Recent Media Round-Up

by

Hey Folks! I have been more or less taking the last several days off because I am technically on vacation. Due to the less-than-opportune placement of July 4th, I took off today and also largely checked out of doing blog posts late last week giving myself a bit of a vacation. This morning however I had to do some work really quickly and make sure that timecards were approved. So I thought that I might as well bang out a blog post because I have some things to talk about. More specifically I have watched quite a bit of movies and series of late, and thought I would give a bit of a round-up of some of my thoughts regarding them.

Nimona

I feel like all of you need to stop what you are doing right now and watch Nimona. It is available on Netflix, and if you don’t have access to Netflix… then pirate the fuck out of it because it is very good. If you are/were a fan of Lumberjanes or the most modern incarnation of She-Ra or pretty much anything else from ND Stevenson, then you are probably going to love this. If not… then you will probably still love this because it is exceptionally well-written. It is a story about trying to find your place in the world when that world often is diametrically opposed to your existence. It has a lot of things to say, but also… I want Nimona to be my sidekick. I had not been following the production mess that surrounded this property, but it sounds like it is a sheer miracle that this came out at all.

Very much a good film for the entire family as well. I highly suggest you check it out.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

First I feel like I have to say that I don’t hate Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The movie had problems and I feel like the whole aliens thing was pretty divisive, but for me most of the problems with that movie came from the fact that it looked wrong. We were still in the era of CGI “all the things”, and it looked it… and now I feel like we realize what we lost during the CGI boom years… and folks go out of their way to make things feel like practical effects even when they may not be. Dial of Destiny harkens back to the era of Last Crusade, and while it is still maybe a bit busy and a little bit less about bringing the audience along for the hunt, it feels more grounded in at least imagined reality.

I think what I like the most about this movie is that it serves as a nice bookend for the entire series. Indy is still punching Nazis and still chasing objects of tremendous power but is very much a man out of time. He doesn’t really fit into the world of the moon landing, but no longer has the vim and vigor to really keep chasing forbidden treasure. Dial of Destiny serves as a great last hurrah for Indiana Jones and hopefully can put the character to bed on a good note. If this series continues, it needs to continue in the hands of someone other than Indy, and at most him serving as a supporting character. He has had his curtain call, and I feel satisfied with this movie being the last stanza.

The Flash

I am not going to spend much time talking about what a seeming shithole of a human being Ezra Miller has turned out to be. I don’t really care much about the current state of the DC Universe. I’ve watched the various movies, and enjoyed them enough to keep watching them… but also never really felt the love for them that I have in the MCU. I was mostly interested in this film as it serves to give a last hurrah to “my Batman” aka Michael Keaton. What I was not expecting was to enjoy the film as a whole anywhere near as much as I did. I’ve always sort of hated Ezra Miller’s version of Barry Allen. I found the character annoying as shit and extremely abrasive… and this movie goes a long way to resolving that problem and shows reach growth of the character.

Michael Keaton as Batman and Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El were both phenomenal. The two different Barry Allens though… felt almost like watching two different actors in the same way as you do when Tatiana Maslany plays dozens of unique characters in Orphan Black. The only disappointment in the movie though is the fact that I expected something that just simply was not there. Knowing that the DCU is being rebooted… I expected this movie to play more into that fact. There were a lot of deep cuts showing alternate timelines like the Nick Cage Superman… but the entire thing wraps up in a very weird note that makes me question what this means for everything that comes forward. It doesn’t so much give the current DCU one last send-off as much as it just deeply muddies the waters. It is still a good film but I would probably suggest waiting for it to release on streaming before you watch it.

The Witcher Season 3 Part 1

Unfortunately, Netflix has realized the error of its ways when it comes to releasing episodes… and has begun awkwardly cleaving a series in half so that they can have two different epic premiere dates. This weekend the first part of The Witcher Season 3 dropped, and with it comes the first five episodes that end on a bit of a cliffhanger. I have a lot of issues with this show… not the least of which is the fact that Henry Cavil will be moving on from the series after this season. I get WHY he would want to leave however because the showrunners and writers are needlessly fucking with details constantly. The Witcher is one of those shows that is good… so long as you know nothing about the supporting material. It reminds me of my early experience with the Harry Dresden series prior to reading the novels. I thought it was pretty good… until I actually read the books and then suddenly got annoyed at the weird inconsistencies.

