May 2015 - Page 7 of 8 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Disappointment Comes From Love

May 7, 2015 by Belghast

The Room

This is the point where I admit that I had never actually made it all the way through “The Room” before last night. I’ve sat down several times to watch it, but it was just too bad and too awkward for me to struggle through it. I feel like this is the sort of movie that is just more fun with a large group of people. So when I saw that Rifftrax would be doing it, I thought it would be a blast. I’m getting to be a regular at this whole Rifftrax live thing, and by live I mean sitting in a theater as the show is live simulcast from where they are actually at in Nashville. So far I have seen Godzilla, Anaconda, and a strange 1950s Santa Claus movie from Mexico. This season they have dubbed the “Crappening” with The Room, Sharknado 2, Miami Connection and Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny.

As far as The Room itself… they commented last night that it was a movie made by a man who had never actually seen a movie… or another human being. This film is just so out there, and the funny thing about it is that I still don’t think Tommy Wiseau realizes quite how bad this movie is. I mean at this point it has brought a relative state of infamy to all of the actors, but that isn’t exactly the same thing as fame. So as insane as the movie is, you can imagine that it gets cranked up a notch when the Rifftrax folks are lampooning it. The only problem with going to this movie with co-workers… and being named Mark… is that from now on I am going to be hearing a lot of “Oh Hai Mark” as I walk around the office. To which I will of course have to respond… “Oh Hai Doggy”. It was a great evening though and I look forward to the next one.

Subscription Drop

Yesterday the Quarter 1 earnings call happened at Blizzard/Activision and it should shock exactly no one that the World of Warcraft subscription numbers are once again down. With the launch of Warlords of Draenor the subscription numbers spiked at around 10 million players and has now dropped once more to the 7 million range. Each expansion gives the subscribers a spike and then things taper off from there, so this was going to happen no matter what. I will admit that I did not expect the bleed to happen quite so quickly. That said given my own feelings about the current state of the game, and the general rumblings within the community I guess it should not really surprise me. I agree with something that Alternative Chat said yesterday on twitter, that what we are seeing is a lot of people who came back and played the game for the month that came with their boxed copy, decided that they did not really like what they saw and left again all without actually subscribing.

If nothing else this seemed to be the trend within my own guild. Folks would come back and were extremely active until they got their first character to level 100, and then tapered off their playtime ultimately leaving again shortly after that point. My own time with this expansion is not all that different, and were it not for the fact that I am still raiding I would have left a long time ago. I leveled three characters to 100, and got the rest of my army of alts to “garrison” level. I spent the first month logging every single character in religiously and doing their garrison chores, and now I cannot be bothered to do them on more than just my main. The first character ran a lot of heroics, and now subsequent 100s jump straight to the LFR queue for gearing. During the launch we had 30 to 40 people on each and every night and it was insanely active. Now when I log in nightly to run my garrison stuff there are at most three other people on during non-raid times. While my guild is not exactly a bellwether for the game, it does at least show that something is fundamentally wrong.

Disappointment Comes From Love

.@eljeppy it is impossible to be disappointed if you don't love something 🙂

— ▪Bel▪Writes▪Things▪ (@belghast) May 6, 2015

Yesterday I made a comment on twitter and this morning it still seems very true. This time around the folks that are complaining about Warlords are not necessarily the people who simply want to watch Blizzard burn down around them. This group are players that still love the franchise but are disappointed at what it has become. Ultimately you cannot be truly disappointed in something, unless you really do love it. I mean if you hate something, then it is impossible to be disappointed because it simply doesn’t matter that much to you. The problem is I am not exactly sure how this ship can be righted. Blizzard seems to be committed to the path it is on, because the 6.2 patch is largely just “more of the same”. The problem being that I see nothing in that patch that is going to keep people glued to the game for another quarter. The naval missions seem interesting, but at this point folks are just sick of the lost potential that is the Garrison.

