Anyone Home?

Is anyone home? Are the lights still on?
How long has it been?

Yes I'm making a new post for the first time in a long time. 
In a way, I have forgotten about this blog.
One would say that this blog entered an unofficial retirement. 
One would say my observation that the blog is a dying medium got the better of me.
One would say real life got in the way.
One would say that I have been busy with other projects.
One would say that this blog has run it's course. 
And one would think that all of the above would apply.

So where have I been? Well I have been busy with real life and engaging with the real world. There has been a lot of paid employment involved leaving less time to play games. I have moved house several times and I've been busy with my social life. So yeah: as is often the case, lot's of things to do and not much time to do it in.

Gaming wise? Well I've played a lot of Deep Rock Galactic. I've gotten a hold of a Switch. I've played Super Smash Bros Ultimate to death. I've gone through ESO and back.
Great experiences to be sure but, again, my free time is now at a premium. 

I won't say this blog is completely done. Certainly I still feel that I will speak when I have something to say. But this blog will no longer be having regular updates. 

So this blog is by no means abandoned, just in a state of inactivity. 

So, onto more adventures.....

810 Man

 Well it happened: On the weekend, I made it to Level 810 on Elder Scrolls Online. 

This means that, after so long, I have achieved the level cap and unlocked all the champion points for all my characters. 

So I've done it: I've achieved what I set out to do. I declared that I will commit some key gaming time to ESO for the sole purpose of getting to level 810 and I did it.

But now I face a new problem: Where do I go from here?

It has been observed that once you reached the level cap in ESO then that's it: The game is over and there's nothing left to see or do. And I do agree with that: In order to reach level 810, I went through countless dungeons and traversed through all available areas (all in correct chronological order) - only to come out the other side with a sense that there's no more places to visit. 

It also can't be ignored that ESO is, by far and away, the game I have sunk the most hours into. According to my Steam account it is the only game that boasts an investment of over a thousand hours. But that distinction has come because I have been playing ESO near exclusively - often at the expense of the other games in my collection.

Much like WoW before it. 

So perhaps it is fitting that with nowhere left to go, the time has come to move on. I guess there was a degree of finality and inevitability to ESO once I made it to level 810 but at least i can say that this time I ended this MMORPG on a positive note (as opposed to loss of interest (WoW) or bitterness (Star Trek Online)).

So to that end I should be grateful. 

On this day...

Ten years to the day:

Yep, it was a full decade ago that this blog was created. 

Considering that technology moves at the pace it does, it is something of a miracle that this blog has lasted as long as it has. More so considering that platforms that rely on the written word are shunted aside for more visual based mediums (ie YouTube and Twitch).

It's even more astonishing that I have kept with this thing for as long as I have. Even though I have been running out of things to say with each passing year, I still manage to pump out some posts (no matter how much of them are just me rambling). 

It's fascinating to see how the world has changed since I started. Back in 2010, we were all waiting for Dragon Age 2 and were eager for Mass Effect 3 (funny how that all turned out). The seventh console generation was still going strong. There was increasing concern as to whether or not we would see Kingdom Hearts 3 and a remake of Final Fantasy 7. 

Personally the last decade has seen me try my hand at Xbox, discover MMORPGs and find out they are exactly the mountain of crack they were made out to be, sign up for accounts to both Steam and GoG, and finally take a red-hot go at making my own Raspberry Pi console. 

In short, I have challenged the frontiers of my gaming interests and pushed them back. It's been interesting to tread into territory that I previously would've shied away from. 

So where do we go from here? 

Well, the Hall of Shame continues to exist and as long as it continues to do so, this blog will still have purpose. Besides, after spending so long at ESO, I have a goal in mind, and subsequently, an endpoint. And as long as I continue to have something to say, I will keep at this blog. 

Sure there are other platforms I could use but as long as the frontiers waiting to be conquered, this blog shall endure. 

It's done so for a decade after all. 

So to conclude this post, i would like to thank everyone who has ever visited Game Tumour and who kept coming back. It is a pleasure that people have supported this blog in various forms and listen to my various ramblings, no matter how dumb or badly spelled they may be.  

From the depths of my heart: Thank you all

P.S.

I still can't believe that this post has been the most popular one I've produced. 

That was the year it was: 2019

And we come to the end of another year. This post will mark the final post for Game Tumour in 2019.

This year has been a quiet one. For me, a lot of my time has been committed to both Elder Scrolls Online and my newly-acquired Retropie. But having said that, there’s more to that than meets the eye: I’ve invested a lot of time in ESO and, much like fellow MMORPGers World of Warcraft and Star Trek Online, the time has come to move on.  Similarity, I think I have spent more time addressing issues running the Retropie than actually playing it.

But getting to ESO for a moment: It has dominated my playtime recently – indeed it is telling that I cast only one game from my ever-present Hall of Shame this year. However, the end of my time spent with ESO is within sight: I have (more or less) set out what I wanted to do and I feel there is nothing left for me to see therein (or at least without traversing over previously trodden ground). I knew I quite WoW when I realised I didn’t want to do it anymore and the same could now be said for ESO – the only difference was WoW’s ending was abrupt whilst ESO’s ending has been a long and slow detox.

