Tales of the Aggronaut

X-Files and Grifts

January 26, 2016 by Belghast

Mulder and Scully

Last night really was a night all about one thing. The previous night my wife had fallen asleep during the X-Files premiere, because she is sick as hell… so we had planned on watching the first episode again while eating dinner so that we would be primed and ready for part two when it aired at 7 pm my time. I have to say I have been looking forward to this television return just about as much as anything you might imagine… other than maybe the start of a new Walking Dead season. During the 90s I was a huge fan of the X-Files, and I am guessing I watched it more religiously than I ever realized. When watching the show again recently with my wife on Hulu… I remembered the major plot points of every single episode we saw. For the most part… the original show holds up pretty well other than the technology aspects in a largely pre-internet world. I tried to temper my hopes about how the continuation of the show might end up, but regardless I was pretty hyped. Be warned that I am going to spoil various plot details so if you have not had a chance to watch the show, I suggest you skip down to the Diablo block below.

For the most part… I think the show ended up really damned good. I was kinda shocked to see them using the same television intro sequence that they did in the original, but I guess they wanted to paint a clear picture of the fact that this directly connects to the original. We find out that Mulder and Scully did in fact get together… and had a child together… but ended up having to put him up for adoption to project him from the powers that were after both of them. Mulder has essentially lived a life in relative seclusion, whereas Scully has returned to medicine and is doing surgery to correct defects that may or may not be caused by Alien DNA. Where the show starts to go a little off the rails is the introduction of a new character played by Joel McHale. “Tad O’Malley” is a caricature of the right wing conspiracy theory types, and he vehemently believes that the government has been in a massive cover-up of alien activity since Roswell. All of this fits the original vibe of the show… but then something happens that I just cannot reconcile. Mulder is introduced to a woman that he apparently interviewed when she was a child, during her first abduction… that tells him that she was abducted by men not by aliens. Without much additional information… Mulder goes through this “change of religion” and is instantly equally convinced that the government has been fiddling with its own people, and that the Aliens are no longer even a thing anymore.

I guess my problem here is… how does someone who has devoted his life to the thought that Aliens were fiddling with the human populace, quite literally turn on a dime and adopt a completely different conspiracy mythology. Thankfully Scully plays the skeptic here, and calls him on his shit. By the end of the show however his change of religion is essentially confirmed, but the way this all plays out just feels pretty abrupt. We are treated to a very sweet shot of the “Smoking Man” who is now having to smoke out of a tracheal plug. Then we shoot forward to last nights episode, as both Mulder and Scully are apparently back in the saddle working for the FBI under Walter Skinner again. This episode felt perfect. Everything about this felt like we are just picking up the legacy of the original show and moving forward, this time acting upon the theory that mankind has been fiddling with Alien dna and fusing it with people. We are eventually presented this super creepy ward filled with kids with rare deformities, that we suspect are the cause of Alien intermingling . Basically if they can keep cranking out episodes as good as the second part of this “six part event”, I am down to gobbling up whatever the X-Files puts out there. The best part about all of this… is Duchovny and Anderson still work amazingly well together.

Grifts with Friends

While watching our little mini X-Files marathon last night, I was also fiddling around in Diablo 3. I initially started simply piddling around and doing bounties, however once Damai logged in he rallied the troops and before long we had a full team alternating between regular and greater rifts. There are still several pieces of gear that I am hunting for, so I was totally down with the cavalcade of legendaries and set pieces. The big takeaway from last night was just how well I seemed to be able to hold my own. For the most part we were doing the same Torment X stuff that was wrecking my face the last time we were together as a group, but I have reached a point where honestly it doesn’t really phase me. Sure I still need to get out of exploding bits.. but most of the mob and environment damage is at a point where it is reasonable. The only gotcha is the fact that I still do way less damage than would be needed to quickly clear this content. Fortunately however we had plenty of dps to chew through the mobs, and Carth who is now well over 600 paragon levels is a brutal machine.

