I set up some May goals that seemed like I would manage most of them. I didn’t manage many, however, due to changes in the world and my own changes in game interests.

• Inventory Management (ESO) Check!
• Pick up the last items I need for learning crafting traits (ESO)
• Do a few quests in Grahtwood (ESO)

I worked through my inventory management and tackled that, but I also realized that ESO really isn’t what I’m enjoying right now, as much as I may want to. So I’ll likely be putting ESO goals on the back burner for now, even if I do happen to log in and play some this month.

• Finish Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (Visual Novel)
• Play Muse Dash (Community Game-Along) Check!

I played quite a bit of Muse Dash, and have enjoyed myself greatly. However, I never did write about my thoughts on the game for the Community Game-Along. I’m not currently playing Muse Dash, but I do still have it installed because I will never say no to a game that works out well for depression days, or nights when I just need to unwind with mindless entertainment. I don’t think I’m going to participate in the Community Game-Along this month, as it’s JRPGJuly, and I don’t have the mental bandwidth to pick up an RPG right now (unless FFXIV counts!).

As for Phoenix Wright? Well, I saw that all of the games are available as a bundle on Steam, and well. I unfortunately missed the sale for the bundle. However, since I now know they’re on Steam, I’d rather play them there for ease-of-play, if I’m being honest. So I’m holding out for another sale on the series. For now, however, it’s coming off of my goals list.

• Complete Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 of Sunstone (Comics)
• Complete The Lesser Kindred (Reading) Check!
• Start Redeeming the Lost (Reading) Check!
• Complete one of the two books I am reading for my business (Reading)

I have yet to pick up anymore Sunstone, but I flew through both The Lesser Kindred and Redeeming the Lost. Business books got nowhere, but I think that’s partly because I didn’t call out which one I wanted to focus on, and partly due to the world environment making things feel pointless.

• Complete Season 5 of Star Wars: Clone Wars Check!
• Complete Season 10 of Stargate SG-1 Check!
• Complete Season 3 of Stargate Atlantis Check!

I finished both season 5 and 6 of Star Wars: Clone Wars, but I’ve yet to start season 7, which I addressed briefly in my last post. I also completed season 10 of Stargate SG-1, the two Stargate movies, as well as seasons 3 and 4 of Stargate Atlantis. I am looking forward to finishing Atlantis out, but I also don’t want it to end. Overall, I didn’t do too badly on my goals over the two months I worked on them.

July Goals

• WHM to 45 (FFXIV)
• Complete MSQ through level 45 (FFXIV)
• Complete How I Made $10K as a PSO (Reading/Business)
• Complete Don’t Keep Your Day Job (Reading/Business)
• Get halfway through A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (Reading)
• Complete Sunstone Vol. 2 (Comics)
• Complete Warrior Nun (TV)
• Complete Season 7 of Star Wars: Clone Wars (TV)
• Complete Season 5 of Stargate Atlantis (TV)
• Start Season 1 of Stargate Universe (TV)

I set myself what I thought were some pretty reasonable goals for April. How did I do? Fair to middling.

• Inventory Management (ESO)
• Pick up the last items I need for learning crafting traits (ESO)
• Figure out where I left off in questing (ESO)
• Complete current event quest (ESO)

I didn’t even touch ESO. I realized that I had missed my opportunity to get the boxes for the month, and I was so angry with myself that I’ve done nothing but make sure the game is updated. I’m going to give myself some time to get back into it this month outside of just logging in for daily rewards, so I’m going to copy these goals into May. Except I think I’m out of luck with the anniversary event quest, so I’ll be knocking that off the list. I did figure out I was in Grahtwood, though, so that’s something!

• Start and complete Ace Attorney (Community Game-Along/Visual Novel)
• Complete current route in Sweet Fuse (Otome)

I started Phoenix Wright, but I haven’t finished it yet. So that’s going to continue onto my goals for this month. I didn’t even touch my Vita this month. I think I am going to need to set myself to completing one game per month if it is not on the computer to give myself more time to experience things at my own pace. Stretch goal for May, however, if I finish Phoenix in decent time is to complete the route in Sweet Fuse, but I won’t be putting it on my goals list.

