Torchlight – Gamer Girl Confessions

Gaming Goals Review: February

Chestnut — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 16:52:00 +0000

I started this back in June 2015, and have been keeping up with it this past month. I’ve kept reducing my goals due to real life, and I think I hit a stride heading into December, and have kept it up for the most part.

For the sake of comparison

WildStar

Finish Celestion achievements
~~Get Bauxyte to level 40~~ Completed!
~~Cycle through toons to burn rested EXP~~ Completed!
Upload completed Yardcore 10

Final Fantasy XIV

WAR 50
FSH 30
BOT 30
MIN 30
Start working on crafting professions to clean out retainers

The Secret World

Try to finish out Egypt
Upload completed Let’s Play 3 and 4

Blade & Soul

Reach level 20
Run at least one dungeon (preferably with friends)

Steam, etc.

Finish Men of Yoshiwara
Pick up Cat Goes Fishing and play some
~~Get up to Chapter 5 in~~ ~~Code: Realize~~ Completed!
Play some more Torchlight

So it’s not hard to see based on both the chart and the goals I obtained that real life pretty much kicked my butt this past month. Work has been super busy, and with a friends’ wedding coming up in a few weeks, Chaide and I have both been slogged with obligations related to that (especially since Chaide is in the wedding).

For comparison between January and February…

29 less hours of WildStar
9 less hours of Final Fantasy
32 less hours of The Secret World
16 less hours of Men of Yoshiwara
No Paladins (down 14 hours)
No Animal Jam (down 15 hours)
No Pirate 101 (down 12 hours)
Added 10 hours of Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~
Added 2 hours of Blade & Soul
Added 3 hours of Black Desert Online
189 total hours in January
77 total hours in February
Overall down 112 hours of game-time

I wish the Achievement Granted crap didn’t show up on top… I wonder if I hide UI if the Level Up will go away?

I had started on the Celestion achievements, and am only a few short, but got distracted by swapping out to burn some rested EXP on the toons, and I took advantage of the Bonus XP Weekend (and a lot of flasks) to get Bauxyte to 50! I even did Crimson Badlands once, and am half-way to her key. I have some gear it’s worth tossing non-set runes into for now, and I’d love to start getting her attuned for some variety.

We ended up hitting 49 in Final Fantasy, and I’m hoping we finally hit 50 in March. We shall see, though. My work from home days haven’t been conducive to lunches where I plop in front of my personal computer (instead of the work ones) for an hour with Netflix running, food in hand, and farm-time. So again, hoping to carry over a lot of those goals. Especially the gathering ones, as I’ll either need to purchase a new retainer (which was a plan at some point anyway, just not quite… now), or really get started on those crafting professions.

We didn’t get out of Egypt in TSW, but we’re getting close. I think we only have a few missions left in the first town, and then we can go see Saiid. I’m so excited! From what little I’ve seen of him (so far) I’m super-duper excited to see more of him. His attitude comes across in spades! As for the Let’s Play… I did get the third one up, and the fourth one partially completed. I’m anxiously awaiting some down-time to be able to work more on those videos.

I barely got any Blade & Soul time in, so those will probably carry over as well. I’m none-too-thrilled so far with the game, and my friends are starting to fall off as well. So we’ll see if I even get to it. I really would like to try to give it the good old “20 hours/20 levels” trial.

I’m super close to finishing Men of Yoshiwara, and am hoping to finish it in March so I can move onto Amnesai: Memories for my PC otome. I never picked up Cat Goes Fishing, though I’m still hoping to one day, because it looks adorkable. I didn’t get into Torchlight due to time.

I’ve been playing a bunch of Code Realize for multiple reasons. One, it’s what I do at lunch time. When I tried watching stuff on Prime at work, people would constantly interrupt my lunch break, despite having a sign up saying I was at lunch. With my head buried in my Vita, people leave me alone. Also, with everything else that’s going on, it’s been a nice way to get in fifteen minutes here before an event, or ten minutes there before bedtime. I’ve been pursuing Impey as the first guy, mainly because I thought I liked him the least, but he’s grown on me a lot. Granted, I like Lupin least of all so far, and don’t know how I’ll feel when I get to him as the “True Game Ending” (he’s locked behind the four other guys).

Gaming Goals: February

Chestnut — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 17:03:00 +0000

I started these Gaming Goals posts back in June 2015 as a way to try to organize my gaming time around freelance obligations as well as my day-job and general life obligations. You can view the backlog of goals and reviews here.

Love is in the air! And fortunes too, apparently.

I think January had a good length list with both some easy and not-so-easy goals to work toward. I’m going to try to continue that flow this month.

