Bel Folks Stuff Archives - Page 4 of 6

Foundation of Folks

April 9, 2015 by Belghast

Statistics Funk

One of the problems with creating content is every now and then you will have something that you are very proud of, but the community doesn’t seem to be all that interested in. That is not to say that I am not proud of most of the things I am involved in. I love what this blog has become, and I love AggroChat… but that seems to be less about me and more about the group dynamic that we have assembled. However I feel like “Bel Folks Stuff” was one of those projects that I poured more of myself into than most. The idea was that I would grab interesting people and have natural conversations with them where we discussed whatever happened to be on their mind. I feel like for the most part that mission has succeeded, and I am very proud of the six episodes we have so far. In the episodes I have talked with:

Unfortunately after the release of the latest episode I did that thing you are never supposed to do… I did a deep dive into the statistics. In many ways this secondary podcast has been a labor of love, and right now it gets several orders of magnitude fewer listeners than AggroChat. So I question… what I did wrong with it? Maybe I have simply done a poor job of advertising it? It isn’t part of The Gaming and Entertainment Network so that right there is one strike against it. I release them with questionable regularity, which is another strike against it. I also question whether or not it was a good idea to treat it as separate from the other things that I do. I have wondered for awhile if I should have just released it as part of the AggroChat content stream.. as a sort of bonus episode or something. In any case… since looking at the stats I am exceedingly bummed about the limited audience. Maybe there just is not the appetite for listening to gamers rattle on? Anyways… this isn’t going to necessarily stop me from making more but I also feel like my guests have been awesome in their willingness to do the show… when there really isn’t much benefit from it.

Foundation of Folks

For some time now, I’ve had various people tell me that I use exercise any connections I have within the games industry to turn the “Folks” podcast into an industry interview show. I suppose I could do that, but the problem is I am afraid that would fundamentally change the nature of the show. It might be idealistic, but I wanted to create a show without pretense about its purpose. I wanted to have people on and just talk, and whatever topics we happened to cover naturally is what we would end up talking about. If I have people on the show that are known for this or that, there is the pressure to ask them about what they are famous for. By the same token, I would feel obligated to give them time to plug whatever hot project they happen to be working on. At that point we have a traditional interview show and not what I was hoping for. Maybe it is strange but I was hoping to have authentic conversation with a bunch of people, and almost forget for a time that we were recording the conversation.

I guess I question if I could talk “industry” folks into that sort of notion. So far the people I have had on the show I have a deep connection with already. These are people that I have gamed with, blogged with, or exchanged more tweets than I can count. Right now it feels like I am just having a conversation with a friend. I worry that I cannot keep up that dynamic with people I am not quite so personally invested in. Then there is the problem of how would I even sell this notion to someone, when I obviously cannot guarantee much in the way of listeners. That is the obvious sell for most big podcasts… is “talk to me and I can give you X number of ears”. I don’t have that going for me on any level. So yeah right now I am in this existential funk about “Bel Folks Stuff” and even though I love doing it… I am questioning if it is worth the scheduling headaches and the extra work on my part to keep it up. I want to keep it up, but damn… just bummed.

Second Static

Last night when I got home… I was wallowing in my frustration over the podcast… so much so that I forgot that last night was to be the inaugural running of the second static group within the Free Company. The guild has been insane, and we are apparently so active and so prevalent that we jumped from 16th to 6th in the FFXIV free company activity standings. I will say for some time there has not been a single city I have been in that I did not at least bump into one person with the [GREY] tag. In order to help get the second static off the ground, myself and Kodra has offered to fill in as whatever role they needed us in. I ended up main tanking to Damai’s off tank as we managed to work through several content items. So while I started the evening in a bit of a malaise I finished it pumped about the prospects of having two active static teams within our free company.

We started off with Garuda Extreme, which I know very well… just not well enough to explain adequately apparently. This always seems to be a thing for me… I can do something, but I can’t necessarily tell you how to do it. For awhile we tried using the Duty Finder to fill our missing slots, but honestly had significantly more luck creating a party in the Party Finder. We met a few nice people on the server as well. We managed to clear Turn 1 and Turn 4 of Binding Coil of Bahamut as well. I was pleased that we one shot 4, since I remember having a significant amount of trouble with it initially when Ashgar and I tanked it. To add to the confusion for the sake of this arrangement… the roles were flipped from what I am most used to. The positive is… I feel like I could actually farm four over and over in an attempt to get my bear mount. I need to figure out which piece of high allagan I am missing so I can focus down those. I would really love to wear that full set of gear. Anyways the end of the evening was definitely better than the day, so I am thankful that I have such an awesome group of people to spend my game time with.