• Complete five of the six Sunstone Volumes currently available in book format (Comics)
• Complete Song in the Silence (Reading)
• Complete one of the two books I am reading for my business (Reading)

Reading was interesting this month. It felt good to get back to something that I’ve loved so much prior in my life. Towards the end of April I did fall off the bandwagon of reading every night, which did contribute some to only reading one Sunstone volume, so I’m going to try to get back to that. I found that on nights I read before bed, I slept better overall. I did complete Song in the Silence and I’m currently 39% though the second book in the series, The Lesser Kindred. Knowing that I’ve gobbled up a novel and a half this month (almost 600 pages!), I’m going to update my pleasure-reading goals, some for May.

I also have to note that I’m kind of excited to be reading a series that I both know, and don’t. I’ve finally hit a point in the second book where I’m not necessarily remembering everything that’s going on, which means I’m finally getting to a point in the series that I’ve never made it past before. (CW: ABUSE – My ex was jealous that my best friend (then male-identifying) purchased me the third book in the trilogy, so he’d be emotionally abusive about reading, which is one of the big reasons I, well, stopped.)

I have yet to finish either book I’m reading for business, but I’ve been trying to catch-up on some admin things with my business, and get ahead with other admin things, so I unfortunately put reading and professional development on the back burner. They’re also not necessarily books that are a good relax-before-bed option, as they’re very much geared towards, well, improving my business.

• Complete Season 9 of Stargate SG-1 Check!
• Complete Season 4 of Star Wars: Clone Wars Check!

I gobbled up a bunch of Stargate, and am tip-toeing into the next season of Clone Wars, so these will continue for goals in May as well! However, I’m going to need to carefully choose my Stargate goals, as I’ve hit a point in the chronology where I do a lot of jumping between series.

May Goals

• Inventory Management (ESO)
• Pick up the last items I need for learning crafting traits (ESO)
• Do a few quests in Grahtwood (ESO)
• Finish Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (Visual Novel)
• Play Muse Dash (Community Game-Along)
• Complete Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 of Sunstone (Comics)
• Complete The Lesser Kindred (Reading)
• Start Redeeming the Lost (Reading)
• Complete one of the two books I am reading for my business (Reading)
• Complete Season 5 of Star Wars: Clone Wars
• Complete Season 10 of Stargate SG-1
• Complete Season 3 of Stargate Atlantis

This is post 24/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

At the start of the month I outlined wanting to get back into participating as a part of the Community Game-Along. This month was CapcoMonth, where you play a game that Capcom has made. I ended up picking out a Phoenix Wright game that was sitting on my gaming shelf. I didn’t realize at the time that it was actually a sequel game. Regardless, I’ve been enjoying myself in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All.

My Thoughts

Oh man, the number of times I have started and never finished this game (I purchased it on a whim when it came out on DS in the US) is extreme. I’m not sure how many trials there are in the game, but I’d never made it much past the nurse/doctor malpractice start where the victim dies. I’m finally working my way through it, and while I’m enjoying myself, I am reminded why I’ve never finished the game to begin with.

Logically, I understand why things are wrong, or what’s going on in the story and what reasoning I should be presenting, or questioning. But I struggle with deciding which items to present, or when to present them. Or even when to precisely know when to push a little extra when cross-examining a witness.

So, since I’m enjoying myself, and I very much want to finally knock the game off of my backlog (it’ll have been THIRTEEN STINKING YEARS it’s taken me to finish the damned thing), I’ve decided that I’m not going to beat myself up for using a walkthrough guide when I need it. In some folks eyes, would this make it a fact I never beat the game? Probably. But I’m at a point in my life where I do things because I want to enjoy them, and most of the time others’ opinions on how things sHoUlD bE dOnE!11! just don’t matter to me much anymore. If that means I use a walkthrough to finish a game I’m enjoying, so be it. There are worse things in the world than using a walkthrough guide, okay?

Of course, I’m not yet done with the game, but I’m enjoying the Psyche-Lock mechanic, and the extra layer it brings to the table. I figure I’ll keep it on my nerding goals list for this coming month so I can knock it out and finally enjoy what folks have said is an entertaining series.

This is post 23/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

Like many games bloggers out there, I’ve been noting my gaming goals for a while (I was surprised to see it went as far back as when I started this blog… so much has changed but some things remain, it seems). Then in August of last year I changed up the format of how I’d be doing them.