WildStar

Finish Celestion achievements
Get Bauxyte to level 40
Cycle through toons to burn rested EXP
Upload completed Yardcore 10

Final Fantasy XIV

WAR 50
FSH 30
BOT 30
MIN 30
Start working on crafting professions to clean out retainers

The Secret World

Try to finish out Egypt
Upload completed Let’s Play 3 and 4

Blade & Soul

Reach level 20
Run at least one dungeon (preferably with friends)

Steam, etc.

Finish Men of Yoshiwara
Pick up Cat Goes Fishing and play some
Get up to Chapter 5 in Code: Realize
Play some more Torchlight

Gaming Goals Review: July

Chestnut — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:10:00 +0000

This is post 2 of 31 for the Blaugust event. To check out more Blaugust posts and sign up to participate, visit the Blaugust Nook!

I started this back in June 2015, and have been keeping up with it this past month. I had reduced my goals for July because I knew that we would have limited play time as we had ten days of vacation time, as well as getting ready to move on August 1st. So, let’s see if tuning down my goals made them easier to accomplish!

WildStar Goals

Chestnut

Reach the max tier of the PvP contracts for the first time ever
Reach the max tier of the PvE contracts for the first time ever
Reach max reputation in Crimson Badlands
Reach max rep in Northern Wastes
Complete purple PvP DPS set
Complete my AMP (55) and AP (48) points
Check runes on DPS set/Rune tank set
Put up Yardcore Nexus twice for the month
BONUS: Improve DPS rotation for raid if I’m going to be the Frenzy buff-er

Bauxyte

Reach level 30
Armorsmithing up to level 30 gear

FFXIV Goals

Cactuar

Reach level 20 MIN
Reach 35 MRD
Reach 30 GLA

Lamia

Reach level 15
Run some dungeons with Tal and Chaide!

SWTOR Goals

Reach level 30 (Jhi’salith)
Reach level 20 (Jadz’iaa)
Access my personal ship
Try out the ship PvP
Max 1 of 3 professions to 400

TSW

Get to Blue Mountains
Run Hell (dungeon)
Start getting LP videos up on the blog!

Torchlight

Play some more to get past the first few quests
~~Start getting LP videos up on the blog~~ I put up Episode 2

So uhh. This month? Even though I made my list of goals things I thought would be minuscule and easy to accomplish didn’t make them easy to accomplish. However, I did get close to a good many few.

In WildStar, I’m only about six AMP/AP points away from max for each one, which should be easily accomplished via Elder Gems, assuming I keep up with my dailies. And doing dailies will lead to the max reps. And I’m so damn close! And then I can focus on the other two daily zones. Oy. I don’t think I’ll keep the PvP goal on my list, for now. I’m too busy in real life, trying to adjust to a new apartment and new commute, and still unpacking and the like. I did get close to posting one Yardcore this month–I recorded one with Katia Managan (the racetrack extraordinaire) on July 4th, but real life kept cropping up and preventing me from doing much with videos at all. That will be posted next week, sometime, and then I need to find another volunteer to hit up for this month (August). Bauxyte is level 28, so I’m close to my goal of level 30–and I’m happy with how far I’ve gotten her. She’s a bunch of fun.

My FFXIV goals ended up being highly far-fetched. I think I logged into Final Fantasy twice the entire month? Not for lack of wanting, but for lack of time. I really feel like I should have cut down more on my goals overall.

SWTOR goals also ended up being far-fetched, because I didn’t log into the game at all this month. I’m hoping to convince Chaide that we can do some time on a Friday night or some such just to work on the story. I really don’t like that the game seems to favor single-player more than multiple-player. It’s probably one of the things I dislike the most.

While we got in some time in TSW, we never did get to the Blue Mountains, nor run Hell. Again, not for lack of wanting–but lack of time. Same with the videos. I almost have the first LP finished, but it’s a bit of a long video, and the computer I was using to edit it kept crashing and pissing me off. The first few times I edited it, I lost everything and had to restart, as the initial save was crashing me. Grrr. Hoping to get that first one out this month, even if it is a tad long.

I got a Torchlight video up, but I didn’t get in any playtime. It may be my “play on lunch” game when I do work from home days. I do have one more video to finish out for it, and I’ve been having fun putting them together.

Later today I plan to post my goals for the month of August. And I think I should probably cut down on them overall. Have you guys been setting gaming goals for yourselves? How goes the progress?

Chestnut Plays: Torchlight | Episode 2

Chestnut — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 14:21:00 +0000

Gaming Goals: July

Chestnut — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 02:48:00 +0000

Trying this out last month seemed to be helpful to me in those waffley “I don’t know what to play!” whiney moments, so I’m going to try it again this month! You might notice that this month the lists are a tad shorter. The reasoning behind this is (1) we’ll be on vacation for about nine days, and (2) I didn’t get through a bunch of things, so I’d like to try to make the list a little more tackle-able.

