Tales of the Aggronaut

Questionable Tolerances

May 23, 2016May 23, 2016 by Belghast

Incomplete Saturday

Morning Folks… it’s been a bit since we talked. Well in truth its been two days… but it feels like it has been much longer. Now is the time for me to see if I remember how to write a blog post. In truth this was an odd weekend for me, and in ways that I didn’t quite expect. For three plus years now my mornings have centered around writing a blog post. So when I suddenly removed it from the equation… the morning felt somehow without meaning. What I mean by that is all of Saturday it felt like something was missing, and in a way that I find it hard to articulate. You know that feeling in the back of your head when you know that you forgot something… but can’t quite figure it out. It was something along those lines, with the key difference being I knew precisely what was different. However I survived and managed not to write a single word… though I did find myself significantly more active on twitter, slack and discord than I normally am on the weekends. I guess if I am not dumping out things in long post form, they ultimately make their way out regardless into tweets and such?

Sunday however was delightful, and I felt zero remorse for not making a blog post. I think a huge part of this comes from the fact that I already scurry around like mad on Sunday mornings making sure that everything is done for the latest AggroChat episode. After waging that battle I found myself struggling to try and find the desire to write a blog post. Honestly had I done nothing but cut out Sundays… I think in the grand scheme of things my quality of life would have improved massively. As far as the streak… it is not good and broken and I no longer have it looming over my head. That said… I do feel a minor bit of lament over having done it. Once a streak is over… it is over. Now I could start anew and begin working to beat three years… but I doubt that is going to happen. I also doubt that I am going to permanently take off weekends from this point on. In the back of my head how, weekends are optional time… and if I happen to have a post I want to make awesome, but I won’t necessarily feel pressured either way.

Table Saga

One of the constant topics of discussion for the last few weeks has been the backyard and whether or not we wanted to replace the table and chairs we had back there. I know it is heady stuff and of extreme interest to you all. The set that we currently have was handed down to us by some of our neighbors and while perfectly cromulent… it is not exactly the easiest thing to sit at for long periods of time. At the beginning of the season we picked up a set of Adirondack chairs that sit up straight rather than being permanently stuck in an awkward partially reclining position. The idea was that we would get some sort of new table to go with these chairs that would work at their height level. Further idea being that we could eat at the table or at the very least comfortably use a laptop or something while hanging out in the backyard. Something you should know at this point is that we do the majority of our grocery shopping at ALDI these days. Another thing you should know is that ALDI has some truly bizarre shit at times… not the least of which last week was a garden table that fit pretty much the dimensions we were looking for. Even better is that it was just shy of $50, which moved it into serious contention.

With our neighbors out of town this weekend, we borrowed their pickup truck and used it to go pick up a table and haul it back home. There was of course going to be “some assembly required” but after having seen IKEA directions we figured “how bad could it be”? Now I love ALDI, but apparently there are some minor issues with construction tolerances when you are only paying $50 for a large garden table. The first challenge was the fact that some of the screws seemed too large for the holes that they were supposed to go into. The end result involved me essentially using the screw and truly silly amounts of torque to try and “drill” the hole larger with little metal shavings coming off of the metal piece I was screwing into. I had to torque hard enough that apparently I ripped a chunk out of my finger in the process and had to take a quick break to apply a band-aid to stop said bleeding. That hurdle solved we moved onto the problem of one of the six holes that the metal braces went into was not lining up… and not even vaguely close. The end result there was to use a screwdriver to sort of bend the holes until we managed to get them to line up enough to slide the bolt through. The resulting table seems nice and sturdy but what we originally thought was going to be fifteen minutes of our time… wound up taking close to two hours.

Another quick note… the photos attached to this post were taken while sitting on the back patio and watching birds come visit the bush across from where we sit. This whole bird watching thing has turned into a bit of a thing for me while we are back there. I don’t really know what any of the birds are other than the obvious Bluejay, Cardinal or Robin. They are adorable however as they hop around the branches looking for nom noms. They can completely decimate a full feeder worth of bird seed in no time flat, and as a result I have started limiting myself to feeding every other day. When I do this they tend to do a pretty damned good job of cleaning up anything that happened to fall on the ground between feedings. The other interesting thing that I have learned is that sunflower seed hulls break down into compost extremely quickly for some reason. I realize this is not exactly the most exciting post to make as my return from the weekend break, but screw it… its my blog and my birbs!

