I have a difficult time deciding what to play in the evenings. First of all, there are fall and halloween festivals in MMOs. I am only playing Lord of the Rings Online at the moment with a bit of Guild Wars 2 on the side. But that is still two festivals! Guild Wars 2 is finally offering the Clock Tower jumping puzzle without the time-limit which is really great especially for players like me who can’t handle the fast jp’s. In my case, because of my chronically injured hand. I gave the jumping puzzle a short try but had to give up because of pain. But that’s my problem and not theirs. Other than that, I don’t know if there is anything new and if there is something I need to do. With Lord of the Rings Online, it is much easier to figure out thanks to the awesome guides by FibroJedi! Of course, he already updated the Fall Festival guide for 2023. I definitely want to do the Wistmead quests again. I really love that area and how eery it feels. Between this zone and the Haunted Burrow, I think LotRO has the best Fall Festival of all the MMOs I have played.
For our community project about Humble Choice, I wrote about Mr. Prepper and about Lords & Villeins. I bought the latter some time ago but then forgot about it. Thanks to writing about it now, I am hooked again and really want to continue playing!
Hexarchy finally had its official release! I bought a key for the game quite some time ago and have been playing it constantly since then. Steam shows 249 hours, although several hours were spent with the game open without actively playing it because you can’t save while playing the daily challenge. I don’t think they changed anything big before their official release, so there is nothing new there for me to explore. But it’s still nice to know that I am now playing the “real” game and not the beta version anymore.
Old World, Tropico 6 and Megaquarium released new DLCs. Old World’s new DLC, Pharaos of the Nile, consists mostly of new scenarios which I don’t actually play. But since it also contains a new civilization to play as, the Kingdom of Kush, I could not resist! Maybe I will also take a look at scenarios at some point, but I am usually happier to just play on regular open maps. Tropico 6 is… Tropico 6. I always forget about the game because even on lowest difficulty, at some point, I keep losing money on the map and lose the mission. But it’s Tropico and I love the series, so I keep coming back, especially when a new DLC has been released. One of these days, I will be good at the game again as I used to be with the previous ones!
Megaquarium is the “odd one out” here. On paper, it’s exactly the kind of game that I love. However, I actually have a weird phobia of whales and almost everything underwater. Sharks are okay, though. I bought Megaquarium with the hopes that it helps with my phobia. Jurassic World Evolution 2: Prehistoric Marine Species Pack is one example – looking at screenshots of this DLC was enough to trigger my phobia. There is no way I can play this. Megaquarium has cute graphics, so my hope was that it helps by slowly letting me get acustomed to these visuals. Unfortunately, the graphics are so cute that it’s too far from reality and doesn’t help at all. On the other hand, it means that I can happily play this game! And the newest DLC adds penguins. How could I resist?
I know that New World also released an expansion and part of me really wants to check out the game again, but with all the other games, new DLCs, etc. there just isn’t time.
Cities Skylines 2 is releasing on October 24. I have heard a lot of negative feedback about the game’s performance, though. So my initial anticipation has been severely dampened. My PC meets the recommended requirements, but still… Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria will release on the same day. This game seems to be an Epic-exclusive, though, which I am not too fond of. However, my biggest concern here is that I have not heard anything about the game other than when the Epic launcher shows me that game. The only information I found that is more in-depth was this YouTube video with “13 minutes of exclusive gameplay” from gamescom. I also heavily rely on reading a game’s reviews when I am uncertain whether the game is for me or not. But Epic doesn’t give us any reviews. I know there are other places online but it’s just a lot more convenient for people to review the game where they bought it instead of having to head to other websites to do so. So, we will see.
Altogether, this is such a first world problem, I know, especially with what is going on in the rest of the world at the moment. However, especially because of what is going on in the world, I very much prefer to hide in my little gaming worlds in order to keep my sanity and mental health.
Nerdy Bookahs 