Normally I’d be keen to come up with some gaming goals. However, I’m not at a place where I’ve been doing a lot of gaming. And it’s been that way for a while. Which puts me at a loss to what I even want to tackle outside of a few select gaming things to ease me back into gaming for both fun and content creation.

April Nerding Goals

I decided to change it up—again. I’m going to start calling them Nerding Goals, and include other various geeky and nerdy pursuits, like visual and written media consumption.

Some of these goals may seem simple to you, but some link back to what Roger over at Contains Moderate Peril has deemed as “gaming amnesia“. Not just that, but depression screws with one’s memory, and I am at a disadvantage for picking up content I was in the middle of ages ago. The bright side of this being my brain is having an easier time remembering current media, so it should make things going forward a lot easier to come back to, and to complete.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s my list for April in no particular order.

• Inventory Management (ESO)
• Pick up the last items I need for learning crafting traits (ESO)
• Figure out where I left off in questing (ESO)
• Complete current event quest (ESO)
• Start and complete Ace Attorney (Community Game-Along/Visual Novel)
• Complete five of the six Sunstone Volumes currently available in book format (Comics)
• Complete current route in Sweet Fuse (Otome)
• Complete Song in the Silence (Reading)
• Complete one of the two books I am reading for my business (Reading)
• Complete Season 9 of Stargate SG-1
• Complete Season 4 of Star Wars: Clone Wars

This is post 5/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

I’ve been an on-and-off participant (since 2016) of the Community Game-Along that Anne of Chic Pixel has hosted. While, admittedly, I haven’t picked up any games outside of ESO in a while (and honestly, even ESO has just been login rewards for over a month, though I’m hoping that will change soon), I was sad to not be able to find it on her blog this year when I looked in February.

Of course, like a newb, I didn’t even look at her old posts to check if she may have mentioned what was happening with it (spoiler alert: she did). So it wasn’t until a few days ago, thanks to Krikket, that I realized it is actually going on… it was just taken over by CapsuleJay and Nitro.

I’m super excited, actually. CapsuleJay is a pretty rad guy, and I know Nitro has been a participant for a while. So I’m sure once I get back into it, and actually look for related content, I’ll see more activity around it.

For those interested in participating, you can find the master list of topics, and more information on their new website!

Community Game-Along Plans

I’m sad I missed DatingSiMonth. Though, honestly, my life is spent in DatingSiMonth, what with the five million dating sims I own and need to play through (what can I say… I like the genre). I’m looking forward to trying out JRPGJuly. I’ve honestly never really played any big-name JRPGs (yes, I know it’s a sin), so I’m looking to try and dip my toes into that pond. I’m super excited about October (YAY HORROR GAMES!), and VNNovember. I mean, obviously VNNovember, with over 3/4 of my steam library being either dating sims or visual novels. The majority of my console games are also visual novels (all hail the Vita and PS4). And I’m not even including Detroit Become Human as a visual novel, though I very much want to (because it’s really just an Americanized take on the genre, really). I’m going to have to go through my games and start coming up with ideas of games I’m interested in tackling for each month.

This month, however, is CapcoMonth, where we play Capcom games! To be honest, I don’t own a lot of Capcom games. Many of them I have absolutely no interest in. Though I didn’t realize that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was a Capcom game until I started googling what game I might want to try out. So, I am finally going to try to complete Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, years after I initially purchased the game! And of course I still have my original first edition Nintendo DS (with a Sailor Moon skin) to play it on. I’m looking forward to it. Leave it to me to pick a Visual Novel to play on a month that’s not Visual Novel month.

This is post 4/31 for Blapril. You can find out more and sign up at Belghast’s original post. You can view those participating on Twitter via the Twitter list I put together. Nogamara of Battlestance has put together an RSS feed of all Blapril participants.

September and October ended up being a bit of a… rough few months this year, much like it was last year. So I haven’t done much gaming for a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to depression, emergency pet health, and my own physical health. As such, I didn’t particularly meet many of my September goals between the two months.

