Anywho, for me this was mostly the year of the same 'ol, same 'ol. Not much has changed personally, of which I shall not divulge. Game-wise, I've been branching out a bit more, trying some additional titles/F2P MMOs. I've always been one to know that while I can certainly have an MMO to deck out as my homebase (with that still being LOTRO at the moment), I realize that these kinds of virtual spaces can be evicted at any moment. Since we really have no overall control for when this kind of stuff happens, it's always good to have backup e-lots to build a new empire.
Taking that literally, I was fortunate to try out Trion's Trove this year. Much like Landmark, this was one of the new voxels to enter the space. Trove takes its seat to basically be a F2P Minecraft, obviously with its own set of rules. This is a great choice for traditional MMO players who want to dip their toes into voxel builders, as it plays more toward the RPG elements of leveling up classes & action-oriented combat. Cornerstones allow the player to create their own home, block by block. Overall, a fun and simple voxel MMO (Landmark certainly takes the building aspect to a much more rich and technical experience). I started with the Gunslinger (DPS - mostly single target), then later started leveling the Knight (melee - defensive).
Several of my other regular MMOs saw expansions/level increases, including LOTRO and RIFT. While LOTRO's player population is in a bit of a wavering downward flux, I saw a bit of upward trend around various updates, and from the blip of preview we saw for the developer letter, I'm hoping it has a better upcoming year. RIFT released its Nightmar Tide expansion, with another five levels and region to explore. I have not reached 65 with my main yet (think he's 63), but I'm also not rushing it too much. Unlike LOTRO, I'm not really following the story. At least the new Minion system is really addicting to me, which lets you send out card-based allies on time-based missions to return with various goodies (yay, more artifacts and a TON of dimension items).
Other new titles I have dipped my toes into this year include LEGO Minifigures Online, Archeage, and Defiance, though I'm not sure how much I'll be playing any of these in the future.
LOTRO Players
I have continued to write some articles for LOTRO Players this year. I started with them around their launch last year, beginning with a revamp and release of my LOTRO reputation guide. My original intent was probably to keep writing and releasing periodical guides. I later decided to maybe try my hand at some creative pieces, and that has probably been my main form of content this year.
While I still went ahead and kept up with a guide for Gondor reputation, I have also been doing some other pieces. Particularly, after getting reacquainted with the free graphical program GIMP (man, I like a lot of stuff with all capital letters), I have enjoyed doing several mashups between LOTRO and the real world...or LOTROfications, as it has been coined.
I look forward to continue my contributions toward the site, and while I never really have anything planned, I shall see what the future divines with those endeavors.
Blaugust
years on top of that. It wasn't until August that I decided to reboot this corner of the Internet for an event known as
It was the very end of July, and I'm sure several others were all set with their topics and possibly some posts heading into the event. Meanwhile, I think I had probably forgotten all about it, and was off likely causing some kind of havoc elsewhere. The next day ticked by, and August was upon us. I woke up, checked Twitter, and noticed someone had posted their very first Blaugust post. It dawned on me that, hey, I could give this a whirl. I had a blog that, while a little outdated, was available for my to attach the jumper cables and give it a shock.
So I was off, doing my first post, and as the fingers warmed back up to the concept of blogging, I decided to keep with it. While I didn't always have a topic ready for each day (very rarely did I, actually - most was done on the fly), Belghast fortunately had some ice-breaker topics I could use every now and then. Other days I would just whisk a game or topic from the far reaches of my mind and roll with it.
It was a pretty great experience to play along all 31 days and complete the challenge. I know some may be used to blogging/journaling on a daily schedule, but it was certainly something very new to me. Overall, it was something that I could probably do in the future, but I'm not sure I'd be something I'd want to always do. I'm not a huge fan of being forced to do something, and while I know I was never forced to continue, I felt like I had to keep my own momentum going. I'd much rather do something semi-regularly and have a sense of something I'd like to write about, so that's probably how I'd roll in the future. Still, this was a great event, and got me to meet plenty of other new individuals in the blogosphere.
Da Future
So, I guess 2015 shall be upon us in a couple of hours. A world where we shall be able to splurge for some Surge, munch on French Toast Crunch, and...get all wispy with M&M Crispy? We'll look forward to Marty McFly coming back to the future on October 21, 2015, and deal with the next barrage of nerd outrage that I'm sure will come with Windows 10.
I always seem to make a resolution not to make resolutions, and I plan to keep up with that tactic. Goals are great and all, but I'd rather not try and make some grand plan to schedule out my yearly well-being. If something good happens or I can manage to do something to positively further my life, then awesome, but I really just don't feel like trying to outreach what I can realistically accomplish. So, a bit of this, a touch of that, and I'll call you in the morning. Have a great new year, all.
