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Games Played 2017 Edition

December 30, 2022December 29, 2017 by Belghast

Year End Review

One of the weird things that I do is that I attempt to keep track of the games I have played during a given calendar year. I started this madness I believe in 2015 and then have slowly been back populating that list based on a few methods. Essentially I am tracking things on a month by month basis and if I have written about a game or taken screenshots of a game… I log it as having been played during that month. The end result is this weird history of the games I have played over the course of a given calendar year. Seeing as this is the last “weekday” that I will be making a post until the beginning of 2018… I figured it was the perfect time to break out my post talking about the various things I played this year. Without further stalling… here is the data.

Click on the image or here to see the full google sheet.

During the course of the year I played a grand total of 41 different games, which is from 57 last year and 67 the year before that. Basically the key difference is that I mostly played MMOs which tend to hold my attention for larger periods of time than burning through a bunch of single player titles. Lets take a swath of the top ten titles and look at them a little closer.

World of Warcraft – 10 months
Destiny – 8 months
Diablo 3 – 7 months
Final Fantasy XIV – 7 months
Horizon Zero Dawn – 7 months
Destiny 2 – 6 months
Pokemon Go – 6 months
Fallout 4 – 5 months
Guild Wars 2 – 4 months
Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 4 months

At first glance the clear king is World of Warcraft with 10 months of play, but if you look back at past years this tends to be the one game that I am almost always at least playing a few days a month. However you notice that I largely took a complete break from the game in March and April and I feel like it is largely due to a few games coming out around the same time… Mass Effect Andromeda, Horizon Zero Dawn and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I feel like the true winner is Destiny and Destiny 2 because if you include those as one game… then I played them every month of the year with some overlap between of two months when I was technically playing both. Granted I am including the time I spent playing various betas of the game but still… I feel like this was the year of Destiny for me personally. I spent significantly less time playing Final Fantasy XIV as I played rabidly during the launch of Stormblood and sorta bounced off otherwise. Another anomaly this year is that Rift did not make the top 10, and similarly odd is how much of a return Pokemon Go has had…. but I largely chock this up to getting a new phone that handles it better. The weirdest part about this years top ten list is that it includes several single player titles: Fallout 4, Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. All three of these are games that I keep being able to return to and play again and again in short bursts.

Click on the image or here to see the full google sheet.

Multi-Year View

Now if we expand out even further… here is the list of everything I have played since 2012. Things get a little spottier the further you go back. Essentially I have back populated this last by going through all of my old blog posts and jotting down which games I talked about playing. Additionally I have scanned all of the screenshots that I happen to have and divided them up by the month the file was created as an attempt to create a somewhat accurate picture of what I had been playing. Generally speaking if I am playing a game I am taking screenshots because I always need images for my blog. I may or may not have almost 30,000 screenshots sitting on network attached storage… and a stack of every hard drive from every machine I have owned waiting for a day when I feel like going spelunking for more screenshots. I am not even sure why I started down this path but now that I am on it… it has become another obsession of mine. Basically from here on we are going to largely talk about the top fifteen games I have played since 2012.

World of Warcraft – 47 months
Final Fantasy XIV – 42 months
Rift – 37 months
Destiny – 27 months (including D2 31 months)
Elder Scrolls Online – 26 months
Diablo 3 – 23 months
ArcheAge – 13 months
Guild Wars 2 – 13 months
Wildstar – 13 months
Everquest II – 11 months
Fallout 4 – 10 months
Star Wars the Old Republic – 10 months
Trove – 9 months
Pokemon Go – 8 months
The Secret World – 8 months