I think what bothers me the most about The Witcher series, is the fact that entire scenes have been lifted from whole cloth from either the books or the games… but little details have been fucked with for no apparent reason. The worst of this is the way that they are suddenly changing the entire personality and motivation of different characters. I am sorry folks… but they did Eskel dirty last season… and this season they are making some truly bizarre fucking choices with Radovid. The series version of Djikstra is fucking heinous as well and is nowhere near as compelling of a character. Basically, the show feels sloppy, and that is maybe the worst thing a show based off course material can be. The only reason why I kept watching is that they’ve at least nailed the pivotal characters of Geralt, Ciri, Yennifer, and Dandelion/Jaskier. The source material is so fucking strong… that it just infuriates me that the folks writing this show seem determined to sloppily copy the original homework.

Final Thoughts

I cannot understate how much I enjoyed seeing the Keaton Batman ride again. Have you seen any of the media that I talked about? What were your thoughts? What things did I completely miss? I’ve tried to keep everything spoiler free because I do think that everything was worth watching at least once. Again I highly suggest that everyone stream Nimona because it was so freaking good.

AggroChat #440 – The Ubiquitous LARP

by
Featuring: Ammosart, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks! This week we are down an Ash but have the triumphant return of Kodra from Origins.  This week we talk about the self-DDoS of Twitter and Kodra chimes in on the return of P-Speed to a new Super Mario Game.  From there we talk a bit about the newly announced Guild Wars 2 expansion Secrets of the Obscure.  Kodra gives us a bit of a run down on his experiences at Origins and how he has finally played in the most ubiquitous LARP Vampire the Masquerade.  We are somewhat incredulous as for several of us… that is the ONLY LARP we have ever participated in.  Grace gets bit by the Honkai Star Rail bug finally and talks a bit about their experiences.  Nimona is out and we talk a bit about the steps it took to get to this point as well as a bit about the mixed bag that is The Little Mermaid live-action film.  Finally, we wrap things up with a quick topic about Microprose actually still existing in some form and gobbling up former properties like getting back the license to Falcon.

Topics Discussed:

  • The Twitpocalypse
  • P-Speed Returns
  • Guild Wars 2
    • Secrets of the Obscure
  • Origins Convention
  • Vampire LARP
  • Honkai Star Rail
  • Nimona Is Out
  • The Little Mermaid Live Action
  • Microprose exists and gets Falcon back

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Regretfully Seeking Luocha

by

Good Morning Folks! This morning’s blog post is going to be a bit of a smorgasbord of smaller topics. The first is that the Silver Wolf banner is sadly over in Honkai Star Rail. That means that any attempts at getting this excellent character are diminished for the time being. I am uncertain if she can be pulled on a normal banner, but I am extremely happy that I picked her up while it was available. It cracks me up that when she visits the Astral Express she does so in hologram form. This morning she was hanging out in the parlor car and wanting to play board games… then realized that holograms can’t move physical pieces. Then turned around and berated me for not having any arcade cabinets on the express. She has rapidly become one of my favorite characters for her ability to brute force a weakness onto a target.

With the Silver Wolf banner gone, that means the Luocha banner is now available. I have to admit there is absolutely nothing about this character or his design that interests me. I am however pulling for him just because I need a second healer. I would far rather have Bailu, but as it stands I think you have to be just exceptionally lucky with the default banner to make this happen. Honestly, I am not even that big of a fan of his style of healing, but having a second healer seems like it would make the split runs where you are required to have two teams much easier to complete. I am however hoping to pick up a Pela from the banner while it is available. I bonded with Pela during the museum event and now like the character far more than I originally did.

So far however all I have pulled are multiple copies of Qinqque. Since you got her for free that means I now have her with two Eidolons, which is fine… but she isn’t exactly a character I am actively using for anything other than running assignments. I only had enough currency saved up to do two 10 pulls and the other pull the only thing I picked up was a four-star light cone. Just like in Genshin Impact, pulling a weapon or light cone is always the least exciting possible thing you can pull. I’m close to another 10 pull on the Luocha banner so maybe I will get him so I can go back to the standard banner. As it stands there are probably more things on that banner that I actually care about at this point.

I’m finding the event that went in with Luocha a bit frustrating. It is called Stellar Flare and it is based on defeating a number of mobs during a certain number of cycles aka turns. Since I tend to build teams for survival and not speed… this means that I keep failing these fights. I am going to have to shift things up a bit and pull together a speedy team rather than a sturdy team. The problem is that the fight itself dishes out a ton of damage. So you almost need to come up with a team that can “board wipe” every single cycle. I’m also nowhere near maxed out on my characters so it isn’t like I can just brute force this. I need to devote some time to farming the resources needed to upgrade my newly level 70 character squad the rest of the way.

