Taking it Slow

At this point, I am trying to stop and smell the roses whenever I have the chance.
~Belghast, Tales of the Aggronaut

Though the Aggronaut was referring to Warlords of Draenor, this has kind of become my mantra regarding Rift. Already a smell-the-flowers kind of MMO gamer, I am now moving through the content at what some might consider a glacial pace. For some reason, Scooter and I spend more time each evening doing crafting and Autumn Harvest dailies than "novel" questing. I've even put the breaks on the patron leveling boost, even though I suppose it's not really necessary. Thanks to the mentor system, I can enjoy the zone stories at roughly the level they were designed to be experienced. On the other hand, unlike GW2, if I want to gallop through a lowbie zone without being unhorsed by every mob in sight, I am free to do so. (Yes, I know GW2 has no mounts.)

We re-upped in Rift specifically to mess around. I've been fishing, crafting (two things I rarely really enjoy), wandering around looking for achievements and shinies, trying to organize my dimension houses (I'm up to three slots, now). Scooter even spent Harvest Tokens on a Deepwood Cottage on Sunday. We may run a dungeon or two, Soon™.

So, all in all, we are enjoying our return. This was the first game Scooter and I played together that I had not already played. Rift is where we really bonded as a couple. It's the game that cemented our duo-dynamic. We had a fun run to 50 the first time around; here's for making it to 65 this time, even if by an even more roundabout path.

~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

The Six-Fingered Elf

Doing her best Count Rugen impersonation, Enura (Scooterz) decides to test out The Machine on the Dread Pirate Achillea, as her evil corgi, Taffy, looks on.

It's a wooden bench, a dwarven saw, and a magitech thingamajig. The control lever just to Enura's right is literally called "Not to Fifty!" So of course she had to have one! Now Enura wants a desk with paper and quill, so she can write "the definitive work . . . for posterity."

RUN!

Reaching Goals and Finding Serenity

My lovely bride, Scooterz, has caught the Rift Dimension Decorating Bug, and we were up till, like, 11:30 Tuesday night, poring over the various options in the dimension item store. Her version of Faen's Retreat is finely appointed, and she even created a floating serenity garden. There's still more do, she says; and therefore, more pics will forthcoming.

Meanwhile, I hosted a host of visitors last night at my private island, Fair Haven. Scooterz decided a certain shady spot with views of the two capitals was the perfect place for a serenity spot of my own, so I placed a bench to sit and a book to read. The Lady Jessmyn joined us on her Nebula steed for a quick portrait. What a lovely trio of High Elves.

So I mentioned a couple days ago that July was my best month yet for visits that didn't result from a single whale of a post. Hopefully, that trend continues (I wanna be Internet Famous), but it is somewhat out of my control. All I can do is continue to put out stuff people want to read, by which I mean stuff I would want to read. However, I did also reach a goal that was totally mine to own. Back in April of 2010—my fourth month of blogging about games—I managed to write more posts than there were days in the month. About a week into this month just past, I realized I was could potentially repeat that feat. Now, unlike Belghast, Syp, and some others, I don't generally make a goal of posting every day. And I didn't this month, but I did post several different topics on a few days. So it averaged out, and I published 32 posts during the 31 days of July. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you read all of them. But if you didn't, skim back through. You may find something else you like. :)