July 2023 Gaming: Anniversaries, Summer Resorts, Empty Lakes, Rescuing Civilians, and Making it to Another Galaxy

Summer is always an event-filled time for MMOs and who am I to turn down a good seasonal celebration? Even if the loot isn’t always great, I always try to peek into a good event to see if there’s anything at least worst chasing. So this month for me featured lots of event and game hopping, but I also made some good progress overall.

Guild Wars 2’s Lake Doric and Festival of the Four Winds

The game I spent the most time in this month, not by much, was Guild Wars 2. Currently going through the Living World Season 3 content, sandwiched between the Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire expansions. Haven’t played much of Guild Wars 2 this year as I’m trying to play all the content in both Guild Wars 1 and 2 in a relative order and I’m stubborn about doing so. However, the only Guild Wars 1 content I’ve made it through has been Prophecies, and I’d love to complete Nightfall before starting Path of Fire since the two share a lot of story. Heart of Thorns continues story from Prophecies, Path of Fire continues Nightfall, and End of Dragons continues Factions. So I’m dragging my heels in Guild Wars 2’s intermission as I complete Nightfall.

The Festival of the Four Winds is something I haven’t spent that much time in and wanted to explore a bit more, but sadly determined it’s not really the best for me. The Festival revolves a lot around mounts obtained in Path of Fire and “renting” the basic mounts only goes so far. So I completed the bare minimum to achieve the dailies and spent the rest of my time exploring and completing ‘The Head of the Snake’ story and the Lake Doric zone. That end fight, though. Not that hard but certainly ramped up the creep factor.

Elder Scroll’s Online Ascent of the Arcanist, Zeal of Zenithar, and Markarth

Elder Scrolls Online is a game that I’ve made such great progress that I’m almost caught up with new content. I’m only 3 years behind which is pretty good for me! I leveled the new green-loving arcanist class to level 10 which unlocked some account-wide rewards, like a cute yellow torchbug pet. Now I have a little better understanding, though, for why ESO players use what’s called “light attack weaving”, basically animation cancelling after an ability with a light attack to vastly increase DPS. While trying out this “weaving”, even with a brand new character, mobs just melted. Not going to lie, it feels a bit cheap and unbalanced. But since it’s basically demanded to do higher-end content the developers have been very wary about changing it, not wanting to upset their most vocal communities with, probably, long-time-necessary nerfs.

My other time has been participating in the Zeal of Zenithar event, all about, well, playing the game really. To make daily progress in Zeal of Zenithar all that is needed is to find a chest, gain a level, or dig up an antiquity. Simple. ESO’s event rewards feel so complex, though, and take multiple paths and need so many currency-capped tickets that they’re my least favorite event reward system out of any MMO. At least I don’t have to do more than just play the game, at least.

So I’ve been working through the next zone in order, which is Scotla– err, I mean Markarth. It’s basically, well, the Elder Scrolls version of Scotland. Almost too much scottish, which is weird because I never really pictured the game’s Reachmen, essentially brutal savages in the single-player Skyrim, to basically all sound like they’re from the scottish highlands. I guess it works? I mean, they’re basically working through all the rest of Earth’s cultures. The Indian Khajit, European Bretons, Aztec Argonians, Viking Nords, etc. So why not Scotland? I try not to think about it too hard. Still, I was a little surprised, is all. However, I just finished a super-cute quest with two young adults against joining in an arranged marriage but finding they have feelings for each other, which was quite adorable.

Secret World Legends 6th Anniversary and Star Trek Online’s Summer Event

Secret World Legends just passed it’s 6th anniversary and had the usual hourly golem bosses and developer-changing beehemoths in Agartha and is always a fun time to jump in and see what’s going on. To the obvious point, yes, progress is very slow in coming to the game. Note: not completely gone, though, as most imply. Just very slow. Secret World has a very loving community and the developers do give as much love as they can under their limited teams, but you can tell they are currently bound by Funcom’s other games. Namely the forthcoming Dune: Awakening and the still-strong Conan Exiles. Others may hate and have chips on their shoulders but I’m just happy this amazing game is still going, slow it may be. So it goes.

Star Trek Online’s annual Summer Event ended and I completed 20 days of doing the bare minimum one event per day so that I was able to pick up the Hysperian Intel Battlecruiser Tier 6 ship. It’s fantasy-themed off the Strange New Worlds Season 1 tear-jerker episode ‘The Elysian Kingdom’. Seemed fun and looks striking in that green and gold.

Division 2’s Broken Wings and “Completing” No Man’s Sky

I spent some time in The Division 2 as well, one of the most newest games in my MMO stable, and one that I’ve played enough to hit the story-cap. Still have a hard time thinking about just what it is that draws me to it, but I find I’ve really enjoyed the Division’s story — a world dealing with an awful pandemic –, the realistic attention to detail in the environment, and the fun moment-to-moment gameplay. Currently in their Year 5 Season 1 content, the latest “manhunt” has changed to focus on rescuing civilians helpful in rebuilding one of the game’s communities that was decimated during the base game story. My build and power is just good enough to make playing it a challenge but still doable. Quite fun.

Finally, despite completing No Man’s Sky’s latest Expedition 10 in June, I made the leap to just complete what I had remaining to do in No Man’s Sky. Namely, finishing off the main story, completing the Atlas Path, and making it to the galaxy’s center. Sort of. Didn’t make it to the center, but The Atlas Path story sort of ends the same as if you’ve found the galaxy’s center. So for all intents, I feel like I’ve really “completed” No Man’s Sky. As much as that can be done in such an open world game as it is. Expect more of a writeup later from me about it.

Gaming Goals for August

Anyway, lots of good gaming in July, but I enter August feeling a little blah and a bit listless. No games have currently hooked me so hard that they’re pulling all of my attention. So I feel I’ll just be continuing game-hopping until my ennui subsides. But this is, at least, what I hope to accomplish:

• Complete ESO’s Markarth
• Get out 15 posts for Blaugust
• Get My New PC Built
• Complete Division 2’s Year 5 Season 1 Broken Wings Manhunt
• Check out Lord of the Rings Online’s Farmer’s Faire
• Complete Fallout New Vegas — I’m so close to the end

Seems reasonable, right? At least I think so. We’ll see how much I actually get to. Hopefully most of it. So if you’ve made it this far, what have you been playing? What are your goals? I love to hear about all the adventures you all get up to.

// Ocho

P.S. – One of my longer posts. If you’ve made it this far, thank you. You rock.