Massively Overthinking: Our 2018 MMO resolutions

I have never been one to make specific resolutions in my gaming. I might plan from month to month, but mostly I go where the wind blows me. But some folks on our team do have a map and a plan, so this week for our last Massively Overthinking of 2018 (as last year!), I’ve asked the Massively OP writers to share their own gaming resolutions or just basic MMO goals for 2018. Won’t you join us?

​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): So I kept half of mine last year- I didn’t give any MMO Kickstarter money. I didn’t play my Kickstarted games though, and ended up getting a new one on a Steam sale that I demoed but haven’t made time for. That one goes to the top of the list!

For 2018 though, I’m going to try two things:

1. Hit some core MMOs, not just fringe/multiplayer games. I’ve already started by trying to pursue a bear mount in FFXIV, and I recovered my ESO account so I can pursue more bear goodness.

2. Continue to work on social gaming. I had some good times this year when I was able to match my gaming habits with meatspace people, rather than focusing just on games I liked, which sadly didn’t help me make any new connections.

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Like a lot of people who work here, I am constantly being barraged with new gaming stuff on a daily basis that distracts me from the gaming goals I do set. I can’t escape it, nor do I want to, but it means I never stick to anything for long even when I’d like to, and games rush by me fast enough to distract but not hook. And I work too much, and because of what I do, I often finish out a whole day writing and reading about MMOs and the last thing I want to do physically is sit there some more and play an MMO (not so great for health, either!). So my goal is to claw back some time and work/life balance so I get to play more video games. Pretty simple!

Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): I actually do a lot of resolutions most years, and this year I did pretty well on my set from last year; pretty much everything I wanted to get done in 2017 got done, and now I’m looking at 2018 wondering how I’m going to make it better without just saying “last year, but more.” So while I’m sticking with the stuff that I did in 2017 that I’d like to carry forward (like more roleplaying and trying more new things), here’s what I’d like to get done in 2018.

1. Spend more time with roleplaying stuff out of the game. A lot of what I do is in-game, but I sometimes find myself jealous of people who have lots to show for it. I don’t spend much time taking pictures about my characters, writing up histories in readily accessible formats, and so forth. This is fine, insofar as I know all of that stuff myself, but sometimes it’s very interesting and doesn’t naturally come up all that much over the course of play. I’d like to actually change course on that and start making more of this public and accessible for others, even just as onlookers.

2. Be better about blocking off time and planning my projects out. I’ve been better about setting and finishing projects, but I can be a bit haphazard at blocking some of them out. Among my goals are unlocking more reputations and mounts in legacy World of Warcraft content, getting all of the class mounts there as well, leveling my alts in Final Fantasy XIV… and as it happens, all of these projects are just a jumbled mass of “I would like to do this.” So I want to make this more well-planned.

3. Do some stuff with videos. At the start of last year, I had started doing more video content due to another contract I had at the time; that contract has subsequently ended, but I still have the ability. I just don’t do much with it. And there’s some stuff I’ve thought of that people might enjoy, whether or not it includes my dulcet tones. (Note: My tones are not dulcet. I don’t think so, anyway. People who have heard me talk, you tell me.)

4. Find some MMO-light stuff to play a bit more often. For that matter, more non-MMO stuff in general; most of my gaming this past year was MMOs, and sometimes I think that limited my perspective a bit. I need to be better about realizing that, for example, playing through 90% of NieR: Automata, while brilliant and wonderful, took me about a week in total, and that was with breaks for MMO tasks. So I should focus more on actually getting these single-player games done.

5. Actually finish that FFXI New Player’s Guide I keep talking about and keep forgetting to do.

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I don’t have any super-ambitious resolutions (other than to simply enjoy the games I want to enjoy), but there is one idea that I’ve been kicking around in my head as a resolution.

Every month this year I want to spend some time revisiting an old MMO I used to play and haven’t for quite some time and I also want to spend some time getting to know at least one MMO I’ve never played at all. I’ve been making my schedule of this and am kind of excited about the plan. I think it’s reasonable considering my time constraints, maybe a weekend thing.

MJ Guthrie (@MJ_Guthrie, blog): I said last year that I wasn’t into resolutions for gaming, and you can see why! I don’t think I managed to knock out any of them! I blame the super downturn in my health for missing a number of them, but the fact that there were so many games to play this past year also meant I didn’t complete my little goals inside individual ones. I still hold to the fact that I have little goals that I slowly work on as the mood strikes instead of mega resolutions, and there was progress made on some. I did go to PAX West (a new convention for me!), I did stream more on my personal channel (I got affiliate status!), and I did spend some more time with friends in games. But I didn’t get anywhere on decorating in EverQuest II or upload any vids to my own YouTube. I can’t tell if I actually spent more time gaming because it was spread out over so many more titles!

All that said, I’m going to give resolutions a go again — if for no other reason than to entertain you. First, an easy one: I will share the awesomeness that is a gaming convention with my son. (I’ll get to check this one off next week!). I will continue to look for the perfect game to put my favorite guild concept into play — but we all know this is out of my hands as far as completion. I am also going to focus on playing more of my favorites and not letting them get swept aside just because I am covering many other things for MOP; I want to “finish” some things in these games, like catching up on content. I do want to dig into more of those single-player and co-op games I have gotten this past year and experience those as well. This is kind of a big one for me: I am totally switching my attend more holiday events to reducing holiday festivals! I want to diminish my stressing about getting in and completing all the festivals at holidays that I tend to do! There are just way too many holiday celebrations. I am going to try to just pick a couple in my main games (not counting holiday stream coverage), and maybe check out one or two others. There is just no way to get all the things and it burned me out something fierce this past year.

Your turn!