In very very brief Diablo IV news, I managed to get to level 70 finally. I am just not really enjoying the grind at this point. Barbarian is essentially in a state where if you get crowd controlled once… you are dead almost instantly. This is just about as unfun of a situation as it gets, and while I enjoy hanging out with my friend Cyl… I don’t much enjoy Nightmare Dungeons. Really other than the occasional world boss Nightmare Dungeons are the only end-game activity that is reliably available. I felt very strong when I first got to World Tier IV but I already feel like I lost all of that power and am consistently getting weaker every single level. The thing is… I am wearing about as good of gear as you can get for my level with the appropriate aspects on each item. Sure I could min-max the stats or grind out more paragon points, but it largely feels like a losing battle. I exist in two states… either immortal or instantly dead the moment anything stuns/freezes/poisons me.

All of the news about Secrets of the Obscure has made me renew my focus on Guild Wars 2. Since I have been recording my dumb little videos talking about various game modes I enjoy, I decided that last night I would record myself doing the server reset Tequatl fight. This is sort of the quintessential Guild Wars 2 experience for me personally. It was the encounter that made me finally appreciate how god of a game Guild Wars 2 could be, and was probably my first real large-scale world boss experience. Since then I have done hundreds of boss and meta trains, but Tequatl will always hold a very special place in my heart. It is sort of the pinnacle of how cool the drop in group play can be in this game.

Last night I also started working a bit on the next set of story quests for What Lies Within. I didn’t get super far though because I wound up going outside to hang in the backyard for the remainder of the night. I am sure I will pick up and get through that content drop today. I’m also looking forward to the weapons test beta this weekend. I want to get in and play with Necromancer Greatsword/Pistol and see if I can figure out how to make it viable. Mostly I just want a ranged weapon that feels better than staff to combo with Greatsword. The axe is just too short of a ranged weapon, and I really wish Necromancer got access to Longbow. Maybe eventually someday.

Did you have luck pulling Luocha in Honkai Star Rail? Are you still playing Diablo IV? Are you going to participate in the weapon test beta in Guild Wars 2? Drop me a line with your thoughts.

Secrets of the Obscure Announcement

by

Good Morning Friends! While I have not been actively talking much about Guild Wars 2, I still end up poking my head into the game a few times a week. I need to properly spend some time catching up and experiencing the “What Lies Within” content update and the second part of the Gyala Delve zone meta. I feel like before I talk about anything that transpired yesterday, I need to talk about the controversial post that the Arena Net team made back in February. Essentially in the Studio Update a new path forward for Guild Wars 2 was outlined, that they would be moving away from Living World and instead doing smaller and more frequent expansions.

With this post, the community sort of spun off in a bunch of directions. Some seemingly now accurately predicted that this would mean yearly expansions. Others went into doomer territory and assumed that this was the beginning of the end of Guild Wars 2. Whatever the case… this shift in direction combined with a somewhat poorly received content update for What Lies Beneath caused some opinions to circulate. I personally thought Gyala Delve and the What Lies Beneath update were pretty enjoyable. I was largely on board with this concept of narrowing the scope of what an expansion meant and then following it up with specific quarterly content drops. In the time since then, we have seen effectively a quarterly schedule which I think is awesome. Mostly for me when it comes to a live service game, the studio behind it needs to nail a predictable cadence and set expectations… and I think Arena Net is now doing both.

Now we move forward to yesterday, and ANet dropped the trailer for the next Guild Wars 2 expansion, Secrets of the Obscure. With the close of the Dragon Cycle expansions with End of Dragons, we now move back to core Tyria and are delving into mysteries that have just been sitting there in the open for a decade now. We’ve had this giant floating Dalaran-esc tower in Kessex Hills that was just begging to be explored, and it seems like the new expansion is going to be taking us there. This is honestly something that Wooden Potatoes predicted in his mega video throwing out mini-expansion ideas that would begin to tie up loose ends in the world. If you look at the map there is already a bunch of areas to expand into new zones, without the need to necessarily build another content island.

With the announcement came a bit of an info dump about the features of Secrets of the Obscure or as the community is already referring to it as just “SOTO”. There is a new expansion site that serves largely as a teaser for the features and a way to pre-purchase. Then there are a number of news blog posts that deep dive into some of the features themselves. More specifically there is one covering combat changes and another talking about some of the more ephemeral rewards structure features. I think what excites me the most are the tweaks to combat, which again everyone was speculating since content creators had latched onto the fact that an Elite Specialization had not been mentioned in either the roadmap or the subsequent Q&A.

