Blog Features

Games Played 2019 Edition

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For those who have been reading this blog for some time you will know I have a yearly tradition of doing a rundown of the games that I played during the year and comparing them to the same periods over previous years. I have this weird habit of keeping track of what I am playing in a given month and tracking this in spreadsheet form. I started doing this in 2013 and thanks to my other habit of keeping track of spreadsheets I have gone back as far as 2012 with some level of accuracy. I could likely go back further… but that is a job for another time. Essentially based on screenshots, what I am blogging about and what I am talking about on the podcast I can create a fairly accurate record of the games played during a given year. For those who are prepared to descend into madness you can view the entire spreadsheet here.

The Top 10 of 2019

The rules are simple… if I played a game in a given month I fill in a box and then tabulate the number of filled in boxes giving me how many months in a given year I played a game. This is not nearly as granular as I would have liked, but trying to keep a journal of every game I played on a specific day truly would be madness. From this we can see some trends about my tastes during a given year and how these have changed over time. The games I played over the most months are as follows.

  • Diablo 3 – PC and Switch – Played All 12 Months
  • Dragalia Lost – Android – Played All 12 Months
  • MTG Arena – PC – Played All 12 Months
  • Destiny 2 – 10 Total Months
  • Final Fantasy XIV – 9 Total Months
  • World of Warcraft Classic – 7 Total Months (counting beta time)
  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – 6 Total Months (counting beta time)
  • Elder Scrolls Online – 6 Total Months
  • Anthem – 5 Total Months
  • Pokemon Go – 5 Total Months

Now lets take a look to see how this compares to last year, as there are several changes that are worth talking about.

First off there are some significant games that are completely missing from the list. World of Warcraft for example which still reigns as the game I have played for the most months total is completely missing from the top ten. Additionally Monster Hunter World which came on with a vengeance last year is also missing from the list because I more or less have been waiting for the PC release of Iceborne given that I have little to no interest in playing on the console release. I took a break in Destiny 2 for a few months and because of fun seasonal events and the switch release I have played Diablo 3 significantly more often this year. The release of an excellent expansion in the form of Shadowbringers also leapfrogged Final Fantasy XIV several positions. Dragalia Lost had not quite launched early enough to make the list for last year but was a nearly daily fixture in my life in this past year. Both Elder Scrolls Online and Pokemon Go have been on the decline in my free time, so both dropped significantly in the numbers.

The Top 15 of All Time

Now we are getting into the territory of the images being impossible to read, but the above sheet snippet shows the top 15 games of all time. However for sake of sanity I am going to bullet point the list so you can see it more clearly.

  • World of Warcraft – 60 Months
  • Destiny / Destiny 2 – 55 Months
  • Final Fantasy XIV – 55 Months
  • Elder Scrolls Online – 44 Months
  • Diablo 3 – 41 Months
  • Rift – 39 Months
  • Pokemon Go – 25 Months
  • MTG Arena – 21 Months
  • Dragalia Lost – 16 Months
  • Monster Hunter World – 16 Months
  • Guild Wars 2 – 14 Months
  • Minecraft – 14 Months
  • ArcheAge – 13 Months
  • Fallout 4 – 13 Months
  • Wildstar – 13 Months

World of Warcraft continues to reign at the top of the list, but its lead on the other options is shrinking because I am continuing to play that game less. Destiny and FFXIV are now tied for second place, and I fully expect that the Destiny Franchise will have potentially knocked Warcraft out of that top spot. Elder Scrolls knocked Rift out of the previous 4th place but didn’t gain as much ground this year as I didn’t play it nearly as often. Diablo 3 has risen up to claim the 5th spot and gained significant ground considering there was a big gap before between 5 and 6. Rift continues to descend the list because I am not actively playing it and also did not spend much time playing it last year either. What I find most interesting is the last three on the list because if you had asked me to guess as to what this list would like like ArcheAge, Fallout 4 and Wildstar would not have been still hanging on after all of this time. For reference you can check out last years post where I am pulling the comparisons from.

Other Interesting Data

Some other interesting data worth noting. In 2018 I played 70 unique games and this year I played considerably fewer, only racking up 48 games. That is still a lot of games but I felt like for a large chunk of the year I had a pretty stable list of titles that I kept bouncing back and forth between. The weirdest thing is… that if you look where I spent a lot of my time they are not on the same titles that I listed in my top games of 2019 post. I am a sucker for “comfort gaming” and there are a lot of times I keep playing games that present familiar patterns. I’ve spent a huge chunk of my vacation playing The Witcher 3 and I have loved it, and I guess my hope for this new year is to spend more time playing single player games since my multiplayer communities have been waning.