Read into that what you will

I also think it’s fair to say that this blog has suffered as a result what with posts that were either about ESO or somewhat inconsequential. True, this blog has been going for nearly a decade which is an abnormally long time in Internet terms. And yes blogs seem very much redundant compared to Vlogs and Twitch. But I have no intention to give up on this blog – not whilst I have many more games to check out anyway.
So a new decade is a good excuse as any to walk away from ESO and towards a fresh start.

That being said, this concludes Game Tumour for both 2019 and the 2010s. Thank you for following me for all this time and I hope to speak to you all again sometime in 2020.

Return of the Headless Horseman

Return of the Headless Horseman:

Can't Stop the Music

I have been playing ESO for a very long time., A verrrrrrrrrry long time.

So much so, that I've heard the music so many items over that it's at a point where the music starts to grate.

So I've given myself a small challenge by finding the most ill-fitting music I can to match up next to my ESO sessions.

So far this proving to be the strongest candidate:

Original video located here. Accessed 3rd July 2019

Or else!

The intro for Elsweyr:

Original video located here. Accessed 22nd May 2019

Anyone else getting a Game of Thrones vibe out of this?
It must be the cello.

The journey of a thousand miles...

Nearly there...

Interestingly enough, this is may not be the most time I have spent on a game (I swear i have spent longer on other games) but it is the only evidence that i have spent (nearly) a thousand hours on a game. Amazingly still, this may not be an accurate representation of the time I have spent on ESO: It only tallies the number of time spent running it off of Steam - thus when considering the time spent playing ESO before attaching it to my Steam account, the number of hours would be much larger.

A scary thought indeed....

Come Inside

Ever played a game where, through obtaining a certain camera angle, you can see the inside/structure of your PC/Avatar?

It's quite a terrifying sight, isn't it?

Soul'd off

This is a worry....
 

A Walk Through Cyrodril

Recently I had a crack at the PvP portion of ESO. This wasn't something I had planned on when i started playing ESO but I thought i would at least give it a show. Plus the skillset offered on PvP looked quite tempting.
It should be noted that I never tried PvP when I played WoW so I had no idea what to expect (beyond the possibility of being ganged up on by people who knew what they were doing were of a higher level). Still fortune favours the brave....

So what i could gather, Cyrodril is a location wherein the three major factions are in a never-ending cycle of war to claim dominance. This is new to me as someone who has been doing PvE. However there are some quests that can be achieved by a single player so at least there is some degree of familiarity. But ultimately, my experience with Cyrodril is going around the area to be where I need to be. The absence of wayshrines is noticeably absent and reduces traveling as roaming around the area. An area that turns out to be very vacant.  Okay there is the occasional raid but I found that when you die, you are cast back to your starting area and have to start the long and arduous journey back to where you were. if anything i found I spent more time journeying than i did in combat.

Matters aren't helped with the combat being stupidly tough. Granted I may be approaching this as a lower-level character punching above his weight, but there is no fun value whatsoever by being decimated by a higher level character before you have a chance to start.
And then there's the Imperial city: loaded with baddies that I can barely scratch let, alone defeat. As such i found myself going through soul gems at a crazy rate.

Granted this through the perspective of a lower-level character but I think I'll stick to the PvE in future...

That was the year it was: 2017

And so, the curtain comes down on another year.
So....2017....How about that eh?

2017 was, for me, mostly me rediscovering Elder Scrolls Online. A game that i originally approached with reluctance is a game that I have played near exclusively in 2017. The funny thing is that the thing that turned me around was a skill re-spec for my first/main character. Since then I've made a few more characters. All of which, I have approached with a particular plan in mind. Funny thing that: I approach with a plan, and subsequently a better grasp of what I'm doing and suddenly the game becomes a lot more enjoyable. Still, it's no different from me of nearly two decades ago building a plan to work in Civ 2 and Heroes 2.

Other highlights was seeing the Conquest series appear on GoG; beating Nights into Dreams, Conquests of the Longbow and KOTOR 2 - all of which have been a long time coming; Going to PAX and Trying out Alien Swarm.

But you know what? If we go be feel alone, 2017 seems like something of a slump. Nothing came out this year that really grabbed my attention. Maybe it's me living in a backwards flowing bubble, maybe it's me having played games for so many years that it becomes harder for something to stand out of the pack, but somehow one gets the impression that gaming has reached it's zenith: There are no more frontiers to conquer, no one beyond the Steam indie crowd is prepared to make any risks and everything seems to be recycled. Funny thing how a industry that has moved at a lightning fast pace has now hit a point that resembles stagnation.
I've heard whispers that we may be due in for a second Gaming Crash but maybe we could do with one, just to shake things up a bit....

Still we can only hope that 2018 is better....

Anywho, thank you for reading this blog and i hope to speak to you again next year.

Got lost on the way to Teotihuacan

You gotta admire the architecture in ESO. Here's something that truly stood out for me:

Like a BAWS

The Boss battle to end all boss battles:

White Knight

You look familiar....

Petrified

I swear screenshots like this will never get old:

Go fish

Out of all the hours I have invested in ESO, this line of dialogue has to rank as the funniest I have ever seen:

Legging it

Where did the other half of this guy go?

Admiring the view

Admiring the view....

Headin' up the Gold Coast

Speaking as an Australian, I find this screen-cap absolutely hilarious: