Aggrochat Archives - Page 95 of 103 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Amazing Neighbors

August 10, 2014 by Belghast

10 Years 10 Questions AggroChat Edition

Last night was another Saturday evening which means we recorded another episode of AggroChat. This week we were joined by Rae, Ashgar, Kodra and Tam who will hopefully be becoming a much more regular member of the cast. As per my post yesterday morning, my good friend Godmother is working on a thing for the 10th Anniversary of World of Warcraft. Last night we decided to skip our normal podcast and instead took up the Alternative Chat 10 Years 10 Questions survey. As a result we ran a bit longer than our normal cast, but since we will be without Kodra next week we wanted to push through all ten questions. I have to say I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane, and even though I know a lot of the information we talked about… I still found out a few interesting things in the process. I am hoping that we gave Godmother some usable content.

I am really happy she is doing this and I look forward to reading and listening to the end result. I believe she has a master plan of doing a documentary podcast about all of this stuff and our responses. While all of us are not really current WoW players, we all owe so much to the game including our friendships. None of us would have known each other without this game and that is pretty crucial to all of us at this point. As Kodra says during the cast, we have a lot of love for each other and it is entirely thanks to this game that we may or may not want to play anymore. I figure that even among the former players we all have to give the game props for giving us so much in the process.

Amazing Neighbors

I have to say that our trip through Final Fantasy XIV just keeps getting more charming. In the 2.1 patch shortly after we quit they put in housing wards. In these semi-instanced wards you have various plots of land that you can purchase for an exorbitant amount of money. The interesting thing about this is that they become a sort of player made town as they have market boards, summoning bells and vendors on top of all of the player housing. I wrote about this some time ago but we found an amazing plot of land in a very heavily built up ward in the Limsa Lominsa area called the Mists. Just like we apparently lucked out on picking the right server we also apparently lucked out and picked one of the coolest wards. Within moments of us plunking down our house we had neighbors welcoming us to the area.

Friday night however something even cooler happened. It turns out that the other residents of the ward decided to create a neighborhood based linkshell. Now we are constantly chatting and getting to know the other awesome members of our ward including the massive guild that lives up the hill from us. It has been awesome to get to know everyone. The above screenshot is me and a member of that guild randomly breaking out into the Manderville dance while standing around at the market board. I took a bunch of screenshots because we were almost perfectly synchronized and it ended up pretty awesome to watch. The little things like this in this game just make me so happy.

It is almost as though we stepped through a time machine and found the server community that assholes forgot. Even as we have moved into harder content, the folks are still extremely chill and willing to work with the people who don’t know the fights. The end result is that even when I have good reason to gripe at someone for failing miserably to do something… I find myself NOT saying anything, or instead being supportive because I just don’t want to do anything to damage this amazing environment. The way people interact with each other reminds me of those early days of Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot… when individual player reputations still mattered and everyone held other players up to higher standards. I am so amazingly happy I decided to re-up Final Fantasy XIV.

Hard Modes with Friends

Last night after the podcast we all decided to stick around and work on some hard modes. I have to say we all kinda dreaded just how hard these might be, but in reality at the 55-60 overall gear score we were sitting out they were difficult but also very manageable. I don’t want to get too much into the various strategies because one of the biggest joys for me is figuring these things out completely cold. However I have to say I really enjoyed myself, and we managed to run Hard Mode Copperbell Mines and Hard Mode Brayfloxs Longstop. In both cases the fights were challenging but after a bit of thinking on our feet we managed to push through and succeed. I look forward to doing the other hardmodes because they were really rather awesome.

What makes them so cool is that unlike World of Warcraft heroics… these are entirely new dungeons. When you step foot into Copperbell MInes for example, there are giant holes in the wall where the mobs from the first version popped out, as well as things like a broken elevator that are the results of your last trip there. To make things even cooler the dungeon music has been changed slightly as well and is more akin to the heavy metal themes to the various primal fights. The zone I absolutely cannot wait to do is Hard Mode Haukke Manor since the original version is this awesome Castlevania like romp through a Haunted Mansion. The hard mode version absolutely has to be amazing, so maybe later this evening we can get that going. For the time being I am absolutely eating up every moment of this game, and I still have a long list of things that I want to be doing.

#FFXIV #AggroChat #Blaugust

Tiny Conjurations

August 6, 2014 by Belghast

Failure to Launch

Right now to be truthful I am having all manner of issues with my machines here at the house. With my gaming machine I think I have narrowed it down to the power supply, and plan on replacing that tonight. My laptop however I think was bit in the ass by the same nvidia driver issue that seemed to start everything. I am not sure what is wrong with Nvidia Driver 340.52 but both machines started having issues shortly after installing it. It might all be unrelated, but I likely would skip this driver for the time being because I wouldn’t want to wish my issues on anyone. Thankfully I was able to roll back to a system state on my laptop before the driver, so here is hoping that fixes things there.

