It occurred to me when looking at my recent (well, not really recent) blog posts that I pretty much disappeared from the face of the earth for the 2nd half of 2016 and didn’t address it here.
We had some major issues come up IRL related to heath and housing and had to move several times during that time. It was super stressful and exhausting, and for many months we were too busy sorting through personal concerns while I kept up with my product management day job for me to play online games, let alone blog or YouTube about them in my free time. Those 6 months were by far the worst period in our lives.
Thankfully, things have been getting better. We moved into a new place in late December, and while there are a couple issues we’re still working through, we’re settling in and life is returning to a semblance of normalcy.
In terms of gaming, some folks have asked which MMORPGs I’m going to play. To be honest, I haven’t had the time to keep up with MMORPG space, aside from dropping by massivelyop.com every few weeks. I know Camelot Unchained and Crowfall are coming, and I’ve heard good things about both, but I haven’t yet checked out either meaningfully. To some extent I’m also burned out of early Betas as we have seen so many games flop after launch – just tell me when the game is launching or moving to “Open” Beta and I’ll play it, and if it’s a good game hopefully enough people will stick with it so that there’s critical mass.
In the meanwhile, I’m continuing to play World of Tanks, which for a variety of reasons (it’s fun, it has a high skill cap, and it has a large active population) has been one of the only games that has managed to sustain my interest over several years (the others being World of Warcraft and to a lesser extent Guild Wars 2). I can add Armored Warfare to the list of online games that I stubbornly continued to play even when it was clear that the population was struggling and not likely to recover meaningfully.
At any rate, I wanted to drop y’all a line and let you know where I’ve been. I hope RL is going well for you!
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Glad to hear you’re alive and (somewhat) well. Hope things continue to improve for you!
Really great to have you back, and I am excited we are both interested in similar titles atm. I always enjoy the time we spend gaming together and I am looking forward to it happening more frequently.
Loved your Trooper guide and pvp, not to mention the GW2 posts – glad to hear you’re alive and well. Maybe things to continue get better!!
Glad to see you’re still around and kicking butt! Best wishes for a much better 2017 for you and yours!
Considered getting back into Overwatch? I actually played a fair bit of the current competitive season (ends next week) and did pretty well (21-11). Wouldn’t mind having a partner for next season, if only to have one person on my team who won’t be a jerk.
I haven’t played OW for half a year. To be honest, if I had better aim, I’d enjoy it more :D
I know where you have been, but its glad to see your blogs again. Likewise, Wisegaminginsights has been on the lower priority list as well.
Hey Taugrimm, good to see you’re back and alive and kicking. I’d love to see you in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). I reckon the class and gear system is just craving a guy like you to find the really unique synergies in builds, skills and different armorial sets. Anyway, best of luck mate.
You know, my first impression of ESO wasn’t a good one. I hated the controls to the point where I only played for an hour.
To me, the feel of a game is everything.
It’s improved a lot and the controls are fully customise able. I just think the skill system in addition to the hundreds of different sets is right up your alley, similar to your rift builds where you found those synergies others overlooked.
It’s free to jump in and try if you already own it, best of luck.
Oh, next update has 4x4x4 battlegrounds.
yes come on please give it a try again. eso is great. make another melee healer like allods lol
One of those IRL crits huh?! Well glad your respawn timer is finally up.
I hope all is well Ed. You have always seemed kind and decent and I was bummed to hear about your hardships with illness in the family. Hopefully you can have happier days ahead!
Hey Taug!
Hope all is well! Was waiting for an update to see how you doing!
Life can be a real b*#@ at times but I a glad to hear you are doing better!
Geta
Welcome back
Hey Taugrim – Sorry to hear about your rough patch, and glad things are getting better for you. Enjoyed following you through swtor, gw2, and wildstar. Always helped me improve my pvp skills :)
Chad
Glad to see you’re doing okay Ed.
I’m still using your keybinding setup as the basis of my entire way of playing games, even in solo games! Granted with an MMO mouse I have, I added some extra convinience, but the basis of WER moving and buttons around them I still use. I just passed by your blog to, once again, link people to your guide and saw your sign of life post. I hope things will continue to get better for you in a speedy fashion! :)
Ps. I am currently playing FFXIV on a regular basis, but I’m fairly sure that while it’s an absolutely amazing and well-polished game, you probably would get annoyed by the relative slow GCD (and the bigger focus on PvE). Still, it would be great if you’d check it out, there’s a free unlimited trial up to lv 35 going on now.
Howdy buddy, you camr to mind this afternoon so I gave you a google search. Im glad to read things are going a bit smoother for you right now. I hope to see you around, certainly miss gaming with you, we had somr great games and even better discussions.