt needlessly arcane during the Web 1.0 days and now feels just painful to interact with. Those of us who have been around awhile understand the ins and outs of it… but account creation is the first real hurdle any new player might encounter. It also has a weird pricing model with subscriptions having a good number of asterisks out beside it. The game is $13 a month if you only one one character per server with a maximum of 8 characters in total. $15 a month gets you up to 8 characters per server (which honestly alting is a trap) and a maximum of 40 in total. Then you can pay an additional $2 per month to gain additional retainers or an addition fee to gain use of the mobile app that lets you play the market boards aka auction house remotely.

Right now the game is being deeply discounted due to a sale that is taking place. You can pick up the Complete edition that includes the base game, Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers expansions for $23.99 or the non-sale price of $59.99. Then come November if you are at that point in the game you will need to purchase the Endwalker expansion for $39.99. The Free Trial gives players access to the base game and the Heavensward expansion or the first 60 levels of the game, but comes with a bunch of restrictions limiting the player to 300,000 gil and cannot join Free Companies or send public messages like Shout, Yell or Tell. They are also now restricted with a longer queue time than paying customers. That said it is well worth trying the game for free in order to determine if it really is for you.

One of the things I realize upon making this post, is that I am going to have folks asking “What about X game”. The truth is there are literal hundreds of MMORPGs currently available, each with their positives and negatives. This is my personal take on the games that I think a World of Warcraft exclusive player would fit into most easily. If you have your own opinions for what you feel like are a better fit, as always feel free to leave a comment below. Once again this is not me trying to tell players that they need to leave World of Warcraft, but if you too are struggling with engaging with Blizzard right now… here are some alternative places you could find shelter in for the time being.

Games of the Decade: 2011

Rift

On Friday I started a new series where I talk about the games from the last decade that specifically had an effect on me. The original plan was to do a bunch of single posts, but after some back and forth I decided upon the format of posting games from a specific year. One of the interesting things about this journey is that I am realizing just how fallible my memory is. There is no way I would have ever said that Rift, Skyrim and SWTOR all came out in the same year… but I would have been very wrong. This was seemingly a year of significant changes.

Rift

Rift released in March of 2011 and on paper appeared to be everything that I had ever wanted in an MMORPG. It was an game with a techno-fantasy setting that allowed me to multi-class builds until my heart was content. More importantly it gave me the ability to have a tank with Charge AND Death Grip! I cannot underscore how important that last bit was to my early enjoyment of this game. I rolled a Bahmi Warrior which placed me on the side of the Defiant, aka the Red Team. The central conflict in World of Warcraft was often presented in terms of Good vs Evil, and your definition of that depended greatly upon the side of the fence you started on. Rift on the other hand focused on a debate between Religion and Technology, with me firmly throwing in on the side of technology.

Rift released at a time when it felt like Blizzard was not listening to the players, and in contrast the fledgling Trion Worlds was constantly engaging with the community greatly increasing the appeal. I changed my own religion at the time of being a World of Warcraft site to being all in on Rift, heralding it as the WoW Killer and true savior of MMORPG gaming. I can’t say for certain why I wandered away from the game, but I think in part it was due to the fact that a large chunk of my gaming circle didn’t quite set down the roots that I did. Without a viable raid, we were limited to doing the hardest version of the Rifts, which got old pretty quickly. The release of another game on this list ultimately signaled the closing of my renaissance with the game. It however has been something that I have returned to time and time again and while I am not actively playing it at the moment, remains an extremely important part of my gaming history.

Rage

Every so often a game is released that I absolutely love… and that apparently no one else did. One of those games was Rage, released by ID software in October. What it promised on paper was Doom meets Fallout… and what it delivered was something that felt like it had all of the potential in the world but never quite delivered on any of it. Rage was one of those games that I finished during act one, and I fully expected to open up a wider world… but instead got a credits roll. The few moments before the credit roll however were extremely compelling game play and presented a really interesting world, that I spent entirely too little time in. The follow up this past year took the wrong queues from how to make a sequel and I largely bounced off of it.

I think Rage would have done well, were it not for the horrific technical issues that I remember at the time. ID Software in the post Quake world is often times more of a game engine company than a game developer themselves, and in some ways Rage felt more like a tech demo than anything fully fleshed out. It was the first game to release on the Id Tech 5 engine, and reportedly at launch was a buggy mess. I remember it being a bit of a beast when it came to requirements, but I also managed to play it fairly successfully on the PC. I remember this game being poorly reviewed… but looking back it managed to get a 79 on meta critic… though maybe at the time we didn’t view that as a positive score. I replayed through this game a few years back and it still more or less holds up well.