So, without further ado, my gaming goals for July!

WildStar Goals

Chestnut

Reach the max tier of the PvP contracts for the first time ever
Reach the max tier of the PvE contracts for the first time ever
Reach max reputation in Crimson Badlands
Reach max rep in Northern Wastes
Complete purple PvP DPS set
Complete my AMP (55) and AP (48) points
Check runes on DPS set/Rune tank set
Put up Yardcore Nexus twice for the month
BONUS: Improve DPS rotation for raid if I’m going to be the Frenzy buff-er

Bauxyte

Reach level 30
Armorsmithing up to level 30 gear

FFXIV Goals

Cactuar

Reach level 20 MIN
Reach 35 MRD
Reach 30 GLA

Lamia

Reach level 15
Run some dungeons with Tal and Chaide!

SWTOR Goals

Reach level 30 (Jhi’salith)
Reach level 20 (Jadz’iaa)
Access my personal ship
Try out the ship PvP
Max 1 of 3 professions to 400

TSW

Get to Blue Mountains
Run Hell (dungeon)
Start getting LP videos up on the blog!

Torchlight

Play some more to get past the first few quests
Start getting LP videos up on the blog

There you have it! Come August I’ll revisit the list and see what got done, and what didn’t. And once again, re-evaluate based on where I’m at in games, and what I have planned for the coming month!

Gaming Goals Review: June

Chestnut — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:18:00 +0000

So, I started something new at the beginning of this month where I decided to set some gaming goals for myself and then see how I did with them, because I’ve much less time than I’d like with real life cropping up and all that jazz. So, let’s review how I did with them!

WildStar Goals

Reach the max tier of both the PvP and PvE contracts by the end of the month (I still have yet to max them since they came out)
Max my rep in the Crimson Badlands and Northern Wastes (The first two daily areas. And no, I still haven’t finished maxing the reps.)
Finish out my PvP DPS set (purples)
Finish runing my PvE Tank and DPS sets (I need to stop putting this off, as now I’m starting to use it as an excuse to not run content)
~~Take care of my massive list of guild management-related items (Good thing we have Officers to help delegate!)~~
Find some more folks for Yardcore Nexus and have a video for every week this month
BONUS: Finish filling out my Outfitter tree
BONUS: Complete Attunement
BONUS: First Raid!

FFXIV Goals

Cactuar

Reach level 20 MIN
Reach level 10 CUL
Reach level 10 ALC
Reach 35 MRD
Reach 30 GLA

Lamia

Reach level 15
Run some dungeons with Tal and Chaide!

SWTOR Goals

Reach level 25
~~Run some more flashpoints for fun (and profit!)~~
~~Research professions and pick some up~~
Create a new character (healer?) for profession reasons
Purchase a personal stronghold
Access my personal ship
Try out the ship PvP

TSW

Get through the majority of Savage Coast (at least finish the amusement park stuff)
Run Hell (dungeon)
Start getting LP videos up on the blog!

Torchlight

Play some more to get past the first few quests
Start getting LP videos up on the blog

My Thoughts

Let’s tackle my thoughts by game, shall we?

I had a lot of WildStar goals I got really close to–I have an almost complete set of purple PvP gear (DPS), and I’m almost maxed with both original daily reps. I’m also very close to maxing out my contracts. I completed runing my DPS set, and was almost done with my tank set until I got a new piece. So now I’m stuck re-runing again. Which is a tad of a pain, but worth it for the upgrade I got.

I got through a massive back-log of guild-related items, and just have one more left that I plan on taking care of this weekend (does Lifestyles of Nexus ring a bell to anybody? ). Due to real-life, I cut back on my Yardcore schedule. However, I did put up Episodes 5, 6, and 7.

I didn’t get to Outfitting because things are buggy. So instead, I just reported a lot of outfitting bugs. I’m sure if I keep poking them they’ll get fixed, like a few of my Cooking bugs, did. I got two “bonus” items as well. I ended up finishing attunement and getting in on my first raid in WildStar, even though they weren’t original goals.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in WildStar, so I didn’t get close to any of my FFXIV goals. So they will more than likely remain the same for next month. We shall see. I’m enjoying it, but my time is spread thin with the move, lately. So it’s been more of a “What can we do together with the limited time we have and smash faces?”.

I got close to a bunch of my SWTOR goals. I even logged at about level 21 last time I was on. However, I’m not really enjoying SWTOR as much as I am TSW and FFXIV. So priorities might change, depending on my mood. Chaide, however, is loving SWTOR way more than I am, so I might still end up there on occasion with him when he wants to play his Bounty Hunter.

