December and January have been very busy times for me for the last four years. As well as IT, I am also responsible for reporting at the company I’ve been working for that long and the annual report is due in February so I spend far too much time in the preceeding months badgering colleagues for narrative and statistics updates to get that document together. There’s also that small thing called the ‘Holidays’ (a k a Christmas & New Year). This year I’ve also been actively searching for Masters courses to apply to and in the process of interviewing and then starting a new job as well.
There are plenty of MMOs being talked about on my Feedly that I would like to play actively, but at present I’m too busy or tired to play online gaming. I do make time for a little Fallen Order on PS4, Gloomhaven (coop) and spaced out sessions of three different virtual ttrpg campaigns: so I wouldn’t say I’m that gaming starved at present. Nevertheless, as I read over on Contains Moderate Peril about the latest patch beta for Lord of the Rings Online I rather fancy dipping back into Middle Earth again. I’ve played that game a *lot* over the years. It is the third most frequently featured game on this blog. I have never had a utility installed that could track all my MMO game time but I imagine LotRO would be close to the third most played overall.
Likewise, I recently have had a bit of a Star Wars binge on TV. We’re watching the Book of Boba Fett plus some Clone Wars (always late to the party…), we rewatched Episode IX over the Holidays and are actively playing Fallen Order. So the thought has been there for some time that I really should find time to play Star Wars the Old Republic again. I have a few class stories I’ve still not completed (namely most of Smuggler, plus the large part of Sith Warrior and Sith Sorceror) from the games launch content. Also, I’ve never played the last expansion and there’s a new one coming next month! SWTOR is the second most blogged about MMO on this blog, and that also correlates well with just how much I have played that game both solo and with friends.
Finally, in the background is the half-desire to jump back into World of Warcraft. There’s content from the last patch that I missed as I had already unsubbed when that came out. Blizzard controversies aside, it’s the only MMO that unites all of my gaming friends and family in one place. Not that there’s any big pressure to go back but I’m sure I will at some point. My Mum has continued to play throughout, having WoW as a hobby during the periods of isolation due to the pandemic was no doubt a help – I occasionally feel that pang of guilt for not being able to run dungeons with her, though paying a subscription to play only once every week or two isn’t easy to justify when I have so little free time for MMOs. It’ll be no surprise that WoW is the most blogged about MMO on this site, a good 40% ahead of the posts of any other game. A new expansion is much more likely to drag me back to Azeroth, however. Especially if it ends up being more upbeat or exploration focused (Dragon Isles?)…
GamingSF 
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