Doctor Who Archives - Tales of the Aggronaut

Tremors in the Force

October 13, 2014 by Belghast

Glorious Weekend

The entire weekend was pretty crummy outside here in Oklahoma, so as a result we spent most of it inside. I curled up on the couch with a brand new fuzzy blanket and spent it gaming on the laptop while watching stuff on television. It had quite literally been a few months since I had last watched television really. Granted there was a bit of television each night and each morning while going to sleep and waking up respectively, but I had not actually sat down to watch anything of any importance in a very long time. As such I had a bunch of shows stacked up that I wanted to catch up on. The most important of these was this seasons Doctor Who. I had watched the premiere several weeks back, but had not seen any of the episodes since.

I feel like the jury is still out on how I feel about the new Scottish Doctor. I guess I am just used to the normal fun loving slightly insane Doctor, and this interpretation just feels strange. The dynamic between Clara and the Doctor also feels a bit strained. Granted the companion that survives a regeneration I guess is always a bit odd, but this one seems more so. It seems in part that the Doctor still has a crush on her, and as he is watching her get on with her life… it feels a little awkward. As far as the stories have gone, I think I like the “Time Heist” episode the best. Trying not to go into much detail for fear of spoilers… because I am sure there are others out there that have not caught up yet. In fact public television here in the United States tends to be one full season behind.

Tremors in the Force

Other than Doctor Who I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of the new Star Wars animated series “Rebels”. What amazes me is just how well both of the animated series have managed to get the feeling of the universe, whereas the prequels failed so miserably. Star Wars Rebels is pretty much the perfect Star Wars show. You have a scrappy group of fighters, and interesting relationship between reluctant Jedi Master and a force sensitive padawan… all after the fall of the Republic in a super scary time where being a Jedi means being hunted. There are just enough call backs to the original series to let you know when exactly this adventure is set. In the first episode Ezra the main character happens to open a Jedi Holocron with the message Obi Wan Kenobi left for all Jedi during the events of Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith. Then in Episode 2, you encounter C-3PO and R2-D2 who are on their way to the Tantive IV. With those two little vignettes it tells you that the events are sometime in the gulf of time between episodes 3 and 4, which is a super fertile place to base a new series.

The characters are likeable from the start. They are just “scoundrel” enough to come across as being selfish… but quickly transition into a cell of rebel fighters trying to survive however they can. The entire series has a very “Firefly” vibe too it, and honestly I am just wishing there was more of the show to watch already. So far you have Hera Syndulla the Twilek Pilot/Engineer, Sabine Wren the Mandalorian Weapons Expert, Garazeb Orrelios the Lasat Muscle, Ezra Bridger the Street Kid Force Savant and finally Kanan Jarrus the leader of this group and a former Jedi Padawan at the moment Order 66 happened. The mix of personalities and skill sets makes for a really good viewing experience. Since Star Wars meant so much to me growing up, I am always happy to watch the fires get reignited for new generations. I just wish that it was still on Cartoon Network rather than Disney XD, since I seem to be far better in keeping up with Cartoon Network than any other channel. If you have not watched any of the show and are an old school Star Wars fan I highly suggest you check it out.

Eating some Crow

I finally decided to start giving ArcheAge a chance this weekend, in part because I have realized that so many people I know happen to be playing all in the same place, and same guild to be more specific. Other than ventures into Final Fantasy XIV this was the ideal game to sit on the sofa wrapped in my blanket cocoon and watch television while playing. The game itself is still intriguing and intricate, but the thing that turned me off of the game in beta was just how horrible the community had been. So far the launch servers seem to be far better than they were before. I was able to complete the early quests without much attempt at griefing. The place where I had so much frustration during alpha was when you are asked to take a rowboat across a bay. In alpha there were tons of high level ships waiting there to capsize players as they attempted to cross. This time around there was just a single high level ship and they seemed to be loading up for a trade run and completely oblivious to the fact that I was trying to do something.

Similarly I have actually had some decent random grouping experiences. So while the community is nowhere near as nice as say Cactuar in Final Fantasy XIV… it is at least up to WoW Standards… which admittedly isn’t saying much. I did have a really positive experience in doing an elite quest. There is this event that happens in a fallen fortress where between the hours of 2am and 2pm in game time hordes of undead spawn with a boss and you are given quests to kill multiple undead. I noticed that it was nearing the spawn so I wandered up into the hills and decided that I would just kill undead while waiting. There were numerous people up there waiting, and it was moments later that I was invited to a raid team. Folks were relatively well organized and the leader made sure that everyone had gotten all 20 kills before we downed the final boss. Granted this might be an aberration, but it seemed like a pretty reasonable response to the situation.