The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim

My first foray into the world of the Elder Scrolls was with Daggerfall, and I played through it well after that game was gone from its prime. The first Elder Scrolls game that reeled me in with the genres possibility was Morrowind, and when Oblivion released I was completely hooked. By the time Skyrim was announced and ultimately released I was a ravening fanboy ready to consume more of this giant open world setting, and the game delivered on every possible dimension. It would be impossible to create a greatest games of the last decade list without Skyrim on it, especially now that it is pretty much available for every conceivable platform.

What I love about Skyrim is how I am able to just roam aimlessly through the world deciding my own path at all times. The game doesn’t rush me to make any decisions and allows me to carve my own path through the world. I remember on my first playing I went about 15 levels without ever finding the stones that allow you to effectively choose what sort of “class” you were going to play. In fact I pretty much went the opposite direction and it was a significant time before I finally made it to town. As soon as the shackles of the intro quest were removed… I was off doing my own thing figuring out my place in the world. It is for this reason that the game seems to have infinite replay-ability for me personally. Most of the times I pick it up I don’t get even vaguely close to finishing it, but it gives me a fun escape when I need it most.

Star Wars the Old Republic

I have such mixed feelings about Star Wars the Old Republic. On one hand it is one of the best roleplaying games to ever exist with some of the most interesting story content I have ever played through. On the other hand, it is a clone of a very specific era of World of Warcraft and by the time the game released felt somewhat dated and awkward. This would have made a very worthy sequel to the Knights of the Old Republic franchise, if they would have taken a single path and expanded upon it. However what you have is some of the best story-lines that Bioware has ever created trapped inside the husk of a very traditional MMORPG.

This era is also somewhat tainted by the fact that it was a grand experiment in guild building as I attempted to make lots of disparate groups of people mesh together, a problem that I consistently find myself in. This experiment however didn’t go so smoothly and saw the guild fracturing into two factions. In later years the game redeemed itself as the sort of expression of pure joy that I seem to find myself returning to anytime there is a Star Wars movie on the horizon. The more single player focus allows you to churn through the story and feel powerful doing so, more or less allowing you to skip over the bumpy bits. The Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne campaigns represent some of the best RPG goodness I have experienced in a long while. I would at a bare minimum suggest working your way through the original story-line on every single class, because there is interesting overlap and interplay between them. It was and continues to be a pretty phenomenal game-play experience, once you get past a few of the rough spots.

Where Bel Was Mentally in 2011

I felt extremely off balance, having left a game I had been playing for the better part of several years and trying to find a new home. House Stalwart had been that home and as I ventured forth into post WoW territory I found a bunch of temporary housing but it really did take me a long time until I settled into a new family. It also begins the era I am in currently of never quite being able to fully commit to any game. I was super prolific when I was into Rift… and then not at all as I started to pull away from that game. During April I had 24 posts… and by the time you get to November I was down to a single post for that entire month. I found myself actively avoiding the concept of raiding, having effectively just had a “bad breakup” with World of Warcraft and raiding in that game.

So where were you in 2011? What were the games that you found important during that year? Drop me a comment below and let me know what I missed that really mattered to you personally.

Regularly Playing: June 2019 Edition

For those who have been reading this blog for some time you will know that I have a semi-monthly series that I call “regularly playing” where I attempt to update the sidebar on my blog. I failed miserably at the last incarnation, because the side bar never actually got updated. Additionally May was a crazy month with all of the weather issues and I never quite got one of these done. Instead I am shifting to a June edition where I attempt to start doing these towards the start of the month instead of the end of the month. I seemingly inhaled my coffee this morning so… lets do this!

To Those Remaining

Dragalia Lost – Android

I continue to truck along happily in Dragalia Lost and especially now that I have my Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 there is rarely a night that goes by that I don’t at a minimum play through my dailies. I’ve said this before but there is a release cadence of content that keeps me engaged and the fact that another character summon is just around the corner. The whole summoning process feels much better than that Wyrmprints have been completely removed from the mix. After playing effectively the entire time I have gathered up a good stable of five star characters that I have not even bothered leveling yet. I still sorta wish there was a switch version.

Diablo 3 – PC and Switch

If you have read the blog over the last few days you will know that I am fully engaged with Diablo 3 right now. Last night I attempted to farm some more chests but sleep claimed me. I am however on a mission to get the Avarice Conquest and will get there sooner or later. I love Diablo 3 so much and while I fade in and out of its focus… I will always sooner or later return to it.