Race to the Bottom

April 8, 2015 by Belghast

Bel Folks Stuff #6 – A Good Friday with Liore

Listen to the Episode Here

I had these grand ideas about having two episodes during the month of March to make up for the fact that I missed a February episode. That never quite worked out. I had a handful of people that I had talked to but scheduling never quite worked out since I try really hard to squeeze these episodes in whenever my wife is otherwise busy. With the weekly schedule of AggroChat and the various guest spots I end up getting called on to do, it means she is having to bend her time around me quite often, that I try my best not to make this podcast also do that. As such I tend to schedule people on a whim, and I am super thankful that the amazing Liore was amicable about that sort of timing. I literally talked to her Thursday to see if she was available, and we recorded on the afternoon of Good Friday since we were both off work.

Liore and I have known each other for what feels like forever. She’s been in my guilds, I’ve been in her guilds… and for a period of time in Rift we raided together multiple times a week. During all of this time we have forged an unconventional friendship. It feels like we end up on opposite ends of so many discussions, but at the end of the day we do so with the greatest of respect for the other. During this podcast we talk about all sorts of things, but one thing in particular we highlight because we found it extremely humorous. Both of us have been getting commentary from the community about a supposedly rivalry between the two of us since we do similar columns now for gaming websites that are technically in competition with each other. I had a blast spending the afternoon talking with Liore, and had I allowed myself to do so I could have easily spent another full hour chatting away. I always love it when the conversation flows naturally.

Race to the Bottom

Yesterday we saw the release of the WoW Token out into the wild, and the demand for gold greatly outstripped the availability of people snatching up subscription time. At the beginning however it was skewing the other direction. The token started at a prematurely low 30,000g and I watched it yesterday raise up to 35,000g before taking a big dive into the territory that it is currently sitting. Someone thought ahead and created an excellent stock market like tracking system on https://wowtoken.info/ and you can see the bottom starting to drop out. Thing is… most players already have an active subscription for the moment. It was not until the end of the month when in other games with similar systems we started to see the demand finally climb again. My advice, just like Wildstar is to snatch up these cheap tokens now because once the system matures a bit you will be paying significantly more per month of subscription.

The reason why I feel like this is the largest benefit of a system like this is it removes the temptation of players to turn to less than legitimate sources of currency. When I wrote about this a month ago, my research at the time indicated that in the aftermarket this same $20 was buying players around 100,000 gold. This means the legitimate route now costs you roughly five times as much as the illegal market, which is still going to be a huge draw for some players. The WoW Token is a failure for Blizzard unless they can squash the third party gold sellers by starving them of their market. Right now the token is new… and a lot of people are trying it out. Given a month or two of sanity they will realize that it is greatly overpriced. I guess for me, I won’t be doing this token unless I can buy a couple and get a big ticket item like an expedition yak, one of those things I have always wanted but was much too far out of my price range. I have a feeling that this is going to be the case for your average customer. If by the end of the month we do not see a massive spike in the price of a single token… then I will be extremely surprised.

End of an Expansion

Now for the hardest part of my morning… how exactly do I talk about the wrapping up of the storyline in Final Fantasy XIV 2.55 without giving any spoilers. I chose a very careful screenshot out of the stack of them that I took because this one really doesn’t say much about what is going on. In the most spoiler free fashion I can, I am going to talk about my impressions of the events. I have to say Final Fantasy XIV knows how to end an expansion. This is hands down the most satisfying and at the same time most anxious ending to an expansion I have ever experienced. In games like World of Warcraft everything is generally resolved at the end, and all the loose bits tied up… because the intent is for that expansion to live on its own forever without actually continuing the storyline in the next expansion. In Final Fantasy XIV… every aspect of this closing means massive ramifications that will hopefully be resolved as we travel into Ishgard. Instead of wrapping up the lose ends neatly… for each one that is concluded two more ends stand open waiting to be explored.

The awesome thing is… this game has proven that it WILL actually explore them. How frustrating has it been in the past as games have hinted at things, that never saw fruition. After all there are still I believe three portals under Wyrmrest temple that go nowhere, that will likely NEVER go anywhere because the narrative has moved on past the original plans. I expect that each event that happens during the closing of “A Realm Reborn” is going to factor heavily into a future storyline chain. It was a pretty shocking and brutal conclusion, but it makes me damned happy that I am playing this game. I quite literally did not see this one coming, and I highly suggest you push hard so that you can see this content before the expansion. I pushed through in part because my friend Ashgar said that the trailer that was releasing this Friday supposedly spoils some parts of this impact. As the credits rolled they showed a number of scenes from the past block of content… and I have to say sometimes you lose sight on just how much we accomplished during “A Realm Reborn”. I am extremely excited to see what happens as we turn our eyes “Heavensward”.

