Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018
Preface
It's 7 days late, but happy new year everyone! Been a while since my last update, so hopefully the next one will be out by next week.
I realized my progress last year was pretty lukewarm at best, and that was partly caused by lacking some kind of a goal for my game progression. For that purpose, I made several resolutions to aid my backlog attack plan in 2018:
2018 Resolutions
• Play some VNs
• Write more progress reports (and play more games)
• Finishing some RPGs
• Beating some longer games
• Getting better at Tekken
• Reducing game purchases in general (not including bundles :p)
What about you fellow assassins? Did you fail miserably last year, or was it a win? Any special gaming goals worth striving for this year?
And just in case you noticed, I'm still doing experiments on my post formatting. Can you actually use CSS for BLAEO posts, though?
It’s 7 days late, but happy new year everyone!
That must’ve been one hell of a bender. :P
Lots of RPGs, no time and motivation to finish them.
Tell me about it. I think my problem is I just can’t play RPGs in short bursts and those are pretty much the only time slots I’ve had available for months. Any specific ones you had in mind?
What about you fellow assassins? Did you fail miserably last year, or was it a win? Any special gaming goals worth striving for this year?
Same thing as every year - backlog always wins. Steam sale didn’t help, either.
And yeah, I can see your formatting just fine and it looks dapper. Shame they don’t close on the right end.
That must’ve been one hell of a bender. :P
Hey, a mate’s gotta keep the new year spirit going, no? :p
I have a lot of JRPGs to go through, so I’ve picked the one I’m most interested in, The Legend of Heroes, and really liked it. It’s quite good if you love old-school RPGs, even better than the recent Final Fantasy games in fact. If I’m in the mood for more action-based RPGs, I would go for Tales of series or Ys series.
I think my problem is I just can’t play RPGs in short bursts
I would say reserving around 1 hour or so per day will carry you far in the long run, however. Not only will you not forget what you need to do, you’ll also avoid being overly frustrated by the grindiness of the game. If you play other games as well, try to avoid them like a plague when you play an RPG. Thing is, I seem to get sidetracked with them and thus get bored by the RPG I was playing in mere seconds when I get back to it.
This way of clearing an RPG takes quite a while though, which is why I still haven’t finished many of them.
Same thing as every year - backlog always wins. Steam sale didn’t help, either.
You’re not alone bud. xD
Shame they don’t close on the right end.
Yeah, didn;t realize I had accidentally removed the formatting for the right borders. Thanks!
I don’t make resolutions. If I was forced to make one, all I can come up with is “enjoy my games” and I’m already doing that :)
I really like the formatting! ^^
Keeping it simple and easy, eh? :D
I feel like this could still use some work, but thanks!
Exactly, I don’t see any reason to make it stressful :) I love gaming and turning it into a chore would simply make it not enjoyable for me. I’m already loving the time I spend while playing my games so I’m already a winner in my eyes :P I just hope for the same for everyone else.
I don’t know how your formatting would be for actual reviews (if you write any), like where the pictures would go, or other information like gametime, achievement count etc. But for text I really loved your formatting. If it would be similar as the thumbnails in your previous updates, well they are already top notch :)
In my case, I tend to get overwhelmed by the amount of games I own to the point where I get confused when picking a game to play. So I guess backlog assassination plan works differently for everyone. :D
I plan to write reviews in the future, so practicing on post formatting beforehand would definitely help in the long run. Thanks again for the compliments. You’ve done a great job on your posts yourself. :)
That happens to me too. Generally picking a game comes naturally to me but often there are those times when I think to myself; “But I want to play all of them right now!” Then, in time the decision lets itself be known naturally. I wish you lots and lots of entertainment while you play your games ^^
Thank you, you are too kind :)
Looks like we’ve got some similar goals, I also try to focus on longer games this time around. I keep hesitating to start them and I feel like missing out on experiences that I’d probably enjoy a lot.
The most challenging goal for me is fighting the temptation to follow deals and bundles, it has become such a habit at this point. Skipping individual deals isn’t difficult but bundles are my weak spot - I can only hope Humble won’t have many tempting offers in 2018. :D
Good luck and have fun with your backlog!
My problem lies in the fact that I tend to get sidetracked when I play games. There are lots of longer games which I have started, when all of a sudden I just get the urge to try a new game. Therefore by the time I get back, I have no idea what I was supposed to do anymore lol.
These games are intimidating for people with little free time. But try to play it as routinely as possible, even if you can only commit 1 hours or so per 2 days during busy weeks. A routine gaming habit like this can carry your progress greatly.
And yes, it’s really hard to kill that habit :D. All users in BLAEO had already got addicted to the “Game Check Out Simulator” at one point and had their wallet magically emptied for some reason.