Combo Breaker

May 20, 2016 by Belghast

Ending the Streak

The other day I talked about how the three plus year streak has been looming over my head like this impassable object. After long thought I’ve decided that the sooner I break it the better, and as a result I will not be making posts this weekend. I mean that is in part a lie since I will be posting over on AggroChat Sunday morning in the form of our weekly episode. However tomorrow morning I am going to chill out, and eat my breakfast in peace with zero thought of what the hell I am going to post that morning. That is at least the theory… I have a feeling that in practice it is going to be a lot harder to NOT post than it is to post. The end goal is basically to reach a point where I am posting a new post every workday morning, so I can continue the routine of drink coffee and write about stuff. That means weekends and holidays I get to myself, or more than likely it just means I start gaming a little earlier on those days. My hope is that some time off is actually going to present topics that I want to talk about, rather than trying to wrack my brain for a new post.

I have to tell you I am a little nervous about this “new experiment” following up the previous “grand experiment”. It makes solid sense to just post week days since those are the days that folks generally read on. However at this point I am just used to the comfortable routine. So in theory the next time you will hear from me is Monday morning. As far as my weekend plans… I think I have a pretty chill one ahead of me. Tonight may or may not be a thoroughly awkward family dinner, largely because I have not decided if I am actually going or not. We just had one of these a few weeks back, but there is a family member in town that folks have not seen in some cases years… so folks are pulling together an impromptu dinner. Past that I am hoping the report of non-stop rain is exaggerated and I get to spend a little time out on the back porch. I have bubbles that need blowing. Last weekend I went to a birthday/adoption party and they had bubbles for the kids… and it made me remember just how damned much I love blowing bubbles. So I bought myself a small bottle of the soapy mess for hanging out on the back porch. Viva adulthood and the ability to buy your own damned toys!

Light Level Cap

It has been a little over a month since I last set foot in the Kings Fall raid, or at least it seems like it. There was a bit of a change around that ended up with Squirrel trying to start an earlier raid team beginning at 8 pm which is more sane and rational for those of us who get up at 5 in the morning for work. However that never really took off in the fashion that we had hoped, and it also lead for the official “rookie” raid night to get moved to Wednesdays. As a result of this switcheroo I simply didn’t raid for several weeks, and this week was my first time signing up again largely on the promise of a “guaranteed” 335 artifact from the War Priest Challenge Mode. Unfortunately that Guarantee like oh so many things in Destiny, was not really set in stone and I wound up getting yet another damned 334 item. I did however have a lot of fun running the raid, and after some time away from it all of the jumping puzzles that stress me out so much didn’t seem quite so bad. I even managed to run the orb on sisters without screwing up too badly.

Last night Squirrel, Jex and I had what has become somewhat of a tradition… a night of Challenge of Elders and whatever the hell else any of us happened to need. So on paper this should have been one of the easiest weeks, with precision shot bonus experience. However in many cases we struggled to survive and I think it was largely the inclusion of “fresh troops” into the mix. I died so damned many times last night, and we were just shy of being able to get to the 90,000 bonus in two rounds. I would have felt bad about my performance were it not for the fact that both Jex and Squirrel died quite a bit as well. The frustrating thing about CoE is it has become one of those “unskippable” activities each week because it is one of the few reliable means of getting 335 loot. I say that… however almost every single item I got this week was a damned 334, which is completely maddening. There seems to be some bug that hits where instead of giving you upgrades it starts giving you side grades. That said I did manage to get a Titan Mark as end of match loot, and then after CoE we went to the Dreadnaught for some Court of Oryx. After summing three Tier 3 events… the final one dropped my 335 Artifact taking me to the current light level cap. This is extremely exciting for me, because this represents the first time in my history playing this game that I have EVER been capped on light. Special thanks to Squirrel, Jex, Wet and the entire Axioma Clan for helping me get here.

Digital or Physical

May 19, 2016 by Belghast

Fun with Polls

Okay folks, curious about something… do you mostly buy Digital or Physical games? Or do you mix it up and do both?

— Bel@BirbFormFTW (@belghast) May 16, 2016

A few days ago I posted a poll on my twitter feed asking a simple question about my followers gaming habits. In the end 88 folks responded to the poll which is honestly more than I thought there would be… but far less than needed to really make it scientific and such. Essentially I was thinking about how I have shifted from only purchasing games in physical retail stores… to almost never doing so. In fact not counting the land-run for copies of Wildstar to redeem for bonus loot, the last game I likely purchased in a store was TERA back in January of 2011 (yes I had to look up the release date). Even then the only reason why I purchased a physical copy was that it was not available through any of the online retailers I trusted, and I didn’t realize it was a game I would be interested in playing. This was another case where I was following the great internet zeitgeist and getting in on the rush of yet another game… that I would ultimately walk away from quickly. This is also the last game other than the Wildstar land-run that I purchased from a GameStop… but that is an entirely different thing for a different day.