As far as my desktop when I attempt to power it on, things flicker on for a brief second before immediately stopping. The fans won’t even make a full rotation, and based on all reading this is likely a PSU issue. Now in the past when my PSU has gone south, nothing at all happened, so this is new ground for me. However I am willing to try it since a PSU is a relatively cheap component to replace. Otherwise I would be something wrong with the motherboard… and I really don’t want to go down that avenue unless I absolutely have to. The problem is that I am running out of machines… worse case scenario I can try and get this machine my spare in gaming condition. I think it would run most of the things I might want to run, just not as well.

As far as me, I have been feeling like crap as well. The stress of having my machines in various states of “down” combined with allergy season wreaking havoc on my sinuses and lungs lead to me deciding to take a day to mostly rest and collect myself. My lungs have not been behaving well for the last couple of days, and the constant sinus headache has been causing me to eat ibuprophen like candy. So here is hoping by the end of today I will have all of my machines up and running smoothly as well as me doing the same. If not I guess we have to explore other avenues, and if I don’t get to feeling better soonish I guess I will have to run to the doctor. As a result of all of this my morning post is delayed. I did not really get a chance to post a big rundown of the blaugust folks either… but I guess at this point things are rolling along smooth enough that hopefully everyone is already reading the incoming posts.

Tiny Conjurations

Last night before all the computer issues started with my laptop, I decided to work on the conjurer job. At this point I have a 50 warrior (tank), 50 bard (range dps) and 50 dragoon (melee dps) so the only thing I am really missing at this point is a healer. All of the available healers require various levels of conjurer, so I figured it would be a good starting place. I am still not certain if I will be going White Mage or Scholar as far as healers go, but in any case I am slowly working on the levels. Conjurer I think has to be the hardest thing to level to date, mainly because all you really have to kill the mobs with is Stone and its various derivatives. Even in cleric stance, which is surprisingly enough the dps stance… you can’t really burn down mobs that fast. My plan is to mostly level through dungeons, but the problem with that is that I have to actually get to 15 first to do it.

Last night I tried my hand at healing Guildhests since those start at level 10. The main problem there is that folks don’t really seem to have a handle on tanking. I healed a total of four, and in each of them the tanks made zero effort to try and pull any mobs off of me. This means in the first one I ended up dying horribly, and in the later ones I mostly focused on healing myself… since I apparently was heal tanking. Guildhests really aren’t worth the frustration experience wise, so I went back to grinding near Horizon. I have a pretty massive stack of leves built up, so I opted to work through some of those. At the point my system troubles started, I was just shy of 15, which hopefully means I can jump straight into healing dungeons instead of grinding on my own.

Feels like Home

Yesterday afternoon Tam and I were talking about how much like home this game is feeling. I think in part it is due to the fact that Greysky Armada the free company is a thing uniquely created by the group of players that played FFXIV at launch. House Stalwart is very much a creation of my own, and it feels like my guild. White Masks is very much a creation of Tam and it feels like his guild. Greysky Armada is this wholly different thing that incorporates the best of each of us into something totally different. I think that is why coming back to it is so comfortable, because its an us thing not a me or him thing. Not sure if any of that makes any sense at all, but the folks that mostly do the AggroChat podcast have all been hanging out on voice chat for a few years now, and the FFXIV guild is 100% rooted in that little group.

Now that is not to say that everyone else isn’t welcome, but we kinda lead the guild as a team and not as a monarchy aligned under any one of us. On top of all of this is feels really awesome to see everyone back in Eorzea. I like this game a lot, and things just seem to work for me. Especially now that I went ahead and embraced the adorable making myself a Lalafell. At this point I am really hoping that the magic will last for awhile, and that we can all enjoy this space for more than a few months. Ultimately that is what I keep looking for… a place to set down roots and settle down. The problem is each of the games either has problems that bother me enough to where I don’t want to play it… or it lacks the people to make a comfortable environment. My hope is that FFXIV will be the game we all can agree on, since for the most part we all pined for it a little.

