Tales of the Aggronaut

Unfunny Dead

September 23, 2013 by Belghast

Vegetative State

After our day of random running about on Saturday, I spent most of yesterday hanging out on the sofa and catching up on movies that I had meant to watch. It takes an act of congress to get me into a movie theatre… I have a thing with large crowds and a completely and total lack of enjoyment of them. So most of the time I prefer to just wait until something is available either through on demand or to the home market in general. Among the movies I watched was World War Z as hinted at by the tower of zombies image above. I have to say despite all the negative press about the movie I actually rather enjoyed it.

Sure there were many super sensationalist shots like the ant like zombie tower… but for the most part it was one of the most intense zombie movies I have seen since 28 days later. I am a heretic, while I own World War Z the novel… I have not made it terribly far into it. So I can’t really appreciate just how bad a movie this was (or at least that is what I keep hearing). What was there was something I enjoyed watching. Granted I have never been a huge fan of track star / parkour zombies… but it does generate some intense viewing. At the end of the day I greatly prefer Walking Dead… but this was fun as well.

Unfunny Dead

Another film that I had wanted to watch but never got around to… was the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. A little preface leading into this… I love the previous Evil Dead movies. However this is primarily because I love Bruce Campbell as Ash. He is the perfect blend of smart ass and campy super hero for my personal tastes… and if you have never watched My Name is Bruce… I highly suggest you Netflix that. I went into this movie knowing that the end result of this reboot would essentially destroy everything I loved about the movie. Ultimately I was fine with this… I wanted to see what the new version was anyways. If you have not see the movie, be warned I am going to spoil various things.

I feel like the characters in this movie… could have done with a SINGLE play session of Call of Cthulhu pen and paper. If you find a book, that is wrapped in barbed wire and left on an altar of sorts… the last thing you EVER want to do is clip the barbed wire. If you by some strange compulsion to you decided to clip the barbed wire… and found that the cover was made from what looks to be human flesh… for the love of god do not open it. If for some strange reason… you then opened the book and saw all sorts of dire warnings… for the love of fucking god do not read ANYTHING THAT IS SCRATCHED OUT ALOUD. Essentially after the first ten minute I had already decided that the characters deserved whatever they got.

I feel like Cabin in the Woods was a so much more enjoyable version of this movie. After the first few minutes I spent most of my time trying to figure out which single person would survive. Ultimately that was the big surprise that I did not see coming. The one who survives essentially throws all horror movie cannon to the four winds, which is I guess something. The trailers billed this as the “most terrifying film you will ever experience”… to which I assume they just had a ridiculously low bar to measure this against. It was neither terrifying nor particularly scary other than the fact that it had near silent dialog… and blaringly loud sound effects. So at the end of the day it might have frightened my ear drums.

Big Horns

The highlight of the day was taking my Warrior in FFXIV to 45 and completing that class quest. One of the really awesome things is that at level 45 you get a full set of relic gear minus the chest piece. Within moments your character turns from looking essentially the same as anyone else of your gear type… to looking like all of the character artwork for your job. For me I get to start inching my way towards looking like the badass on the right. Another cool feature is that finally I have a helm that you can use the /visor command on. The above image is with the visor snapped down.

Now begins the slow climb to 50, but at the same time I have a bunch of other classes that I want to level. I feel like I would probably be better served pushing the Warrior to 50, and then using the xp bonus on all of the other classes I level. However right now we have a large number of guild members staggered in level. As they need dungeons I am usually at the vanguard of folks offering to go along with whatever alternate class fits the level range. Quickly becoming my secondary is the Archer, and I managed to get it to 25 this weekend with numerous dungeon runs. I think bard will more than likely be the next job I pick up.

Sword and Bored

Additionally I worked on my Gladiator a bit over the weekend. I managed to push it up to 25 and have it read to tank Toto-rak if anyone needs it. I really want to be a Paladin eventually, because I would like to have both Warrior and Paladin maxed out so I can choose which tank class best fits the encounters we are facing. I feel I do a good job at playing the class, and I rarely have the threat problems inherit with the class in general. The problem is… Gladiator is just not a fun class for me. Compared to the Marauder it is just a boring class with nothing much interesting going on other than spamming savage blade and occasionally stunning something. I wish I had leveled it first… because Marauder would have been a breath of fresh air compared to it.