• Hit CP 150 on Warden (ESO) – As of the end of October, I’m at 190 CP. Which is probably much slower going than many other folks I know, but I’m surprised I’ve gotten this far with as casually as I’ve been playing.
• Ding level 50 on Conjurer (FFXIV) – For now I’ve cancelled my FFXIV subscription. I logged in twice over the course of September, and not at all during October. I very much want to get back to it, but do not have the mental capacity to handle more than one game right now.
• Finish Auridon (ESO) – I surprisingly managed to complete this at the start of October. Grahtwood is another story, however.
• Finish Grahtwood (ESO) – I am nowhere near finishing this. I have barely started it due to not having the capacity to do so. Depression is a bitch.
• Finish City of the Sun God (SWL) – Once again, I am nowhere near finishing this. I haven’t logged into the game in almost two months.
• Finish side missions in Blue Mountains (SWL) – I think I’ve finished this one? I’d have to log in to check, so we’ll leave it as unfinished for now.
• Finish next route in Sweet Fuse (Otome) – I didn’t even open my Vita case the past two months.
• Figure out a game for #SportSeptember and play it (Community Game-Along) – Again, with a lack of energy to be able to handle even the games I want to play, I did not make it to the Community Game-Along.

November Goals

• Hit CP 215 on Warden (ESO)
• Finish Grahtwood (ESO)
• Finish Witches Festival quest (ESO)
• Finish next two routes in Sweet Fuse (Otome/Community Game-Along)

This post is a part of IntPiPoMo! You can find out more about IntPiPoMo and find the sign up form at this post. IntPiPoMo Count: 1/50

August Recap

Setting up goals as a more focused month-based list rather than, “here’s what I wanna do soon!” has definintely made a difference in how I use my playtime, or how I decide not to game at all. And I think it helped a lot with the way work has been, and looks to be continuing for the remainder of 2019.

• Complete Vvardenfell Master Angler (ESO) – I had intentions to finish this, but then dinged 50 and got caught up in quests and CP.
• Ding 42 on Warden (ESO) – I surpassed this! I hit 50! Once I hit 40, I got into the “OMG I’M SO CLOSE MUST DING” mindset, which helped.
• Hit Revered with The Unshackled (WoW) – About freaking time. UGH. I hate Nazjatar with a passion.
• Hit Revered with Rustbolt Resistance (WoW) – I’m super close. I should hopefully have it in another day (possibly two if things don’t go my way after daily reset).
• Ding level 30 on Conjurer (FFXIV) – I didn’t even think I’d hit 30, but I ended up dinging 35!
• Start re-watching MSQ cutscenes (FFXIV) – I didn’t do any of this, because I mainly logged in for roulettes. I figure once I hit 50, I’ll re-watch them to continue where I’d left off before quitting.
• Finish a play though of Detroit: Become Human (PS4) – I honestly didn’t touch my PS4 at all for the month, except to watch Detective Pikachu.

September Goals

• Hit CP 150 on Warden (ESO)
• Ding level 50 on Conjurer (FFXIV)
• Finish Auridon (ESO)
• Finish Grahtwood (ESO)
• Finish City of the Sun God (SWL)
• Finish side missions in Blue Mountains (SWL)
• Finish next route in Sweet Fuse (Otome)
• Figure out a game for #SportSeptember and play it (Community Game-Along)

Herds Be Fighting

I’ve never been a big fan of fighting games. I’ll play brawlers like Smash Bros if it’s with the right people and I’m in the right zone. Otherwise, I much prefer to watch folks play fighters. That thinking changed, slightly, the day I saw the game Them’s Fightin’ Herds suggested in Steam.

My first thought was, “WHAT!? A MLP fighting game?! YES!” While it is not branded My Little Pony (nor related to Hasbro in any way), the art is created by Lauren Faust, creator of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. So I’d still say it has a lot going for it. But it’s been sitting in my wishlist for far too long. I’ve been afraid to bite the bullet because, well, I typically don’t enjoy fighting games, despite this one looking so cute and cuddly.

#FightingGameMonth

But, lo and behold, the Community Game-Along theme this month is… FIGHTING GAMES! For those who don’t know the Community Game-Along, it is something that the Chic Pixel blog puts together yearly. She comes up with a game theme for each month, and shares them with everyone just before the new year starts!

I first discovered the Community Game-Along back in early 2016, where the theme was Dating Sim month! I had just gotten into otomes/dating sims for the first time (having played Hatoful Boyfriend as my first ever dating sim in August 2015), so I knew I had to check it out and join in. And I’ve intermittently participated since then!

