Happy new year, you dweebs! To coincide with the new year spirit, I’ve decided to come up with new year’s resolutions for this website so that I can motivate myself to put up more content. Last year was a disappointment as I didn’t post enough to get this blog going. But with renewed confidence and vigor, I hurl myself into the abyss of uncertainty by coming up with this list. Perhaps at the end of the year, I can make another post to show if I succeed or not.
Video Games
Aside from posting more video game reviews and editorials here, I want to write about related topics like eSports and game design. I also want to focus into specific games and write about learning and mastering them, which I kind of do already with StarCraft II.
These games were chosen under the impression of what could be great experiences for me in the coming future. There are just too many games, and yet I want to talk about as many of them as possible. However, I do think that it’ll also be good to focus on a handful and talk about them in greater detail. If I can get readers to participate in discussion, then that would make me happy. (It would be easier as well if I can make videos about them instead.)
Hearthstone
I had received a beta key last year (also got a second one, gave it to a friend), but I wasn’t able to play it as much as I should. I do get the flow of the game and what each deck is capable of, so all I do need is to put more hours into it. My friends had since received beta keys as well and are playing the game with enthusiasm, so I should follow suit and see if I can top their efforts.
I enjoyed playing Magic: The Gathering (M:TG) and Legend of the Five Rings (L5R), and I’m also looking to get into the Android: Netrunner LCG this year. Card games are well within my grasp, so I should be able to write about this game quite a bit. For now though, I just have to try other decks other than my current Priest deck.
I’ll be studying this game more in the coming months, and there will be updates here.
Path of Exile
I had previously covered this game here, but most of what I’ve shown so far is that damnable skill tree. But what’s really impressive about Path of Exile is not just the skill forest, but the whole system that Grinding Gear Games had implemented. From the currency items, active and passive skills, character classes, hardcore leagues, and so on, Path of Exile is just in a whole new dimension when it comes to online RPG. Maybe I won’t mind grinding as much in such an innovative title.
I did play a Marauder in the open beta. Maybe that’s why I didn’t continue; I might have been playing a boring class. But when I did look at the top builds for the game, the Marauder did have some fantastic ones. Perhaps I could play again, especially since the game has been officially released and is still free-to-play with ethical microtransactions.
World of Warplanes
Watch out for this game as it could be the next big thing in PC gaming. I’ve signed up for the open beta, and I will await for its release in the SEA region. Wargaming.net is known for World of Tanks, which I also play from time to time.
World of Tanks has become a worldwide hit, although it’s slower in pace compared to a lot of other games. It’s a thinking man’s game with less intense mechanics that see older gamers in the competitive scene compared to StarCraft II, League of Legends, and DOTA 2. I’m all for that action, but it’s now high time that Wargaming.net came up with something more dynamic.
It’s not to say that driving an IS-6 heavy tank up the hill and blasting the crap out of the opposition is not exciting (because it is), but aerial dogfights do sound like good fun.
World of Tanks
I do like this game, and I approve of what Wargaming.net has been doing to bring these games to the forefront. World War II is one of my great interests, and this game lets me connect with that part of history. This is perhaps the closest we can get to seeing a visual depiction of the tank battles from that war, including the Battle of Kursk.
Alas, I do have to confess that I hadn’t been able to play this as much as I should. That’s too bad since when I first played this, there was actual improvement in my play. Even people who watched my livestream back then commented that I learned from my mistakes fairly quickly (not to mention that people actually watched my stream when I played this game).
My friends played this quite a bit before they got their Hearthstone beta keys. One of them would say that he fulfills his “seal-clubbing quota” in the game before going to sleep. Perhaps I should too from now on.
StarCraft II
I don’t have to make promises at all with this game since I play it all the time. Come on, just look at my Raptr account and see how many hours I’ve spent in the game.
However, I’m quite displeased with my slow progress in this game. I’m still pretty much a Gold-level player, and the recently-implemented MMR decay hasn’t done any favors. I have to reach at least Diamond before I move on to learn a different race, but that would take a while.
A lot of the players in the lower leagues right now are formerly of the higher leagues as a consequence of MMR decay, so the less-skilled like myself are struggling to climb up the ladder. But if I do start catching on, then perhaps I can surpass those players and finally reach Platinum. That has got to be my mission in SC2 for this year.
Anime
I’m planning to review anime as well here to diversify my repertoire, along with other things like films, documentaries, books, and so on. However, I have to start with something that I had previously been into. Perhaps my understanding of anime is the closest I can get in to my current level of understanding in video games (although still admittedly to a limited degree).
Some of the anime that I’m thinking of getting into are the following:
- KILL la KILL
- Shingeki no Kyojin (I haven’t finished it yet.)
- Kyoukai no Kanata
- Samurai Flamenco
- Nagi no Asukara
- Sword Art Online (Yes, I haven’t watched it.)
If you want to suggest more titles for me to get into, then feel free to drop a comment below.
Other Content
As previously mentioned, I want to write about movies, documentaries, books, TV shows, and so on. I want to talk about them from my own perspective and get creative with how I express both appreciation and displeasure. My biggest challenge to this has always been time, but I worked on that throughout 2013 so that I have less workload and more free time to screw around with this.
I want this website to be an expansive repository for all of my interests. Perhaps I can even write about martial arts and combat sports here once I can be confident enough with my skills in that department (because right now, I’m just a chump). I do understand that I have to take one step at a time, but I don’t mind going all-in on this.