MooCowadin

March 2, 2015 by Belghast

Bel Folks Stuff 5 – Evening with Qelric

We are going to put on our timey wimey stuff hats and pretend that this show is being released during the month of February, as it was originally intended. When I record a Bel Folks Stuff I tend to give the victim as much time as possible. So I approached Qelric back in January to talk about this show… and she every so graciously accepted. The problem is that life happened in the time between, with her getting an absolutely horrible case of chicken pox towards the beginning of the month, and me dealing this this insane bronchitis mess towards the end. The result is we recorded the “February” episode in March… and that I supposed is just fine so long as it came out in any form.

Qelric is quite literally one of the only youtubers I watch with any regularity because she brings to her craft a style that you don’t generally see on youtube any more. She presents extremely content dense videos in a news like format, making them far easier for me to digest without the rambling exposition. If you are not familiar with your videos, I highly suggest you check them out. On top of this however Q is just a downright interesting person, and we have interacted for what feels like years. I had a delightful afternoon/evening sitting down to record this episode. Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed and we had a mammoth hour and a half long show. The awesome thing is… even after the mic stopped recording we wound up talking for another thirty or forty minutes. I love it when the conversation is natural and flowing. Hopefully you will all enjoy this as much as I did recording it.

[download the podcast]

Moocowadin

Yesterday was a surprisingly busy day, with dealing with the publishing of two different podcasts and a normal blog post. As a result especially while waiting for Qelric to get online, I wanted to play something but did not want to get too terribly engaging. With the introduction of the Heirloom system and the 6.1 patch, it has greatly increased my desire to alt. My number one frustration while trying to level a character is trying to make sure I have level equivalent gear. I realize that gear is never as important as I seem to make it, but I like to have at least as good of a weapon as possible while pushing through the levels. Now previously I had some heirlooms, but I had to choose which character would get to use them. Even with the ability to send them cross realm, it became a mess trying to track who had what and I was constantly afraid I would end up losing heirlooms in the mail… because I have done this before. The new system however is pretty much ideal for me, since I can generate copies of heirlooms on any and all characters.

When The Scryers server merged with Argent Dawn I set about creating eleven place holder horde characters, since I did not know how the actual merger would work. It makes me extremely happy that I can have 11 Alliance characters on Argent Dawn and 11 Horde characters on The Scryers… and use them to play with my AD Horde friends. I have always been one of those players that tried to span the faction divide whenever I could and through various community efforts I developed just as many bonds on the red side as the blue. I always feel like a louse however for never really spending much time leveling a character on the “other” side. As a result I started working on Belgrace my Moocowadin yesterday while waiting for Qelric and while recording the podcast. As of this morning I am now level 18 and starting the Ratchet area. It is insane just how fast the levels come when you are completely kitted out in heirlooms. The only slot that I do not have is the ring, and I am simply not a good enough fisherman to get that.

A Confidence Boost

Over the last few weeks since the launch of the Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 patch I have greatly tapered off the amount of time I am spending in World of Warcraft. It has become a Tuesday/Thursday experience for me largely which means simply showing up in time to raid. Now granted I am logging in periodically throughout the week to run garrison missions but in the grand scheme of things that takes ten minutes or so at a time, and I am really not online that long. I’ve felt kinda horrible because one of my long time friends has been slowing improving her ilevel gear wise on her priest. Every so often she would give me an update and yesterday she told me she had hit ilvl 626. I knew the answer before I asked it, but I asked her if she had managed to do any LFR yet? As I suspected she said no, that she was wary of raiding… and didn’t think she was ready for it. I hopped on Lodin my hunter, that could still use gear from Highmaul LFR and offered to queue with her for moral support.

Finni had raided before during the early days of World of Warcraft, and as such the bulk of her experience dated from the 40 man era. So when she thinks “raid” she equates it to super serious business. Fortunately and unfortunately at times… Looking for Raid is anything but serious business. Within what felt like fifteen minutes of queuing we were through the first section, and she got a much needed confidence boost… and thankfully a little bit of gear. I remember the first time I queued for Looking for Raid upon coming back during Pandaria. I was scared as hell because the concept of a raid for me too was “serious business” time. Thankfully we have this wonderful system that allows players without the time to dedicate to at least be able to get in and see the fights in one form or another. She ended up walking with a few upgrades, and I did as well… and can now queue Blackrock Foundry on my hunter. I think we both benefited from yesterday equally, because it seems like she won’t be quite so frightened of the LFR queue.

