After 8 years, I finally changed the title at the top (a couple of weeks ago) from “walls of text by a (former) Diablo III player” to what it is now. The original tagline was a relic of that period in time (November 2015) when I stopped playing everything Blizzard (which at the time, consisted of Diablo III, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm). I originally started this blog back in 2012 to post about what was then, the launched Diablo III (but the blog ended up turning into this bitch/whine-fest about the state of the game). The start of the prior decade was also a time when the ARPG genre was the main one I played. This blog platform also served double duty (because of how the official Blizzard forums would eat posts) where I used Blogger to draft up the stuff I was going to post as feedback on the official D3 forum.
Fast forward to the present, I’ve been writing about gaming related topics that interest me (which isn’t broadly encompassing since this is really just a personal one for me to rant/marvel “stream of conscious” style. I am off most social media now (I recreated my Twitter account back in May 2022 not to really use, but to take one last pot shot at Gameforge) because you can waste significant amounts of time just perusing it versus spending that time playing a game(s) that you enjoy (and it’s worse if you choose to engage on social media). Blogging like this on the other hand is much easier (I write stuff, save what exists, add to it, and eventually finish it up warts and all since often times, it has spelling/grammar errors galore).
As for the layout, the one major thing I don’t like about it is the white (I’m normally a dark appearance type because it is just easier to read/write). But I’ve never bothered into looking at the style sheet for this template to see if this can be modified (I’m not a fan of a lot of the other Blogger templates since this one can be switched to a bunch of different layouts). I’ll probably look into this over the next few weeks.
Also at the tail end of 2022, I had serious doubts that I would be playing/posting anything by the end of 2023 (which is just a few weeks away as of this post). If I hadn’t been gifted D4 (just so that I could play it and give my friend my real honest impressions on it), that part would’ve remained true (a hard pass + based on actually playing, know that this decision would’ve been the right one for me since it doesn’t even give that old school dopamine fix when it comes to loot/progression). As for ArcheAge, it’s become my go to now post-service merge. For whatever reason, having my old main legacy character together with my main Unchained one, has really made me reflect on how this particular title has progressed over time (both the good and bad).
I never bought/used Patron (even when small amounts were given as compensation) for ArcheAge during the Trion years, so that character never had property in-game (I used to plant all my crops up in the Tigerspine Mountains). The reason I never did try to use those either, is that I knew once I placed property, it would be difficult for me to continue playing without that (since it happens to be the part that I’ve ended up enjoying the most). And I refused to give Trion any more money after how they treated Devilian. So I only finally got to experience that when Gamigo launched Unchained in October 2019 (and I begrudgingly decided to purchase it). But I got more than my monies worth of entertainment in the process.
While Unchained is no more as of November 30, 2023, ArcheAge (legacy) has some “full circle” for me where my much better progressed Unchained characters, are now continuing that journey in the original legacy business model (where even my old Devilian credits that were just sitting idle/unused on the legacy side, can now be utilized to fund over an year of additional Patron time so long as the game remains in service). And that’s the thing; I have this overwhelming feeling this is the final year and a half of the game before it closes for good (so I might as well enjoy it while I can). But as I’ve written before, it’s also a sad state when the gaming industry as a whole, can’t gain my full engagement despite the access to better development tech, far superior engines (if not building a proprietary one), and much better graphics fidelity. The actual design counts (unfortunately, way too many have to appease the corporate bean counters).
So I’m just going with the flow in 2024, and seeing what happens over the next year. TERA Offline will always be a side hobby though (one that I will end up having a lot more time for if there aren’t any official games to keep me engaged, and whenever the plug is pulled on ArcheAge).