First interesting pattern is that there is only one non-mmo on this list and that is Fallout 4. I am not entirely certain why I keep returning to that game but there are so many nights I will fire it up on the laptop while doing other things and just roam around. Once again Rift has fallen a bit in the rankings as this time last year it was tied with Final Fantasy XIV for the second place slot. Destiny slides up into number three eclipsing Elder Scrolls Online, especially if you include Destiny 2 playtime which I denoted in quotes. Guild Wars 2 and my resurgence into that game caused it to leapfrog Wildstar a bit, and then the tail end of the list is either new because I expanded things out to top 15 or in a similar position. There are some games on this list that are likely to eventually fall out of the ranking. I am not really playing Everquest II anymore in part because the management since the swap to Daybreak has just been pitiful. Its a torn community and just not the environment I remember loving. Trove may or may not see me returning to it, because I have a friend who is super into that game right now… but also playing on the PS4 and not PC which makes the return to play with him more unlikely. Additionally that game has changed so much since I last played it that I would almost need to start fresh to really get back into it. Similarly I am not sure how much more time I will be devoting to ArcheAge because I just don’t find the game nearly as compelling as I once did. As I leveled in the game it felt like the things I wanted to be doing narrowed rather than broadened given that I have no interest in PVP nonsense. I left shortly before they split the servers into veteran and new player experiences, and I am not even sure what the game looks like right now.

Looking Forward

As far as the calendar year of 2018… I am not really sure what I will be playing. It is a forgone conclusion that I will be playing World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. In spite of me not really liking the more PVP centric focus, I would be lying if I said I would not be playing it at launch. I predict that I will be playing some more SWTOR in the near future because the release of a Star Wars movie always brings out the nostalgia for all things Star Wars. On top of that with Disney pulling the license for Marvel Heroes… I want to make sure I experience the story content in SWTOR just in case they for some reason decide to do the same thing they did with SWG. I know at some point I will make a return to Final Fantasy XIV and more than likely when they patch in the next step of the Palace of the Dead. As far as new games go… there really isn’t much on the horizon that really interests me. I am not enthralled by Crowfall or Camelot Unchained, because they seem to be creating games that don’t really stoke my interests.

Brad McQuaid will likely bring us some sort of version of Pantheon: Rise and Repeat as I heard someone call it the other day (I believe Wilhelm but not 100% sure). I played Everquest, and Vanguard… and Pantheon seems like more of the same just yet another slightly higher fidelity version of the same game Brad has kept trying to create since the 90s. I don’t have near as much nostalgia as some do for the “you must have a group with you at all times and death must be frustrating and painful” genre. Ashes of Creation looks mildly interesting… but what I have seen of the community tells me it is going to be a game I am not going to enjoy much in the same way that I didn’t enjoy ArcheAge at launch. Monster Hunter World is definitely something I am looking forward to giving a shot, in spite of the fact that I am horrible at Monster Hunter games. Anthem also seems really interesting, but the gameplay footage we have seen reminded me a bit too much of the promises Division made but never quite delivered on. In truth in the 2018 calendar year… I expect to keep playing a lot of the same games I played during the past several years because those MMOs just keep getting better with age.

Regularly Playing: August Edition

August 9, 2017 by Belghast

It has been most of the summer since I last updated my sidebar, and a lot of things have changed. I figured it was high time that I true things up since we are just about to go into the school year, and starting to enter a pretty tightly packed release schedule for the rest of the year. For those unfamiliar with this feature, I functionally talk about the things that I have added… the things that are remaining… and the things that I am ultimately removing from regular rotation. I play a lot of games at any given time… and generally speaking the moment I update my sidebar… I have a wild mood swing game wise that leads me somewhere completely differently. So here goes nothing!

To Those Remaining

Final Fantasy XIV

Since I last posted there has been a lot of movement in this game, namely the release of a new expansion called Stormblood. As a result I swapped my Heavensward icon out for a Stormblood one. As far as my time in the game… I’ve reached 70 and 310+ gear on both my Warrior and my Samurai and have fallen off significantly in the amount of time I am actually playing. There is still plenty to be done, and I want to get back in the swing of playing on a regular basis, however lately I am deep within my own turtle session which means I tend to be favoring games where I don’t have much of a crowd. Still well within the realm of active games, just only logging in once or twice a day instead of devoting all of my time to it.

