What Did I Play In July 2020

About a month ago, I put together my thoughts on the games I wanted to get into during the month of July. Some worked out, and others didn’t…

Planned Games of July

When the month began I had a primary and secondary list of games that I wanted to target for playing. Here are those lists:

• Destiny 2
• Out of the Park Baseball 21
• World of Warcraft
• EverQuest
• Secret World Legends

With the secondary list being:

• Lord of the Rings Online
• Nioh

What I Actually Played

So with those games as the baseline plans for what I wanted to accomplish in July, what did I actually play?

• League of Legends
  I played way too much League this month. I did get back up to Silver tier, but this game is so frustrating I really don’t know why I keep coming back to play. I have dedicated myself to NOT paying for anything in the game, but I think that just makes me more content for the other players who pay and, therefore, gain advantages. Yes, I think there are advantages that are doled out for paying customers. It may not be explicit, but I am pretty sure they get beneficial treatment when I see four skinned Silver opponents against a bunch of non-skinned Irons and Bronze teammates of mine.
• Destiny 2
  I got through the Curse of Osiris campaign and am feeling pretty good about this game. I guess at the start of the month, I was planning on getting into some kind of guild or fore team or something, but that never materialized. Instead, I’m just running through the campaigns and grabbing any of the exotic weapons that don’t require teams.
  Not having a guild also means that some of the current missions are really tough. For instance, the Interference mission kicked my butt, and I’m pretty sure it was because of a combination of going in solo, not having set up any special armor mods, and sticking with my favorite weapons that didn’t seem to work too well on the bosses I had to fight.
  Oh well, this is a bunch of fun even if the missions take forever right now.
• Out of the Park Baseball 21
  This has been a game I am really getting into. Sure, I’ve had to start over a bunch of times to get the rule set I want, but that’s mostly because MLB keeps changing the rules. I think I’ve now got things set up with my MLB Broken Mirror League. This has the 60 game season, the DH in both leagues, and the runner on 2nd base in extra innings. It also has the 16 team playoff, which – with the way my Angels are playing in the big leagues, I’m happy for. We’ll see how things go in this league for my team, but in the Second Chance League, they’re doing pretty well.
  So essentially, I’ve got 2 leagues I’m running in OOTP. Broken Mirror which simulates the short season and SCL which is a ‘what-if’ season where the full 162 games are gonna be played as though the 2020 season started back in March.
• Nioh
  This game is tough. Just as tough as the last time I played on the PS4, but I am trying to get through it. Certainly, I hit snags here and there and am currently sitting, building up my courage to take on a boss, but it’s a lot of fun. I wanted to get further but surprisingly, and there was ComicCon@Home which took up a bunch of my time.
• World of Warcraft
  This game is so familiar and so foreign at the same time. I certainly did not get as far as I wanted to this month, but I did level up to 21. Sure, that’s not much of an achievement, but I was not pushing myself. I also realized that I really don’t remember much of the mechanics of the game. I couldn’t even figure out how to get back to my dungeon running team after I died. Then I couldn’t figure out how to quit the party – argh! Sometimes games can be so non-intuitive.
  In any case, I am sure I’ll push on with this game since it is pretty easy. The storyline is pretty much non-existent, so I son’s have to pay much attention, and it’s not too dangerous for a Druid so I can kinda move through it AFK-style.

Games I Need to Reassess

With those five games, the ones I actually focused on in July that leaves the following that I need to take a look at to see if I want to keep pushing forward with them.

• Lord of the Rings Online
  This game is in a weird state for me. I enjoy the story and running around the Shire and Bree, but I think I got myself into a bit of a hole. Basically, my current main character leveled up and was cruising along until I realized I wanted to make sure she had her virtues all ready to go as she advanced. To make that happen, I pocketed a Stone of the Tortoise to stop my leveling, and I went to explore other areas of the map – Ered Luin and such. The problem now is that I am not sure if I want to continue with that virtue leveling, go back to Bree to the main story quest, or do what I usually do…start a new character. I really want to advance through the story, but I hate dying, so I try hard to make sure I’ve got everything I need before I advance. That usually ends up with me getting bogged down, and I think I just need to go for it. I should stop tiptoeing around Bree and just move forward – whether that is with a brand new character or with this one, I don’t know.
  The benefit of a new character is continuity. I’ll start and keep going with one character. If I pick up my main, I’ll end up having to spend time relearning all her skills, and that usually slows me down enough that I end up crawling to a stop. I don’t know…flip a coin or something, but I really want to work to get a character to max level and through the story so I can see all the cool Middle Earth stuff.
• Secret World Legends
  With ComicCon@Home surprising me this month, I just did not have much time to devote to playing and sadly I gave up trying to play SWL this month. I enjoy this game so much though, that I know I’ll be back to level through Kingsmouth and Blue Mountain and such, I just didn’t have the motivation in July to get this going.
• EverQuest
  This game probably had the most momentum of the three since I had been spending time leveling on the progression server. Indeed, I was doing well, but as things go with EQ, they were slow. I think that slowness really started to drag on me. Since I did not have a lot of time at the start of the month, I really lost whatever momentum I had because I was stuck just trying to get through the first 10 levels. The game is really brutally slow in those early levels, and there’s not much to do…go out, hit the same monsters 5 to 10 times until they’re dead, then find another. Do this for 50 or so beasts, and you might get a level, or you might only have to spend an hour gaining half a level. It really became monotonous and boring, but I was too afraid to not pay attention because I did not want to die. At this point, I may see about leveling a bit more, but this game is gonna go into my tertiary list for next month I think.

Promptapalooza Prompt Day 5

Today is also day 5 of Blaugust, or rather it is the fifth day that we are posting a prompt for Promptapalooza. Yup, this year, Belghast over at Tales of the Aggronaut has suggested a different format…we’re going to be posting writing prompts each day to get things rolling and to see the different perspectives on various topics in gaming, pop-culture, media, and fandoms.

The prompt for today (which I’ll tackle tomorrow) is:

Everyone has specific rituals that they follow, tell us about one of yours.

I’m hoping to put on my thinking cap tonight as I sleep to figure out what to say.

It’s a Wrap

So the month of July did not go the way I expected with my gaming, but I did play some fun games. Some look like they’ll show up on my August gaming plans while others may fall off my radar altogether. We’ll see as I think I’m gonna try to put together my August gaming plans in my ramble tomorrow.

Ramble 2020.03.24 | What Did I Play In July