EPT
First up, it’s resolution retrospective time. Let’s DO this.
2014’s Resolutions
Play The “End-Game” of Final Fantasy XIV - Failed…
If there’s one thing I learned this year it’s that I can’t play MMOs anymore, although it’s debatable whether or not I was ever good at this genre. Regrettably, I never had much drive to play Final Fantasy XIV in 2014. Sure, I gained a few levels here and there, which was fun, but I never managed to stay dedicated because I never found a foothold in the gameplay, community, or the threadbare story (which, admittedly, was not nearly as bad as most MMO plots). My style of gaming just doesn’t work for playing MMOs. I tend to play lots of games for a little bit or do enough to beat their stories, except for the rare occasions where I marathon a game or commit myself to truly completing it (like with Dark Souls or Bravely Default respectively this year). The idea of not playing any more MMOs is sad, but it will be a time-saving (and expense-saving) piece of information to remember the next time one entices me. It’s also not impossible for my situation to change and allow me to start playing a game like Final Fantasy XIV again, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. It definitely won’t happen in 2015. Instead, I’ll enjoy the Diablos and Binding of Issacs that keep my attention better.
Create a Great Pokemon Campaign for with my Friends – Success!
First off, this particular resolution required a bit of alteration. No GM in any tabletop game should seek to create a campaign “for” his/her players. What I really wanted to do (which, luckily, is what happened) was to design an awesome tabletop campaign with my friends. Regardless, the campaign went swimmingly and my resolution was completed. It took MORE THAN A YEAR and many stressful weeks of devising encounters and writing at the last minute, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. It helped me learn a lot about what I did well as a GM and in which places I could significantly improve. More than anything, it further whetted my desire to tell compelling stories and empower entertained players in tabletop campaigns, a desire which provided one of my resolutions for this year.
Restart my Japanese Journal – Failed…
I miss Japanese. I miss it a lot. Despite this, I made no serious attempts to restart my Japanese journal this year. I hope that I make the time to revisit this soon, especially since I’ll need to work very hard now to even approach the (incredibly minor) level of fluency that I (tenuously) maintained when I lived in Kyoto. I’ve also abandoned the idea of writing a paperless journal, since I still haven’t found an iPad stylus that actually works as well as I want it to. I guess there are some things that are still much better in a non-digital format. Sorry trees.
Write Every Day (Even If It’s Just a Little) – Kinda?
If I follow this resolution to the letter, I failed. I certainly did not write a little every day. However, I did write in a high percentage of days last year. There were also days when I didn’t write but performed another kind of creative endeavor, such as running an FLC session (which, due to the time and the mental effort required, definitely counts as productive time in my book). I certainly upped my creative game from last year, but I think I need to change up my restrictive “every day or else” mentality for my creativity goals. After all, there are certain days when I can and want to write a lot, but there are others when I can’t or don’t. I’m planning to update this resolution for 2015 so that it helps me become more productive, but doesn’t cause me daily stress or punish me for missing a day when I simply don’t have time.
Get to Gold in League of Legends – Success!
I FINALLY FUCKING DID IT. IN YOUR FACE SOLO QUEUE. I AM YOUR NEW GOD.* Now for Platinum!**
* By which I mean crap player that’s slightly above the trash and shit tiers.
** Nope. Never gonna happen.
Bonus Resolutions! – Although these resolutions weren’t on my 2014 list, they were on the 2013 list. Thankfully, I managed to finally complete these resolutions this year.
- Make the N3rd Dimension Ever Better – Admittedly, I’m still awful at consistent deadlines and image usage, but I finally completed the site redesign this year, making it far more interesting, recognizable, and legible (at least, in my opinion). I can’t wait to keep improving the site as the blog gets older! After all, I’ve been writing it for over two years now!
- Play More Games – I wasn’t tracking my games in 2012, so my 2013 goal of “playing more games” was impossible to track. However, now that I’ve tracked the games I’ve played and beaten for the last two years, I can finally make an accurate year-to-year comparison. With 15 games completed, I’ve surpassed my 2013 score by 5, allowing me to officially complete this goal.