#Blaugust #FFXIV

Podcast that Wasn’t

July 27, 2014 by Belghast

The Final Day

I am up bright and early for a Sunday morning, because today is the final day of the Math conference. On the arrival day I had to ferry trips back and forth between the airport, and today I am having to do the same thing. The conference only actually runs for two hours, but I imagine the school itself will be open a bit longer as folks wait around for their rides. My hope is that everyone checks out of the hotels before heading to the conference, so I don’t actually need to make any trips between those. That was the piece that actually slowed things down the first time was dropping folks off at the two different hotels.

At this point I am ready for it to be over, so that our lives can return to normal. I fully appreciate the gravity of what this event is for the folks who are attending it, but each night I have had to go home and sequester myself. I am not good at dealing with an overabundance of human beings, especially not ones needing something from me. There are a lot of things I feel bad about, but one of the big ones is that I spent most of the conference hiding out in my wife’s cube in the collaboration room. I watched twitter, and came out of my hiding place whenever someone needed something. However it served as a bit of a safe space where I didn’t have to try and make small talk or “act normal”.

Podcast that Wasn’t

Well it finally happened, a weekend when all of the members of AggroChat were busy at the same time. Because it didn’t really feel right to not do anything… I recorded a quick blurb that I am calling Episode 15.314 in honor of the fact that my entire week has been consumed by playing a supporting role in the math conference. This week I simply did not have the time to plan for a full replacement cast for the podcast. I could have maybe pulled something together last minute, but I was honestly too drained to carry the cast forward. At least we made it to fifteen episodes before needing a week off. Next week hopefully we all will return to normal and be ready to be entertaining.

The funny thing is… the moment I recorded and posted this… Kodra showed up. So in theory we could have maybe limped along last night with Me, Kodra and Tam. But I figured it was better just to take the week off if I thought I was not going to be my normal charming self. Like I said above… I have had to do so much glad handing this week, that my social normality buffer is just gone. I am not sure if I could carry on an intensely direct conversation with two other individuals… even if said individuals are really close and long term friends. The blurb I recorded hopefully is charming enough, and talks a little bit about what we all have been doing.

Svara Still Awesome

Coerthas is still an amazing place to run FATEs in, and I spent most of my evening running around out here hopping from event to event. The king of all FATEs will always be Svara, which for the undoctrinated is a series of three connected FATEs that tell the story of the Isgardian fight against the giant dragon Svara. First off it is completely epic to follow the path of this dragon and fend off the Isgardians from all of her children, then finally down the big beast at the end of the sequence. It is also epic the amount of experience you get, considering if you hit gold participation in all three fates it is worth around 40,000 xp which is a really nice chunk all at once for about 15 minutes of work. What makes Coerthas extremely awesome as a zone is that there are a bunch of this heavy xp fates and you can pretty much spend the entire night running between them all soaking up as much xp as you can. I figure I will likely stay here until I hit 40 before moving on to someplace else.

I am already enjoying playing the dragoon so much more than playing the bard. Don’t get me wrong, the bard is enjoyable… but it is also the class that everyone seems to be playing. Every time I solo queued for a duty roulette I would end up in a dungeon with a bard as the second dps. Playing melee is just much more my style, and the Dragoon delivers some seriously potent direct damage. Its weakness however has always been the fact that it has little to no area of effect damage. In fact if I remember correctly it has a single attack, that I do not even have yet. However they seem to have fixed some of the problems that existed in early release with FATE contribution. Back then spamming any AOE was the key to getting high contribution. However it seems like you can focus down a few spawns and still get the same scores that you would if you were just AOEing everything around you. My goal today after all of the madness is over with shuttling people back to the airport is to do some more duty roulette.

#FFXIV #AggroChat

Hunting Malboros

July 23, 2014 by Belghast

The Night Before

This mornings post is going to be a little scant on visuals so I am just going to leave you with this amazing cinematic trailer that Riot released yesterday called A New Dawn. You should totally watch it and marvel at just how awesome Graves is. If you watch the making up they talk about the whole video having a meme running through it “Graves is not impressed”. Onwards to the real post. This morning is the beginning of the Mathematics conference, and throughout the day today I will be playing chauffer to a group of folks who need ferried from the airport to the hotel. As a result we spent some time last night cleaning out my wife’s Pontiac Torrent since it has the most comfortable seating for a large number of adults. The thing that makes that vehicle awesome is that it has a sliding bench seat so you can push it back for extra leg room but still have a significant amount of cargo space.