I really don’t feel much pressure to level a gladiator however, because we have at least two players coming quickly through the ranks that have chosen that as their main focus. Ultimately if we as a guild encounter things that require the paladin abilities, we will at least have access to them as a class. I feel like I am probably better spent pushing up my Dragoon to 50 or getting Archer to Bard and running it to 50. Being able to play a high level dps in additional to a high level tank seems more beneficial. I still feel like eventually I will level most of the classes, but I feel like I have put a pretty massive dent in them so far.

You can check out my character on the lodestone… but the summary is…

Warrior – 45
Dragoon – 32
Gladiator – 25
Archer – 25
Pugilist – 20
Thaumaturgist – 6

Essentially I am working on pushing up all of the disciple of war classes so that I can turn the lower tiers of gear into materia and clear out some inventory space. Once I get the archer to 30, I will likely start working on the pugilist to push it up. I can’t really see playing Pugilist/Monk as a main class, since it is even more positional than the lancer… but it is fun to play around on it. I have to say though that they are completely screwed when it comes to fates. They have no viable AOE early on, and no ranged attack to tag mobs with… so essentially you just have to spam attacks on whatever you can come in contact with. In the world of Quick Nock, Overpower, and Ice 2… you are just screwed for contribution.

Wrapping Up

Well I need to get downstairs, feed the animals, pack up my laptop and get on the road. This weekend overall was an extremely relaxing one. Combining watching movies and working on classes in FFXIV I really enjoyed myself. The one thing I have enjoyed about FFXIV more than anything at this point is the grouping. There are several touchstone moments in the game that require a group to get past, and as a result everyone is always ready to do more grouping. The fact that they scale you automatically, and give you decent experience for your own level is a huge plus. I hope you all have a great week ahead of you, and that you get accomplished whatever needs to be accomplished.

Garuda Sucks

September 22, 2013 by Belghast

Casey Jones?

I was extremely slow starting this morning, continuing to fall back asleep from 7 am til roughly 9 am. When I finally got up and around I did what I do every morning, and ran off to forage for food. Generally I run to QuikTrip for sausage rolls, which is a gas station chain based in Tulsa. If you do not have the miracle that is QuikTrip… you won’t really understand how gas station food can be that amazing. On the way back into the neighborhood I saw two young boys, one chasing the other. I could see he had something in his hands, and as I drove closer I noticed it was a rubber katana and a golf club. My immediate thought was… whoa is that kid playing Casey Jones?

I think of the Turtles as being a figment of my childhood, as I can remember buying the original indie black and white comics, and the first series of playmates toys where all the turtles had trademarked red bandanas. But the longer I thought about it… the more I realized that sure enough that kid COULD be playing Casey Jones. The TMNT franchise has been rebooted every few years to a point where kids of almost any age could easily recognize everyone’s OTHER favorite psychopath with a hockey mask.

As a tween I thought Casey Jones was the coolest, some kind of cross between a ninja and the punisher (another favorite character of mine). Likely the two boys were just fighting with whatever they happened to have their hands on. I remember my friend and I used to sword fight with baseball bats. That was when I learned that a wooden bat can pretty much cleave an aluminum bat in two…. but that is a tale for another day. Seeing the two kids running around like that made me super nostalgic. I remember my cousin and I went through a phase where we went NOWHERE AT ALL without a slingshot and a bag of rocks. Granted I grew up in the country… so that was entirely reasonable given that I have used said slingshot to thump a bull and get him to go the other way.

Tokyo Game Show and FFXIV

This week the Tokyo Game Show has been going on, and unlike the various western game conferences it has been pretty closed door to the public… or at least closed door to anyone who does not have a fluent understanding of Japanese. Luckily Dual Shockers has posted a pretty good write up of the various 2.1 announcements for Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. The awesome part is… there is a TON of content expected to release for the first patch. So far the items that have been confirmed… Good King Moogle Mog primal fight. New extreme modes for Ifrit, Titan and Garuda… and after doing normal mode Garuda last night, I don’t want to see what Hard mode looks like… let alone Extreme mode.