Final Fantasy XIV – PC

While I am not playing a ton of it… I am still very much engaged with Final Fantasy XIV and am looking forward to the upcoming head start on June 28th for Shadowbringers the next expansion. Pretty excited especially considering the drastic class changes that I think will lead to a more accessible environment. Right now the plan is to level the Samurai through the story quests and then level Warrior with Dungeon Finder given that Tank queues are a breeze. I’ve always done it the other way around and I think a lot of what leads to my burn out is trying to claw my way up to level as a DPS when I could simply go the easy route and level through the story.

Magic the Gathering Arena – PC

While I am not playing it a ton I am still fairly engaged with Magic the Gathering Arena and the War of the Spark expansion seems to be pretty interesting. We talked a bit about this on the podcast but I am really wishing they would make it so that constructed is a format that is always available for play, given that is probably my favorite of the “event” types. It also serves as an amazing way to obtain cards from a specific set.

To The New and Returning

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – PC

I did a lengthy post about this the other day but I am starting to play Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which is as close as we will probably ever get to a proper Symphony of the Night sequel. While I only have the E3 demo version right now, I will be getting access to the full thing on my birthday… June 18th and plan on picking it up for pretty much every console that it will be available for. It is likely going to be a toss up between Switch and PC as to which version I actually play the most.

Destiny 2 – PC

With the Season of Opulence starting I believe today… I’ve been poking my head back into Destiny 2 of late to try and reacquaint myself with the way that the game as a whole feels. I completely missed the Season of the Drifter because I was off doing other things, and the start of a new Season seems to be a good time to get engaged again. I still very much love the game but at this point am so far behind that I am not exactly sure what the most ideal catch up mechanic would be. This is the problem with Destiny as a whole is that there isn’t a painfully obvious way to gain a ton of light levels quickly.

The Elder Scrolls Online – PC

I’ve also of late been spending a significant amount of time playing Elder Scrolls Online. A new expansion released and it has made me want to start playing again… in spite of not actually being willing to start the new content. Instead I am working my way through Vvardenfell… aka two expansions ago? The game is pretty great and ends up filling the same niche that Star Wars the Old Republic does… in that I mostly want to come in and gobble up a bunch of story content and then wander off.

To Those Departing

Grim Dawn

I know I will revisit this game again, but for now I am not playing it and it leaves the list. Based on screenshot evidence I seem to have stopped playing sometime mid April. Still a really great game and I expect to get the itch at some point in the near future… but being engaged with Diablo 3 again mostly pushed it off the table.

Marvel Future Fight

I played this a significant amount of time for a short period of time… and now find it really hard to get back into it. I feel like I hit the free to play wall where I have done as much of the content as I want to do before needing to spend a significant chunk of money. The grind set in and all of the things that would offer advancement require either a lot of money or a lot of time.

Mortal Kombat 11

Going forward I am going to try to filter titles like this off the list in part because there are a lot of things that I play furiously for a weekend and then never play again. Mortal Kombat 11 was one of these and while I fully expect to return to it periodically it isn’t really worthy of the moniker of “regularly playing”. Its still a really cool game and you should check it out especially when it goes on sale.

Outward

This again is another example of a game that probably shouldn’t have made it onto the list since I played it obsessively for a few nights and then never again. I’m going to start an honorable mentions section below for some of the games where I play in this manner because I have a few of them this month as well.

Star Wars the Old Republic

I came in… I gobbled up the entire Eternal Throne storyline and then wandered off once I started the content immediately following that. I have no clue why I suddenly stopped playing but I did. I expect honestly at some point soon to add this back to the list especially with a new full expansion on the way. I still really like this game and am happy it found its feet post launch. I would love more of the content along the lines of Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne because both were phenomenal.

Honorable Mentions

Again for those who didn’t read all of the blurbs above, this is a section I am adding in part because every month there are a handful of titles that I play furiously for a few days and then wander away from. They don’t really deserve the title of “regularly playing” but they are also worth noting.

Crowfall – PC

While there is actually a game here I am not entirely certain if it is a game I want to play. This is something I have been poking my head in to check on since the backer alpha began. I had a few fun nights with it but more or less have consigned it to hibernation once again.

Dragon’s Dogma – PC

I have no clue how much of this I will be playing. I randomly installed it and started playing a few weekends back after watching a series of videos on it by Gaijin Hunter. It is a really cool game and I think it might be something that I could settle into as a bizarre “what if capcom had made skyrim” experience. Not quite ready to add it to the regularly playing list, will see if it returns by the end of the month.

