Blaugust Archives - Page 28 of 38 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Blaugust Games of Week – Week 1

July 31, 2015 by Belghast

Pre-emptive Thank You

Yesterday I freaked a lot of people out by calling it the Blaugust Eve. As I have explained on twitter, I was accounting for my amazing time travelling Aussie and Kiwi friends for whom… right now IS the start of Blaugust. For the rest of us at the time of posting this we have a little more wiggle room before the festivities kick off. I have to say last year was an insane ride for me, as much as it was for the contestants. The intent was to run everything through the Blaugust Nook but that didn’t exactly happen, and it quite literally made my life hell. I ended up spending a couple of hours a day trying to sort out who posted what when and in what time zone they were posting from… and then the people who posted after midnight in their own time zone… only served to add to the complication. There were numerous times I tried to track down people on twitter or IM to ask if they meant X post to be on Y day or not.

This year it seems like most everyone has registered on the Nook which is going to help, but what is going to be even more important is advertising your daily posts there with the day number you are intending it to be. On your side that is a small amount of work, but on my side that is saving me literally hours of scouring… and is hopefully going to allow me to actually read blogs during the course of the event. As soon as things start I have to flip into book keeper mode, and while I might be “reading” posts I was not necessarily enjoying them last year because of all of the technical foibles. So I am thanking you ahead of time for complying with the list of rules, because it is going to make my life not horrible over the next thirty one days. I’ve been a fan of Anook for awhile, so much so apparently that yesterday someone thought I worked for them. I just think they do a great job of giving me guild forum like functionality but also giving the ability to interact with other gamers. I am amped this year about them sponsoring the Community Award, and we will ultimately sort out the specifics of that as the event goes on.

Games of the Week – Week 1

Yesterday we launched the writing prompts forum, and I thought it was pretty amazing that Void spent a good chunk of the day yesterday populating it with a bunch of ideas. I plan on adding a new writing prompt to this post every day during the course of this event, but I wanted to go a little bit further. Nothing makes more interesting posts than exploring a new game, or revisiting one that you have been fond of in the past. As such I plan on highlighting three free to play games a week, with an attempt to mix up the styles a bit. My hope is that if you are lacking inspiration, you can download and install one of these games and find plenty of things to write about. Lets get on with the games!

Dirty Bomb – Nexon/Splash Damage

This is a game I played a bit in beta but have not really played much after it officially launched, and I am actually looking forward to playing it some more. I have long been a huge fan of games by Splash Damage, and I spent many an hour playing Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Hell I even joined a competitive clan while playing it, but never really did much more than scrimmage other teams. Splash Damage creates a shooter quite unlike anyone else makes, and they tend to focus on these complex objectives that require multiple classes of players to complete them. I always focused on the “Engineer” archetype because it made the game play more enjoyable for me as it gave me a higher purpose. I am not big into “death matching” but I loved rushing headlong into a firefight trying to stay alive long enough to build a bridge or repair a tank. This game is the logical extension of Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, Quake Wars Enemy Territory and even to some extent the critical failure Brink. I think I am one of the few people out there that wholeheartedly enjoyed Brink, and lately I have been feeling the itch to play some FPS action… and Dirty Bomb seems like it is going to fit that bill perfectly.

Download From Steam – Download From Nexon

Everquest II – Daybreak Games

I will always hold a special place in my heart for Norrath, the setting of the Everquest universe. When World of Warcraft launched I was torn because part of me wanted to be playing Everquest II. Instead I went where the bulk of my friends went, but continued to periodically visit the setting of EQ2 throughout the years. It has some of the best world building I have seen in any game, and the scope of the zones just feel so massive compared to almost anything else on the market. They innovated in so many ways, and had so many rich systems like one of the best Mentoring systems out there for the time. As the years have ticked by the game has felt more and more like a dated relic, however there is a simple nostalgic charm to it that I still find appealing. They seem to be banking on taking this nostalgia to market, as they have opened a time locked progression server allowing players to go back and experience the world as it was during the early days. This is making me seriously consider re-rolling and starting fresh on this new server, but I have had so many other competing goals that I just have not done it yet. My goal is this week to roll a character and check it out, but unfortunately that means I am going to have to buy a new character slot on my already loaded account. If you are looking for a world loaded with inspiration… this is a good place to start.

