AggroChat Podcast

AggroChat #299 – Please Backup Your Dog

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Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Tonight we start off with what has become a regular side topic of us talking about our lives dealing with the pandemic.  From there we dive into Cloudpunk a game about a digital dog and delivering packages in a blade runner landscape.  Bel dives into a discussion about how Modern Consoles are effectively turning into Gaming PCs and the weirdness of cross generational purchases for Microsoft games.  Bel also waxes nostalgic about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and how he is greatly looking forward to the upcoming remaster of 1+2 coming this September.  We end up getting off on a side jaunt into Elder Scrolls games, and then transition into a talk about Sodoku.  Finally we talk some about the announcement of a brand new Paper Mario game and the new footage available for Ghosts of Tsushima.

Featured Topics

  • Life in the Pandemic
  • Cloudpunk
  • Modern Consoles are just PCs
    • Cross Generational Games
    • Ease of Use of Consoles
  • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2
  • Apparently an Elder Scrolls aside
  • Sudoku and Puzzle Games
  • A New Paper Mario
  • Ghosts of Tsushima

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AggroChat #298 – Faces Ground and Griefers

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Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

We start the show with what has disturbingly become a tradition for us as we talk about what life is like in this weird time we happen to be living.  For some of us I believe it is week eleven and for others week nine, but really what exactly is the passage of time anyway.  The first topic is a bump from last week as Tam talks about discovering Rampage the Board Game, otherwise known as Terror in Meeple City in its most modern incarnation.  This leads down a rabbit hole of talking about classic monster movies and many agreeing that the correct place to start is with the OG Godzilla from 1954.  From there Bel dives into a topic from the Aggronaut blog, of if grinding is actually fun.  This leads to a whole other discussion of how each of us appear to have a vastly different description of what that even means.  For Kodra it means grinding his face off over and over against hard content, but for Grace and Bel it largely means repetition of largely mindless content.  Tam on the other hand has to have a purpose and his brain has to be engaged.  Finally we talk about the integration of PVP into otherwise PVE games and why developers seem to be stuck on that concept.  This leads to some discussion of a recent outing in Sea of Thieves when Tam finally gets people interested enough to try it, but they get griefed over and over by some jerk ruining an otherwise enjoyable experience.

Topics Discussed

  • Rampage the Board Game
    • Terror in Meeple City
    • Classic Monster Movies
    • Mechagodzilla
  • Is Grinding Fun?
    • World of Warcraft
    • Farming Content
    • Phantasy Star Online 2
    • Grinding Hard Content
      • Hollow Knight
  • Do PVP and PVE Mix Well?
    • No
    • Why Devs are Obsessed with It
    • Why its a Bad Idea
    • Why Sea of Thieves ruined the experience

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AggroChat #297 – Easing the Learning Curve

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Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Tonight we start off the show with a special announcement.  Cat Context was effectively the podcast that inspired Bel to go out and try and do the same thing with some of his friends.  After a three year absence, this week we get a brand new Cat Context episode that can be found hosted on Aggronaut.com.  Today Kodra is going to be playing some Hollow Knight randomizer since there are a bunch of new updates and he has been given an entire day for gaming.  From there we get into a topic that has been skipped a few times due to the potential length regarding easing into a learning curve and how Infinity is trying this with Code Zero.  Bel segues into a discussion about what happens when the servers go offline and a game goes dark and the concern that there will be an entire generation of games that are eternally lost.  Finally we wrap things up with some talk about the Mario Maker 2 Final Update and the interesting things that level builders are doing with it.

Topics Discussed:

  • Cat Context Podcast
  • Hollow Knight Randomizer Updates
  • Easing into the Learning Curve
    • Infinity Code Zero
    • Magic the Gathering
    • Warhammer 40k
    • Timeless Games
  • Lost Generation of Games
    • What happens when a game permanently goes offline
    • The age of private servers
  • Mario Maker 2 Final Update
    • Fun with World Maker
    • What makes a quintessential Mario game

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Cat Context Podcast #117 – Three Years Happened

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Featuring:  Arolaide, Ellyndrial, and Liore

The circular nature of life can be strange.  You are oftentimes presented with opportunities that you never quite expected.  The Thirteenth of April was the six year anniversary of AggroChat, and that is extremely germaine to today’s topic.  In 2014 I was listening to a podcast created and hosted by one of my good friends called Cat Context.  The shift to listening to it was extremely natural because at the time I was playing Rift as part of the Machiavelli’s Cat, so it felt like I was listening to an extension of guild chat.  It was effectively three friends, hanging out on voice chat and talking about a bunch of loose topics for roughly an hour.

The chemistry that this group of friends had was staggering, and it planted a seed in my head that I could in theory do the same thing with the large cast of characters that I hung out with on a nightly basis on Teamspeak.  Little did I know at the time that making a conversation seem effortless is way harder than it sounds, and I am still in awe of the great interactions that always happened on the Cat Context podcast.  Over the years I would get wistful and tweet at Liore or Aro about how much I miss the show.  Apparently this stuck in Liores head as earlier this week I got a DM announcing that they had gotten “the band back together” but lacked any place to actually host or advertise it.

So it is with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to announce Cat Context episode 117, or at least we think that is the appropriate number.  Three years ago life happened to all of these wonderful hosts and the show sorta dropped.  As a result we have a show that talks about at least in part what has happened over the last three years and more importantly what life is like now living in the time of pandemic.  I hope you are all as pleased to see a new episode of Cat Context and I would absolutely be willing to set up more permanent hosting for the trio if this thing starts happening more frequently.

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