Blaugust Day 8: Where Has the Fun Gone?

I am starting to think that there is something seriously wrong with me.

I dread the writing of almost every blog post.

It’s not exactly for the lack of any ideas or anything to say – I could go grab one of the many writing prompts around the place; there are vague plans in my mind that I could share screenshots of my characters and talk about their backstories; there is a GW2 beta weekend going on that has already produced two impressions posts from the bountiful Bhagpuss; I have finished nearly all of the Trove things on the to-do list and either attempted or am making good progress on the others; I bought Savage Lands on a whim since it went on Steam sale and have been trying it out, just haven’t firmed up what I think about it yet, since it’s in Early Access and thus hard to make a judgment on…

… but it all remains rather ill-formed in my head, and all I want to do is just vegetate and watch some DOTA 2. (We’re almost at the last day now, 3 teams left.)

I think… part of the problem is that I can’t seem to muster up any enthusiasm lately.

Without that enthusiasm, without that excitement of “oh this is so cool and I want to share it with the world!” all I’m doing is feeding this general nihilistic sense of malaise and draining energy from the world at large, instead of something positive – which makes me want to say nothing instead. You know, the ol’ “If you can’t say anything good, then…”

I dunno, I have been -doing- a great many things, being productive and all, and generally feeding my secondary Achiever side, ticking off checklists, finishing collections, forming habits of repeat-this-loop-to-grind-and-earn-stuff but it all seems to be being done for the lack of anything better to do.

The primary Explorer side of me has been cast adrift and lost at sea for so long, it doesn’t quite know what to do with itself anymore.

Ok, new beta weekend? Oh, wait,  it’s probably not that new since it’s likely the same content as the prior previews. And wait, if I explore too much now, am I not shooting myself further in the foot when it releases? Maybe I shouldn’t go crazy now.

Ok, I can explore the new Revenant legend and elite specializations and stuff.

So I go make a new Revenant, spend about 10 minutes painstakingly changing all the stats on the beta gear to Berserker in order to get a fair baseline for how it feels, and then take it for a spin in Cursed Shore. Dual swords is pretty cool, skill 3 is pretty nuts (though it does open yourself up to getting locked into a long animation, not so good in PvP perhaps but certainly awesomely Shiro-channeling OP on normal PvE mobs), the rest feel slightly slow and awkward, but that could be due to unfamiliarity.

I test the Shiro utility skills, and then think about trying them out in conjunction with one of the other three legends, glance at the traits panel, the weapon skills panel, and my mind just generally explodes and shuts down. The possibilities are pretty darned complicated, sorta like elementalist and engineer in the number of mix-and-match skills they could potentially have, and I just think, nah… maybe I’ll learn it when it goes live, or maybe I won’t bother to learn it at all.

Then I gamely make a necro and a guardian to test out their elite specialization… and I realize that I don’t have the focus to sit through another 10 minutes of switching all their gear to Berserker again. Meh, maybe tomorrow, I think, and just wear the default Celestial stats and thwap a few mobs with their skills. Mostly I just see their animations, read the skill bar and go, “hrm, okay” but it’s absolutely impossible to judge good or bad damage potential wearing Celestial, so that’s a wash for now.

Try Verdant Brink? … Nah. It’s just going to be more jungle on fire and at war with Mordrem again. More story frozen in time while we’re stuck waiting for the expansion to launch. More trying to speed-grind Masteries in too short a time. There’s not going to be any forward progress, nothing will be saved in beta, it just doesn’t feel ‘fun’ yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Then I log off and end up grinding even more in Trove.

Or I give that up and open Savage Lands, and realize that all survival crafting sandbox games are basically punch-tree, punch-rock, accumulate X numeric resources to craft the next thing simulators.

I’m trying, but it feels pretty forced.

I wish I could find the fun again.

This post was brought to you by the letters B for Belghast and Blaugust, T for Tired, and the number 8.