Download From Steam – Download from Daybreak

Marvel Heroes 2015 – Gazillion

Another game that I really enjoy but find myself not playing a lot of right now is Marvel Heroes. This game provides Diablo II style game play, with a rich class based system in the form of all of the different heroes that you can play. One of the coolest features of this game is the way that the you pick your first hero to level. The game allows you to play a long list of champions to level 10, and then you get to unlock one of them and take it all the way to level 60. This gives you plenty of time to get a feel for how they each play and their different abilities. I personally tend to be a Captain America player, but there are heroes that fit just about any imagined play style. The other thing that I really appreciate is the way that for the most part, the game gives me a pathway to unlock the things that I might want without hiding it behind an overly painful grind. Champions are purchased with Eternity Splinters which drop fairly frequently while doing content in the world. One of the complaints I have seen from friends is that the game play is extremely easy, and this is absolutely the case while you are playing on normal mode. However after defeating the main storyline you can ratchet up the difficulty much in the same way as you can in Diablo 3. This is absolutely a really fun game and the freemium nature is not egregious in any fashion, so if you want some old school Diablo game play with MOBA inspired style character design… you might check this one out.

Download From Steam – Download From Gazillion

Daily Prompt

Since I more or less posted a series of games that I have some connection to, or would like to have a better connection with. The writing prompt for the day is somewhat connected to that.

What game that you are not playing, do you still have a deeply nostalgic connection to and why?

Let us hear what game you keep returning to even if you aren’t really actively playing it… or likely will never play it with quite the same fervor. For me personally that game is absolutely Everquest II, and I still hold a torch for it even though at this moment I have not really played it over the course of the last two years.

Twas Night Before Blaugust

July 31, 2015July 30, 2015 by Belghast

It’s Almost Time

I know I have said this many times… but I have to say it again. I am completely overwhelmed by the amount of support I have gotten for the path of madness known as Blaugust. As of this morning when I compiled the list I will be posting shortly… we had 47 people signed up on the Blaugust Nook. I absolutely suggest that you get out there and mingle with your fellow Blaugustians, because you are all embarking upon a mission together that will be challenging for many of you. There is a shared spirit of struggle that binds us all, in our mission of creating thirty one days of content. These events that we hold serve to galvanize our community, and create cohesion where it may or may not already exist. More than anything however… this event is about tricking each and every one of you into realizing that you can in fact write content on a schedule. Inspiration is a fickle muse… but I am here to tell you that you don’t need her anyways!

The Blaugustians

Without anymore rambling on my part… I introduce to you the challengers in the second running of the Blaugust games… may the content ever be in your favor.

This is a pretty damned impressive group of blogs if I do say so myself. During this years Blaugust I will be taking special note for the folks who also competed last year and will be coming up with some special recognition for repeat winners and survivors. Remember it is not too late to join in the madness, and you can sign up on the Blaugust Nook thread at any point during the month and play catch up. Lets make this the best Blaugust yet!

A First Prompt

What are you hoping to get out of Blaugust this year?

To make things a little easier on the Blaugustians I will be providing a writing prompt each day during the month of August in my morning posts. These are of course completely optional, but if you find yourself stuck you can go to the writing prompt thread and hopefully find some ideas. I highly suggest that we make the writing prompts a collaborative experience, and if you think of something good even if you are not going to use it yourself… post it to the thread to help your fellow challengers. I look forward to seeing all of the awesome stuff you fine folks create tomorrow. I mentioned this yesterday but I also plan on suggesting some games of the week, in case you are struggling to find purpose. Nothing creates content like your first time experiencing a new game, or even returning to a game you had forgotten about. That said I don’t really want to roll these out today, but will instead include them in tomorrows post.

Anook Community Award

July 29, 2015 by Belghast

Prepping for Blaugust

At this point we are getting super close to the launch of Blaugust, and the sign ups keep coming on the Nook. There is still time to sign up and be ready for the start of this exciting month. Also remember there is zero penalty this year for starting late and catching up. Last year my friend Tamrielo did something absolutely insane and wrote 31 really well formed posts in a 48 hour period. While I would never suggest anyone do something like that, it is absolutely possible to start a week late and make up the missed progress. Similarly I know folks will be attending Gamescom or Pax Prime during this month, so it is absolutely a good idea to stage the content ahead of time. For the WordPress users out there I highly suggest you check out their pretty excellent mobile app (iOS, Android) that gives you access to your blog on the go, and does a decent job of letting you compose a post on the go.

