State of the Rez: Evaluation and Objectives

As of Tuesday I’ve written twenty posts on “Waiting for Rez” and by this time next week I’ll have been blogging for two months. This is a milestone for me because when I started this blog I wasn’t sure if it would stick. I have a tendency to initiate projects and never finish them but for two months now I have averaged two posts a week and that’s a pretty solid start. So this week I thought would be a good time to look at what I’ve been writing and to adjust some of my initial goals accordingly. I’m also going to discuss my current gaming plans because they have changed a little since last week.

With my introductory post for “Waiting For Rez” I set a goal to write one post a week, but have in fact averaged two to three. Topically, I set out to write on MMOs and on Christian themes like personal reflections on scripture or spiritual poems. While I have stayed within this framework my religious posts have been far more personal than I had originally intended but I plan on continuing that trend because it has been beneficial for me and I think others as well. My gaming posts have been rather diverse (which they will continue to be) and for continuity I’ve enjoyed a regular “State of the Rez” where I write a weekly wrap up of what I’ve been doing in the games I’m currently playing.

As for the poetry, I had intended it to be a regular feature but that has not been the case. This may change at a later time, but right now I want to focus on guides, first impressions, opinion pieces, and personal reflections. The main problem is free time. I only have so much of it I can devote to writing in a week (and still have time to play MMOs) and during these first two months it has taken me three or more hours to write a 1500 word post and eight lines of poetry were taking just as long if not longer. I enjoy it, but I’m going to set it aside as a goal for now and focus on writing regular posts better, faster, and more concise, then revisit the addition of poetry at a later time.

Having written for a while now I have a better idea of what my goals are in the months to come. I have decided I will aim for three posts a week instead of one, and for the sake of consistency I will be posting on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Bio Break was the first blog I read consistently and I’ve always appreciated Syp’s reliability in posting Monday through Friday. I can’t write every day like that but I can maintain a specific schedule. As a general rule Sundays will be a personal spiritual reflection, Tuesdays will be an MMO topic, and Thursdays will be a “State of the Rez” post like this one. I’ll try this set up for the next two months and reevaluate at that time what’s working and what isn’t.

As far as gameplay goes I have some new goals as well. Last week I wrote a roundup of all my main characters across several games and my intended in game objectives. I was hoping to continue playing three to four MMOs at a time and focus on raising at least one character in each one to level cap. After a few weeks of playing three, then four, then five games over the course of a week I’ve decided that approach doesn’t work for me. Two seems to be the sweet spot, and that’s where I’m going to try and settle. With a single game I tend to obsess and burn out but playing two at once has helped keep me focused yet balanced. That’s a good place to be. The plan is to have one core game that I will play during the week and one causal game I will play on the weekends still with the intention of reaching level cap in several games.

Since I did end up picking up the Shadow of Revan deal that Bioware was offering for Star Wars: The Old Republic and I am still subscribed to Final Fantasy XIV for another three weeks those are the two games I will be playing. Because the leveling in SWTOR is so much slower when you aren’t a subscriber I’m going to focus on it to try and level as much as I can before the 60 day subscription included in the purchase is up. On the weekends I will play FFXIV until my game time ends and then I need to evaluate whether I want to continue for another month or take a break and play The Elder Scrolls Online instead. At the very least I want to reach level 50 on my Ninja and hopefully get to level 15 on the Conjurer class so I can try healing in a dungeon before my time is up. If in three weeks I’m still really engaged with FFXIV I’ll continue for another month. As with my writing schedule, I’ll give this plan a try for a couple of months and see if it works for me.

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone who has been reading this blog, encouraging me to continue, and generally welcoming me to the blogosphere. This has been a great community to be a part of and I look forward to interacting with you all more in the months ahead.