To The Returning and New

Guild Wars 2

This is the first time since picking up the game at launch that I can legitimately say that I am really enjoying myself while playing this game. For whatever reason it took five years to actually click with me, and now it is like discovering hidden treasure. I am attempting to do all the things and it is fitting the bill really well because I don’t have much infrastructure in the game currently. My current goal is reaching 100% in all of the old world zones, which I believe is one of the requirements for starting down the Legendary weapon rabbit hole. Another huge boon for my enjoyment of the game is the fact that there are now proper beards for non-norn characters.

Rift

To be honest since its release in 2011 it has never really been far off my radar. Crawling back into Rift is like wrapping myself in a warm blanket, because it is so familiar. In the past six years I’ve had highs and lows with the game, but I know that regardless I will always return and always be interested in whatever happens to be going on. Recently during my turtle mode game play in general, I have been spending a bit of time trying to catch up and hit the Prophecy of Ahnket level cap. I am also digging the tweaks I made to my default outfit. Rift in many ways feels like this snapshot of what everyone wanted in a game around its release, and in some ways it is still ahead of its time. In other ways though it feels like a time capsule to a time when MMO games were slower paced and more methodical. I still find it enjoyable and am always proud to feature it on my sidebar when I am playing.

Diablo 3

Another game that is never far off my radar is Diablo 3, and with us currently being in the thrall of another season… it is obviously occupying some sidebar territory. This is the first season to feature Necromancers and it has been hilarious to see literally bone spikes for days. I really don’t have a whole lot to talk about the game because if by now you don’t get my attraction you probably never will.

World of Warcraft

I have honestly all but stopped playing World of Warcraft, but I am keeping a space on my sidebar for it because of the RoboSquid Armada. This is effectively our weird brain chain of trying to run every dungeon and raid in World of Warcraft at level in minimal gear. Prior to the launch of Stormblood we had left off at Blackfathom Deeps and it seems like everyone is coalescing towards starting this up again. I am more than happy to do some madness with my baby monk.

To Those Departing

Star Wars the Old Republic

If I am being completely honest… I have to say I love what this game has become. I had this awesome time playing through the Shadows of Revan, Ziost and Fallen Empire content and then I sort of needed a break from deeply story driven gaming. It was also around about this time that we were ramping up for the release of Stormblood. At some point in the future when I need to completely dive into something wholly immersive… I will pick this back up and run through the Eternal Throne story line. I still poke my head in from time to time, but not enough to keep it on the sidebar.

Horizon Zero Dawn

This is one of those games that I really need to finish, but I have a feeling by the time I ultimately get back around to it… I will functionally need to restart the experience. This game is a casualty of too many other games coming out at the same time… and ultimately its playtime got eaten up by Mass Effect Andromeda that for whatever reason clicked way harder with me than Horizon did. I really enjoyed the game but I feel like I am going to have to be in the right frame of mind to actually return to it.

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

Another game that has fallen off the radar that I want to start back up at some point is Breath of the Wild. Two things happened to harm this experience… firstly a bunch of other stuff got released. Secondly… I picked up the switch and decided to restart the game. I still play this occasionally but not enough to really keep it hanging out on the right side of the screen.

Secret Story of the Galaxy

May 4, 2017 by Belghast

This morning is one of those days. I just literally got out of the bathroom where I held my hands under the tap to wash them… and then could not figure out why the tap was not turning on automatically. Moments later I realized I was in fact at home… and that we don’t have the same sort of magical faucets that the rest of the world does. This week has been a bit of a challenge because I am just straight up exhausted all of the time. No amount of caffeine seems to be able to break me out of whatever haze I seem to be in. It does not help that it has been cold and rainy… in May. By this time last year we already had the pool open and I had a yard full of flowers. This year however it just hasn’t been warm enough for either, and the yard is so water logged that before long I will have a grand primal swamp. My evenings have been spent watching various things on Netflix and working my way through the Agent storyline in Star Wars the Old Republic.