Wow-64 2015-05-05 22-04-20-51 What we need now is an expansion announcement to bolster hope in the faithful, the problem there is I am seriously doubtful that we will see an announcement until Blizzcon. November is two quarters away, and I am just wondering if whatever does get announced is going to be too little and too late to keep from another subscription drop. Lots of people are talking about an expansion tying into the movie, but that movie is still a full year away. The 16 month lag in content between Pandaria and Warlords is still very fresh in everyone’s minds and quite frankly Blizzard does not have the luxury of waiting that long. They need a new world for us to start daydreaming about now, rather than waiting for a movie that may or may not be successful. The positive is that Blizzard is still doing remarkably well in spite of World of Warcraft. Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft II, and Diablo 3 all seem to be doing awesome. So maybe they just don’t care as much about their MMO as they once did? If nothing else these months leading up to Blizzcon 2015 are going to likely forever shape the face of Warcraft.

Night of Primals

May 6, 2015 by Belghast

Juggling Games

One of the challenges for me during the Newbie Blogger Initiative is determining which days I should make NBI related posts and which days I should do my traditional thing. It is a bit of a juggling act because I want to keep pumping out articles in support of the initiative but I also don’t want my blog to stop being… well “my blog”. As always I am juggling a silly amount of games. Right now as it stands I raid Tuesday and Thursday in World of Warcraft, Monday and Saturday in Final Fantasy XIV and for the time being I am also filling in on Wednesday nights with another free company static group. I would not mind staying with them indefinitely but I would love to get to a point where I am more optional than the current tank role that I am playing. Finally on Friday nights I have been trying to join in the festivities with the Black Dagger Society as I play some Wildstar. Other than this I am also trying to juggle playing Marvel Heroes and some Rift… and needless to say I feel like there is always something I want to be playing.

Last night was a WoW night and we once again stepped into Blackrock Foundry. I did not place the sign above but I was wondering if it was going to foretell my evening. At the beginning it did seem like maybe it was prophecy, because we had a rough start. We wiped several times on heroic and tempers were flaring a bit. Our raid leader made the right call and took us back outside flipping the difficulty to normal. From there the night got significantly better. I was once again being frustrated by Flamebender Kagraz not dropping pants or a sword for me, but that has now been par for the course so I really wasn’t that upset. Last week we made serious progress on Furnace encounter so I was extremely happy when our raid lead said we were heading that direction. Apparently we had not forgotten the progress we made because in a single attempt we downed our first new boss since March 19th. While heroic difficulty is where we will find upgrades, there is a huge part of me that wants to be able to say we cleared at least normal difficulty before the 6.2 patch. We are now two bosses away from being able to say that.

Night of Primals

One of the things our Monday night group has decided to do is to spend no more than two nights in a row on any one encounter. It has felt like we have ground our faces against turn nine for awhile now, so it is refreshing to get to see something else. Monday night was our first “off night” in this rotation and we opted to get the folks that missed Leviathan Extreme their kill. This fight went smoothly and by the numbers and other than some of the folks who were new to the fight struggling to stay on deck, we were able to make some serious progress. I want to say it was on attempt four that we managed to push through and defeat Levi Ex unlocking Ramuh for a large number of the folks, and getting a nifty summoner book. From there we moved on to Odin as our group had not actually downed it before. We made one night of attempts but then got enthralled by the push for Turn 9 never to return. We shifted things around a bit this time and had me tanking it and Ashgar dpsing, hoping that my insane health pool would help soak the horrible Sangital attack.

The assumption seemed to be correct as it would take me down to around half health instead of almost killing me. The thing is… we have gained a lot of gear since when we last tried this fight so I am pretty sure Ashgar as a Paladin would have been fine as well. We managed to take out Odin and get a piece of the armor set. I believe it was the gloves, but I really want to take this guy down more because I need to be a Lala-Odin. From here we opted to take on Titan Extreme in part because it was standing in the way of us working in Ifrit Extreme and finishing the first set. When we downed Titan before we were missing a significant number of the folks that we had on last night. This fight has been the bane of our existence for awhile because it is precisely the kind of fight we are generally bad at. If a fight requires us to adjust to conditions on the ground, then bam we are on top of that. If it is a fight that requires us to do the exact same thing over and over with laser precision… went tend to fail. Fortunately we managed to catch up to speed quickly and on I believe our fourth attempt we downed Titan once more keying a whole new batch of players for Ifrit. It was one of the most enjoyable nights of raiding I have had in any game, because each of the primal encounters were so drastically different.