By the end of the night I managed to climb to 297 Paragon which places me within the realm of the big kids finally. I am still pretty sold on my thunderfury, and I managed to pick up a temporary chest piece that serves nicely until I can find the one I am actually hunting for. Other than that the big acquisition was the thorns epic gem, but I am running very low on sockets for my jewelry. This is a point of contention for me with this game actually. At 70, no piece of jewelry should come without a socket. There is never a point where you would not want an epic gem in every piece of jewelry, yet the random item generator is constantly spitting out socketless rings and necklaces to serve as disenchant fodder. Instead I went through 35 diamonds trying to socket a ring before finally getting the lucky roll, which ends up super frustrating. Mostly this just feels like a design flaw, since the key to doing awesome things at high level seems to be based around rocking as many maxed out legendary gems as you can throw in there. I still don’t have all of the gems that I need, so I am guessing that my new idle activity is going to be clearing greater rifts just to level the ones I have up.

Kitten Assist

January 25, 2016 by Belghast

Helping Hand

This is becoming a pretty regular occurrence in my office, where Kenzie decides to “lay” behind one of my two monitors and then spend time poking her head out under the bottom and bopping things with her paw. This morning she has been desperately trying to drag my phone that is attached to a usb cable towards her… which is making me rethink the placement of that charger cable. For the most part this weekend we hibernated to avoid the cold, and while we had nothing to deal with like the blizzard folks on the east coast… I am not equipped to handle 20* temperatures that well. The biggest news of the weekend is that we got our new dishwasher set up on Saturday. Its stupid but right now it feels like we are purposefully dirtying dishes just so we can “play with it”. I know it sounds like we truly are deprived of fun when you put it into those terms. The truth is… we’ve gone without a dishwasher for a very long time. The order of business was to rinse things out, and set them in the sink… until we had enough there to warrant washing dishes. Now we simply dump the dirties in the dishwasher as we dirty them…. which is making me have to rewire a bunch of my internal processes.

We also used this as an excuse to buy new silverware… and by silverware I really mean stainless-steel-ware because it is not like we are the “good silver” type. I am getting used to not eating on a mishmash of seven different patterns that we have had since college, but it is taking some doing. A few years back we standardized on one set of dishes and gave away the equally mishmash set of plates and cups and bowls that we got in college, and I guess it was time for us to do the same with utensils. So we are now eating with the best forks target can buy! Well not exactly… there were apparently ritzier sets available. The whole experience is just strange… its like I have to reroute how I exist in the kitchen now and it is taking some getting used to. One of the themes that you can catch running through the blog is that “bel doesn’t handle change well” so… it will take a few weeks before I really can tell you if I like it or not.

Crusader Weekend

I spoke a little bit about this one but on Friday night I got carried hard in Diablo III. On the night season 5 opened, several of us ran around together as a group… but one of that group has eclipsed the rest of us by a huge margin. On Friday night my friend Carth was nearing 500 paragon levels, and I am almost certain that by the time I am writing this today he is probably around 600 given his meteoric rise. Me however… I was sitting at only around 10 paragon when I joined the madness that was our leveling binge. Over the course of roughly three hours I got drug up in level to a point where I was actually somewhat functional. During that time I pieced together what was a pretty damned good set of gear, and Saturday morning I managed to wrap up the last few requirements for the season 5 chapter 4 rewards. At this point you can check out the particulars on my Diablo 3 profile, but there are still a handful of things that I am working on upgrading. Damai linked me this build and I am following it to some extent, but there are some places where I plan on diverging… namely on the choice of weapons.

There is no world where I would ever use the pig sticker with its constant squealing. The entire point of using it, is to have a fast attack speed… and technically my current sword already has a faster attack speed than the pig sticker. Most of the weekend past Friday night was about me figuring out just what I could do on my own. I can solo Torment VIII pretty easy, but it is slow enough going that for bounties I have decided to just stick to Torment VII as they go so much faster. While recording the double AggroChat this weekend, I managed to do one full circuit of Torment VII bounties and while I added a few paragon levels I didn’t really get much loot to write home about. At some point I plan on trying to solo more greater rifts to increase my blood shard count, but right now I have done through level 30 without much issue. I really hate doing timed events… they just bring out all of the horrible anxieties in me, so in truth greaters are not exactly my favorite thing to do in the world.