I went comatose around 10:30 last night, but apparently my wife is having schoolgirl jitters. As a denizen of twitter as well… I guess I would probably be jittery about meeting a bunch of folks all at once from the twitterverse. Granted this is the third running of this conference, but it has never been anywhere near as large as it is this year. We have apparently completely sold out two hotels and they are booking in a third overflow hotel now. To give me fortitude to get through a day of meeting all of these people I don’t know but will be expected to be cordial with… I am leaning on both coffee and a monster ultra. Mostly I just wanted to show off this awesome WW2 Dalek poster coffee mug we found the other day. My wife actually spotted the Doctor Who mugs first, and there were a bunch of designs to choose from… but I have always been partial to the WW2 era propaganda poster from Victory of the Daleks.

So while I conked out completely around 10:30 my wife was apparently up until 1 am. Then when I woke up this morning at 5 to get around and showered, she was awake again and responding to tweets. I think its adorable that she can be all hyped up on nerves and I will likely be the same way when January rolls around and I go to Pax South. I am not sure if have mentioned that on my blog or not yet, but as of right now I have tickets for all three days to Pax South. I may or may not be attending Sunday, but I am definitely going to try and be there for Friday and Saturday. I figure the last day of a con is likely the “anything you missed” day and all the major stuff will likely occur on Friday and Saturday. I might be completely wrong, but that would at least give me Sunday to drive home. If you are also going to Pax South give me a shout, because I would love to arrange some sort of a twitter/blogosphere/whatever meetup.

Attack on Deathshead

I made it a bit further in my play through of Wolfenstein New Order but I am still struggling with crash to desktop issues. I had a spot in the moon base that was doing it, and now am having a spot in Deathshead compound that is kicking me out. Last night I gave it a few attempts but just didn’t have the patience. I think next time I try it I might shut down EVERYTHING, including DXtory that I generally have running so I can take screenshots. I know some games get a little pissy about overlays, or it might simply be that I need to disable the steam overlay. In any case this game is really amazing and it gives me totally unrelated hope. This past weekend at Quakecon, ID Software gave an exclusive peak at Doom 4 that has apparently just be renamed Doom and is somewhat of a reboot. If Machine Games can give us a game as awesome as Wolfenstein… I have high hopes for what Doom has in store for us.

As my friend Kodra has said before, Wolfenstein is very much exactly what games felt and sounded like in the 90s. Everything was industrial metal… and we liked it. I am perfectly fine with this throwback syndrome, because the modern FPS is nowhere near as much fun as the first generation of them used to be. We have come so far in trying to make everything more and more realistic, and I think in that struggle we lost sight on what actually made the games fun. If Wolfenstein and the reboot of Doom herald in an era of interesting level design with secrets and multiple paths to the objective… then hell yes I want to return to the 90s. Right now my goal is to make it through Wolf one way or another by this weekend, so we can potentially talk about the ending on the podcast. We will of course warn people ahead of time before the spoilers start flying.

Hunting Malboros

This is one of those moments when I really wish Hitbox.tv knew what “today” and “tomorrow” actually meant. For the last several days they have said that they would have the export to youtube functionality back up and running today or tomorrow. I realize they are a small company and this is a beta product, but at this point it is seriously making me consider going back to Twitch. I don’t want to, but I also like having the ability to embed video recorded from the night before in my mornings blog post. Complaining aside… one of the things that I have been enjoying since coming back to FFXIV is the hunt system. Each day you can go to a hunt board in your grand company offices and grab a new set of wanted posters. They call them bills… but “handbill” hasn’t really been used popularly in the United States in decades.

I love that the various wanted posters just list a bounty and a basic location for where the mob will spawn. In general I can remember where in each zone that type of mob already exists, and usually the type you need is intermingled within the pack. This system would totally be a quick enjoyable jaunt out into the world if it were not for the two FATE based encounters each day. Here you are either super lucky or have to wait around for hours. Last night I streamed a fairly boring stream, because it was me killing Malboros and Dark Sylphs while waiting on an apparently rare fate to spawn. The positive is this is causing me to actually level my chocobo. As of last night I dinged level 3 on it and made a goodly dent into 4.

The big thing I have noticing is it is super horrible about standing in stuff. Like I had to do all sorts of crazy to try and position the Malboros in such a way as to not let the Daedalus (my chocobo) get breathed upon. Hint… I am pretty horrible at this and probably went through a dozen gysahl greens during the course of the night resummoning him. I find this game extremely relaxing compared to the spastic pace of Wildstar. I have lots of love for that game, but just watching the world absolutely wears me out. Coming back to FFXIV and its more sedate pace felt like crawling into a warm bed. Granted the combat system is still interesting in that I am constantly having to move out of stuff while keeping up my combos, but it is far less button mashy since everything has a sizeable cool down. In any case I am enjoying myself, and at some point I am going to get brave enough to do Duty Roulette for the big prizes.

#WolfensteinNewOrder #FFXIV