Here we are on Blaugust day five, and I have already made further progress with my own personal Gamer To-Do List, so I thought I’d share the updates with you guys! In case you don’t know what The Gamer To-Do List is by now, you can click “Ongoing Series” up at the top of this blog to catch up on prior entries. I also thought I should mention that quite a few Blaugustians have taken up the call and created their own lists. You can find those at the Blaugust Anook that I linked at the beginning of this paragraph.

First up, let’s take a look at how my list has been updated:

My Gamer To-Do List:

• ESO – level my templar to 15 and try out pvp again  (currently level 12)
• League of Legends – get Silver in ranked (in promo series now) 
• EQ2 – work through expansion Chains of Eternity  (about half way through Eidolon Jungle)
• Dirty Bomb/Counter Strike GO – continue to level accounts (played a bit of each recently)
• Crusader Kings II – learn the game (haven’t touched this yet)
• Borderlands The Pre-Sequel – (finally started playing this one and love it)
• Card Hunter – (played through the tutorial and a couple extra levels. It’s fun. More on this later)
• Valkyria Chronicles – (attempted to pick up where I left off but lost my save [probably after I got my 2 TB HD], played nearly back to the point I was at)
• Magic Duels Origins – (want to look into this as possible Hearthstone replacement)

Free Agents:

• Project Gorgon – check it out
• L.A. Noire
• Alan Wake
• Divinity Original Sin

On Hold:

• Diablo III – check out new content when patch drops
• GW2 – determine main, then level to 80. (sort of on the backburner again, as ESO and EQ2 have been enjoyable)

This is what the list looks like currently. I have either determined some games were out of my rotation, on hold for various reasons, or I completed the task I was working on. Again, some of these items won’t be leaving the list, they’ll just get updated with new goals. Many of the people who went along with this idea on their own blogs have make their own various tweaks on the format, and that’s totally okay. This isn’t meant to be a rigid set of rules, but more guidelines to keep you focused on immediate goals. So let’s get down to the specifics:

I have reached level 12 on my Khajiit Templar in ESO, and I also purchased the first mount, for 10k. That wouldn’t have been possible with just that character, but a couple of the alts I had that I didn’t care for ended up selling all their stuff and throwing the gold in the bank, which my Templar then withdrew and combined with his earnings. So yeah, I guess I “twinked” him a bit. Overall I have enjoyed the class, and am aiming for a sword and board Paladin-like build. I have a couple of heals, some damaging spells, and have put a bunch of points into passives to make him even tankier (along with picking up Persuasion and Intimidation). Apparently at level 15 you gain access to another skill bar and the ability to weapon swap, so that’s my aim before heading back into Cyrodil.

In Norrath, I’ve been plugging away at clearing the Eidolon Jungle zone, which is the first bit of the Chains of Eternity expansion. Apparently there are points later that take you all across the world and a bunch of solo dungeon instances. I’m looking forward to this, as it means I won’t miss a big chunk of content due to lack of a steady group. Server merges are incoming though, so perhaps that will change things in that department a bit. Either way, most of the zones I’ve been in have been ghost towns. Good for making sure I get every named in the zone, but bad for feeling like part of a living world.

I played Card Hunter back when it was in beta, but didn’t write much about it, though I did have a post where I was giving away beta keys. It started off as a browser game, and you can still play it that way if you so choose, but it is now part of the Steam free to play section, and I recently downloaded it again to see what was new. Honestly it had been long enough since I played it that I didn’t remember much aside from the fact that it’s a turn based tactical combat game that utilizes cards for your character’s actions. There’s heavy D&D influence as well, in that you have a DM that tells the story as you go along. Overall it’s pretty fun and I was glad that I went back to check it out. I’ll be devoting more time to this one in the future.

I picked up Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel a few months back during a sale on Steam. I had purposely waited on playing it because I was going to get in on PS3 as I have the first two games on that platform, but the sale price for the game and the season pass made it too hard to pass up. Despite that, when I purchased it I was in the midst of other playthroughs so I ended up letting it collect virtual dust. I finally got around to playing it a bit last night, and I can assure you that it is more of the same, but that’s not a bad thing. Borderlands has found a great mix of FPS action, RPG progression, humor, and lore. This game takes place between the first and second Borderlands titles, so there are things that you’ll recognize, and things that are new. For instance, remember in Borderlands 2 when you looked up at the Hyperion station orbiting Pandora, it looked damaged? That attack takes place during the opening sequence of the game, before you get transported to Pandora’s moon, Elpis. You’ll also recognize some of the characters as villains you kill during the other two games. Athena was a villain in the first game during the General Knoxx DLC, is a playable character here, and also makes an appearance in Tales From the Borderlands. Even though a playable version of Jack was a DLC for this game, they did a fine job of making him sound just like the original Jack, and he will call you his “body-double” while also complimenting you profusely. I love the sense of humor this series has. I also must say that despite playing the others with a controller, the controls are very slick when using a mouse and keyboard. It’s also nice to be able to play it with max settings.

Otherwise I’ve done some piddling around with the other titles on the list, but nothing really worth going into at the moment. I have some other more lengthy posts planned for when I make more progress in some of these games, so stay tuned!

#blaugust #gamertodolist #blaugust2015