Rhino Prime

The other big happening of the weekend is the fact that I managed to finish up both my Rhino Prime and my ArchWing. The only problem is that I have a silly amount of things that now need leveling. I still have not capped the Lex sidearm, or my Drakgoon, Boltor, Latro… or even my Dual Skana. The frustrating thing about all of that is that I really don’t know how best to level them. This is one of those games where I really like running around with other people and playing it… but have not really enjoyed soloing much at all. So whenever I had a “solo” moment this weekend, I fired up WoW and did Garrison stuff or popped into Diablo 3. I need to sort out a solid and reliable way for leveling, and I thought just maybe it would have been a low level survival mission. While I got lots of loot from it… I didn’t exactly get lots of levels and only managed to put four levels on the Rhino frame.

I am in this strange state of limbo where I think I might want to like Warframe more than I actually like it. I absolutely enjoy playing with my friends, but unfortunately without also playing it solo… I am falling massively behind. The friends who are really super serious about playing this game… are playing it all of the time as their primary game right now. Which means I will always be behind in my ability to actually help them out in missions. It gets frustrating sometimes when you realize you are being carried hard… and there isn’t much you can do about it. I was slow abandoning the bow, and as a result I am struggling to play catch up with my other weapons. The bow is this awesome solo weapon…. but pretty useless for group activity. The problem there is that I feel like the non-bow weapons are less useful for soloing… so when I am stuck going through missions by myself to level them it feels like a sub optimal experience. So as a result… I really didn’t play much warframe this weekend because I am still sorting out my feelings about the game.

Pax South: Lessons Learned

January 24, 2016 by Belghast

Wizarding School

I am in fact apparently a wizard. Last night we recorded a double episode of AggroChat, and even though I purposely took an hour and a half nap… by the time we wrapped up and I go into bed at one in the morning I was completely toast. Generally speaking when we record AggroChat I tend to do what I call the “rough edit” that night, which mostly means putting all the pieces together in the right order and then head on to bed rather than wrapping up all of the small details like I used to. Then Sunday morning I get up, have breakfast, have coffee and by the time I can actually form words… I do all of the bits that end up posting the episode in various places. This morning I did apparently everything related to two separate podcast episodes, and pre-staged it all so that in theory everything will publish next weekend while I am at Pax other than the anook thread since there is no way that I know of to schedule one of those. I absolutely positively feel like a wizard… and the only downer is that all of this work… and I still need to make interesting words on Aggronaut.

As I am writing this blog post I am realizing that I have roughly four days left to plan all of the shit I need to do before Pax South. This is the point where my anxiety kicks into overdrive. I think of the most part I have everything ready that I need to have ready for the show. Once again I am doing the “unofficial media” thing as MMOGames.com has me booked for a few media appointments. This time around I think I am far more mentally prepared for this reality than I was last year. I also feel like I know more things about Pax in general and especially the Pax South setup than I did last year. This time around I am also going to have a bunch more friends to hang out with, so while I am overall less interested in the panels this time around… I am far more interested in the people. The only bummer is that a bunch of people that I failed to connect with during the inaugural year… are not going this year. So this morning, largely for my own benefit to get my shit in order… and partially for the benefit of people who didn’t attend last year… I am going to run down some of the things I learned.

Things Learned at Pax South 2014

Internet Sucks

The biggest takeaway from last year is the fact that the internet is going to suck. I guess part of me expected that a major convention center to have open wifi access, since I just assume that is as integral a part of anyone’s life as it is mine. They don’t… in fact several of the media appointments last year we had sidebars about how frustrating it was to get their own network up and running so they could run their own games. There will be of course cellular internet through your phone provider… but I would not expect it to work. I tried to live tweet the Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns announcement…. and two hours later those tweets were still slowly filtering their way to the internet. If you need to meet up with people… trade cell phone numbers. For the most part while text messaging was a little sluggish, they were still going through because non-media texts really do not require much of a connection to go through. As a result our master plan for keeping connected is to start a group text message thread that hopefully everyone can keep running throughout the weekend.