#WoW #Paladin #BelFolkStuff

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H1Z1 Early Access

January 16, 2015 by Belghast

Bel Folks Stuff #4 – An Evening with Petter

This month the Bel Folks Stuff podcast focuses on the amazing Petter Mårtensson. Petter has been an extremely busy man, and has had a ton of side projects over the years. In his normal fashion he even offered to guest on Aggrochat if we could ever work out the time zone issues. Our listeners could know him from any number of places. For several years he worked for the european gaming magazine GameReactor both as a writer and as an on-air anchor. Similarly while dormant for several years, he is the man behind the Don’t Fear the Mutant blog. On the podcasting front he has been extremely active in the CSICON network serving as a host on several different shows including Claims the Normal, Three MMOSketeers, Enochian Frequency and most recently Who’s Who.

In addition to all of this he was involved in creating the A Tale of Internet Spaceships documentary talking about the culture behind EVE online. Now he is also writing a monthly Final Fantasy XIV column for MMOGames. Like I said… he is an extremely busy man and I am thankful he took the time to sit down with me and have a length conversation… mostly about non-gaming stuff. I think the most interesting thing about the conversation was the delve into Futurism and the things we would love to see. We also geeked out a bit about Doctor Who, which apparently is something that happens on every podcast now that he hosts the Who’s Who show. Definitely was an interesting conversation, and I hope you all enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Listen to the Show

H1Z1 Early Access

Yesterday Sony Online Entertainment launched the H1Z1 early access. This was originally supposed to go live on Steam around noon, but various delays pushed it back into the late afternoon. When I got home from work it was available and I figured $20 but satiate my curiosity was a fair price. However the game apparently is very much “not quite ready for primetime”. The above screen is what greeted me when finally after my World of Warcraft raid I fired the game back up. Early in the evening I was not able to get into the server select screen at all so I guess in a way it is progress? I am sure this is another case of “underestimated demand” and I seriously cannot blame them. Throwing a game up on Steam early access as your initial forray into alpha… is pretty damned daring. Right now the game has roughly 2000 reviews, roughly half of those are positive and half are negative, so if only a small fraction of the population comments… that means they sold a ton of early access copies.

I love the concept of a zombie survival game… the problem is I don’t want to have to deal with the world pvp aspect of games like Rust and Dayz. So when this game was announced I had zero interest, until it was confirmed that there would be PVE only server environments at launch. Hell I didn’t even mind that the original icon in the server browser list was a teddy bear. I am a carebear, and I am okay with this notion. While it is immature to taunt the player base that has proved to make up the overwhelming majority of MMO players… I can deal with it. I am sure H1Z1 is going to be a mess for the near future, but hopefully at some point it will be playable and interesting and allow me to play a base building game in a walking dead style world. If it gives me that… then I am largely going to be happy with it and will consider it $20 well spent.

Mar’gok Attempts

Early in the week on Tuesday we had a really phenomenal night or raiding, meaning we cleared 6/7 on normal and 2/7 on heroic. This freed up last night to work entirely on Imperator Mar’gok. While we got a bit of a late start due to key players running a bit behind, we accomplished just that, an entire night of attempts. Mar’gok is one of those fights with a lot of moving parts, and it is simply going to take a lot of repetition before we have our “click moment” when everything falls into place. We however did make good strides in that direction. Essentially there is one transition that is wrecking us… that we need to figure out how to do more smoothly. Once we have that transition down I think we will down the boss. All of that said we did manage to start getting him down into the 40% range each time, which tells me we are likely on the cusp of victory.

It feels really good to be doing current content in World of Warcraft. During my time back in Pandaria I attempted to raid with a group that was in theory several content patches behind. There is just something demoralizing about doing that, and especially since we never seemed to make any real forward momentum that would lead me to believe that at any time we were likely to get to current content. When LFR served as my primary source of upgrades… I had to ask myself why was I even bothering with the constant nights of wiping. This expansion however has been a completely different experience. I really want to kill Mar’gok but I have the utmost confidence that we will, and likely before the Blackrock Foundry raid opens. I am just bummed that I won’t be around Thursday night next week… because more than likely after reviewing the logs we will make some tweaks and finish this raid.

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