For 2014

Games

Of the MMO releases planned for 2014, Elder Scrolls Online is the only one that I’m planning to buy and play at launch. I expect to have fun for a few months before moving on to something else. I’ll be extremely surprised if I’m still playing by December. I’ve had very little interest in Wild Star so far and don’t plan to get it, although I can’t guarantee I won’t get swept up in the excitement when it releases.

Outside of MMOs, it’s looking like a crowdfunding year for me. Star Citizen, Shadowrun Online, the expansion for Shadowrun Returns, Broken Age, Banner Saga, Massive Chalice, and Planetary Annihilation. I’ve backed all of these games some of which are releasing and others are still being developed, but it’s been fun watching the process for each of these games.

Resolutions

Unlike the last two years, I’m not making any resolutions or setting any goals related to blogging. I’m sure when I have something to say or share that I’ll get the itch to post, and I’d rather approach it that way than trying to set it up as a second job. The only writing goals I’m setting for myself this year are my plans to do an outline and first pass edit of A Wizard’s Life in March. I want to see how that goes before I decide anything else.

Besides from MarchEditingMonth, my resolution for 2014 is to make lists. 

I read nine books last year. Nine. That’s embarrassing to me. I have thought of myself a reader since I was eight years old, so it was a shock when that email arrived from GoodReads congratulating me on finishing nine books. This made me realize that I’m very good at acquiring content but not at actually consuming it.

I have a set of bookshelves that is full of books to read, and I have two more stacks on the floor plus stuff on my Kindle. I have movies I got for Christmas in 2012 that I still haven’t watched, not to mention the ones I got this year. I have backlogs of comic books, game books, Xbox games, and Steam games. I have half a dozen starship models that need to be assembled and painted. I still haven’t watched the series finale of Eureka or the Farscape Peacekeeper Wars movie.

So I’ve started making lists so that I can see just how much stuff I have and more importantly I can start to prioritize it. Unless I learn to speed read or stop time, there’s no way I’ll be able to read everything sitting on my shelves, but I can pick fifty books and make a dent in it. I can certainly catch up on a dozen TV shows and movies. My video game backlog doesn’t bother me nearly as much, but I’m going to make a list anyway and make sure that finally finishing the Mass Effect 3 DLC is near the top.

While looking up last year’s resolutions post, I was surprised that I made a similar lists resolution in relation to finishing games and writing projects. So apparently I had zero follow through on that. Still, I think this year will be different because of the habits and tricks I picked up during November’s successful NaNoWriMo run. I’m using my phone to block out time daily and set nagging reminders to stay on track. It’s not exactly the same as having the social pressure, but making lists of books to read and movies to watch isn’t as difficult either.

Elder Scrolls Online

It the announcement that’s been the talk of the Internet over the last week. A lot of people are surprised, which surprises me. The Elder Scrolls (TES) is an RPG, so it’s not surprising to me that Bethesda and ZeniMax Media Group are interested in moving the franchise into the MMO space. There are subscription fees calling after all.

Of course ZeniMax Online has it’s work cutout for it. Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind are massive open world RPGs with large modding communities and point-n-click combat. None of which works well in an MMO, or at least hasn’t yet. Plus, ZeniMax Online has apparently been working on TES Online since 2007. This means that they’ve probably not been able to incorporate the things that Skyrim did so well into their designs. Even more important, a lot of the recent innovations in story telling (SWTOR) or combat (GW2/Tera) or dynamic events (Rift) are likely not part of the design.

Still, it’s hard to tell much for certain yet since there’s very little official information out there. The few things I’ve watched or read mention pretty standard combat (which is disappointing) but three faction PvP which is excellent and makes me think of Dark Age of Camelot.

At this point I’m just curious. It’s way too soon to be worried or excited about TESO, but it looks like May and June are going to be full of news and videos about the game, so we should see soon if The Elder Scrolls Online is worth adding to my list of games to watch.