Normally on Fridays I am posting the latest episode of Couch Podtatoes, but this week was a little different. I had an appointment on Wednesday when when we usually record, and Eri had been busy with family so we really hadn’t the time to plot our ideas. We went 21 straight weeks without missing a show, so I think one week off is in order! Plus, today is my 32nd birthday, and I’m taking the day to myself!

I haven’t posted for a couple of days though, and blogging is one of my favorite hobbies, so I decided to write this post even though it’s my “special day.” So far today I’ve slept in, watched the newest episode of American Horror Story, and caught up on my usual rounds of the blogosphere. I thought I’d take the opportunity to share what I’ve been up to gaming-wise, before diving into the dinner and cake that awaits. Plus there’s more gaming planned for the evening!

So, what have I been up to? Well, let’s just say that I have solidified a rotation again, that includes MOBAs, an MMO, and a single player RPG. Any of you who have been following this blog for any length of time will know that I have a love affair with the first genre, a varying opinion about the second, and the last spot tends to be filled with random games that seemingly change far too often. This is true, I have trouble sticking games out, as many of us do. However in the last few months I have been sticking to my guns and completing games from my backlog, although it is true that I have still added to the pile as much as I have subtracted. The backlog is an ever present demon.

As you know, I’ve dived back into League of Legends as of late, mainly because the 4th season ended and the 5th season is preparing to begin. I never really stopped playing, it’s been a game I can always jump into for a quick round and then not touch for weeks on end. Still, I have been playing daily for the past few weeks and really enjoying my time with it. For a number of months I played ARAM, far too much of it. I got away from the classic game mode and that showed especially when I decided it was time to start playing it again. But, I have knocked the dust off and have been playing fairly well. Recently the new-from-the-ground-up Summoner’s Rift was released in a beta state for the Team Builder queue, and I coincidentally had been playing that mode trying to earn the icons for each role. So I’ve been checking out the new map and I have to say it’s rather pretty! It’s also functional, and feels more immersive. Here’s a shot of the icons I’ve earned lately, for posterity:

Most of those icons are from events from last year, but the 2nd row shows the Support, Marksman, Mage and Fighter icons. I have started working on Tank, and then I have Assassin to do and I’ll have collected them all. Around the time of Worlds, that World Championship icon was on sale for 1 IP (no that isn’t a typo), and the one to the left of it was sold for 1500 IP in the recent Harrowing. The next one over was from the Harrowing as well, but for winning 3 matches of Hexakill. Lastly, the newest icon (top left corner) is for winning on the blue side on the new Summoner’s Rift, and there’s also one for winning on the Red side which I have yet to do. That’s coming soon, along with the Tank and Assassin icons as well. I know, these are just cheap fluff achievements, but I don’t care. You have your WoW battle pets, I have these, ok?

In other League news, there’s a post from Riot here about how those of us who have had positive behavior during the season will be getting a 4-win IP boost, which is a nice gesture. It was also noted that 95% of the population has never been banned or flagged for bad behavior, so I’d say LoL is a lot less toxic than many would believe. There has also been an announcement about a late November skin sale which has some cool legacy skins discounted. Lastly, there’s been a Q&A for the new ADC Kalista, where Rioters have answered fan’s questions about the champion.

I’ve still been playing Awesomenauts daily as well, and loving it. My major news here is that I prestiged for the 3rd time on the PC version (this being after doing all 10 prestige levels on the PS3). I know, I’m crazy. But it makes me feel like I’m progressing in some fashion, since I’d be playing the game either way. 7 more to go.

Speaking of Steam, I also recently earned two more badges, or the upgraded version of them:

The first just passed yesterday, and pushed me to 5 years with Steam (although my original account that I lost the info for was created in ’05). Go me!? I guess? The second happened last week sometime, and I rolled over 100 games. I don’t know how that escalated so quickly, as I rolled over 50 games maybe 6 months ago? But I know it probably has much to do with the fact that I’ve found many avenues that offer free games, however crappy those games might end up being. Humble and other bundle stores are probably equally to blame.

Moving on, the MMO I’ve been playing is, you guessed it, Guild Wars 2. I have to say that I enjoy the fact that I can only play it for a couple hours here and there and still feel like I’ve made some progress. I like the arcade-y feel that it has, and how simple the gameplay feels. It really feels like a game I’d play on a console. That’s not to say it lacks depth (though maybe someone reading this would disagree), just that it feels very accessible. I absolutely love the art style, but I’ve rattled about that before. The biggest news here is that after my last post about WvW, I’ve made a server change. That was prompted by Jeromai pointing out how shitty the server I was on was at WvW, and with PvP being one of the major draws of the game for me, I wanted to rectify that. So I joined her server over on Tarnished Coast, which is one of the best WvW servers. I imagine I won’t be finding a barren graveyard the next time I visit the Mists. However, that meant I had to delete the characters I created. Droniac, also pointed out that the Ranger class wasn’t too effective in WvW so I decided to go back to my original class of Thief. So the move has been completed, the new character created, and I’ve leveled him to 10. I have yet to catch Jeromai on as of yet, but I’m probably going to get more involved with the WvW and guild stuff once I do catch her. More on that as it develops.

Lastly, I’ve re-installed Demon’s Souls on my PS3 and started playing it again. After finishing my goals in Skyrim, I needed to work on something else on the PS3 to work towards clearing out the backlog. I was also given a $20 Steam card by my sister, and having browsed through hundreds of games, the one that kept calling to me was Dark Souls. I had played Demon’s Souls in the past but hadn’t gotten too far, but I knew that I enjoyed that sort of game. I figured that Dark Souls would probably improve upon the formula, so I was leaning heavily towards buying it. However, knowing that I had the first game in the Souls series, I though I should play through that one first. I’m not sure why I had quit playing it, though I know I had always intended on going back. Then it probably got uninstalled to make room for some other game, and I forgot all about it. A couple of nights ago I found it on my download list and got it back on my system. As of last night, I picked up where I left off, after the 2nd boss, and worked my way to the 3rd, the Armored Spider. He was a bastard, but I did manage to kill him and earn a trophy in the process. I played for a little while after that as well, but called it a night after my next death. I intend to attempt to see this game through and then pick up Dark Souls.

I haven’t purchased it yet though. I’m wary that it might go on sale during the Autumn sale that is sure to pop up in a couple of weeks. I also have read that it required 3rd-party DRM in the form of Games For Windows Live, which is kind of sort of going the way of the dodo. Either way, Dark Souls is going to have that component removed and all stats and achievements migrated to Steam, and that’s supposed to be happening this month. I kind of want to wait until I finish Demon’s Souls to make sure that I still want to play through another similar game, but also want to wait for that whole fiasco to be done. And then there’s the potential of sales enabling me to get more bang for my buck, so I think I’m going to hold onto the credit on my account for right now. In the meantime, I’ll be playing the games I’ve described here. That’s all for today. Catch y’all later.

#gaming #mobas #guildwars2 #demonssouls #steam