In 2018 I played 33 games that I would describe as a “Singleton” or a game that I only poked my head into for a single month. In 2019 that only represented 19 total games and it feels like that is really where the difference between the years comes into play. I was seemingly more adventurous in 2018 than I was in 2019 and I hope I can capture that spirit for 2020 and get out of my comfort zone a bit more often. For those interested in more trending information along this topic you can see a number of my posts since starting this tradition.

And with that… I wish you all the happiest of New Years after sharing my past year with you.

Rise of Skywalker Thoughts

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Like I said in yesterdays post, last night I saw the new Star Wars film and the capstone to the trilogy of trilogies… The Rise of Skywalker. I also managed to leave my credit card at dinner and am going to have to go pick that up tonight, but that is another story. Watching Rise of Skywalker in some ways reminded me of watching Return of the Jedi but for the wrong reasons. When I was a kid I was so deathly sick the weekend we were supposed to go see Return, but I refused to let my parents cancel because I was desperate to see it. Last night I was similarly fighting some sort of a crud and I think it dulled my senses, because there were so many moments that should have made me cheer or weep but all I could do was sit there glued to the screen attempting to continue breathing.

This is going to be a post about impressions and will be my attempt to do a spoiler free review. All of the imagery that you see in this post was pulled from the “Final Trailer” which wasn’t actually the Final trailer as I have seen 3 more new ones since then. I will however mention parts of Force Awakens and Last Jedi as I consider those to largely be “fair game” at this point. First off lets get my ranking of Star Wars films out of the way because in some ways that is going to tell you quickly how much of this “review” you are going to personally agree with. I posted it on twitter last night but here is my revised order of preference. I don’t hate any Star Wars films, I just have some that I like better than others. I’ve made my peace with the prequels.

  • The Empire Strikes Back
  • Rogue One
  • The Rise of Skywalker
  • The Force Awakens
  • A New Hope
  • Solo
  • Return of the Jedi
  • The Last Jedi
  • Revenge of the Sith
  • Attack of the Clones
  • The Phantom Menace

The most controversial part of that list is going to be Last Jedi since it is a deeply polarizing movie. There are some of my friends that hate it with the passion of a Sith, and there are others that feel like it heralded in a brand new era of excellence for Star Wars. I’m somewhere between. There are moments in that movie that I really liked but I found it to be an overall disappointing experience. Force Awakens set up all of these mystery boxes that I desperately wanted to see opened in the follow up. Rian Johnson on the other hand seemed damned determined to toss them all over his shoulder into the ocean the way Luke tried to toss Anakin’s Lightsaber. It was a movie that purposefully tried to undo all of the knots that Force Awakens tied, and for that I will always be disappointed.

My cat loves to knock over the bathroom trash can, and get to any crinkly wrappers that might have been thrown away. I dutifully set the trash can upright and try and stuff everything back inside rather than just emptying the damned thing and moving on with my life. Rise of Skywalker is a movie that tries to set the trash can upright and get things back to a state of where the franchise was heading at the end of Force Awakens. As a result it feels like it undoes a lot of the things that are just tossed aside in Last Jedi, all the while attempting to walk the thin line between doing this and doing it in such a flagrant way as to piss off all of the Last Jedi stalwarts.

The Last Jedi was a smaller film about personal interactions and character development. Rise of Skywalker is a movie about giant epic set pieces that the story flows between with them purposefully knowing that this is the grand send off of the entire “Saga”. I like big damned action sequences and I like giant scenes that are going to be paused forever as the lore hounds mine tidbits of information from the corners of the screen. I really enjoyed the film, but it more or less follows the script that I had originally thought was going to happen after Force Awakens. None of the reveals or the way that the content flows was really a surprise to me because I had imagined things unfolding in this manner for some time.

There are also more bits of the previously expanded universe that creep into the film in ways that aren’t really addressed setting up even more mystery boxes. I have some tasty theories but I won’t dare talk about them for some time, because spoilers. If you’ve always loved Star Wars you are probably going to be happy enough with this outing. As I said before it is a grand send off of the entire Saga and it makes me super interested to see what might come along later. This movie finishes the story of the Skywalker lineage, but I am not entirely certain that the story that is expressed in this film is really over. I feel about the Star Wars universe now much like I did at the end of Return of the Jedi. The sky is the limit and there are so many more tales out there to tell.