As I said, I’ve been enjoying TSW way more than SWTOR. So you might see some more goals up. However, it’s a little harder to determine goals there, because, well, there’s no levels. While I didn’t get any videos up on the blog this month, I’ve been working on the video layout and converting the hours of gameplay we’ve recorded into a format my program will read. So maybe in July I’ll get one or two videos up!

Torchlight. Well… I just haven’t had the desire to make videos. So uh. We’ll see if they stay on the list or not.

Overall, I think I did a pretty decent job laying out goals and reaching them. I do think, however, I may need to be a bit more realistic with them based on my play time for this past month, and the real-life stresses I know are coming this coming month.

Expect a post in the next day or so laying out my goals for July. July may be a little slim considering we’ll be traveling for a full week, as well as prepping to move as our slum apartment complex was bought out by the city and we get to move earlier than our lease is up (yay!).

Gaming Goals: June

Chestnut — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 16:26:00 +0000

WildStar

Gaming yesterday was a bit lacking. I did log into WildStar, but I mainly started taking care of some guild-management stuff for when we go F2P. A lot of combing the roster, seeing if folks have applied to our site, yada yada. I also put together Episode 5 of Yardcore Nexus, which takes some time. And it doesn’t always cooperate with the game, either, so at one point I had to sit and watch Netflix while my video rendered. I think that’s a sign I need an upgrade to my computer? But I’m not sure what to upgrade. Besides, we don’t have the extra cash for it right now, anyway.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that some guildies helped me out with some attunement this weekend. I needed to kill the big slug guy, and they readily came out to help smash his face with me. It was very sweet of everybody, and it made me feel really good to know that the guild has people willing to work to help everybody even if they are already done with something, or whether they are not yet at that point. It’s just a really heartwarming feeling.

Since I didn’t really get a lot of gaming in due to some schedule changes IRL, I feel like it will be beneficial for me to set myself some gaming goals so that I don’t sign into a game I really want to play and then go, “OMG WHAT DO I DO?!” and then log out. Because having too much to choose from can sometimes be a bit… overwhelming. And then my anxiety flares up, and that’s never good. So, I’m thinking I’ll try to do this monthly! Not sure how interesting these posts will be, but feel free to add suggestions or make comments on my goals.

WildStar Goals

Reach the max tier of both the PvP and PvE contracts by the end of the month (I still have yet to max them since they came out)
Max my rep in the Crimson Badlands and Northern Wastes (The first two daily areas. And no, I still haven’t finished maxing the reps.)
Finish out my PvP DPS set (purples)
Finish runing my PvE Tank and DPS sets (I need to stop putting this off, as now I’m starting to use it as an excuse to not run content)
Take care of my massive list of guild management-related items (Good thing we have Officers to help delegate!)
Find some more folks for Yardcore Nexus and have a video for every week this month
BONUS: Finish filling out my Outfitter tree

FFXIV Goals

Cactuar

Reach level 20 MIN
Reach level 10 CUL
Reach level 10 ALC
Reach 35 MRD
Reach 30 GLA

Lamia

Reach level 15
Run some dungeons with Tal and Chaide!

SWTOR Goals

Reach level 25
Run some more flashpoints for fun (and profit!)
Research professions and pick some up
Create a new character (healer?) for profession reasons
Purchase a personal stronghold
Access my personal ship
Try out the ship PvP (Ewwww spatial awareness… I’ll let y’all know how it goes!)

TSW

Get through the majority of Savage Coast (at least finish the amusement park stuff)
Run Hell (dungeon)
Start getting LP videos up on the blog!

Torchlight

Play some more to get past the first few quests
Start getting LP videos up on the blog

There you have it! Come July I’ll revisit the list and see what got done, and what didn’t. And re-evaluate what I think I can do each month based on that. (Especially since we have a vacation in July which will mean a week of no-gaming, again.)

Videos Incoming

Chestnut — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 17:09:00 +0000

You’re going to be seeing some more video posts pop up on the blog in the coming months.

I’ve been having fun playing through my (quite large) library of games, and recording myself playing said games. Chaide and I are also doing a play-through of The Secret World with completely new characters (and may be joined by some friends from time to time) and those will be shared here as well.

The third type of videos you’ll see are a weekly Yardcore: Nexus. In these videos, I’ll be sitting down with a community house creator in WildStar, and taking a tour of (one of) their plots while we talk about how they went through various aspects of creating their plot.

I don’t consider myself a YouTuber per se, I’d classify myself as a Blogger first and foremost, who loves talking about games while she plays them and likes to share these moments with others.

The first game you’re going to see for my Let’s Play videos is Torchlight. So I hope you enjoy the videos!