Pile of Guilty Pleasures

by

I have a bunch of things that I have repeated on this blog but never actually coalesced into a “feature”. I watch way more YouTube than I should, and I often times have a video running on my second monitor that I am halfway paying attention to. I could be watching something more meaningful… but I am trash. I have a number of guilty pleasure channels that I indulge in from time to time, and have shared a number of these in the past. Today I am going to share some more and you can judge me for my bad taste (at least on some of these).

Mythical Kitchen

I’ve been a fan of Rhett and Link for years, and through the transitive property of enjoyment… I got hooked on Mythical Kitchen when they spun that off as a secondary channel. Chef Josh is just the right level of endearing and annoying mixed into a compelling package. I also really like the larger cast of talent specifically Nicole, Trevor, and Vi. There are so many reoccurring bits and the one I linked today is where Josh cooks a three course meal for a famous food critic… and then decides to use some item commonly found in a Seven Eleven. It is this nexus of comedy show and cooking show that I particularly enjoy.

Overnight Channel/TFIL

So there is an awful lot about this channel that would normally annoy me. However something is going on with it that I find interesting. Firstly it very much seems to have started as the same bullshit prank channel that the internet is flooded with, but at some point they decided to lean super freaking hard into paranormal investigations. I am a sucker for these sorts of shows and if I happen to see a marathon of Ghost Adventures on… I am going to watch it. I have watched a number of these videos over the last few weeks and they have greatly improved their technique and are seemingly taking this shit way more seriously than you would expect from a channel of “himbos”. The disturbing thing is that they have managed to capture some pretty shocking evidence in spite of themselves. I think my interest comes from the fact that I too dabbled in EVP back in the late 90s and was in the orbit of a legitimate group of investigators here.

Adam Savage’s Tested

I love Adam Savage. I have loved this man since Myth Busters and I have continued to follow his career after that show stopped. The format of his Tested videos really changed with the pandemic and they became deeply personal, and honestly… something I enjoy so much better. I specifically linked a video of him showing off his Science Fiction Blaster collection, but probably my favorite videos are the “One Day Builds” series. My dad was a maker before that title existed, and honestly watching an Adam Savage video reminds me a lot of my father and visiting his own very similar workshop. My Mom is the sort of person that despises silence… and my Dad has always used his workshop as a way to get some peace and quiet. It is also great when Adam goes into stories about his movie prop making days.

New Rockstars

The next two picks should be taken as a pair and not individually. One of the interesting things that has shifted interesting over the last few years is the way that Disney shows have become the new “must see tv”. As a result I consume a certain amount of media surrounding these, namely I have gotten in this pattern of watching a show and then turning around and watching some of the easter egg videos or reaction breakdowns surrounding it. There are two channels that really stand out for me in the way they digest this media and then spin off content related to that. The first is New Rockstars and they probably have the higher production value.

Screencrush

The second of these is Screencrush and honestly… I think I like its overall aesthetic better. The entire show takes place within a set patterned off of a Blockbuster Video, which absolutely hits me straight in the nostalgia feels. Additionally Screencrush has Doug the Dog, and having a cute animal immediately improves everything. Like I said above I don’t really consider these two different picks on this list, but instead sort of bookends that provide similar but different experiences. For example I have been thinking about both the Dark Avengers and the Midnight Sons of late, trying to figure out how Moon Knight and Blade are going to work into these… and low and behold here is a video with some theories surrounding that.

Loading Ready Run

We close out this section with the granddaddy of guilty pleasure channels for me… Loading Ready Run. If for some reason you are not already in the orbit of this channel, I highly suggest at least tuning in each week for CheckPoint. This is effectively a condensed news comedy show and the takes they come up with are golden. The absolute best thing they have ever done however is Qwerpline, an imaginary radio talk show set in the occasionally eldritch city of Nsberg. I am also partial to Crapshots which is a very short form sketchy comedy show. Again if you are not already watching their content then I would suggest adding it to your rotation.

