Hey Folks! Yesterday a conversation with MagiWasTaken basically brought something that had bugged me for a while to a head. I have projects within projects visualized in my head, but it often takes some measure of external stimuli to actually act upon them. AggroChat did not start out the way that it is now, and as we find ourselves approaching four hundred episodes… there are absolutely regrets I have about some of the early shows. For the longest time, I have just lumped them in a “bad” bucket mentally and moved on with my life. However, I think it was more a case that back then I was not doing half of the things I am doing today. We joke that there is no editing on the podcast and it is true within the realm of podcastdom… but literally those first few episodes had no real editing because I had no clue how to do anything in Audacity.
Coming back and applying some basic editing has made things significantly more listenable. The thing that has bugged me probably more than anything however is that the first 73 episodes of AggroChat did not have “Showcards” and are not available on YouTube. I only started adding things to YouTube when I found out that Libsyn had that functionality, and it apparently took me 73 episodes before realizing this. So my grand plan is to fix this gap and also apply a little TLC to these shows to revive them from their currently dormant states. I still don’t think that they are great podcasting, nor do I really think what we do today is great podcasting. However, it should greatly improve the experience for the handful of people who are mad enough to actually go diving into our back archives.
So we are starting off where we have to… with the very first episode of AggroChat titled “Finding the Format”. In truth, we had no clue what the format was at this point. The show started with Ashgar, Kodra, and Rae because those are the folks that I could talk into this madness and were available when I was recording. The cast would shift significantly before finally stabilizing on the seven that we have today. We did not really do the “Topics Discussed” construct at this point but here is my attempt at summarizing.
Topics Discussed
- Elder Scrolls Online Launch
- Excitement over Craglorn
- My Little Pony Card Game
- H1Z1
- Fortnite Alpha
- Heroes of the Storm Alpha
- Contrast with League of Legends
I find it amusing that you call literally a recording of your first conversation as Aggrochat: “Prehistory.” It’s an amusing episode, in any event. Interesting to look (listen?) back at what has changed and what hasn’t. Don’t feel at all bad that Aggrochat isn’t some highly produced, highly formatted radio show. My first real experience with podcasts way back in the mid-2000s were the PotterCast and LeakyCast (Harry Potter themed, obvi), which consisted largely of people talking to each other about the fandom they loved. It was like being in a conversation with friends rather than listening to some interview or radio show. You guys did great and are still doing great at that feel of folks chatting around a coffee table somewhere about something you love.