Additionally they are adding player housing for each of the three grand companies, daily beast quests, and treasure hunting mode… neither of those two I understand but they both sound extremely enticing. Additionally they are adding a pvp arena system at Wolfs Den, one completely new dungeon, and two new hardmode dungeons with new boss strategies. They also announced that there would be limited time free transfers to a server of your choice in October, to help join together the various people that were split up by the server caps. Finally later this year they announced that there would be cross over events with Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI both of which appear to reward unique pets for FFXIV.

That is a lot of goodness, but I have not heard a timeframe for 2.1. Considering I have yet to cap out, and I have an army of alternate specs to level… I am sure I can hold on the current content for awhile. I have always loved the art style of the Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest games… so I am looking forward to collecting the cute little golem pet. Here is hoping they do this as a duty… and not some random spawning fate. The whole random drop pet/mount thing has not really worked out too well for any of us in Rift, and most of us have not collected more than one color of Hellbug.

Garuda Sucks

Both Ifrit and Titan were extremely enjoyable encounters. They introduced us to the concept of a primal fight, and I believe eased us into the difficulty of the encounters. In both cases there was this one thing you had to watch, and if you did it… you pretty much won. As various guild members have gotten up in level I have looked forward to tanking or dpsing these encounters to get them through. They are both extremely fun fights to participate in. Last night we took on Garuda… the third primal encounter… and I have to say no one will be looking forward to repeating this one.

The problem is… I am trying to think of ways to explain how big of an increase in difficulty the fight was from the other two without really spoiling the fight OR the other two. We have tried really hard to go into every fight cold and figure things out on our own. This of course has meant a lot of deaths as we figured out just what the mechanics were doing. I think we had somewhere less than ten deaths last night… but not sure just how far from that number we were. We latched onto one of the central concepts of the fight extremely fast. As Tam said… this is not our first rodeo… so if a fight gives you a thing to hide behind… chances are they want you to hide behind it at some point.

The big problem that I saw was the sheer amount of damage I was taking as the tank. The various people in the know have all said that they wait until they have completed their 45 class quest to do this fight, since that fight rewards you every piece of an armor set but the chest piece. Additionally I could have outfitted myself in at least a full set of the level 45 heavy mithril armor set… which self buffed gives me about 300 more hitpoints from what I did the encounter with.

Being the stubborn bastards that we are, we pulled and pushed and prodded on the encounter until we finally beat it. I just have to say though… this is the hardest fight to date… filled with “all manner of fuckery” as Tam commented last night. I have so much fear and loathing about what the various hard mode version of the primal fights could bring, especially considering how close a call making it through normal Garuda was for us.

Wrapping Up

Well time for me to finish this up and get on with the day. I am sure I will be logging into FFXIV to hang out with the guild, maybe even venturing into Rift to try and finish up 58. Yesterday we did a lot of running around town, so I think today for the most part will be a stay at home day. We have to go out this afternoon to meet someone to buy my wife another Miche shell. For those not familiar with this concept… it is a weird purse with changeable appearances. My wife has suddenly become enthralled by them… and since she is always so damned good about my Lego expenditures… I figure it is only fair that I am cool about her growing collection of purses.

Eight Man

September 21, 2013 by Belghast

Invasion of Fuzzy

Last night when I got home my mind was entirely on getting everything done so I could go participate in the game that must not be named. As a result I rushed inside, changed the ferret cage, started dinner etc without really being super observant. So by the time my wife got home, I was completely oblivious when she asked “what is up with all those fuzzy worms?”. I threw back on my sandals and went outside and sure enough… we were being invaded by dozens of large black furry caterpillars. They were climbing all over the garage door in groups of up to a half dozen or so. Seeing my photo this morning reminded me to do some research.

Turns out these are Walnut Caterpillars, and they normally forage for food in September/October in the south central region of the United States. The odd thing is… we have no Walnut/Pecan trees which are the only things they eat. So at first I was wondering why exactly they decided to try and find food in my front yard… then shortly thereafter I remembered… over the summer months I helped a neighbor haul out sections of a large tree. I am wondering if it was a Walnut, and by chopping it down he starved out these little guys. They could be desperately foraging trying to find any food source in the area… which lead them to spill out into my front yard. It is odd how cute and both creepy the experience of seeing them roam around my garage door was.