Pax Pizza Sounds Better than It Is

Now I am not picking on Pax Pizza in general, because they are trying their best to feed the masses. However if you have ever had one of those small round microwave pizzas that Sams Club and CostCo sell by the case, you’ve had Pax Pizza. The food options inside of PAX were pretty limited, but do include standard fare like hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, pop and water. There is a food court just down the Riverwalk that includes a lot of things… but this was pure madness the night we tried to go there. My big suggestion is to bring some food with you, for the most part I survived in Cliff Bars and Beef Jerky and brought my own water bottle that was relatively easy to refill.

Messenger Bag not Backpack

This suggestion might seem a little counter intuitive at first, since backpacks are FAR easier to carry than a messenger bag… but hear me out. Everywhere you go at PAX you are going to get crammed into very tight spaces with a bunch of strangers. You know what you cannot really do when you are stacked front to butt with a bunch of people? Guard your valuables… and you are getting jostled so much that you really honestly could not tell if someone was getting into your backpack. So sure you can group up in a way so that your buddy is on watch, but it is just easier to be wearing something that you can sling over your shoulder so that your hands can rest on the bag in front of you. Thankfully I thought this though last year, and took with me a new canvas messenger bag…. but my reasoning was that it seemed like it would be easier to get into it at a moments notice. However after seeing the queue room… I was super glad I didn’t have a backpack for sheer paranoia and anxiety reasons.

You are Constantly Walking

It is hard to fully appreciate just how much walking you are going to do at PAX. The convention center is pretty large just by itself, and things are spread out all over… and in addition to that if I am remembering correctly there are three distinct floors…. with something happening on pretty much all of them. The amount of time I spent sitting was pretty non-existent, with “Statue Hall” and the tables near the concession stand being the only real areas for hanging out while seated. So absolutely wear comfortable shoes… but even then… it won’t really matter. The biggest complaint I had was by the time I hit the hotel room I was just dead to the world… and still had to somehow knock out a blog post and do any of the other things I need to do to check into the world. The lack of internet during the day meant that there was pretty much no way I could do this during bits of downtime. I am honestly concerned about this one, because I am not walking nearly as much as I was before Pax last year… I will survive.

Nowhere to Charge Devices

You ever seen people huddled around a single power jack at an airport? That is absolutely going to happen at PAX. There were a handful of places where you could sit down near an outlet, and they were essentially the most heavily guarded spots available. As a result… bring a power bank. These devices are pretty ubiquitous and since it is inevitable you are going to be on your phone for much of the show… I highly suggest having one and plugging in while you attend panels. I ended up getting a pretty cheap one for this year from Amazon that in theory will charge my phone three times, but if I can get one good charge I will be relatively happy.

Patch Your 3DS Streetpass Now

One of the traditions I was indoctrinated into by Ashgar last year was collecting StreetPasses on my 3DS XL. For whatever reason… every single person walking around seems to be carrying their 3DS almost entirely for this purpose. A single pass through the main room and I would need to find someplace to stop and clear out my streetpass queue to allow new people in. Why this is awesome is that when you get a game like Bravely Default… that has a minigame based on the number of street pass users you have available… it is absolutely amazing to bring an army. That said in order to get the full benefit… you need to make sure that all of your games and apps that can collect streetpasses are all patched up and running the latest revision. Since you won’t have internet access… do it either now before you leave, or from your hotel room.

Ask an Enforcer

If you have any questions or need help with anything… your friends in orange are there to help. The enforcers are a great part of the PAX experience, and they will quite literally be directing you to where you need to be. If you have any questions about what a given line is for, or where you need to be to attend a specific panel, these fine folks are going to be able to point you in the right direction.