At this point I am still not terribly certain how often I will play. Right now I have a level 16 Doomlord on Naima Western Continent. This seems to be where most of the people I know are playing, and white honestly I HAD to play Nuian because they were the only race that offered anything even closely resembling proper facial hair. Additionally the Western faction is supposedly going to get dwarves whenever XL Games decides to give the North American servers the expanded racial options. I’ve applied to be in the same guild as Liore, Zelibeli, and several others from both the Machiavelli’s Cats and Multiplaying/Alliance of Awesome communities. I have to say being patron seems to make all the difference in the world because as a true free to play account you have next to no labor points. I am not declaring this game the “best ever” or anything like that, but it seems to no longer be nearly as toxic as it was in early testing. I still prefer FFXIV, but right now I just haven’t had the oomph to grind up another character. So mostly I am working my way through my book quest and doing my daily elite dungeon. However since my friend Eliyon is now a newly minted 50 I can see myself probably playing a lot more in the evenings there. It was a fun weekend nonetheless and I look forward to piddling around in it some more.

#DoctorWho #StarWarsRebels #ArcheAge

A Darker Doctor

August 24, 2014 by Belghast

AggroChat Episode 19

Last night we recorded the latest episode of AggroChat, and welcomed back Kodra from GenCon. For the most part the AggroChat crew has had their heads firmly planted in Final Fantasy XIV and that much hasn’t changed. Kodra regaled us with the tales of what he did with his time at the convention. LARPs are one of those things I have always been interested in but never really participated in. I did a little bit of a local World of Darkness LARP in High School, but it wasn’t really my scene. As Kodra talks about the ones that happen at GenCon it feels far more like improvisational theater than gaming. In any case it sounds awesome and if I ever make it to GenCon I will totally join in the fun with him.

Additionally we talk a little bit about MMO design and theory and how Final Fantasy XIV has made tweaks to the game in order to support the community aspect. So far it is working because that is the overwhelming thing that I am enjoying the most from our time playing. We also talk a bit about Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition and our upcoming campaign. There has been some talk about maybe streaming it, but I somehow doubt that is actually going to happen. Rae talks at length about her awesome character concept, and I talk a bit about the Grudgebearer Cleric I will be playing as well. This weeks episode had a very non-video gaming feel to it, and it was pretty enjoyable.

A Darker Doctor

Yesterday was the day the world was introduced to the new Peter Capaldi Doctor Who. So as the world was enthralled by the BBC airing of the show and subsequent BBC America rebroadcast… where was I? Well I spent my afternoon shopping with my wife and then my evening recording AggroChat. With all of the weight loss my wife has gone through, she pretty much is in dire straights on trying to find a new wardrobe for the school year. I figured it was far more important to help her find that, than to sit at home and catch Doctor Who as it was originally broadcast. As a result I have just finished watching the show this morning, and I have to say so far I am very pleased. I don’t want to go into any spoilers really, because hopefully you are going to watch it yourself.

First off I have to say I am of mixed opinion on the new Doctor Who intro theme. You can listen to it here as someone has uploaded it to youtube already. It just feels over produced to me… and extremely “muddy” if that makes sense. I can tell that they went went back to the fourth doctor theme and sampled it heavily…. and that aspect I like, but all of the modern crap that they seem to have layered on top of it is frustrating. I would love to see them just make a nice clean Doctor Who opening theme without all of the auditory graffiti. I am sure over time I will get used to it, but right now it is just grating on my nerves. As far as the show itself the production quality was impeccable as always. I always like the episode that happens right after a regeneration because you get to watch the doctor in his most vulnerable state, when he isn’t quite sure of this new body.

With Capaldi it feels like gone is the zany doctor that flails about, and a different form of “Mad Man” has replaced it. I am liking the darker take on the doctor so far, and I am also liking the fact that the series is distancing itself from “companion as love interest”. I am sure to some of the more modern fans this will be a point of frustration, but to someone who has watched a lot of Doctor Who over the years, I prefer the days when the companion was just that… a travelling companion for the adventure. I think the franchise will be in solid hands for awhile now, and I would love to see Capaldi have a run to rival Tom Baker. I am tired of the Doctor changing quite as often as he has been, especially since we have long retconned the original storyline of a limited number of regenerations. Overall I enjoyed it, but I look forward to seeing more episodes to really set my opinion of it in stone.