For Those Who Can’t See the Embedded Tweet

65% – Mostly Digital
16% – Mostly Physical
19% – Fairly Equal Mix of Both

There are so many times that in my mind I think I represent the new normal, when in truth I am probably an outlier. So with digital purchases I wanted to take the temperature of my gamer friends about the subject. As it turns out I am in fact in the majority with 65% of you stating that you mostly purchase digital games. Now the weirdity with twitter polls is that if you are using a third party client, you don’t actually see them. As a result I had a large number of people comment directly but in those cases I am uncertain if they are also represented by a vote. As a result I am only going to be looking at the poll numbers for percentages, but using the folks that responded to indicate trends. Here are a few of the interesting trends that emerged.

Import Troubles

There were a few people that indicated that they purchase almost 100% digital other than when they are importing a game from another region. This makes complete sense as the payment methods that are widely available in English speaking regions, are totally not the case in other regions. Then there are problems for example with South Korean games where you have to have some sort of national id to be able to purchase the game in the first place. I know from past experiences trying to play Phantasy Star Online that figuring out how to pay for a Japanese game can be maddening and there are entire guides out there that are the equivalent of showing a screenshot and showing where to click to get through the sequence of screens to make a payment. Especially now that Amazon allows folks to order from the .JP website with non-Japanese payment methods, sometimes just buying that physical copy can skirt a whole slew of frustration.

Console VS PC Divide

Another group of folks commented that they are 100% digital on the PC, but almost exclusively purchase physical copies for their consoles. This again makes sense, because digital purchases on consoles are often times more expensive than purchasing through a retailer that is offering a discount to get your business. There is also the case that consoles have a finite amount of storage space. I know personally I have gone through the trouble of upgrading the hard drive in my PS3, PS4, and Xbox 360 to keep from running into the wall where I am constantly having to uninstall one thing to be able to play the next. However in this case I know I am very much not in the majority. Even with my Wii U I have an external hard drive connected so I simply won’t have to worry about storage space. Buying that physical copy for the most part lets you insert disc and play… even though there is a modern trend of having to wait for a lengthy install process before playing it. Also having that physical copy allows you to trade it off after you are done with it… which is apparently a much wider practice than I would have thought. I tend to hold onto a game forever even in a case when it was a bit of a bomb.

Physical Exclusives

Another case that came up several times is that I had a group of folks that indicated that they buy digital unless there is a physical collectors edition… and then they go with the cool boxed edition. I think this is a combination of a bunch of things, not the least being that the physical collectors editions have statues and mock-ups of in game items that you can’t get in any other form. Then there is also the cool factor of seeing a wall of games. I used to have a dedicated gaming space and a huge bookcase full of games similar to the one you see behind Jasyla in most of her videos. Then problem being after several decades you end up with so much clutter that something in me snapped and just started giving it all away. I mean that said I have a closet packed to the brim with older console stuff, but I’ve only started holding onto the things that were particularly rare. It can be amazingly cool however to gaze upon your collection of rare physical collectors editions of games, so I absolutely see the appeal.

Concerns about Long-term Play-ability

This one came up a few times and I was not honestly expecting it. There is a concern that while the console might work for decades… the game companies and the digital delivery methods might be long gone. As a result we would be unable to play digital games. This one also makes quite a bit of sense as I have lived through both the downfall of game consoles… as well as the downfall of digital stores. While the Dreamcast went the way of the dodo, I can still freely play the games that I have on their goofy gigabit pseudo dvd system. Similarly I can talk about the disappearance of the Games with Windows store that Microsoft ran… however in that case I think they simply rolled those purchases over to the Xbox store. There is a certain amount of liability for digital purchases, so long as the main game company is in business. This is the reason why you still see PSP titles available through the PSN store… even though that platform has long been shuttered. I guess my line of thought has long been that if Sony and Microsoft are gone… there are going to be wider problems with their consoles given the amount of connectivity that is interwoven. I know when my internet went out a few weeks back, it was kinda hell to find a game on the PS4 that I could play without it needing to “dial home” for something. All of that said… I absolutely get this concern because the only way I can play Hellgate London is because I held onto my physical copy.