Daily Carry Bag

As I said before last year I carried with me a canvas messenger bag, and it worked out excellent. The biggest thing I liked about it was just how easy it was for me to fiddle with it while waiting in line. I could fish out my power bank, 3DS, or chomebook quickly based on whatever I needed to deal with at the moment. It also serves as a handy way to keep any swag you happen to pick up along the way. There will be booths on the main floor that have really nice shopping bags… but these are awkward to juggle while standing in line. Bring a good bag, it will be your best friend. Right now here is what I am looking at carrying with me, just as a way of helping you think through what you might need.

Water Bottle – seriously this is key. Stay hydrated by making sure you have something easy to refill.
Cliff/Quest/Whatever Bars – these are easy ways to get some food in you when you are hangry.
Beef Jerky – easy portable protein, I can live off this stuff.
Dried Fruit – going to add this one to the list this year, thinking some dried fruit might help mix things up.
Chromebook – lightweight, easy to carry device for taking notes.
Small Physical Notebook – because sometimes you need to actually write something down.
Digital Recorder – this is new this year, instead of trying to record audio on my phone I got a small digital stereo recorder.
Nintendo 3DS – because streetpasses are awesome.
Business Cards – last year was shocked at the number of times I was asked for one… this time I came prepared.
Power Bank – for recharging your phone or anything else that will recharge off of a USB port.
Tiny Bottle of Advil – the floor is loud, and without a doubt it is going to give me a headache, so the scout in me wants to “be prepared”.
Hand Sanitizer – because humanity is a messy huddled mass… and you want to stave off the PAX Pox.

This is essentially what I carried last year and it worked out well. The only two things that I am really adding new this year are the Dried Fruit, because I think it might be beneficial for me to be able to snack on. I am also adding a dedicated Digital Recorder, because trying to record audio on my phone was complete bullshit last year. I contemplated trying to add a proper camera, but I didn’t want to add another device to my bag. I am once again going to make do with my phone camera, but I will just need to take into account that I cannot simply snap a quick photo, do to the horrible lighting conditions on the floor. I am really hoping the whole text message network thing is going to make meeting up with people easier. If you too are going to be on the floor, let me know… because I would love to catch as many people as I can. It is my hope that this is going to be an amazing year, and the goal this time now that I feel like I have my feet under me… is to see as many people and games as I can. One last quick note is… that if you find yourself getting overwhelmed there are actually lots of relatively quiet places you can go hide out. There is always the AFK room that PAX runs specifically for this purpose, but even then I found lots of other places on the third floor of the convention center where I could get away for a bit. The further from the main floor you get, the more sane and rational the crowds become.

Literal Pay to Win

January 23, 2016 by Belghast

Actual Pay to Win

One of the bogeymen of the MMO industry for years has been the concept of “Pay To Win” or the fear that those with the most money can end up with the best stuff. The cycle of what makes an MMO has been right or wrong built on this illusion of a meritocracy. The general idea being, that if you work hard and get really good… you can have the best items in the game for your efforts. The problem with this is that it in itself has always been a lie. Last night I spent several hours hanging out with friends playing Diablo 3, and during that time I simply was along for the ride… getting carried so unbelievably hard that during greater rifts I was gaining a paragon level damned near every-time my friend Carth killed something. Nothing about this situation is me actually having any real merit, but instead was a situation of I knew someone who was willing to drag me along for fame and glory while at the same time increasing their own magic find chances. The same has always been the case with raiding in general, that it is more about who you have an “in” with and that can get you into this or that raid… rather than pure skill. However these games are built under the pretenses that these obstacles need to be there in order to maintain the social order, and keep the gamers from rioting.

In the past when there has been even an hint of “Pay To Win” there have been riots in the streets. The problem being that, there are many games right now with ways to shortcut your way to victory. Granted in many cases they don’t take you all the way there, and you still have to do a lot of things to truly catch up. It has become perfectly acceptable for games like World of Warcraft or Everquest II to sell character boosts, that allow you to jump instantly to an end game equivalent level and be decked out in equivalent gear, saving you the time of actually leveling. So the question is… why is this acceptable but it is not acceptable to sell armor and weapons? I’ve been mulling over these questions while playing Warframe over the last few weeks. The truth is… that game is absolutely a pay to win scenario. If you were to spend multiple thousands of dollars on that game, you could in theory have the absolute best in slot gear for every single frame. The funny thing is that while I know this is the case… it doesn’t actually hinder my enjoyment. I don’t feel like I am somehow being robbed of my experience, but instead I know in the back of my head there is always an out… if I ever get down a path that ends up being too grindy.