Return of Ultima Weapon

While waiting on the audio to render last night for AggroChat I got pulled into an 8 man raid with the rest of my Final Fantasy XIV guild on Cactuar. One of the quests that was added to the game post launch in Mor Dhona takes unlocks the Hard Mode version of the Ultima Weapon primal encounter. I won’t go into any of the details surrounding the Ultima Weapon itself because spoilers… but in theory we had heard that everything about the Hard Mode of the encounter is significantly harder than the first few turns of the Bahamats Coil raid. After last night I am guessing that was in fact the case. This fight is absolutely insane, but I am pleased to say after three tries we managed to down it and clear it from all of our quest logs. I returned to my role as a tank, and since at this point I somehow managed to pass Ashgar in gear I ended up starting off the fight and playing the role of Soak of a lot of the bombs that happen during the fight.

What makes the fight so cool is that it is the first tank swap encounter that I have run into here in Final Fantasy XIV. This is a common mechanic in World of Warcraft now as a way of keeping both tanks engaged in the fight, and they seem to do it very well here as well. Now the swaps have to be timed carefully, but since Ash and I have worked together on many occasions this ended up fine. Essentially you have to hit provoke which raises your threat to 1+the highest targets threat, and then start spamming your highest aggro ability to make sure you gain a decent lead. Basically during the swap I would hit provoke and then spam butchers block a few times to make sure I had a nice lead. At this point the target would peel away from Ashgar easily and I would be in control again for another three stacks of the debuff.

Now the coolest aspect of the fight is that we didn’t even realize there were weapons to be gotten. I feel like this fight is worth more than an ilevel 80 item… but in any cases it was one hell of a fun encounter to be done with guildies. As hard as it was, I could totally see myself doing it again because this felt like a true challenge. It required each of us to do something to add to the fight. Towards the end of the fight we had to have a few DPS sacrifice themselves to make sure all of the bombs got blocked, and then we slowed dps allowing the healers to catch up and ressurect them. It was awesome seeing each person fully engaged in what had to be done. I am so proud of my guildies for accomplishing this, and now I have no doubt at all that we will do fine making progress in the Coil.

#DoctorWho #AggroChat #FFXIV

Late Night Doctor Who

February 16, 2014 by Belghast

Mad Man with a Box

Since today is Steampowered Sunday, I thought I would do my factoid as a separate post again, simply because if feels really odd to tack on personal bits on the tail end of “feature”. Since I vowed to finish this month with a factoid a day, this seems like the best way of handling that. Anyways… as I have stated before I grew up in a really small town. There are smaller I am sure, but 2500 people is pretty damned small especially for being a county seat. As a result I did not have cable until I went to college. The cable ran to within a quarter mile of my house growing up, but because of that we were limited to six channels. Essentially an NBC affiliate, CBS affiliate, ABC affiliate, Fox, UPN and the local PBS channel.

Since network television has always been crap, I spent a good chunk of my childhood watching Public Broadcasting like Mister Rogers or Nova. Late at night however the PBS channel changed and brought into our living room all these excellent British television shows. They varied over the years from Are You Being Served, Faulty Towers, Monty Python, Keeping Up Appearances, Benny Hill, Blakes 7, The Tripods… but the constant was always Doctor Who. Some of my fondest memories of my father were staying up late to watch Doctor Who.

Late Night Doctor Who

I realize it is not much of a shocker that me… a notorious geek… loves Doctor Who. It goes deeper than that. The first Doctor I can really remember is Jon Pertwee aka the Third Doctor. However to me Doctor Who will always be the fourth doctor, Tom Baker. Seeing that hat and that scarf still gives me warm fuzzies. Doctor Who above all represented what was good and right in the world. The solemn defender that used his mind rather than brute force to solve problems. While I love the modern incarnation of Doctor Who as well, it is simply a different animal. For as crappy as the special effects were, even rewatching the old episodes on netflix, everything from that era felt more fantastical and hopeful.

Doctor Who also gave me and my father a time to bond together. It was not something my mother liked at all, so she gave us the time to hang out together. More or less I was raised by my mother and grandmother, in that they were the people who I spent most of my time with. My dad was almost always working, and when he was off work he was busy with his photography business. So the moments when I got to just hang out with my dad felt few and far between. Even today when we get together, the topic will eventually lead its way back to whatever is happening in the current series with the current doctor.

While there are a lot of things that I am nostalgic about, and am willing to geek out over… Doctor Who just feels more pure. While the show has better special effects and has ratcheted up the horror factor a notch or two… it still feels very much the same show at its core. It will and always has been about a mad man with a box, who deeply loved what he saw special and different in humanity. That gives me hope for us as a species, that this lonely man from Gallifrey could care about us that much. I hope that the series continues on forever, infecting each new generation of viewers with the same spirit of wonder.