Rage 2 – PC

I had a lot of fun with this game right around the time of launch and then I wandered away… and am not exactly sure why? I really need to get back to playing it and at least make my way through the main story. I get easily distracted when it comes to gaming and I am guessing me getting into World of Warcraft Classic beta was the shiny object that caused this one.

World of Warcraft Classic – PC

And… last but definitely not least… we have World of Warcraft Classic the aforementioned shiny object. This is coming in as an honorable mention and not a regularly playing in part because I have forcefully pulled myself away from it. This game launches officially in August and given the amount of time you need to spend leveling in this game… I don’t see a point in burning myself out before that point. We are completely nonsense and are going to be making an attempt at 40 player raiding again. I will give more information about this as time gets closer. However for now it claims a spot on the Honorable Mentions.

Jedi Train Heist

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Playing World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV spoil you as a player.  What I mean by that is these are both games with rabid fan armies that keep a slew of websites updated with the freshest information.  Playing any of the other MMORPGs means you are going to be sifting through a minefield of abandoned websites and slightly incorrect information.  Hell even my own website adds to this confusion with my Planet and Bonus Series Level Ranges list…  that was created in 2012 as a way of trying to organize when you should be doing the bonus series and intermingling them with the leveling worlds.  For me… I have just been trying to find an accurate list of what order I should be doing the content story wise…  which causes me to stumble across wiki pages that seemingly have not been updated since 2014.  This was the core problem I also had when playing Rift was trying to sift through all of the debris to find a path forward into actually learning about the game.  Official forums are generally the correct answer but even they end up as a stratified mess of older posts when you dig below anything currently available at a surface level and start doing specific searches.

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Last night I worked my way up to and through the Crisis on Umbara Flashpoint, and can I just say how happy I am for the existence of solo mode Flashpoints.  This gives them a way to expose story content in dungeons without ultimately gating story behind a wall that requires a group to see it.  Final Fantasy XIV also loves to put main story quest content in dungeons and primals…  but ultimately causes you to have a gear check wall to see the next batch of it.  SWTOR on the other hand has been expanded out horizontally for awhile, giving you new content without really bumping up the level or gear requirements.  I have a feeling that I am probably wearing the last gear I need currently that I got through Command Crates, which allows me to just sit there and focus on playing through the content rather than trying to gear up.  I realize that statement I just made is something that the raider me would have balked at…  but as a super casual in this game I love the fact that it is an option.  One of the quests leading up to the flashpoint did cause a really interesting bug to occur allowing me to take the above screenshot.

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That is one word of warning that I have to give is that the game seems to be often times in a fairly buggy state.  I’ve noticed having to be very careful with my companion… especially with the sniper variants because they love to park their asses right out of healing range which means I have to keep dragging mobs back to them.  As such I GREATLY prefer the force user healer options because they will wade into combat with me, but when I am running with a “turret healer” I have to refrain from using my leap into combat.  Another thing that I did not remember is that apparently aggro does not reset in instances?  There are wide areas during the instance that just required me to wade back through a bunch of stuff  that I have already been through…  so I decided to mount up and make a run for it.  However this wound up with me getting everything pulled on top of me and summarily dying as soon as my healer dropped.  It was less than a stellar performance but funny enough when I respawned I did so in a way that allowed me to completely skip all of that trash in the first place…  rewarding me for my bad behavior.

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So far the game has given me a train heist…  which is always going to be cool when it happens.  One of my all time favorite missions in The Secret World is Last Train to Cairo which also… was effectively a train heist of sorts.  This really is a bad ass construct and I am surprised that more games don’t use it.  If I had to guess the train I am on is probably stationary and the scenery keeps being spawned in and moving past me, but I have no clue how they actually pulled this off technically.  Whatever the case they make for really cool feeling missions when you get one of them.  The story still remains to be very interesting and there was a bit of a major mic drop spoiler moment in this…  that unfortunately I had spoiled for me ages ago when I watched the wrong trailer.  I will not however spoil that moment here because if I did not know it was coming… it would have been surprising.  I have my theories as to what it actually means however, because I figure it isn’t just as simple as face value.  Playing this game is making me want to commission Ammo to draw my Jedi Guardian…  in the gear that I fastidiously searched the auction house shortly after release to get.  This will always be his default outfit in spite of all of the other awesome outfits I have for him to run around in.