Money for Time

“Pay to Win” in the case of Warframe is a bit of a misnomer, because in the purest sense that would mean you are getting something with your money that no one else can get without stepping up to the plate and spending an equal amount. There are lots of games with lootbox grab bags…. and these always seem super insidious to me… I am looking at you Rift and your mounts. Warframe however just feels honest about it. You can farm a planetary boss over and over until you get all three parts of a Warframe to drop… and then purchase the equivalent blueprint off the market for in game credits, or you can just bypass the entire process and pay 200-400 platinum to have it in your grubby hands right then and there. You are paying to speed up time… because there is the act of actually grinding the components… and then gathering up the materials through running missions on planets. Finally there is the actual time of crafting the thing. Each of the three sub components take about 24 hours to craft, and then the final Warframe craft takes between 2 and 3 days depending on if it is a normal or a prime frame. So if you absolutely have to have something right then and there…. you can pay a premium to get it delivered into your hands.

What I find more interesting though is just how thriving the secondary market is when it comes to purchasing items. There are so many things that you can trade in this game, and for almost every single one of them there is a secondary market. Players are limited to a specific number of trades per day, but you can often times find what you are looking for in the secondary market for prices cheaper than the official shop. So while you can’t actually buy the Prime Rhino Warframe from the shop right now, you can find a player that has collected the four component pieces and essentially pay them platinum for the act of farming it for you. So the cycle is interested, in that those who have the time to run missions over and over to farm up complete pattern sets…. can easily turn that time into money. The folks who don’t have the time, but can afford to spend some money… can turn that money into the resources that help them play the game more efficiently. It is far from a utopia, but it is nowhere near the apocalypse that most MMO players would predict.

Two Way Street

I think the key to this feeling overall “fair” is the fact that it is absolutely a two way street. There are lots of times in MMOs where the “house” steps in the middle and offers a not entirely fair deal to both sides of the equation. For example in the case of the World of Warcraft token… it is not literally a case of one human selling a commodity to another human. Instead there is an algorithm in the middle, that buys tokens from players for a floating amount of in game gold… and then sells that token back to players who want to use it in lieu of subscription time. The problem is… this formula takes human nature out of the equation, the thing that makes the whole experience interesting. In games like Rift and EQ2, that have direct exchange of subscription token to currency between two players…. the patient player can wait out the best possible deal. There were many cases where I sat on a token for weeks until I found someone who absolutely had to have that token right then to continue their substitution, and wound up getting a premium for it. Similarly I am sure there are players who took advantage of market surplus to stock up on tokens when they were cheap and ended up spending far less in game currency as a result. The reason why that felt better, was that there were options… that you were not essentially dealing with a vending machine that took its on theoretical cut.

What I think I like the most about this situation in Warframe is that it feels like I have a lot of options. I can go much more slowly and solo the planets trying to collect the items I need, or I can pester my friends to run it with me multiple times . I could go to the aftermarket and hit the trade channel and look for the items I need to finish out a blueprint set. Or if i am really desperate I can simply open my pocket book, but in all cases I have several different paths to the end goal, and as a result I don’t feel nearly as trapped as I often do in other games. For example right now I would love to have a Moose in World of Warcraft, but the raid I have connections with… that can easily get me one… happens to run at the same time as we record AggroChat. Do I want a moose because it is some status symbol, that somehow places me above other players? God no… I just like collecting mounts, and I like the idea that it looks like a normal group mount but can also fly. If I could plunk down money and pick that mount up on the store… you can bet I would rather than trying to do the copious amount of social engineering it will actually take to get me that damned mount. Warframe…. I can take either path. I can work with friends towards a goal… or I can simply grease the wheels and get everything I feel like I want faster. In truth… I feel like we as players are far more scared of “Pay to Win” than is really warranted.