Likewise, I wish you luck for your assassinations!
Yeah, losing your track in games with long campaign is too easy. One thing I’ve tried to do in those situations is to leave the game in a clear checkpoint situation, after a long mission or a new unlocked area, but it’s not always possible to find the convenient spot to quit the game. Right now I’m playing Goetia, a point n’ click puzzler which has several puzzles active at once, and it pains me to go back to figure out what the hell I was doing even after a few days break. :D
Reducing game purchases in general -> this became very easy for me. I just focus on the games that are still in my backlog, and don’t buy anything new. If a very convenient bundle with wishlisted games comes out, then I’ll buy it. There are very convenient sales for the games I want, but guess what? If I buy them, I won’t play them asap. They’re going to stay untouched in my library because my backlog is too big. So, the more time I wait to buy something, the more discount the game will have by that time -> more money saved.
I see a r/patientgamer user here :p.
What you’re doing is great though. Since older games tend to get bundled in time, at which point you can just get that bundle yourself. Cheers for the advice!
I’ve stopped adding non-wishlisted games to my account completely now and from time to time I even remove stuff (like the garbage from 1$ card fodder games I got in the past).
I was addicted to deal-finding stuff in the past like you, now I have to say it feels liberating to see my game count shrink instead of grow :3
Well, there’s also the problem of adding too much games to your wishlist. :p
I more than halved mine before the last sale, you can do it :3<
Really nice layout, quite different :D I think you can use many things in BLAEO posts, mandrill puts a great deal of trust in us, that we won’t break anything with our code. For the details of how far can you go, you can always ask him directly.
Also those are some sensible resolutions - imo tailor made ones are the best, since you know well what you want to improve, what do you need and how effective you can be.
I didn’t fail, but I didn’t do as well as I wanted to. Also, my resolutions for this year are quite simple, and basically only readjust things based on how I did things last year, and how that worked out for me. :)
Re: “Reducing game purchases in general” – A strategy I’ve tried to enact this past year (and mostly succeeded, though I had a few fails) was to not buy a game/bundle unless a game (or a game contained in the bundle) has been on my wishlist for at least a year. (Humble’s Monthlies were/are an allowed exception.) Of course, as a result, my wishlist ballooned from about 100 games (up from 20-ish in 2016) to about 300. But still, it helped, and the regrets have been few (maybe 3-4 bundles I still kinda wish I’d bought, but that’s for the entire year so not so bad).
Also, I believe you can use inline CSS, though I’ve not taken the time to do formatting experiments much myself. I like your formatting for your FFXIII post though! :)
That’s a good strategy. I’ll try taking your advice and see how it goes. Thanks! The temptation is real whenever I see price drops though. I might even have to take it a step further and avoid r/GameDeals like a plague lol.
I was thinking how embedding an external CSS would’ve make post formatting way easier than ever. For now I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing though.
I cut myself off from r/GameDeals about two or three years ago. :) I miss getting the jump on some of the glitches but it was mostly a good thing to hide from it. Much less stressful to just miss out things and somehow be okay with that… or try like mad to win it on SG….
Browsing that subreddit has been my go-to activity in the morning, so I have to try especially hard to kill off that habit lol.
One disadvantage from this that I can think of right off the bat is losing the capability of playing newer games when it was still fresh. Then again, we have a lot of backlog to go through amirite? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Definitely true for the disadvantage; that’s been easier for me to bear since: a) I had practically no income for a year, and b) my computer is about ten years old (with a slightly newer video card)! :D
I will take a gamble and say your computer is still beefy for a 10 years old PC. I still haven’t graduated from playing on a potato laptop. Heck, mine was coughing blood when I played ABZÛ . xD
It surprises me sometimes; it was hitting a wall last year, but I scrounged up enough for a double RAM upgrade off eBay (8GB) and a 750 Ti card with good rebates, and it holds its own again for many (but definitely not all) modern games on moderate settings. ABZU played well enough for the cat to be entertained when pushing through the seaweed. :) (Strangely, she didn’t seem to care as much about the fish!)
Laptops are a wonderful love it/hate it thing, aren’t they? :) I want a laptop again, but… just for work, not really for gaming.
You managed to get a pretty decent deal (which is not even half of my laptop’s price back in the day :p) and successfully kept your PC alive too, lol.
See, the thing with laptops is that it gradually
slows down to a crawl in 2 years, at which point it finally gets in your nerves. I don’t know about gaming laptop supporters but I’m not rich enough to invest on a $1200+
ticking toaster
every 2 years just for gaming xD For light work purposes though nothing beats laptop.