I figure this is a good time to pick up Them’s Fightin’ Herds, and see if it floats my boat. Maybe I’ll even add it in to my streaming rotation for the month. I also hope to see more folks participating in the Community Game-Along this year and in years to come!

October Recap

Well, November is already half over and I’m finally getting to writing this. Woops! October’s recap is a pretty quick one—due to life being super busy (vacation, assisting with SphinxCon, LARP, etc.), I didn’t really have a lot of time outside of raid nights in WoW, and work deadlines, to do much gaming. Of my list, I really only completed a few things.

I finally ended up getting my Pathfinder (Part 1) achievement. So that’s one less thing to worry about come whenever Blizz releases Part 2.

I got a fair bit done in my miscellaneous goals. I hopped into Diablo 3 for a bit, and finally got the first expansion (that Ainyan gifted me for my birthday) to redeem. So now I can finally play campaign mode! Manthing says he’ll help level me so we can do some Rifts for the season, but we’ll see if it happens with the holidays (and multiple birthdays) approaching.

I also played a bunch of games as a part of #HorrorGameOct—The Park (1/2), Layers of Fear (1/2/3), and I started Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines (1/2/3), which I plan on continuing until I finish a full playthrough.

November Gaming Goals

I don’t have many goals for November, because (1) it’s part way over, and (2) I have a busy rest of the month ahead of me.

World of Warcraft

• Reach Exalted with one BfA reputation
• Zandalari Blacksmithing 150
• Zandalari Cooking 150
• Zandalari Fishing 150

Miscellaneous

• Finish a route (or two, or more…I’m so close to finishing the game!) in Sweet Fuse for #VNNovember
• Start Period:Cube for #VNNovember
• Create a new main in ESO
• Work through side missions I’ve not yet completed in Secret World Legends to catch up with main story

The way I used to do these posts was as two separate entities—one post recapping how I did the prior month, and then a second post outlining my goals for the current month. Honestly, for sanity’s sake (and because I really don’t like having multiple small posts that are kinda pointless to anybody but me), I’m condensing them all to one post, now.

If you’d like a recap of what the specific goals were for August (which I carried into September due to a very stressful move), you can check them out here. I’m only going to discuss how I did meeting each section that I laid out.

So I learned the hard way that with the Double Agent and Quintessential Quintet achievements that they’d been changed in the pre-patch. So they’ll still stay on my list of “achievements to work on” but get moved around to a lower priority, I think. I also never got anywhere with obtaining flying in Draenor—life saw to that.

I also didn’t get any alts up to 110 except Macadamia whom I’m slowly working on leveling up as my second 120, pretty much solely for the fact that she can make bandaids and I need bandaids for mid-combat because I’m a warrior.

Because life was crazy and hectic and draining, I also never even logged into Secret World Legends, or touched an ARPG for August’s Community Game-Along, though I do still want to poke into some Diablo 3 for the first time*, and so maybe I can have a game to play with Manthing occasionally (y’know, we still haven’t gamed together… XD). I also never got to do anything for September’s Community Game-Along, but I didn’t really game much in September to begin with.

I also never logged into FFXIV. At this point, honestly, I’ve let my subscription lapse (partly because I haven’t had the time or energy to change my card information after having my bank account hacked on top of dealing with all the address and card changes from my move). I think I’ll pick it back up in December, but we’ll see. Also, a lot of those goals are moot because cross-classing is no longer a thing, I learned, thanks to Rakuno.

October Gaming Goals

Guys, it’s October. So what does that mean? HALLOWEEN EVENTS AND SPOOPY GAMES!! Though, I pretty much completed all the Halloween stuff in WoW last time around, so there’s not much spoopy MMO things to do. But that just means more time for spooky games on stream?

World of Warcraft

• Disturbing the Peace achievement
• Level Macadamia to 115
• Level Chest-Dwarf to 112
• Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One achievement
  • Explore Tiragarde Sound achievement
  • Explore Drustvar achievement
  • Revered with Champions of Azeroth reputation
• Reach Exalted with one BfA reputation
• Zandalari Blacksmithing 150
• Zandalari Cooking 150
• Zandalari Fishing 150
• Archaeology 950

Miscellaneous

• Finish side missions in Egypt in Secret World Legends
• Play some Diablo 3, finally
• Participate in #HorrorGameOct as a part of the Community Game-Along