I’m thoroughly happy with this film and I am looking forward to seeing it again. I wish we lived in a world where you could watch first run films in your home, but we do not yet live in that world. So at some point during the holiday season I am going to make my wife venture forth and go see it with me. Last night I saw it with a bunch of friends, because while my wife is awesome and seems to have a begrudging respect for the original Trilogy, she is in no way near the fan that I am. Harry Potter was her universe that she fell in love with, but she was sleeping last night in a Santa Yoda shirt so at least some of me has rubbed off on her. I am satisfied with where the movies have gone, and I have a feeling that knowing what is coming in this movie will probably make my opinion of Last Jedi improve significantly.

Regularly Playing: November 2019 Edition

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Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last Regularly Playing column. The idea behind this is that I throw out and update once a month talking about what I am playing and what has faded away. It also serves as an opportunity for me to “true up” my regularly playing widget in the sidebar of this blog. However had I updated at the beginning of October you would have largely just seen a single entry for Destiny 2. I was in a pretty unhappy place with Blizzard and it really made me not want to spend much time writing about what I was doing other than Destiny.

However we have a new month and with it comes some new perspectives. I’ve allowed myself to step back from that precipice even though I feel like a bit of a fraud for doing so. I was making myself unhappy by dwelling so much on the bad feelings. I am back dipping my toe into Blizzard things, but I am still largely feeling awful for doing so. However lets get to the list so I can start talking more about each one of them.

To Those Remaining

Destiny 2 – PC

I’ve been playing an excessive amount of Destiny 2 and if you have read my blog over the last month or so you will have noticed this. Destiny is in a truly amazing state right now and the Cross Save functionality has created this hotbed of players on the PC platform. Over night it seems that PC went from the lowest population platform to the highest as folks are taking advantage of just how much better the experience is on the PC as opposed to the aging console generation. I still only have a handful of people regularly playing but it helps greatly to have Thalen who is also going through a similar renaissance. I’ve more or less given up on most of the AggroChat crew understanding or even latching onto how great this game.

Diablo 3 – PC/Switch

This game was periodically off the menu… but as soon as I eased up on my stance regarding the Blizzard/Hong Kong situation it was one of the first things I logged into. With all of the news about Diablo 4 it has renewed my interests in playing some Diablo 3. I more or less failed miserably at this season but I did managed to knock out the cosmetics for it. I am hoping to get back on track with the new season starting soon and return to semi-regularly playing this with Grace.

Dragalia Lost – Android

This continues to be a nightly thing that I play as I am winding down from the day. I am not super active in it, but generally speaking I play enough each night to knock out the daily objectives. I am not sure what it is about this pattern that I find relaxing but generally speaking as I am wrapping up the last few things I am finding myself fighting to stay awake and can lay down the tablet and slumber peacefully. The release cadence as I have said before really is the piece that keeps me engaged, and the fact that I get a gacha summon pretty often through simply playing the game normally. They are not getting money from me, but they are getting a bunch of active usage.

World of Warcraft Classic – PC

I’m leaving this one on the list but I have to admit it is hanging by a thread here. I initially stopped playing Classic over the Hong Kong incident as I stopped playing any Blizzard games. However upon resuming play I am finding it exceptionally hard to get back into the slower pace of this game. I’ve become used to the run and gun pace of Destiny 2 and my brain is sorta fighting back against this. I had some experience with this when I came back to Classic after the launch of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep. In theory I probably need a bit more time to figure out how to slide back in and resume my path to 60.

To The New And Returning

The Outer Worlds – PC

While I am in a bit of a holding pattern thanks to activity in Destiny 2, I eased into The Outer Worlds a few weekends ago and am looking forward to maybe getting in and playing some more this weekend. This is pretty much the perfect logical successor to my favorite of the Fallout series, New Vegas. It is a weird remix of Fallout, Firefly, Bioshock and Mass Effect and were I not as addicted to Destiny as I currently am it would have become my primary game. I am sure I will get back in and play some more, hopefully prior to the podcast on Saturday.