I tend to be a very pro WordPress person, but blogger is perfectly acceptible as well and while I have never used it there seems to be a mobile blogger client also (iOS, Android). The primary reason why I tend to suggest WordPress is just that there is a path between WordPress.com free hosted service, and moving to a WordPress.org installation on your own custom hosting. There are a number of guides out there to help this process along. What I like so much about this is the fact that it lets someone get their feet wet and decide if this blogging thing is for them… before plunking down the money it takes to rent space on a web host and purchase a domain. There are lots of people that never make the jump between COM to ORG, but it is nice that there is always that option if you want to do something with your blog that is not supported through the official channels. There are also guides for going from Blogger to WordPress, but they tend to be far less straight forward.

Anook Community Award

Last night something really cool happened, namely that Lonrem the tirelessly working community manager of Anook.com posted an excellent “best practices” document on the Blaugust Nook. If the document were not enough in helping people get the most out of their Anook experience… he also slipped a tidbit of information in down at the bottom. For a few weeks now we had been talking about Anook wanting to sponsor some sort of award. It was finally decided that the best way to have an Anook reward is to have the users of the website vote on their favorite posts. Here are the basics of this award posted straight from his document.

I’ll also announce here that Anook is going to support Blaugust with a special prize! I’m going to tally up the Hearts that each blog post gets for each blogger (Blaugger?) and award the top blog with a game code. I’m going to see if I can round up other prizes from some of our friends and partners as well, no promises there! This does give a bit of an incentive to post regularly, start on the first of August, but also to share the link to your blog on Anook! If you’ve got any questions, let me know!

This is really awesome to have our first “real” sponsor… because my pocket didn’t really count. Last year when I started this, I decided to host the challenge off of Anook because it is a network that I love. Lonrem singlehandedly won me over with his devotion, and the features basically keep me from ever having to build yet another custom SMF forum for anything. So I fly the Anook banner on my stream and mention it on every AggroChat just because I love the site. I am humbled that the site is returning some of that love and helping us get this challenge started in a bigger and better way this year. I’ve had an idea through this contest of creating a games of the week where I suggest a handful of free to play games that folks play, and then write about their experience to help get those creative juices flowing. While I might have been dreading the loss of my free time that Blaugust means… I am absolutely getting pumped about how much more “real” this whole thing feels for 2015.

Surprise Alex

It is not uncommon for me to log in to Final Fantasy XIV in the evening and hear the all too familiar chime of a group invite before the game has completely loaded. My guildies are used to ninjaing me into tanking all manner of things, and I assumed that it was yet another case of “daily expert”. So I accepted the invite without thinking much about it, and found myself shocked when I saw the Alexander loading screen. To make matters worse the ninja alex was turn 2, which is quite possibly the most frustrating thing for a tank to take on without having a second tank in there that they trust. The problem being that pugs like to stack all of the mobs together, which makes it impossible for the tanks to effectively hold aggro on them. What happens instead is that both tanks burn through all of their resources and the mobs spend the entire fight bouncing back and forth between them. This would be fine and good if it were safe for a single tank to take them on… problem being that in the later phases you have to try and carefully split the damage to even it out. All of the mobs on one tank is pretty much a certain wipe.

The positive of getting pulled into Alex like this however is that it took away my normal reluctance to such things, and as of last night I now have three of my four pieces of loot for the week. All that is left is Turn 1, and quite honestly it is the least stressful for me to pug. The tanks have clearly defined roles and for the most part they go fairly smoothly now that most people are pretty well geared. At this point for that final item I want either a chain which would instantly give me a belt, or a pedal… which would also instantly give me an item because I have a second one in my inventory. I have to say the way gearing works in Alex is a little maddening, but I feel that honestly it is their way of trying to delay people reaching level 190 geared. With Esoterics in place, I can’t really see going for say the Alexander chest piece since it takes getting a lucky roll four weeks in a row on Turn 4. My first Esoterics item of course will be the 200 weapon, because for a tank that is the single most useful upgrade. After that I will probably assess my weakest pieces and go after what I need the most… which is more than likely going to be my chest piece. Of course in the mean time Square could do what they seem to always do… and change up the game by taking away loot restrictions. That said I still think it is a little early in the patch for that to actually happen, and more than likely won’t be until 3.1.

Fifty Eight Singularity

July 27, 2015 by Belghast

Blaugust Update

Right now we are three days away from the beginning of Blaugust, and at this point I am happy with the pre-event response. If my count is correct, we have 35 different people signed up to do the challenge, and as I remember last year we managed to pick up a bunch of people after the start. This is a bit of a double edged sword for me at least, because while I am amped as hell to see all these fine folks participating… I am also realizing that in three days time my casual reading of the internet is over. I flip into stat keeper mode as I tabulate the posts that folks have made on which day to verify that at the end of the month they have in fact made their thirty one posts.

