A New Year

 

Happy 2021! I am still here!.. just working too much. Last year I started working part time which went into full time and then switching jobs, thinking that working from home would be more laid back, it's not, and working more than ever, meh. I work for Humana Insurance currently and it is a very straining job, if you're wondering what I do. I am still playing my MMO games loving every moment though!

This year I am enjoying Warcraft. New expansion, new shiny stuff. The expansion is good, love the zones and the covens. I love all the cosmetic changes that we got with the expansion, and there are a lot with each coven as well as the update to many of the classic races, you can even gener change in the barbershop.  Humans are awesome and Clo got a make over to be a Human. I was not a huge fan of the pre-patch but I love the xpac. The covens are a nice added flavor to the game. Tons of really cool mounts that are fairly easy to get, tons of transmog options with the covens, it's good. Clo my main, the hunter, has made it to end game working though daily stuff and coven leveling. I recently made a baby human warlock just to play through old content for kicks as well.

I had so much I wanted to post about in 2020 that I never got around to, now it just all mushes together. I had some surgery over the summer, cosmetic but still it took a toll on me working full time and family visiting, I just felt terrible for the neglecting the blog. I may have several stretches' of screenshot posts with small captions just to keep myself going between bigger posts until I get more time on my hands to do longer more thought out posts. Some thoughts to start out the year with what I have been playing to start off the new year!

World of Warcraft's Shadowlands is gorgeous. The story is very interesting, it is heavily story based, but you already know this if you play. My thoughts are the art team outdid themselves, as always, the zones are gorgeous and full of wonder. Though there is a smaller feeling about this expansion, it just feels smaller-- the world, even though a lot of work has been put into detail, story and the covens. The enormity of things feels shifted, I wonder if it is just the way the genre is heading. 

There are so many bits of flavor the story that just bleed into the whole expansion, which I truly enjoy. For instance Sinrunner Blanchy is a mount in this expansion that pulls from Westfall, as Alliance starting out in Westfall Blanchy was always there standing at the start of the zone part of the game, we have always known, a regular, a familiar. Until Westfall was revamped, Old Blanchy is there only as a corpse. In shadowlands the familiar equine of Warcraft's youth is still remembered, a cold, lonely lost soul found in the Shadowlands. Whart are the shawodlands? That's where you go when you TRULy die in Warcraft! In this xpac Blanchy shows up every two hours or so and requires care for several days after which the player is able to gain Sinrunner Blanchy as a mount, which the whole story is just as epic as this mount is. Easily one of the most stunning mounts in the game in visuals and sound. The tidbits in Shadowlands are satisfying. It isn't prefect, I do wish working though covenants felt faster paced. Some days I skip days and feel more left behind than ever due to the limitations on quests. All in all the expansion is as solid upgrade. I actually purchased a six month sub to this game.

EQ2 had an expansion too. I purchased the CE in order to gain the new race, the Vah Shir, a race that has been in the first EQ since 2000. The race is cool looking, cat people, which seem to use the same body structure as the Sarnak race. Luclin is the theme of this expansion, as well as the last. I have not progressed in either, even though I have purchased both. Developers claim they are catering to the community with more hard core play, no objective showing on map, no direction showing, which causes me to to have to wiki/google every quest. If I had one wish for Everquest 2 it would be the team went and added quest markers though all the content, skip an expansion and do it if you have to, think of the gains. I do not have the time to do this for such an aging game... I take that back, any game, please just make things easier for me to navigate through generic quests. At the end of my day my brain is fried and I want to shove money down your throat, except I am too tired to google every stinking quest so instead I log off. Disappointing for EQ2 until this changes. Otherwise the game is amazing still, phenomenal amount of content, amazing development for what they work with. I cancelled my sub.... but read further on to see more.

I have been playing Rift steadily for years, the new owners of this IP have not added any new content, it is in limbo but still there, I log on here and there, it is my  housing fix and for that I do throw some money into the cash shop when I see something cosmetic I like, just as a hey I still love Rift, keep the doors open gesture. I wish we could get an expansion but I'm not holding my breath. Another in this category as less played but still playing actively, but paying a sub towards is SWTOR as long as they pump out content I will subscribe to play it. I have an active sub and I enjoyed the current story update. The game is still good, with alts and daily activities there is always something to do, still a major love, happy to see the game getting updates, although I do wish we had a big grand expansion to breathe more life into the stagnant corners of the game.

Last but not least Everquest. While my EQ2 account was cancelled, I did actually subscribe again which counts as all access (probably the best sub value out there in the genre, all access) to play Everquest. Dire saw me putzing around on a new server, Xegony, and decided to run a box team of four characters to play with my...one, lol. Everquest gets xpacs every year and for what it is, it is probably the best value for money as there is a lot to do with the way the game works. It is easier content to pop out, using many EQ2 art resources it is probably easier to churn this out than it is for EQ2. That and the way the game works with more grinding than quest focused. It still offers a lot of great content on a very fast basis. The studio was sold off last year for several million dollars and it is this Flagship that holds the banner for this studio IMO. Still going strong with a very decent population over two decades after it's launch. So yeah, that's what we are playing together, still love it 20 something years later. It is more laid back and I'm glad, I started when I was 23 now I'm 43. 

For 2021 with all the garbage that's going on I just hope to see MMO games hanging in there. Happy new year, everyone. 

Safe adventures.... kaozz 💖