All told, that’s around 2.5+/5. Not terrible, but not especially great either. My perspectives and goals changed a lot over the past year, but that doesn’t account for some of the failures (like the Japanese or the writing overall). That being said, I won’t dwell on the past. I’m going to learn everything I can from my 2014 resolutions to make even better nerdy resolutions as we go into 2015.
2015’s Resolutions
Read More
I played a ton video games last year. I also spent hours and hours listening to podcasts and participating in tabletop games. I spent even more time perusing D&D manuals and flipping through comic books. What I failed to do was spend time actually reading. This really bugs me. I love games and all, but I spent so much time reading as a kid that it saddens me how little I read right now. That’s why I wanted to fix this lapse in media consumption in 2015. I have a ton of books to get through on my Kindle, not to mention a bunch that were published in 2014 that I want to check out, including Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Clariel, and The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Furthermore, I’ve been saving online articles in my Evernote for years now and it’s time that I got around to reading those as well. Between those two ample sources, I’ve a lot of reading material, so it’s time for me to actually read.
Battle my Video Game Backlog
My game tracking in 2014 became far more involved than in years past. Foremost among the improvements to my tracking process is use of the Backloggery site to track my game library and its state of completion (you can see my Backloggery here). For those disinclined to follow that link, I’ll give you a quick summary: two-thirds of the video games I own are game I’ve never beaten. A substantive portion of said games have never even been played. This discrepancy, which is mostly due to Steam sales and my total lack of self-control, is something I want to address this year. I won’t even come close to completing my backlog in its entirety, but I do want to ensure that my percentage of uncompleted games is lower at the end of 2015 than it is now. Part of achieving this goal will consist of intelligent budgeting, which is I’m doing far more in 2015, but the other part is actually beating the games I get. I’m psyched.
15% Productivity/Month
In the last few months of 2014, I began to track my time in earnest. I keep a log of everything I do during a given day so that I can track how I’m spending my moments, both at work and at home. However, I haven’t used these statistics in any meaningful way just yet, so that’s what I want to do throughout 2015. In October, my Productivity percentage (representing the time I spend preparing tabletop sessions or writing blog posts or exercising on the weekends and other such activities) reached an all-time “high” of 12%. In 2015, I want to reach at least 15% Productivity every month. To me, this is far more reasonable goal than writing every day because it holds me to a high standard of creative output without restricting me to a stringent day-to-day schedule (though I should find at least one regular time a week when I always write). This will probably be more difficult than I realize right now and I know my instinct will be to try to cheat, but hopefully by documenting this possibility I’ll be able to stay focused and honest.
Weekly D&D Show
I cannot overstate how much I loved GMing the tabletop campaign that my friends and I played this year. However, the FLC universe is a unique beast that’s fairly personal for my friends and I. To embark upon new tabletop adventures, I want to venture outside our wonderful Pokemon universe and find another system to play. Luckily, 2014 included the release of the D&D 5th Edition core rulebooks, which are absolutely amazing. Seriously, they are well worth a purchase if you have the funds. Furthermore, a group of players basically fell into my lap: a number of friends from the TeamLiquid forums that I spend so much of my internet time browsing. Since all these stars aligned, we began to plan for an online tabletop campaign with me as the GM and set in my world, Iris (there are a ton of Iris posts on the blog if you are interested in my worldbuilding). As I knew this game would require the use of Roll20 (the amazing online tabletop app), I decided that I’d stream the game and turn it into a show like RollPlay (which I also began to watch in 2014). My goal for 2015 is to start this streamed D&D campaign by the end of January and run it every week this year (barring emergencies and popular holidays). Here’s to a 2015 filled with adventure!
Trite as it might sound, I always find a new year exciting. There’s something encouraging about counting from 1 once again (even though I’d prefer a 0-index). Even though there no real logic behind it, the new year helps me switch contexts and reimagine what it is possible to accomplish. It’s why I indulge in this resolution ritual: this time of year, more than any other, makes me believe that achieving something previously impossible is, in fact, possible.
What impossible things will you achieve this year?
You can read this "highly ambitious" blog post and some other semi-decent crap on the N3rd Dimension.