Thundershrimp Invasion

by

Sometimes you don’t have to look terribly far to find nonsense in games… sometimes it finds you. Mistlock Sanctuary is an extremely handy place to have access to, and honestly half of the time it becomes the unofficial Guild Hall of Greysky Armada given that it tends to be where we all meet up on the regular. It is essentially a tightly condensed area that has all of the vendors and services that you might need from a town, and allows you to teleport right back to where you were before entering. It becomes a hangout spot for lots of folks within the Guild Wars 2 community, including apparently a group of Thundershrimps. I briefly joined this hivemind when I noticed there were two players glamoured to this appearance following me around the Mists… and then shortly I received an mail message with a tonic attached.

It was fun… nonsensical… and we slowly gained numbers until I believe right before I left we had six players running around as shrimp. I think this might be the highlight of my weekend and I am leading off this mornings post using it as a reminder. There are moments in MMORPGs that are completely meaningless in the scope of the game itself or your own progression… but are absolutely moments worth indulging in. The above image is from our old FC house on Cactuar in Final Fantasy XIV, and that night a bunch of us just happened to be wearing the newly added Dragon Quest Slime Hat… and proceeded to dance around for thirty minutes. Moments like this is well worth indulging when they happen, and I think are good for the soul.

The other highlight of the weekend is getting a new ascended weapon for free. Since coming back I have been trying to run Tequatl as many times as possible. There are days where the stars have not aligned, but more times than not… I am running this each time the server resets. I have known for awhile that there is a very rare chance of getting ascended weapons to drop, and I believe Friday night I managed to get a Settlers chest to drop. Seeing as I had crafted a Greatsword already, I opted instead to go pistol given that I am spending so much time as Harbinger of late. I immediately took it to the mystic toilet and changed its stat package to something more reasonable for the sort of nonsense I have been doing of late. I may never actually see another of these, but it isn’t going to stop me from trying each day. I could now really use a dagger and a staff.

Another great moment from the weekend is that Sunday afternoon the stars aligned and a bunch of us ran some fractals. I needed three for the first part of the Twilight precursor quest, and Thalen needed three different ones for some other quest. I’ve decided that Fractals are more or less what Mythic+ feels like in World of Warcraft. While the Fractals themselves are shorter, the pace feels similar and the fact that they scale over time also feels similar. I really think that this was the dungeon content I had been looking for, and while Tam kept telling me that… I was bad at listening because my preconceived notions of what that meant kept getting in the way. This whole experience of coming back to Guild Wars 2 and it lighting a fire in me… has also made me realize how generally closed minded I have been when it comes to MMORPGs. If the game did not fit a specific mold that I had determined was optimized for my enjoyment… I wanted no part of it.

Lastly for the weekend I spent a good deal of time chipping away at Living World Season 4. If my theory is correct, I am nearing the end of Chapter 5 and will be starting the final chapter soon. Not every new map is a winner, but I have to say LW4 so far has had far more winners than losers. I love the intricacy of each new map, and this is honestly slowing me down in my progress because I keep getting distracted by events and metas. Admittedly this is artificially causing me to engage with the content as though it were releasing more slowly, rather than just powering through it. We talked a bit about this over the weekend, but when you are powering through things you have trouble realizing that significant chunks of time have passed in game between content drops. Essentially the expansions and Living World progress in real time, meaning that a number of years sit between the end of one expansion and the beginning of the next.

It was a pretty great weekend, albeit a pretty short one. I do need to get finishing up Horizon Forbidden West but lord it has been awhile since I have been this engaged with a game. During my months of playing Final Fantasy XIV every single day… I was deeply beholden to the mission. Were it not for my quest to get everything to level 80… I am pretty sure I would have bounced much earlier. This… I just have so many different dials and levers that I can interact with and it all feels fresh. I am sure doing Tequatl for the 200th time will start to tarnish it a bit, but I really do love the encounter. I mean I managed to do Praetorium every single day and find enjoyment it in while I was grinding out those 80s.

AggroChat #385 – Leagues of Votann

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

Tonight we have the very first live show in three weeks.  As a result a bunch of stuff happened in the meantime.  We talk about some early experiences with Tunic, and then get into some discussion about Liars Day news turned true.  League of Votann is a thing and represents the return of “Squats” or Space Dwarves to Warhammer 40,000.  We also talk a bit about how the meta is currently collapsing because of the overpowered nature of Harlequins.  From there we talk about the shocking return of Colossal Cave Adventure and Monkey Island.  We talk a bit about the experiences with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, then dive into some discussion about Guild Wars 2 and the return of Super Adventure Box and Living World Season 1.