In a way I am glad that I left this storyline for the last, because it seems to be making a bunch of callbacks to the other stories that I never would have gotten had I not already played the other seven classes. There are constantly folks being mentioned…. and I am like “I know that person” or in some cases “I killed that person in another life”. For years I have thought that the Jedi Knight main story arc ultimately was the most “canon” of them all… but in truth I feel like maybe Imperial Agent is also deeply canon because it shows the underside of the world and all of the pieces shifting slowly into place. While Jedi Knight is the “big damned hero” tale, Agent seems to be the “truth” that happened while the hero tale was playing out. The story behind the story is always interesting, and I continue to be intrigued at just how much I am getting into this. I think it is a testament to just how good the game really is that it can plop me down in a role I would never actually play…. and make me love it. I also deeply dig Kaliyo and my dark side murdery nature seems to play well to her brand of violent sarcasm.

However after all of this skulking about and subterfuge… I am really looking forward to switching back to my Jedi Knight main and continuing through the rest of the story that I never got around to playing the last time. When we played December 2015, I got caught up in the 12 times story bonus that allowed me to play through all of the classic stories without having to worry about any additional questing. Once I finish the Agent that particular mission is complete, and it will allow me to pick back up where I left off… which is the beginning of the Shadow of Revan content. I really want to see how that storyline goes, and I also want to see how exactly the transition to being “The Outlander” happens as well. I love the original game, and in part I am wanting to see just how the game changes once it shifts to the Fallen Empire model. I mean I realize I have plenty of boosts available and could just catapult a character to near maximum level. However most of my enjoyment in SWTOR comes from actually playing through the content, much like the same is true with Elder Scrolls Online. So while it feels like both games are taking forever… I don’t really want to rob myself of the experience.

Regularly Playing: May Edition

May 1, 2017 by Belghast

I had a realization over the weekend as I stared at my sidebar… that it has been a significant amount of time since I last did the regularly playing thing. The last one I was able to find was on October 3rd of 2016… some 210 days ago. I may or may not have completely fallen off the wagon on this concept. The original intent was to take a moment once a month to “true up” the side bar and shift out what I was no longer playing for what I was currently playing. As a result we are going to see some significant moving and shaking in the list as a result.

To Those Remaining

Final Fantasy XIV

I am still going fairly strongly in Final Fantasy XIV, and while I might not log in every night I am logging in multiple times a week. I am definitely still making the Tuesday night raid thing, and while we don’t always make progress each week we get together to do something. Thanks to the wonder of cross server grouping we have been able to pull in our friend Kelesti into some stuff as well. Largely we are all in a big holding pattern until the release of Stormblood which comes in July, and as a result I am still in the middle of my “level everything” binge. Right now my Machinist is just shy of 40, and that leaves Astrologian the only thing that has yet to be touched. The whole purpose behind all of this madness is so that I can purge my vault of anything at minimum sub 30… and the grand hope is to sort through anything sub 50 and be extremely judicious in what I choose to keep. Still having a lot of fun in Palace of the Dead, just have had other distractions of late.

To the Returning and New

Skyforge

This is one of those games that has not graced my sidebar in a very very long time. In July of 2015 I played quite a bit of the game around the time that it launched, and while I enjoyed it… it always felt like it was missing something. Apparently October of last year an expansion released that added in pretty much all of the features that I am finding myself enjoying now. Additionally the game just works better with a controller than it ever did with a keyboard and mouse and while I returned primarily on the PS4… I am also dipping my toes back into the PC experience as well. Both are extremely fun and I am not entirely sure how long I will be splitting time before I officially pick one platform. Whatever the case if you have ever played this game I highly suggest checking it out. It has some issues… namely you are limited to three classes at the start with no clear path to add new ones. However each of the classes is doing something somewhat unique which makes them more enjoyable than the standard Tank, Mage and Healer that they represent.

