Six Years of Aggronaut

AggroChat #53 – Get Hyped

This week we are without Tamrielo and Rae for various reasons, but joining us once again are the ever amazing Grace and Thalen.  For awhile I thought we would be missing Kodra, but he shows amazing determination and podcasted anyways.  This is the week that he moved across country from Atlanta area to Seattle, and thanks to the magic of living in the same apartment complex as Tam, was able to “borrow a cup of internet” and a chair and pretty much everything else needed to make the podcast function.  This weeks episode is called “Get Hyped” because we spend a lot of time getting hyped about various things we are excited about.

During the course of the episode we talk about so many board games in the wake of International Tabletop Day.  This discussion managed to make a very sleeply Kodra awake enough to continue podcasting.  We also talk about how amazing the new Netflix Original Daredevil series is.  We talk about the Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer that was released, and cannot get through a single podcast without talking about the new tidbits of information floating about regarding the Heavensward expansion that is looming ever closer.  I talk about the new Wildstar promotion asking players to buy up “dead stock” and get rewarded heavily for it.  Some see it as an act of desperation but personally I see it as an act of sheer genius.  I also go on at length about how great the new Wardrobe system is in Rift.  It was a super fun podcast to record, and as such we ran fairly late.

Six Years of Aggronaut

SixYearsOfAggronaut

This week a fairly important anniversary slipped by without me realizing it.  The funny thing is that I even went so far as to make a Google reminder on my phone…  but then Friday ended up being an exceptionally busy day and I just plain “forgot”.  Friday April 17th was the sixth anniversary of my blog.  On April 17th of 2009 I made my first post on this blog, and it was a rather simple “Hello World”, but still it was the beginning of something that would ultimately be my obsession for a large chunk of these six years.  Now a much more important anniversary is coming up at the end of the month, when I mark two years of daily posting.  Tales of the Aggronaut was not by any means my first blog, but it was the one that I stuck with.  It began its life as a World of Warcraft blog, and ultimately turned into a Rift blog… and then when I realized I could not sustain it as a single game blog became what you know and hopefully love today.  Throughout all of it however it has more than anything been a blog about me, and surprisingly does an excellent job of tracking what I happen to be thinking and feeling at a given time through my reaction to things happening in the games I love.

According to Google Analytics I have had almost 100,000 readers during the time I have been writing this blog.  This is the more important stat for me, because it means I have reached almost 100,000 people in one way or another.  Granted these statistics don’t reflect the folks who choose to read my blog over RSS, but more than anything I wanted to come clean about my numbers for various reasons.  We are heading towards the Newbie Blogger Initiative and I always get the impression that people seem to think I have this wildly popular blog.  I have had some insane bumps like the one from WoW Insider that skews all of my statistics.  On that day I had over 6000 readers in a single day, but that was during a different time in MMO gaming.  On a good day once you combine both RSS and traditional analytics I maybe have 500 readers.  So while I will never be the media celebrity that some of my friends seem to think I am…  I am thankful for each and every person who feels connected enough to me to read me on a regular basis.  Sure I write this blog as a form of self therapy at times… but in truth it is my amazing readers that keep me going on mornings that I simply do not feel like writing anything.  Thank you all for your attention, and I hope I can still live up to whatever expectations you might have of me for the next six years.

Piddling in Wildstar

WildStar64 2015-04-18 17-48-26-74 I admit I have allowed myself to get pulled in by the latest Wildstar promotion.  It all started as a way of doing some research for a story I was writing for MMOGames.  However in the rush to find copies of Wildstar to see how many were actually out there in the wild…  I ended up picking a few up myself.  Now above you can see me proudly sporting the Marauder outfit and riding my Glitterkitty hoverboard.  While I loved playing Chua I never really felt all that at home with the Dominion.  I remember watching the original trailer to Wildstar and felt an immediate kinship to the Exiles.  However most of my friends at launch wanted to play Dominion so I went along with it.  That said by the time I left after my initial months I was too annoyed with the game to make a faction swap feasible.  There was just something I didn’t really like about Wildstar and I never really could put my finger on it.

Coming back I am actually enjoying myself quite a bit, but I have not hit the Whitevale wall yet that I did previously.  Also I feel like as much as I enjoyed having two robot buddies following me around at all times… the Engineer was really just not my type of character.  This time around I am focusing on a tanky warrior, and having a significant bit more fun doing it.  I can’t say I will play for a super long time but I have hooked up with Chestnut and Chaide and am hanging my hat with the Black Dagger Society.  There is rarely a time when I am just playing one game, so I feel like this might be enjoyable to revisit every now and then.  For me I generally have a base of operations in one game… and that game is Final Fantasy XIV and then I venture out into other titles as well.  Since World of Warcraft is no longer holding my attention I have been spending more time in Wildstar and Rift for those “off nights”.

10 thoughts on “Six Years of Aggronaut”

  1. First things first:
    Happy anniversary, Belghast!

    Anyway, something that might interest you about Teen Titans cartoon – there was actually a series of comics called Teen Titans Go! (no relation to the new cartoon) that actually take place AFTER the cartoon ended and stayed in the spirit of the show. If you ever wanted to see where the show might have gone after Brotherhood and the Terra episode, those comics answer that.

    Also, I felt that Avengers Assemble was a really good Marvel cartoon – it had the potential to be the Marvel Justice League/Justice League Unlimited cartoon. It’s unforunate that Disney pulled the plug in the second season creating a weak series end episode.

    As for Final Fantasy, did you know that when you finished all five Beast Tribe story quests, there’s a quest after that encompasses all of them? From what I’ve heard of some of the quests you like, I think you’ll like the quest chain or at least the ending.

    Also, have you ever heard of the quest chain “The Greatest Story Never Told”? It’s a good ol’ fashioned mystery quest. You activate it, get some riddles to figure out (different for each person) and have to find the right NPC to talk to (no quest marker). If you’re interested in it, you should go check it out!

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