Horse Latitudes

There is a region roughly 30 degrees north or south of the equator that is characterized by very calm winds and areas of high pressure. Historically this is a region that ships would effectively get “stuck” in for weeks at a time as they drift along listlessly without strong winds. According to legend in order to conserve the rapidly depleting supply of fresh water, some ships would throw the horses overboard. As a result they developed the nickname of the “Horse Latitudes”. There are however multiple competing theories about the origin if you are so inclined, but it is one of those terms from history class that held with me throughout the years.

Right now as I have felt so many times… I am feeling stuck. I feel like I am in this strange valley in between passions and just sort of languishing wildly there. I have the desire to play Genshin Impact, but I have ventured into a realm where I can only play so much at a given time without it feeling largely pointless. I figure at this rate I will probably be AR40 in about two weeks, when I will be even further in the hole on trying to get my characters leveled, ascended, talented and geared… when it doesn’t feel like I have made a significant dent since dinging AR35. As I have talked about before, everything hinges upon Resin and I don’t have the desire to spend the roughly $12 a day in primagems to ensure that I can get the maximum number of refreshes done.

So I find myself logging in every day, completing the daily quests… spending the resin I have available to me and then claiming the various daily login bonus rewards. I am now doing this on two different accounts and still finding myself lacking for something that feels meaningful. I could grind super hard on the second account but I figure that way lies burn out. Everything I am doing on that account already has an extreme “been there and done that” feeling to it, so I am trying to limit my time over there to just knocking out the dailies and stockpiling wish material.

Then there is World of Warcraft and the unknown release date of the Shadowlands expansion. If they came out tomorrow and said, that they were not launching until January, I feel like I could happily move on with my life. However the not knowing when and how it is going to launch feels awful. I’m currently running the Headless Horseman every day in an attempt to get the mount, but I found out yesterday that it only works on characters that are capable of getting the purple loot rewards. That limits me down considerably in the number of daily iterations. I should in theory be working on finishing out my rogue but I am just fundamentally not feeling it.

I created a new character on a new server with the theory of wanting to see the Exiles Reach player experience. However here he sits having never logged it in and started. I am just finding myself having a hard to getting started on anything in World of Warcraft right now, because it all feels lacking in some way. I guess what I want is something with the feel of Genshin Impact but the longevity of a World of Warcraft and the wealth of content to complete. I know someone in the comments is going to suggest Guild Wars 2, and god how I have tried to care about that game over the years. Whatever it is doing is not what I am wanting, even though I do clearly see some of the parallels to Genshin and the way the world is designed in both games.

I could in theory return to Destiny 2 and see if I can slide back into the rhythm of that game. The problem however is that I just feel so woefully behind in the seasonal construct. The fact that there has been so much revolving content that comes and then goes and that fact that we are losing several planets when Beyond Light lands in early November sorta paralyzes me. I have a bunch of Exotic quests that require various things, but I would need a team to do them… and I realize I can make that happen as well but that also in itself feels like a large outlay of energy.

In theory I should follow the lead of my friend Warenwolf and head back over to TQMB, but I am not even sure they would still take me back. I left at the PC launch of Destiny 2 because my long time friend group felt more comfortable if we started our own thing. However most of them bounced and I was never really quite capable of rekindling it once they were gone. My own huge lapses in play time didn’t help either, leaving us with effectively a dead clan. Having a vibrant community would probably help especially if it meant there were various drop in events that I could sign up for. That said I also know how much is going to happen in November as a whole and in theory I have a new console waiting on me as well.

That brings us to the next challenge. I have things that I wouldn’t mind getting back into on the PlayStation, but I am largely in a holding pattern until the launch of the PS5. I am not sure how much further I want to get into various games not knowing with 100% certainty that my save progress is going to carry over cleanly. Anyways I realize this is probably an annoying post to read but sometimes I write for me and my own mental housekeeping. I feel stuck and I need to figure out for myself how to get un-stuck.