Hopefully, November will be the month my will to play comes back, because it’s been conspicuously absent for well over a month now. Sure, I’ve been doing co-op stuff, and occasional raiding stuff (because I do adore a scheduled event), but when it’s just up to me? Other than a few brief obsessions, just loading up a game seems like an awful lot of work.
GAMING
Paid MMO Subscription – World of Warcraft (Retail)
Good news everyone – patch 9.1.5 is dropping tomorrow! Combine that with the fact that I’m going back to keeping up just one character, and I’m hoping I’ll develop more of an interest in playing regularly. I had petered out halfway through the new campaign story, so there’s that I should try to get caught up, and I really ought to consider remaking my legendary. Even in a content drought, I’m not lacking for things for me to do personally, I just haven’t really wanted to do any of them.
However, probably the patch change I’m most excited about is that BfAs Island Expeditions will be available to solo-queue, which means finally having a chance to go back and grind all the fun stuff I missed when they were current content, but I wasn’t playing. This may jumpstart me into more achievement hunting, which is how I historically spend a lot of my WoW time.
Whatever form it takes, I’d really like to find the joy again, because I’ve been feeling vaguely guilty about how little I’m playing while I’m paying actual money for the 6-10 hours a month I do bother to log on.
Community Game-Along – #VNNovember – PSYCHO-PASS: Mandatory Happiness
I swear, I’m starting early this month – or at least before the 28th! PSYCHO-PASS: Mandatory Happiness has been in my Steam library since March of 2020, and I’m fairly certain I just installed it for the first time. I know nothing about the anime except that it exists, so that shouldn’t have any effect on whether or not I enjoy the game. Historically, the visual novel (and visual novel adjacent) games I tend to prefer are darker, usually with some sort of mystery component to keep me engaged, so this one should be as much up my alley as a visual novel can be.
I also have Methods: The Detective Compendium and 428: Shibuya Scramble on deck in case it turns out I can’t get into it. I like always having a back-up game or two picked out, but it’s highly unlikely I’ll play more than one visual novel this month.
Subscription Gaming – XBox Game Pass for PC
Every time I think I’m getting close to cancelling this, one of two things happens. Either I start playing something on there on a whim and find I’m really digging it, or they announce something coming soon that I want to play, but may or may not get around to.
At the top of my current list of stuff I want to try out is The Forgotten City, a game I’ve been hesitant to pick up because my track record with time loop games is … not good, despite the fact I continue to be fascinated by them. I’d also like to try out Dandy Ace, and The Good Life. However, the game I’m fairly sure I’ll be renewing mid-month for is Evil Genius 2. The reviews aren’t great, and although I played a lot of the first game, I never played too long into any one playthrough, so satiating my curiosity via Game Pass is probably a good move.
Other Gaming
I am going to put another attempt or two into pushing through the rough spot in Call of Cthulhu before I toss it into the “probably never going to finish” box and forget about it. I expect my co-op game dates this month will be playing through the campaigns in Wildermyth – we played the first campaign this past week and we both liked it well enough to keep going. Otherwise, I think I’m probably just going to go wherever my whims may take me this month; I don’t have an urgent need to fire up any specific game, and I’m willing to go to any port in a storm when I’m trying to de-slump myself.
OTHER NERDSTUFF
Stitchcraft
Thankfully, the urge to stitch hasn’t even begun to subside, because the project I’m currently working on I’d like to have finished as a present for a December birthday. I couldn’t resist doing the math – I’m going to need to average about 600 stitches nearly every day to meet that goal. To go along with that, I’m going to start watching the eight seasons of Castle that recently showed up on Hulu, which I have managed to resist watching while I devoured all things #Spooktober. I saw the first few seasons several years ago, when having a Netflix account still meant getting DVDs in the mail, but as someone who hasn’t had access to cable in well over a decade, I think there are at least three seasons I’ve never seen. At any rate, it seems like an excellent choice of a stitching show.
IntPiPoMo 2021
I also haven’t actually signed up as of yet, but I’m seriously considering throwing my hat into the ring for IntPiPoMo 2021, with the intention of doing a picture-focused post each Sunday throughout November. As a person who has promised never to put myself or my loved ones through another NaNoWriMo, posting fifty pictures feels like a far far more attainable goal. Maybe I’ll even art a little, or go out and do some photo hunting like I used to do when I was somewhat more mobile than I am now. I used to be pretty involved with photography, and it’s something that’s fallen by the wayside throughout the years.
GoodReads Reading Challenge 2021 – 18/48
Another thing that has just recently occurred to me is that, well, I basically haven’t been reading for about the past four months. There was a book I had started for The Pike Cast near the end of July that I just couldn’t get into, and it soured me for a little bit. Then, I started filling up the time I had been spending reading with other things, and it just … slipped my mind, I guess? Any way you look at it, I’m super far behind my yearly reading goal, so I really need to pick up a book (or twenty) before the end of the month. On the upside, I tend to be a fast reader, so it’s not an unmanageable goal, but it’s a bit overwhelming if I spend too much time thinking about it.
In general, I’m a big fan of plan and goal-setting, even though I rarely hit all the milestones I set myself. I’ve always had a lot of different hobbies – at least it’s always seemed that way to me. Most folks I know have one or two things they’re really invested in, and that’s about the size of it. My interests are varied enough I could fill up almost every day with fun things, if I could just manage my energy a little better.
Maybe I need to set some sort of goal related to energy management? Hmmmm.
Nerd Girl Thoughts 