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inspired_mindDue my long days at my internship, I have very little me time in the evenings during weekdays. I usually get home at 19.30, eat a late dinner, followed by a coffee. Then I have about 1,5 hours to do something fun. Then it's shower and getting ready for bed time, followed by preparing my lunch for the next day. If I am up to it, I might read up to 30 minutes in bed, but often I fall asleep before I have even read half a chapter of whatever book of fanfic I happen to be reading. Up at 5.30, repeat the daytime cycle.
Most of the time I end up gaming, which used to be mostly World of Warcaft. As of a year or so I pay my subscription with ingame gold, buying a gametime token. It used to be only usable for WoW, so the price was fairly acceptable. Then Blizzard announced it could be used for other Blizzard games, allowing you to buy the actual games or DLC. Prices skyrocketed but I was still able to earn enough casually ingame to afford it. But now Blizzard announced that they are going to host the login servers for Destiny 2, some mmo-ish shooter that isn't even a Blizzard game, yet allowing you to buy it with the token as well. So prices went up even more. I can no longer afford the token.
Each month of gameplay I would ask myself, is the amount of time needed to earn the gold and the time I actually spend ingame worth a WoW subscription? As of this month the answer is: NO. I can't buy a new token due to the prices. I won't pay with actual money only to play 1,5 hours each evening at best, only to do bloody World Quests (aka badly disguised dailies) to keep up with the rest of the community. I no longer got an active guild and only 1 friend to do dungeons with. As much as I love the world of Azeroth, there is a time you need to let it go. At least for the time being.
So what are the alternatives? Well, there is Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA which is similar to stuff like League of Legends or DOTA, but with characters and themes from Blizzard Games. It's also more goal and theme oriented, which apparently makes LOL and DOTA players hate it by default because having different objectives is a PVE thing. It's actually why I like it. LOL didn't really manage to keep my attention years ago due to the lack of varied stuff to do and the way support classes couldn't progress nearly as fast as their tanky and damage counterparts. I also like that most matches are 20 minutes long tops (when playing versus AI at least). Plus playing as various Blizzard characters is awesome.
Aside from Blizzard games I occasionally also play Rift. It's still alive, free to play (tho you can sub for additional benefits) adding new content and expansions fairly regulary. And quite some stuff to do, even with a free to play account. I really love my dwarf lady, whom nowadays is both a ranger and bard, depending on my mood. It might not have the high quality graphics of any Blizzard game, but despite that it looks quite fine to me.
There is also Diablo 3, I guess. But I tend to only play that for 2-3 weeks each time a new season comes out. It gets boring really fast when all Blizzard does is resetting the rankings and making you level a new char from scratch to participate in the next season. Me and a friend tend to do that in less than 24 hours so yeah =P
Apologies if this feels a bit like a rant, but felt like talking about something else for a change. More about the internship (probably) next time!
~*~Maru~*~
Most of the time I end up gaming, which used to be mostly World of Warcaft. As of a year or so I pay my subscription with ingame gold, buying a gametime token. It used to be only usable for WoW, so the price was fairly acceptable. Then Blizzard announced it could be used for other Blizzard games, allowing you to buy the actual games or DLC. Prices skyrocketed but I was still able to earn enough casually ingame to afford it. But now Blizzard announced that they are going to host the login servers for Destiny 2, some mmo-ish shooter that isn't even a Blizzard game, yet allowing you to buy it with the token as well. So prices went up even more. I can no longer afford the token.
Each month of gameplay I would ask myself, is the amount of time needed to earn the gold and the time I actually spend ingame worth a WoW subscription? As of this month the answer is: NO. I can't buy a new token due to the prices. I won't pay with actual money only to play 1,5 hours each evening at best, only to do bloody World Quests (aka badly disguised dailies) to keep up with the rest of the community. I no longer got an active guild and only 1 friend to do dungeons with. As much as I love the world of Azeroth, there is a time you need to let it go. At least for the time being.
So what are the alternatives? Well, there is Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA which is similar to stuff like League of Legends or DOTA, but with characters and themes from Blizzard Games. It's also more goal and theme oriented, which apparently makes LOL and DOTA players hate it by default because having different objectives is a PVE thing. It's actually why I like it. LOL didn't really manage to keep my attention years ago due to the lack of varied stuff to do and the way support classes couldn't progress nearly as fast as their tanky and damage counterparts. I also like that most matches are 20 minutes long tops (when playing versus AI at least). Plus playing as various Blizzard characters is awesome.
Aside from Blizzard games I occasionally also play Rift. It's still alive, free to play (tho you can sub for additional benefits) adding new content and expansions fairly regulary. And quite some stuff to do, even with a free to play account. I really love my dwarf lady, whom nowadays is both a ranger and bard, depending on my mood. It might not have the high quality graphics of any Blizzard game, but despite that it looks quite fine to me.
There is also Diablo 3, I guess. But I tend to only play that for 2-3 weeks each time a new season comes out. It gets boring really fast when all Blizzard does is resetting the rankings and making you level a new char from scratch to participate in the next season. Me and a friend tend to do that in less than 24 hours so yeah =P
Apologies if this feels a bit like a rant, but felt like talking about something else for a change. More about the internship (probably) next time!
~*~Maru~*~
