Goals For 2015

A lot of people make New Year's resolutions.  I try not to do that since I never keep them anyway.  Instead, I make goals.  Of course, I only manage to achieve one or two of them.  Most, like finishing Tropico 4, get tossed to the wayside.  I tend to make too many goals and can never get to all of them.  But I would like to dabble in a few things in 2015.

I usually list my EVE goals in August, since that's when I started playing, but I have two additional ones that don't happen within the game.  The first is also a blogging related goal.  I want to do a little more to cover the CSM.  Sure, the CSM is a topic that drives people away from the blog, so that just means I have to try to figure out a way to make the CSM more interesting to people.  Impossible, right?  Well, I can try.

The second is working with the EVE Static Data Dump.  I really need to expand my knowledge of SQL and playing around with the EVE universe data would make the task more enjoyable.  One thing that EVE teaches is to always try to do more than one thing at once.  I taught myself Visual Basic .NET when I made a fantasy baseball application.  Not only did I win a league and finish second a couple of times, but knowledge of VB .NET came in handy at work and is partially responsible for the job I have today.  Time to renew the tradition.

I also have another blog goal.  I ended my Digital Dozen column yesterday.  For almost three years I knew what I would write about on Tuesdays.  Now I have to fill the gap.  I'm thinking of continuing the tradition of non-EVE specific content.  I play other games than EVE.  I think maybe writing about the issues I encounter in other games like Star Wars: The Old Republic could prove interesting.  My hot button issues with that game right now are the cash shop and the credit cap.  I could also write about general issues, like if Congress gets "creative" (aka stupid) with legislation concerning online gaming.  If all else fails, I could write about the theory of why real money trading is bad in online games.  I started to do that in 2014.  I may finish the job in 2015.  People seem to like when I write about RMT.

I also have goals for other games.  For instance, I'd like to play a couple of the games I've purchased throughout the years on Steam sales.  I haven't played Kerbal Space Program in such a long time.  I need to reacquaint myself with that game.  I have to go through the list, but I really need to finish one of those games.

Speaking of finishing games, I want to get a character to max level in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  I managed the feat in vanilla WoW (level 60), EQ2 during The Shadow Odyssey (level 80), and Guild Wars 2 (level 80).  I really enjoy the Imperial Agent class and want to see how the story ends.  Currently, my Operative is level 25.  I'm not sure I really want to buy the expansions to get to level 60, but I definitely want to finish the original content to level 50.

Another game I'd like to make time for is The Secret World.  I keep updating the game, but never log in.  The game is interesting, although between the combat mechanics and the game not running correctly on my laptop, I gave the game up a couple of years ago.  But I have a better computer now, so maybe I return in 2015.

Another game I need to return to is Landmark.  I dabbled with the game in the middle of 2014 and need to return now that SOE added PvE combat a couple of weeks ago.  I'm not much of a builder, but Landmark is laying the foundation for EverQuest Next, and I'd really like to go back to Norrath.  I tried going back to EQ2, but so much changed.  I think Landmark can scratch my Norrath itch.

So those are my goals for 2015.  Too much?  Probably.  But if I can accomplish two or three, then I'll feel pretty good at this time next year.