Star Wars the Old Republic

There are two things that are shocking about this game gracing my list. Firstly that apparently I never actually made a “now playing” widget for it, and secondly… that I am back playing it again. I blame a sequence of nostalgic events happening at exactly the same time… all of the hype about the next Star Wars movie, the love of Rogue One, and my deep enjoyment of Mass Effect Andromeda has lead to an upwelling of love for both Bioware and Star Wars. As a result I have returned to an old mission, which is trying to level through all of the class stories. I managed to finish off the Sith Sorcerer and am now through Hoth so far in the Imperial Agent. It seems as though I picked one of the best storylines for last, and even though I am not traditionally a stealthy/shooty type class… there is something extremely awesome about this one. I largely went Sniper because my Smuggler on the other side of the fence is Sawbones/Healer. I am having a blast right now, so I am going to ride the enjoyment until it lasts. The goal is to push forward into the story I have not touched on my Jedi Knight main after finishing the Agent story… which involves Shadow of Revan, Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne.

Horizon Zero Dawn

I do not normally put many single player games on the regularly playing list, but we have this sequence of amazing ones being released in short order. One of those is Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a game that I hit hard at launch… and then for whatever release lost momentum to Mass Effect Andromeda. As a result I have been slowly playing it here and there as time and desire allows. I could force myself through the story, but I want to play it when I want to play it… and that is right now involving the occasional hour long session of hunting giant robot dinosaurs rather than pushing forward the main story. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I need to find some catalyst that really gets me back into it and dying to play the next chapter. In the mean time however I am still enjoying the “bowplay” if I can coin that term.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This is very much another “as desire hits me” sort of experience. When the game came out I picked it up on the Wii U and in the time between then and now I have managed to pick up a switch effecting starting back at square one. This stalled my progress a little bit but for the most part I have returned to where I left in the Wii U and am once again moving forward. I have designs on starting to take this to work and playing a little over lunch and on break times. While I have the switch I really have not done a lot of handheld play with it remaining largely docked upstairs so I can play it with the pro controller. It is a great game and in spite of having a lot of things that frustrate me about the game… is yet another in a long list of titles contending for my game of the year bid.

To Those Departing

World of Warcraft

While I still have an active account, I am just not really playing at all. I logged in shortly after the last patch and got bored and logged out again. I fell off the raiding bandwagon about halfway through Nighthold, and honestly just sort of reached the point I have in so many other expansions. I think in theory I could come back and play casually and enjoy the experience but there are just simply too many other things I would rather be playing right now. So as a result this is going to find its way off my side bar, but I did have the forethought to simply comment it out rather than remove it because I am sure at some point around Blizzcon time I will get hit by the bug once more.

Rift

Much like with Nightmare Tide… I just failed to gain traction with the latest expansion the Starfall Prophecy. A large part of my struggle with Rift is that I can never seem to find a warrior spec that I really like anymore. What I ultimately want is a juggernaut for doing PVE/Leveling content that can burn through the mobs with nonexistent downtime. If I ever find that spec again I will return to the game and happily finish up leveling. The other huge struggle is that the game lacks a reliable current font of knowledge. The forums in theory have a lot of the information but it is this blend of current information and ancient and no longer reliable, and I just lack the mental fortitude to sift through it. I am hoping that after writing this… Muspel or PK will come to the rescue once again with a viable Warrior build like they have in the past. The other huge challenge with Rift is the fact that none of my gaming infrastructure is playing the game, nor do any of my regular suspects have any interest in the game at this point.

Destiny

It hurts more than a little bit to be adding this game to this space on my list. The truth is I am just not playing it right now and I don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future. I have too many other games fighting for my attention, and while I absolutely know I will be returning with Destiny 2… the amount of stuff that I can do solo or want to so solo is pretty limited. At this point it feels like I would be working towards something that is ultimately going to disappear. I also have a lot of questions because as it is right now… I am looking at making the leap to PC from PS4 for the second game… and I am not sure what if anything might transfer.

Guild Wars 2

Adding this one to the list really doesn’t take a lot of effort. I was only into this game so long as some of my friends were actively playing it. Once Tam and Ash and Kodra faded away… so did I. It is still not my favorite game but I have developed a certain appreciation for it. Most of what it is doing however isn’t really all that interesting to me. I largely got to play along with my friends only because I had maxed out my Warrior soloing for ages without them. He was geared and ready to go… and will still be there if it ever has a resurgence. Much like Warframe this is a game that was not ultimately for me… but somewhat enjoyable so long as I was playing with friends.