Lessons Learned: Next Week

 It looks like Blaugust 2023 is going to finish out before we get the big expansion news for New World.  How do we know?  Because the most recent developer update from Amazon Game Studios, the makers of New World, can be summed up by the phrase "next week".

 There is a good summary of the video on Reddit: here.  But really the answer is "next week" as the team dodged many of the pressing community questions stating that we'll get answers next week with the Season 3 + expansion announcements.  I sort of give credit to the team willing to put out this video knowing that so many answers were "next week" and the community feedback wouldn't be that great.

 Lesson Learned: Be patient.

 Personally I think it's an odd week to try and plan any major announcements.  Starfield will be dominating the gaming community buzz so it will be hard to elbow out space for any other major news.  I know I'll be planets deep in Starfield and not as invested in New World next week.  I imagine many others will be as well.

 With that said I am excited for the announcement(s) and what the team is bringing us.  We know there will be the expansion, mounts, major perk reworks, combat balance changes, and the dreaded details of the "New World gear reset".  I just may be delayed getting around to viewing depending on how awesome Starfield is :)

New World: Finished ALL Ultimate Trophies!

 It is done.  All 9 ultimate trophies are MINE in New World!  A quick rundown of what that means

• 900,000 (100k ea) faction tokens earned and spent
• 405,000 (45k ea) gold spent on Ultimate trophy component
• All major trophies (500k+ gold estimate)
  
• 18x Major Combat
• 15x Major Crafting
• 15x Major Gathering

 So what has almost a million gold bought me?  Not much to be honest but the satisfaction that crawled across my face finishing this was unmistakable. With that said here are a few benefits:

• I never have to travel between houses again just to change trophies out; this is honestly the biggest aspect of these trophies and about the only reason to get them.
  
• I can have all tertiary bonus trophies active: 3x major loot luck and the thanksgiving trophy
  
• I have an open trophy slot now so ready for a future trophy

 As I said "not much".  There is also a big downside though: the ultimate trophies are bound to the player so cannot be resold/traded once crafted. Major trophies were NOT bound so have the advantage of being able to be "borrowed" by others or sold off if no longer being used.  Personally I don't trust anyone to borrow my stuff in a virtual world and secondly I don't get rid of stuff.

 Here are some screenshots to go with this.

Count 'em - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9!

Trophies on my Windsward house

 

Lessons Learned: Steam Backlog Is What It Is

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).  This post is ALSO a part of Blaugust 2023's lessons learned week. Why? Because my Steam backlog is what it is.

 I had set the year off to tackle as much of my Steam backlog as I could.  It was part reflecting on games that I played in the past and part playing games I never played (or didn't play enough to form an opinion).  The reflecting has been easier than the playing so I thought for Blaugust's "stay motivated" week I'd hit some of the "need to play" list.

 I stuck to my alphabetical approach and I'm still in the Bs which meant I hit some doozies.  First was The Binding of Isaac which just killed my momentum as I didn't really want to play it and just kept putting it off.  I should have skipped it but felt I needed to be fair to the objective of hitting the full backlog.  Putting this one off meant I put the rest off and thus didn't get anywhere and thus had to shift gears for "staying motivated" week for Blaugust.

 Lesson Learned: If a game in my Steam backlog is not interesting then don't play it.  Life is short; don't play crappy games.

 Going forward I will be more strategic in the games I play from the backlog. This doesn't mean I won't touch on all games, but some will just be commentary like I've done for games like the Bioshock series.

 I also picked up on a tool called Steam Completionist from a post on Aywren's blog so I am going to check that out to see how it can help me better track my backlog.

 

 

Lessons Learned: Final Thoughts on Linus Tech Tips

 It is ironic how the Linus Tech Tips saga mapped out to the Blaugust 2023 plan.  Started in the "creator appreciation week" and now wrapping up in the "lessons learned week" with: Here's the plan.  This will likely be my last commentary on this saga and can be summed up by: right message; wrong messenger.

 Before we get to the "right message" I want to note that I found the start of the video as a microcosm of what I see as the issue: the cult of Linus.  Linus starts by talking about being chewed out by his boss which he makes out to be the LTT community.  Linus Media Group (LMG) is a company with a CEO and that CEO is not Linus.  Linus' boss is in fact not the community; it is the leadership of LMG.  This is part and parcel of why there is a problem; Linus continues to treat this as though he's a small content creator on Youtube instead of letting the 100+ company that is LMG be a company.

 With the start out of the way I want to address the "wrong messenger".  I ask the question: is this Linus or is this Linus Media Group?  Like I said about the apology video we need to hear from the LMG CEO and not the personality of Linus.  Linus has avenues, such as the WAN Show podcast, to get his updates out.

 With that said I do want to acknowledge that the underlying message was the right message (finally).  The right changes are hopefully going to happen.  LMG seems like a fun place to work (though that "cool work place" may be part of the issues with employees feeling overworked -- no one wants to lose the "cool job").  

 I do wish them luck in their goals but right now I can't get past the apology video and the "cult of Linus".  I may watch a video that pops up in my feed but I will view it as a corporate production vs how I see most Youtube video content.  The LTT that was no longer exists.

The Build That Motivates Me: Wheelchair Mage

Updated: 8/29/2023 - added weapon tree builds - also this build is up to date for Season 2.

 I wanted to share the build that keeps me motivated in New World.  This is the gear for my "wheelchair mage" as we've dubbed it on Castle of Steel.  It is heavy armor sword and shield/firestaff; focused on stacking fortify and using flamethrower to mow the folks down.

Here is the gear:

Weapon Trees

- Fire Staff: https://nwdb.info/build?skills=0-igb4m8-q07kcg_2-m7scu8-oj0cao_8-ki8e4k-mhepts

- Sword and Shield: https://nwdb.info/build?skills=0-igb4m8-q07kcg_2-m7scu8-oj0cao_8-ki8e4k-mhepts

 Images in case the build tool goes away:

 

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 :)