Essentially we are getting new build diversity through the removal of elite specialization requirements for weapons. As it stands right now in order to use a Longbow on a Guardian, for example, you have to be using the Dragon Hunter talent tree with your build. In order to use a shield with a Mesmer, you have to be a Chronomancer. The first change with SOTO is that they are removing these requirements and when a class has access to a weapon… all of the specializations have access to that weapon. For ages I have wished I could build a Reaper that used the Greatsword as the main weapon set, and then Pistol as my secondary weapon. Sure I realize that Pistol is largely designed for condition damage… but it plays fine with Power Gear at least in the open-world content I largely do. I will now be able to craft this as well as a bunch of other dumb build ideas that I am sure the community will go wild with.

More than that, however, in one of the quarterly updates it seems like every single class is getting another weapon to play with.

  • Guardian: Pistol (main and off hand)
  • Revenant: Scepter (main hand)
  • Warrior: Staff
  • Engineer: Short bow
  • Ranger: Mace (main and off hand)
  • Thief: Axe (main hand)
  • Elementalist: Pistol (main hand)
  • Mesmer: Rifle
  • Necromancer: Sword (main and off hand)

I am super interested in Staff for Warrior because I am hoping that opens up a healing option for that class. I am also naturally interested in Necromancer getting Sword Main and Offhand… because I wonder what a Pistol/Sword combo would look like. I don’t love Daggers in general… so if a game gives me the option to not use one… I will generally take that option. Ranger getting access to maces could also be interesting. I could see some sort of Hammer/Mace/Mace build being interesting probably with some CC nonsense going on.

Another huge thing that I am looking forward to… doesn’t directly impact me. They are adding in a new way of earning the Skyscale mount, that in theory should be less of a grind and hopefully less of a gold sink. I went through the entire process of getting a Skyscale and while I enjoy it… it is so much of a grind that I would never wish that for anyone. The Skyscale is the single highest quality of life addition I have made to my account, and in truth much like lowering the barrier of entry of getting access to the raptor and gliding quickly… this one is pretty huge and is currently gated behind having to do a mount of content to get it. This is a good change for future generations that might adopt the game later, but I do like that they are giving those of us who unlocked the first track a bit of a bonus when we unlock both tracks.

Another thing that I am supremely excited about is the possibility of an Open World track for earning Legendary gear. Guild Wars 2 is a bit odd when it comes to gearing because Legendary gear is mechanically the same as Ascended gear. The key difference being that you can change the stats on Legendary gear as often as you like, meaning once you have a set for each armor weight… you effectively never need to worry about gearing ever again. The problem with the way this gear is earned currently is that for the PVE variant, you essentially have to raid. While I would love to do this at some point… I don’t necessarily have a pre-baked static team to take with me. I mostly play Guild Wars 2 as a solo adventure, and I figure this is the case for a lot of players. The idea of opening this up to give us a way to earn purple gear makes me extremely happy.

I am also fairly interested in this “Rift” mechanic that they talk about, and I am interested to see how this shakes out. More interesting things in the Open World are always a bonus for me, given that is my primary mode of play in Guild Wars 2. I’ve loved Rift mechanics in other games… like the actual elemental Rifts in the game of that namesake, the anchors in Elder Scrolls Online, and the corruption pillar things in New World. My hope is that this ends up being something of the sort and just adds one more game mode to an already-packed world. I kinda dig the seemingly darker theme of this expansion. There are a lot of threats from Tyria’s past that could easily come back now that the dragons are out of the way. Maybe the dragons served the purpose of guarding against even worse things.

I have no clue what this nightmare-fueled monstrosity is, but I am here for it. Sign me up for dark eldritch horror thank you very much. While I am not really a “Wizard Tower” type of person, I am all here for floating cities and more importantly floating continents. Mostly what excites me is the addition of more vibrant maps into the game. Guild Wars 2 isn’t so much an “Open World” game as it is a dense content map game and I am here for more fun zones to hang out in. I am also interested in seeing what wild zone metas we could have when it is assumed that EVERYONE has easy access to a flying mount. I think that has been one of the challenges with the Skyscale to date, is that it is really hard to design content around having it because the grind was so arduous.

I realize I somewhat buried the lede here a bit and am just now embedding the trailer. The truth is the trailer doesn’t say much of substance. You are far better off reading the blog post, and then the combat and rewards breakout posts. I think what mostly shocked everyone was the date. This is going to be launching on August 22nd. At the time of writing this post, that is only 55 days away. I have to be honest… I wish EVERY game announcement was on this short of a timeframe. Previously my favorite announcement was Fallout 4 when we had it in our hands roughly six months later. This is great because a few months is sufficient time for a hype cycle to build, and spend time theory-crafting new build options. The biggest challenge that ANet has had to date has been the consistency of content releases, and I think a few years of this content model will do a lot to sure up the player base.

What are your thoughts about the expansion announcement? Are you as excited as I am? Drop me a line below with your thoughts and feelings.