The Old Blood

This game I honestly forgot was releasing yesterday, that is until in the middle of the raid I had someone message me over the steam client asking me if I was having trouble with the game. After the raid I opted to boot it up and give it a look see. I have agreed to play this game in part to let Kodra know if I think he would be interested in it. He and I both loved Wolfenstein: New Order… but completely different reasons. I loved the game because it felt like a throw back to the 90s shooter era, and he loved it for the complex character interaction and development. It was awesome that the game supported both things so completely, and by the looks of “The Old Blood” it seemed like the 90s shooter part. Essentially this game is a loving reworking of the classic Escape from Castle Wolfenstein game that I spent so many hours playing during High School. If it is nothing more than Machine Games redoing that game… I would be completely fine with this.

While I have only played a few minutes of the game right now, I have to say I am amped about it. The game is just as gorgeous as New Order, and seems to have the exact same kind of dialog between characters. The problem being that I have a feeling there is a much smaller cast given that the entire game takes place inside of Castle Wolfenstein. This next bit is going to include spoilers because the introduction is pretty short, but still extremely fun. Essentially the start of the game centers around this plan between you and a British agent to sneak inside Castle Wolfenstein and steal the blueprints to Deathshead’s compound… aka that thing you are storming at the beginning of New Order. The problem being that when you get into the offices of occultist Helga Von Schabbs, the plans are missing. There is nothing in the safe in the wall, and you and Wesley quickly draw unwanted attention and a firefight ensues. While trying to make your escape you are captured by Rudi Jager and thrown in the cell that you in theory begin the original Wolfenstein in. From there you have to escape the castle… and quite honestly I did not make it much further. The game is rather short, supposedly only two chapters, but for the price that seems more than reasonable. I think I am going to love this game, but I still question if there is enough story in it to appease Kodra.

Reluctant Blogger

May 5, 2015 by Belghast

My First Blog

This mornings blog post is inspired by a conversation I saw yesterday between two friends about the starting of a new blog. There are many people that have this strong desire to start a blog, but for whatever reason lack the confidence to push them over the edge to actually putting a plan in motion. Some people are gifted with a clear vision for what they want to write about, and a firm purpose to make it all happen. That unfortunately is not most of us. Most of us have this burning desire to write, but are also strapped with crippling self doubt. While I might look like I know what I am doing, I am here to tell you that every single day is a struggle to keep making content. While I have been doing this for six years now, and been doing the every day thing for two… I still don’t really know what I am doing on a regular basis. I take each new day as it comes and try and figure out exactly what I should be doing in the process.

This morning I want to tell you a story about another blog. I started Tales of the Aggronaut in 2009 with a firm purpose, and a vision for what I wanted it to be. The thing is.. I never would have gotten to that point had another blog not existed. Back in 2005 I stared a blogspot blog because I had this overwhelming desire to write. The problem being that I didn’t really know what to write about. I mostly wrote about my misadventures, and a little bit about the ins and outs of our family. But early on I knew there was a big part of my life that I just wasn’t talking about… because I felt like no one would want to hear about it. So my first blog was ultimately a failure because it didn’t really represent my gaming. Additionally Tales of the Aggronaut I feel was an initial failure because it failed to represent more than just my gaming hobby. What finally ended up working… eight years later… was a blending of both. Lots of gaming, but still the freedom to talk about whatever else happened to be happening to me.