Wrapping Up

I really appreciated the wide number of responses that I got from folks on this question. Actually it turned out pretty cool, and I have considered doing something like this again in the future. I liked seeing all of the different points of view in a question I had thought about quite a bit myself… but one that wasn’t necessarily a hot button topic. The other big scenario that I purchase physical copies of games… are when I happen to find a deal that is too insanely good to pass up. Even then I take that serial number… and input it into steam because the last thing that I want to do is remember where the hell my physical copy is. I love being able to have a console or a gaming machine loaded full of options, and be able to keep them “on tap” as it were. I guess for me that was always my dream of having some sort of a gaming system where I could simply hit play and select one of any of the games I owned. There was a period of time where I had sixteen consoles hooked up in my loft, but the complicated system of “A/B” switches that were required to make that work is maddening. I love that I can just flip on my PS4 or Wii U pick a game and go, and this is also a big reason why I have zero qualms about repurchasing a game on a newer system. In the end we all have different habits and different norms, and I thought it was awesome just how free you all were with your thoughts.

Musical Steeds

May 18, 2016 by Belghast

Muscle Memory

The tale of our run in Final Fantasy XIV has been interesting, namely we played for roughly two years straight… and then after the launch of Heavensward that original group more or less faded away from the game. When we played the game at launch, I was towards the end of the pack when it came to leaving, and this time it seems like I was among the first. I had split priorities when it came to FFXIV and WoW raiding… and to be truthful I was burning out intensely in both. I last played regularly in December of 2015, and for whatever reason I’ve just not had much drive to dip my toes back in. As additional story content was released, I made a college try to come back and consume it. Unfortunately however I never actually made it all of the way through the 3.2 content. As a result I admit I had more than a little trepidation upon returning, because I wondered how much skill I would have lost. It turns out “muscle memory” is ungodly strong, and for the most part I was able to sit down and begin rotating through abilities and hitting hotkeys by reflex.

What also helped however was the content we were doing. Now our raid group met on Tuesday nights for two years, and it seems as though the current batch of Greysky folks have kept up that tradition. This time instead however it has been turned in to a pony farm night. Now back when we were doing the Extreme Primals legitimately, I had managed to get the whistle for the Leviathan pony, and counted myself damned lucky. In the meantime however it appears that Square has increased the drop rate, and getting those musical horses seems to be a pretty regular occurrence. What shocked me was just how quickly the boss fights came back, even in their currently abbreviated state. For example I instinctively followed the normal tank queues for Titan… even though I initially stood on the wrong slice of cheese. I was happy to know that I could in fact still apparently tank in this game, and I think I will feel significantly better actually doing some duty finder for gear currency.

A Good Night

It felt really great to be back, and equally great to be playing Lala-Bel again. There is just something about this character that makes me happy, and maybe some of the funk I have been in has been due to the fact that I haven’t been playing him lately. After the raid my friends Tzi, Rylacus and Nyte helped run me through The Antitower, the first of the 3.2 dungeons. I poked around a bit afterwards trying to figure out where all the other dungeon quests started, but sleep claimed me pretty quickly. I know I will be doing Destiny raid tonight, but the hope is to return to FFXIV in the coming days. I mean maybe the answer is to simply play all the things. Right now I am getting enjoyment out of WoW and FFXIV again… so maybe the idea is to simply ration them both. I know I have a lot of catching up to do in FFXIV so it serves as an excellent game to grind away while downstairs. When I left in December I was one of the better geared characters in the Free Company… and now I am probably one of the worst geared. I know this… because in running the Antitower I managed to pick up no less than two upgrades, which is generally a good sign that you are way behind the curve.

Garuda Pony

Nightmare Pony

I managed to get the Garuda pony which was an easy drop since everyone else in the raid had one, and was quite literally just farming it to get me one. Then I rolled on Nightmare that dropped from Titan, and managed to get the lucky roll. The only thing there is… I guess I didn’t fully realize that this was a rare drop from any of the first three primals… even thought Ashgar said as much. I didn’t quite grok it at the time, or I would have probably passed on the roll. We did not however see any of the ACTUAL pony that is supposed to come from Titan. We did however manage to get at least one person a Leviathan mount, and I believe one other mount… but I am drawing a blank. All in all it was a really fun night and I am going to try and juggle my schedule so I can start making this a weekly thing. Hopefully I didn’t do anything that pissed anyone off too terribly. I felt a little bad falling right back into my overbearing tank mode… but like I said I was largely relying on instincts to get through the evening and that comes with the tendency to pull. Ashgar however pulled for me a few times expecting that I would provoke it back from him, and I did like a good lalatank. It was kinda great getting to hang with Tzi and Rylacus again, even thought poor Tzi had no voice at all. Maybe I am over my mental block against MMOs, or maybe I just happened to choose the right nights to play again.