Topics Discussed

  • Tunic
  • Squats are Back
    • League of Votann
  • 40,000 Meta Collapse
    • Harlequin Problem
  • Colossal Cave Adventure
  • Monkey Island
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land
  • Super Adventure Box
  • Living World Season 1
  • Gloomhaven Digital

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Worlds Collide

by

Good Morning Friends. I was not feeling it yesterday at all, and as a result I did not blog. I felt guilty but I have been trying to be better about taking a day off when my mind and/or body decides it needs one. This morning I am still not really feeling amazing either, but I do have a few things to talk about. I’ve been getting updates from Ammo as she works on my commission and I have to say it is coming along swimmingly. If you are so inclined she has been streaming her work and there are two different streams where she has worked on it so far. I think maybe my feather mantle has throw her a bit for a loop how best to approach that as yesterday when I tuned in briefly she was working on some techniques for the feathers. I am now really looking forward to reworking my masthead to work this awesome art into the mix.

Last night I missed the reset because I was in the middle of a rather long quest that I did not want to start over. Instead however I managed to catch the meta event for Jahai Bluffs or at least the final step of it. I did not realize that I would be fighting a new and improved version of the Shatterer, but I guess that makes sense as it showed up in the last quest chain that I completed leading me to Jahai in the first place. The fight was extremely fun and featured this cool section where what looked to be fel energy twisters shooting us up in the air so that we could glide to platforms and battle champions, before dropping back down and resuming the fight. Having no idea what to expect I think I did pretty good rolling with the punches and learning as I went.

What was even cooler however is that the same Squad Commander announced that we would be rolling over to do Dragon Storm next. This is an event that I have been wanting to do for weeks but honestly was a bit intimidated by. Instead of taking place in the middle of a standard zone, it is instead an instanced area and felt like it was the sort of thing that required a full group. So we entered and did the encounter and I loved every minute of it. Something you need to know about me is that I love Kaiju and Monster Battle movies. This entire fight felt like the battle of two Kaiju, and effectively I guess that is in fact what Elder Dragons are. There is a lot of this encounter that I do not fully understand because I have not arrived here organically through the Living World story, but it was a blast. This was easily the single coolest fight I have experienced in Guild Wars 2.

While on our way to the Dragon Storm event, we made a stop off and fought the Angry Pet Rock. This is apparently a bounty in Jahai and is just as nonsense as it sounds. I also noticed the adoption of some more clear markers akin to those of Final Fantasy XIV. Notice on the ring there are arrows pointing towards the boss which is an indication that we should get in for the attack, and later there were arrows facing the other way indicating that we should get out for the attack. The “In” was a little superfluous as i could also out range the attack by moving away, but still I am glad to see them adopting some significantly more clear advisement over time.

The other thing that I have been doing lately is piddling around on the Warrior a bit more. I want to unlock Bladesworn so I can play around at being a gun samurai. I am not sure what has happened but I think my understanding of the game and my play style has evolved to the point where the Warrior no longer feels as bad as it once did. Sure it feels squishier than my Necromancer, but not so squishy as to feel awful. I’ve been running around with a power build and Dual Axe paired with Rifle just to give me some sort of a reasonable ranged option. Dual Axe really is a freaking blender and it feels good to shred things with it. I’ve mostly been slowly working on soaking up some hero points in Path of Fire, but I might switch over to doing some WvW and get Maguma credit that way. I finished off unlocking Berzerker first as I was already extremely close, which opens up some other builds for me.

I don’t really want to talk about spoilers but hopefully those who have gotten this far will realize what this title card represents. That was an annoying sequence and I am glad it is over… and I am hoping that maybe just maybe that situation is finally resolved for good. There was a sequence that I hated so much, but I am just glad it is over. I really need to return to Horizon Forbidden West and wrap that game up, but I have just been so deeply engaged with Guild Wars 2 of late. It doesn’t help either that my wife has been commandeering the television and now that I moved my consoles downstairs… it makes it a challenge to play them when I want to play them. I might be moving my PlayStation 5 back upstairs, but I am not entirely certain yet. I need to deep clean my office and essentially tear everything apart and reassemble things to change how my setup works honestly.