Reluctant Blogger

My first blog was a blog that hardly anyone read, because I lacked the self confidence to talk about it publically. It was very much a private journal that I let the occasional person know about. The folks that did read it seemed to like it, and urged me to do more, but in the back of my head there was always this nagging voice. “There is nothing you have to say that isn’t already being said… and being said better.” This is the voice you have to ignore to be able to keep blogging, because it never really goes away. There is not a single day when I don’t hear it still. Every time I hit the publish button I have to hold my breath and close my eyes and click it… because even after doing this for all these years I still struggle to defeat my inner doubt. It would be amazing if I could tell you that it just magically goes away, but I can at least say that over time it lessens. The voice has less sway over me than it once did, which I guess is a step in the right direction.

You might say to yourself that you have nothing to say, and that others are saying it better… but the act of you saying it makes it special and unique. I could read fifty blog posts on exactly the same subject and each and every one would have some nugget that the others did not. While we might be espousing the same ideas… each of us is adding our own experience to that mix. Right now, before you start down this journey you might believe that you don’t have a voice worth hearing but I am telling you that you do. Be honest with yourself, and write about the things you want to write about… and somewhere in between your voice will trickle to the surface. Blogging is not about being controversial or brilliant, but instead about being honest and letting the world see who you really are and what think. This act of sharing is precious, and makes whatever it is that you choose to share more than worthy of our attention. We are this culmination of our emotions, experiences, actions and thoughts wrapped up together making anything you have to say on any subject uniquely nuanced.

Lets Get Started

As I wrote to the Wayward Bloggers a few days ago, this morning I am writing to the Reluctant Bloggers. I am addressing the folks that want to start a blog but for whatever reason are being held back from doing so. If you are watching the Newbie Blogger Initiative and feel that tiny tug trying to get you to start your own epic blog, I ask you to hop down off the fence you are sitting on and get started. The Newbie Blogger Initiative is the perfect time to get things in motion because you have an entire community waiting her ready to give you that hand up. There are an almost overwhelming number of ways to get started. Most people start with either a WordPress.com or a Blogger.com and go from there. Blogger is without a doubt the easiest way to get started, but WordPress will make transitioning to a self hosted site in the future less of a hassle. In either case, the act of getting something started is the important thing. If these seem “too real” for you to get your feet wet, then I suggest starting a blog on Anook.com and seeing how things work for you.

Some people are gifted with the ability to start writing quality content from day one. In my permission to suck post from last year I talk about the fact that I was not one of those people. I struggled for a long time to find my format and to find my voice. My blog itself has gone through so many transitions from WoW Blog, Rift Blog, to ultimately becoming a fairly game agnostic blog about me as a person and my gaming habit. The truth is that you should expect to hate the first dozen posts you make within a years time. Like I said there are the occasional folks that can crank out amazing stuff, but I personally would be happy never to see the first several years worth of posts on this blog. The awesome thing about being human beings is that we are able to change and to adapt, and expect your blog and your writing to do the same. Just like learning to ride a bike was wobbly at first, your blog will be a bit wobbly and that is okay. You are doing something that you are going to get better at, and we as a community will be here to help you. Now you simply have to get started.

Marvel Heroes Binge

May 4, 2015 by Belghast

A Truly Amazing Day

One of the huge positives about where we live is that we are close to an awful lot of things that are within reasonable walking distance. Over the last year or so we have tried to take advantage of this fact by walking to dinner more often. This weekend however I did something I should have done a very long time ago and walked to the movies. There is a theater literally less than two blocks away from my house, but I’ve never actually walked there before. Granted when walking to dinner we walk past it all of the time. Sunday I decided to go to the 10:30 am matinee and watch the new Avengers movie. The movie itself was pretty great, and i feel like I need to watch it again to really take in all of the sights the movie had to offer. This is a very “busy” film packed with some absolutely insane action sequences. I feel like it is a toss up between the Hulk and Black Widow as to who stole the show, but I have always been partial to both of them.