Blaugust is this strange dichotomy in that for most people it has nothing to do with the prizes that will be handed out at the end. However since I am offering them as an additional carrot… I feel like I have to perform my due diligence and keep track of everything. So as we near the start of this event I am a mixture of anticipation and dread. My hope is that everyone will include the day they are posting for in their post so that I can easily checkmark off a post on a given day. I struggled so much trying to reconcile timezones last year, and folks proclivity for posting after midnight but meaning it for the previous day. I remember Joseph Skyrim was amazingly awesome about always including what day he was posting for, which made the whole Australia thing so much easier. I think in the coming days I will go back through the list of people who did it last year and determine just how many are repeat participants. Just giving things a summary glance it certainly seems like there are many.

Finally Alex Four

I am just realizing that apparently yesterday… I did not actually have FRAPS running while playing Final Fantasy XIV. So that means all of the times I thought I was taking a screenshot, I apparently was not. As a result you are getting a screenshot from Turn 3 of Alexander instead of Turn 4 as I intended. For the last several weeks I had been hoping to run Alexander will a full guild group, however last Wednesday we struggled a bit on Turn 2 and only managed to get through Turn 3 before running out of time. Turn 4 is a huge deal, not necessarily because of the fight… but because the quest turn in at the end of it rewards a Gordian Bolt. For a little over a week now I have been staring at my 170 ring and grimacing because it was my one sub 180 that I still had. So the drive to get through Alexander Four was pretty strong for me, because it meant I would finally be able to replace that last ring with a shiny new 190 ring.

Yesterday afternoon I finally got the courage to pug it with zero guidance from the guild, and in truth it was not nearly as painful as I had expected. Firstly the fourth turn is a blast and is one of the few fights where I find the off tank role far more enjoyable than the main tank. There is a mechanic that works somewhat like C’Thun’s swallow mechanic from World of Warcraft, causing the off tank and another player to get sucked through a series of tubes into another room. There you have to burn down a “Doll” add within a certain timeframe before getting pulled back into the main room again. For me personally this meant rationing my cool downs so that I could survive, but also hoping and praying that I got a heal upon exiting… because you literally get sucked in back to back if the dps is going too slowly. There was a bard that each time I got paired with her, which is strange because you would think with all of the recent buffs that would have been a great choice to burn the add. Anyways… it took about four attempts but we managed to get it. I did both the main tank and off tank roles, but like I said I absolutely prefer to off tank it simply because seeing my tiny Lalafell self go flying through the air is hilarious.

Fifty Eight Singularity

Yesterday I had a decision to make, and I think I hinted at it in my blog post (truth is I rarely remember what I write from day to day). Essentially I could either grind out all of the esoterics I needed to cap, or instead I could work on my Dragoon. In truth I split it down the middle and pushed my Esoterics a little higher, before ultimately retiring for the evening to work on the Dragoon. I ran a course of three Vaults, and still am coming up short in experience to push across the finish line. As a result as I was starting to get more sluggish right before bed time, I decided to do my first Levequests of the expansion. One of the strange things about Heavensward is that all Levequests come from an NPC in Foundation just up the ramp from the Aetheryte crystal. This means that the game freaks out slightly when you attempt to accept the port after finishing one. In the Dravinian Hinterlands it kept dropping me off at the Bigwest Shortstop instead of actually porting me back to the foundation. This makes me think that the game initially intended there to be Levequest vendors in every zone, but ended up deciding that they wanted to try a centralized vendor in Foundation instead.

The problem being that Fifty Eight still seems like a hellaciously long level, even with the Armory Bonus firmly in place. I did a grand total of six level 58 levequests, and each one barely made the xp bar move. However I was able to whittle it down to just enough that I think by doing my hunts tonight I might actually be able to ding.` The reason why I want 59 so badly is somewhat stupid… mainly I am tired of the lance that I am using. I think it looks ugly as shit… but for the single level I am using it… I cannot bring myself to spend the money to glamour it to something more enjoyable. Especially when I know that I have a level 59 lance waiting on me. It is at the very least giving me that added push to get the hell out of this level on onwards to the final push for 60. I have also gotten a little sick of running the Vault. It was awesome the first dozen times I was in there, but now the music is grating on my nerves. I also simply think that the Library is a much more enjoyable dungeon, and does not have a death trap of a boss quite the same way as The Vault does. I still find that final encounter in Vault to be the hardest in the leveling dungeons, and I feel sorry when I see a healer struggling to keep up with the massive room wide damage. Hopefully tonight will see me dinging 59, and I can move on to more enjoyable pastures.