World of Warcraft – Retail

This is one I did not expect, but after my ceasing of hostilities towards Blizzard… I am finding myself playing a lot more of Retail than I am of Classic. I got in the other night and did the 15th anniversary quests, but I am also finding myself just running around on the Demon Hunter a bit. The other thing I found odd was that I attempted to log into my Alliance characters and found myself turning my nose up at them because they just didn’t feel right. I guess I made a legitimate transition over to The Horde at some point? I blame Grace.

To Those Departing

Bloodstained – PC/Switch

I am sure I will pick this game back up at some point but I have had another things on my mind. In truth I will always be more of an MMO player than I ever am a purveyor of Single Player games. This one will get attention because I still have yet to beat it. I just haven’t been in the mood for it of late.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers – PC

I am sorry Shadowbringers… you suffered a cruel fate at the hands of WoW Classic and never quite recovered. I know there is a new patch, with new content to experience… but I am also not exactly finding myself rushing back to play it. I am not exactly sure what it is with this game but I go through this cycle after the release of an expansion. I play it hard and heavy for awhile… level two characters… and then disappear. It happened to some extent with Heavensward but absolutely both Stormblood and Shadowbringers saw me in exactly the same pattern. Once the overarching story was completed, my desire to keep playing dissipated.

Magic the Gathering Arena – PC

I’ve also found myself simply not logging into Magic the Gathering Arena. This is a game that desperately needs a tablet friendly version. If that existed I would spend way more of that “before bedtime” tablet gaming playing Arena. As it stands when I am at a PC there are just other games I would rather be playing. I’ve also not felt nearly as connected with either War of the Spark or the Eldraine expansions as I have with previous themes. I loved Ixalan, and I think it might go down as probably my favorite non-Dominaria plane we visited. Return to Return to Ravnica felt weirdly watered down as though it were a subject that had been just spread too thin. I am sure I will return at some point but for right now it leaves the list.

Monster Hunter World Iceborne – PS4

You just never had a chance did you Iceborne. You launched at a bad time for me when my attentions were drawn elsewhere to WoW Classic. Then you announced the release of the PC version and I more or less decided to wait. The PC version really is the best version of the game and I found myself just struggling to get used to using a controller again. I am sorry that we just couldn’t come to a workable arrangement. I will see you in January.

Summary

Hopefully I can get back on the wagon of keeping this updated at the beginning of each month. We have a lot of familiar faces on the list in spite of a few of those exiting. I am sure for example I will play through the new patch content in FFXIV at some point, but that point is not now and it is not even really on my radar. My goal is to finish up The Outer Worlds and try and ease back into WoW Classic. However I have a bad habit of abandoning my goals.

Regularly Playing: September 2019 Edition

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For those who are new to this blog, I run a semi-monthly column of sorts where I track what I have been playing over the previous month. This does a few things but largely it allows me to track over the course of the years what I have been into at a given time. My blog serves as a bit of a record to jog my memory and help me firmly plant when certain events are happening. Also it allows my readers a window into what I am up to and what my thoughts are about a thing in short form. I also generally try and use this moment in time as a point to “true up” my sidebar widget.

To Those Remaining

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – PC / Switch

This one is sorta hanging on by a thread at this point, not for want of desire but more for lack of time. I have however booted it up and made a bit more progress over the past month as well as starting the Switch version. Word of warning, I would say if you are ONLY going to buy a single version of this game, maybe don’t buy the Switch version. It has some slowdown issues and the graphical fidelity are not up to snuff from what I have been used to with the PC version. As it stands I own copies of this I believe for every platform… largely because I want to support the hell out of this title and see more games in this series released.

Destiny 2 – PC / Xbox One / PS4

I have been playing considerably more of Destiny 2 than I had in the months leading up to now. There is a bunch of exciting stuff happening not the least of which is the enabling of Cross Save. I can now play my guardian on every single console platform in addition to the PC and have gone through the process of moving my character from Battle.net to Steam. I am super pumped about the launch of Shadowkeep coming up in October. Of note if you have ever played the PC version then it would behoove you to go through the process of moving your character from BNet to Steam because after October 1st it will not longer be accessible through the BNet client.

Diablo 3 – PC

I legitimately thought this one would be leaving my list this month. A new season started at the tail end of August and with the impending launch of World of Warcraft Classic a few days later, I fully expected to just skip out on this season. However I found myself once again logging in on a Friday night for the ritual Grace and I have maintained for the last several seasons. It is enough of a thing that it felt weird NOT to be playing Diablo 3 on an opening night. I had a lot of fun and we ran Demon Hunters just to make the season a little easier to complete. I’ve made it as far as unlocking the seasonal rewards and I am not sure if I will push any further.