As I was exiting the theater I texted my wife to let her know that I would be on my way home. However when I poked my head out into the light there she was waiting on me. She walked down hoping to surprise me, and then the two of us walked over to get lunch. It was a really beautiful day, and she is constantly telling me that I need to get more sunlight. While I am still not the biggest fan of the sun, she is probably right because I feel better today after having done all of this yesterday. We had some errands to run, but by the time we got back to the house we both decided it was nap time. After getting back up we ran to target really quickly and then she went outside to read in the rocking chair, and I played games. It was a pretty great day, and I am hoping to take advantage of the movie theater being so close in the future. There are a lot of movies that I want to see that she has no interest in. Walking down makes it feel less of a hassle for some reason, and also serves as some exercise.

Marvel Heroes Binge

It was probably because of the awesome Avengers movie, but when I got home I ran a quick expert roulette and then logged to play Marvel Heroes. This game has really grown on me and I am feeling like a massive failure for not giving it a chance before now. Normally the whole Diablo thing is a bit of a turn off anymore, but for whatever reason the combination of Super Heroes and Diablo works well for me. I have been accumulating a lot of various boost potions, because they give you plenty of them as part of the daily login reward system. Yesterday I opted to take several of the various 2 hour boosts and see what all I could accomplish. I pushed Captain America that has become my main from 22 to 27 almost 28 over the course of those two hours. Right now there are a lot of things working in my favor since there is an event happening that gives Avengers a boost. The only bad thing is that the cosmic gear I am wearing has yet to be replaced which bums me out slightly. I guess I might have to try my luck again at the cosmic boxes from Adam Strange.

I am just starting the Savage Lands which according to my friend is one of the more frustrating areas of the game. I personally found that the tail end of Stryker’s camp to be extremely frustrating with Sentinels dropping on me every five seconds. I keep feeling like I should probably play other characters up since I now have this whole synergy thing unlocked… but really I am still having a blast playing Cap. His skillset is almost perfect suited for my particular play style. I can charge through a bunch of mobs taking them out, and then when I get into the center of a pack twirl my shield around taking all but the blue or better mobs out. Then I just mob up with shield throws or punches and repeat. It feels very enjoyable, but I am actually looking forward to seeing what the new heroic difficulty that I unlocked is like. There are absolutely times that the game feels mindlessly simple, so I would be curious to see if Heroic is like hard is for Diablo 3… aka the new “normal”.

Closing in on Botanist

Another thing I worked on last night was pushing Botanist up a bit more. I really want to finish leveling this to 50, and have felt the need to do just this before really starting in on crafting proper. I realize this might be a bit strange of logic but it works for me. I spent my evening catching up on Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley, both shows that I had not really watched for the last few weeks. While doing this I ran a whole slew of Botany leves and managed to push from 35 to 45 which hopefully means I can finish off the leveling process at some point this week. I will be happy to have finished leveling the two harvesting professions that I am going to need to most while leveling my other crafters. Right now however I have to collect 20 high quality mistletoe to turn in to the quest giver. This is going to be a fairly daunting task, given that I cannot simply buy my way through it. It seems HQ mistletoe is in short supply as there was absolutely none on the market board. As a result I will be spending the next little bit in the Whitebrim area harvesting like mad trying to complete the 45 quest.

The other thing I really want to do soon is push my Arcanist from 22 to 30 so that I can become a scholar. If I manage to do that I can get to 50 relatively easily doing the fast healer dungeon queues. Depending on how many leves it takes me to get to 50 Botanist, I might follow this interesting guide posted on the FFXIV Reddit. Ashgar pointed this out, and it seems like a perfectly reasonable way to level. I actually like chain running leves because it is also a decent source of retainer tokens. I would love to see myself level a few more classes to 50 before the expansion, because I have 100 level weapons waiting on them. I have been dumping my excess soldiery into buying the various weapons, and just have one left to purchase, which admittedly is a little insane. The problem is… what else was I going to use that soldiery on? I am actually right around the point where I need to buy the final weapon, which makes me feel like a slacker for not leveling all of those classes to 50. Final Fantasy XIV has way more content than I could ever hope to do… so at times I just feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that I want to be doing.