Staying Motivated NOT to play stuff!

 The Blaugust 2023 "staying motivated" week rolls on and as I mentioned a couple days ago I mistimed my "Steam Backlog" game playing to match up to this week's posts so instead I am going to talk about staying motivated NOT to play everything that pops up in my feed!

 The first temptation for my game time is World of Warcraft's launch of the official hardcore servers for Classic.  Willhelm over at TAGN had some commentary on the event and it seems there is a rough go of the launch impacting more than just classic hardcore so that is helpful to keep one temptation off my plate.

"... but the errors and issues, down to being told constantly that you’re not in a raid if you join the queue as a group, have been annoying"

 Next up on the temptation list is Skull and Bones which is supposedly starting a closed beta today.  It looks like a cool game and I applied for the closed beta.  However, based on some leaked rumors the game is in rough shape so I'm not sweating that beta invite landing.

 Wayfinder is also tempting.  There is early access for $20, but it has been a trainwreck of server issues for the game.  I played the earlier betas and the game was OK, but I couldn't get past the idea of picking a premade hero vs creating my own character.  Still on my "maybe list" but right now I'll pass with the early launch jitters.  As a note my main thoughts on the game mirror Massively OPs First Impressions: I honestly can’t tell whether I like Wayfinder or no.

 The last temptation is Guild Wars 2 launching it's Secrets of the Obscure expansion. I've said many times that if my fancy with New World ever wanes that Guild Wars 2 is the game I'd jump back to.  I have jumped to Guild Wars 2 multiple times before and each time I get the most recent expansion.  I also believe that the best times in MMOs are around launches; new games or expansions.  So there is a thread of me that wants to jump in at launch here but my brain can only take one true MMO at a time and the MMO of the moment for me is New World!

 I'll be over here motivating myself to stop being tempted by stuff :)

 

Staying Motivated for Starfield

 For Blaugust 2023 "staying motivated" week I also wanted to touch on Starfield as it is right around the corner (8/31 for early access, 9/5 for regular folks).  The game is shaping up to be a once-in-a-lifetime launch and every passing day requires more and more motivation to be ready for it!

  Outside of the fact that Bethesda is a huge name in the gaming world what caught my attention most about Starfield is the scope.  There are other games like, No Man's Sky, that compete on scope but for me the ship sailed on No Man's Sky with its subpar launch (though all reports are now it is a really great game with lots of updates).

 Seeing the early gameplay trailers and deep dives on systems for Starfield I was blown away by things like building your own ship module by module only to be followed up by "oh and you can collect your own crew to have on the ship".  Then you can take your starship to a thousand different planets (honestly once these games get past like 10 planets it doesn't matter if its 1,000 or 100,000).  On top of this there will be fully fledged storyline!

 Then there are things like building bases and factories to make you stuff. There is resource gathering and combat.  All of it affected by a planet's gravity and other environmental variables.  Honestly the only thing that caught me off guard that is not included in the game is ground vehicles but I can let that slide if I can just hop in my starship and fly around a planet.

 I am trying to control my hype here.  This is going to be a massive launch and I expect problems; no doubt some interconnected online service the game relies on will hiccup.  Additionally it is a solo game with no multiplayer and my history is I fizzle out on solo games (but surely Starfield will be different).  So I need to keep myself motivated because I really, really want this game to be everything it is being hyped up to be as it looks very, very fun.

Staying motivated in New World (Gear Reset)

 Making an audible for Blaugust 2023's "stay motivated" week and swapping from my original plan to cover my Steam backlog.  Instead I am going to talk about New World and how I am staying motivated in the face of the pending gear reset.  The developers have yet to detail that gear reset, but we are getting drips of information in each update.  Knowing it is coming and lacking the details to go with it makes it very hard to stay motivated to play currently.  What exactly are we working for if it will be made irrelevant in a month's time?

 For me the answer to the "what keeps you motivated in New World?" question is simple: completing stuff.  New World has some vertical progression with it's expertise, gear score, and upgrade system but that is all behind me at this point.  There are many horizontal progression paths for me to work on now.

Ultimate Trophies

 This is the big one.  There are 9 ultimate trophies in the game to get and each one requires copies of each major trophy in that category (crafting, gathering, and combat) and a crafting component that costs an arm and a leg (45,000 gold + 100,000 faction tokens).  I now have 8 out of 9 of them and I ran out of arms/legs a while ago.

 What fascinates me is that I don't even craft but here I am knocking out the ultimate crafting trophies.  Just. To. Have. Them. In case I do want to craft.  The major trophies are fine but require you to teleport to all of your houses to change out trophies for each craft you want to do.  Ultimate trophies combine them together and thus remove the need to zoom around changing out trophies.  Soon I'll never have to ever think about changing trophies around in my house.  I will have all the ultimate trophies and be done!

 I need approx 30k gold and 80k faction tokens which I hope to finish out this week.

Crafting Gear Sets

 Crafting trophies are great but in order to hit end game gear score (590+) items in crafting you must also have the crafting gear sets.  The gear pieces drop from various named enemies all over the world or can be bought on the market.  I set a threshold of 3,000 gold.  If it was cheaper than that then I bought it; otherwise it was off to farm.

 I actually enjoy farming in New World.  I am aided by ample time to AFK back and forth to kill the named spawns.  I probably wouldn't do it if I had less play time.

Heartrunes

 Lastly on the horizontal progression is getting all the heartrunes in the game.  I actually only have a few and only a couple of them upgraded.  This will be where I change my effort over to once I am done with ultimate trophies.  These are also perfect "grind" objectives (except you have to complete an expedition 3x to get basic heartrunes to start with).  For example the brutal grasping vines required me to get 3,000 thorny vines from briars.  That was fun (not).  

 But I embrace the grind. Some folks Netflix and chill; I grind and chill.

 Other Stuff

 Then there is other stuff.  

With transmog now released there is a ton of skins to go out and collect.

I still love playing Outpost Rush and PvP Arenas and they give great rewards so there is always a new build to be looking towards.  I am eyeing up a heavy sword n shield/spear build along or a BB/IG medium build.

Then there is the company I hang out with; lots of returning players to help out.

Also at some point I really need to clean up my houses; so much furniture dumped everywhere.

My New World Transmog

 I finished out my first transmog set in New World today.  Here is my "wheelchair mage" (Heavy armor with Firestaff/Sword and Shield).  

• Helmet, legs, and boots are Fire Lord
• Chest and gloves are Expedition Captain (Arisen Commander skin name).  
• Sword is Falling Star
• Shield is Starfish defender
• Firestaff is Lodestar Lantern

Front with sword/shield out

Back with weapons stowed

Front with firestaff

My New World Day 1 Transmog (almost)

 This is my first (almost) transmog for New World.  And of course realizing now I don't have the gloves, pants, or helmet unlocked so off to The Depths to farm materia or wait for it to come back on mutation rotation.

Oddly enough the skin is from the Expedition Captain's set, but the skin name is under Arisen Commander