Dragalia Lost – Android

This one is going to likely maintain a permanent slot on my list. Unfortunately I don’t really have any new screenshots because I no longer play on my phone where it is super easy to take screenshots. On my Galaxy Tab S4 I have to do a complicated volume down and power button to take a shot so I never do it. On my ZTE Axon 7 phone it is a 3 finger gesture to take a shot, and I am wondering if there is a way to restore that functionality to the tablet with an application or something. This game keeps my attention because they keep rolling out new events, with either brand new or revisiting boss encounters for me to play with. I pretty much play enough each night to complete the daily objectives and then head to sleep.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers – PC

I went from hot and heavy to barely at all on this one. I got in, completed the Shadowbringers story and leveled the Warrior to 80 and my Samurai to 80 as well. Then I disappeared once again because other things released that pulled away my attention. I will continue to play this it fits and spurts for the remainder of this month I am certain, because my attention is being funneled super hard away from almost everything else that I have on my plate. I would really like to level a Magic DPS and a Healer so that I can see all of the Shadowbringers role quests. Still a great game I just am waiting on more story content to drag me back into it.

Magic the Gathering Arena – PC

My attention span for this game has been limited this month, but with the upcoming release content for Throne of Eldraine and the Brawl event happening right now I want to poke my head back in. I have to say though I would play this WAY more if I could play it from my Tablet. My winding down and bed routine would probably include a quick rush through Dragalia dailies and then a few matches of MTGA. I feel like they are missing out on a lot by not having a tablet client, though I guess in theory I could stream this from bed with Parsec. I should investigate how feasible that really is. I sorta wish that I could configure Parsec to work in a sort of console friendly mode where instead of my desktop I am presented with a board of icons of applications to launch.

To The New and Returning

Monster Hunter World Iceborne – PS4

I am a sucker. I did in fact buy this on the PS4 to be able to play it now… when I would way rather have just waited to play it on the PC. The PC version is so superior to the PS4 version for my purposes… however for some reason Capcom is maintaining a staggered schedule of releases. I still love the game and as a result they are getting two purchases from me. I am what is wrong with games and I know I should feel ashamed. I am honestly not sure how much time I will have to devote to this but I really want to poke around and try and get used to a PS4 Controller again.

World of Warcraft Classic – PC

This is the grand daddy of all things on this list and is consuming the most of my time. As of last night I hit 28 on my Undead Warrior and am about halfway to 29. I have plans already made to run Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deep tonight with guildies, and this game is dominating my headspace at the moment. I cannot fully explain why it feels so good but god does it feel good to be back in Vanilla WoW. I knew I would be playing it because Grace had never gotten to experiment, but on some level I fully expected it just to be the two of us running around and doing nonsense. Instead we have a legitimately large guild full of friends all seemingly digging this experience. Long live House Kraken!

To Those Departing

Final Fantasy V – Android

This one largely lost focus somewhere around the Earth Shrine. I probably will return to it because I really like the idea of legitimately playing this without the Four Job Fiesta rules. That said on some level I agree with Ash on this one that the rules actually improve the game. Right now I feel like I need to do all of the things to min-max my characters, whereas playing under the rules dictates my actions. It limits the scope of what is available and causes me to focus on specific strategies. That said now that I know this is a reasonable option I might sign on next year for the Fiesta from my tablet. I just wish this version synced with any other version of the game so I could pop between playing on the PC for example and the tablet. Everything should have cross save.

Summary

The last several months have been pretty stable to be honest with not a lot of changes happening. Mostly a few things shift into focus as a few other things fall out of focus. I expect this month will be about World of Warcraft Classic with a side dish of Monster Hunter World Iceborne and a little bit of Destiny 2 especially as we get closer to the launch of Shadowkeep. Destiny has made me wish that literally every game had cross save if not cross play. I am mostly fine with having to buy a client for each platform, but I would love to be able to carry my characters over to it. There is no reason why Diablo 3 on the switch couldn’t have connected to Battle.net for example, and I have zero excitement over Overwatch Switch as it stands because I fully expect that it will not be connected to Battle.net either. I want more ability to play with my friends on the characters I have already spent time building, because quite frankly I don’t generally have enough bandwidth to level something new.