Stone Vigil

Lately I have been piddling big time in Final Fantasy XIV in an effort to let some of the new crop of players catch up a bit. As a result I have been leveling both the pugilist and archer quite a bit, and yesterday for awhile I focused on the gladiator and managed to get it to 25. However since the game that must not be named was not really cooperating… I noticed we had just the right number of people on for the next dungeon Stone Vigil. I had been hung up in the main storyline until I completed this dungeon, as had Rae so it would be good to get past it so we can continue on. As I have said before, every so often the game locks you at a story element and you will not receive further quests until you have completed it.

For going into the dungeon relatively cold… it could have gone a lot worse… however it also could have gone a lot better. There was one complete group wipe, and then another time that we lost me and Dallian our black mage. However the only times we actually struggled were on the completely egregious trash pulls. We managed to oneshot every boss in the dungeon so I can console myself with that thought, when I think about the rougher spots. It feels like the trash difficulty ramped up significantly. I don’t want to give any spoilers that you cannot already see from the dungeon preview video… but let me tell you… dragons are assholes in the Final Fantasy world.

Eight Man

The game has a series of encounters called Guildhests, that essentially try and teach players how to function in larger grouping dynamics. They educate the players in how to get out of bad things, how to focus fire the worst targets… various necessarily lessons that they will need to participate in larger dungeons. There are two hests every 5 levels after level 10, and they provide a ton of experience the first time you complete them. This is something I had almost completely ignored until recently, when the guild made a concerted effort to try and catch everyone up on them. The reasoning… the second level 40 hest… is the first 8 man content you can encounter.

Most of the dungeons and hests we had run, were 4 man groups… otherwise known as a Light Party in Final Fantasy lingo. The basic group composition is 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 dps. These are pretty simple to fill and get started. Eight mans on the other hand have a comp that is essentially two light partys… 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps. The problem with two tank encounters generally is that you have a “main” tank, and an “off” tank. As we went into this scenario I think both myself and Ashgar the other tank were really hoping that was not going to be the case here.

Much to our enjoyment the encounter was balanced in a way so that one tank was constantly tagging off between a fighting a boss and gathering trash role. Essentially we got attack from both sides at the same time forcing us to split up into two parties to handle the encounter. There was a lot of shifting of resources back and forth as the dps burned down one encounter while the next tank gathered up and got solid aggro on the next incoming encounter. I loved the synergy of the fight and the way that both tanks and both healers had to work in unison to cover each other. If that was any evidence of what the 8 man raids will look like, I think I am really going to like endgame content in this game.

Wrapping Up

I have to say the more I get into Final Fantasy, the more I am enjoying it. I went into this with an overwhelming meh feeling, but the longer I play it the more it has sunk its hooks into me. The leveling of alternate specs needs some work, as once you run out of quests you pretty much just have to grind fates…. but I feel they are working on this. I hate to say it but this is a game that could definitely benefit from daily quests other than the leves. I know this sounds odd coming from my post yesterday about game jumping, but I really hope this is a game we can stick with for awhile. I am really enjoying myself. I hope you all have a great weekend, and that you get accomplished whatever you need to.

Game Jumping

September 20, 2013 by Belghast

This morning I am struggling more than a tiny bit to stay focused long enough to actually write up a blog post. I feel like this is a side effect of my odd night. Firstly I was feeling extremely drowsy last night, so I had a few cups of coffee… which never fully woke me out of my slumber. What it did however is make me completely oblivion to the fact that it is past midnight and I was not in bed yet. Combine this with the fact that my wife woke me up in the middle of the night over essentially nothing, and we have a recipe for a groggy Bel. Here is hoping that I can focus long enough to make something intelligible.

Game Jumping

My post about being a content locust the other day, made me sit down and think. I am sure I have a bunch of friends who simply do not understand why I and a lot of my friends jump games so regularly. This is going to be my attempt to understand why the process is so alluring. Basically launch day is like Christmas morning for me… the game is so full of possibility. Everything is new, or at least new enough to lure me into a feeling of being on some grand exploration. The dungeons are all new, and there are no real guides to get in the way of figuring things out yourself. Every mob pull is unexpected, every level gained a treasure waiting to be opened as you find out what new abilities you get to play with.

The other thing that makes a game launch absolutely intoxicating is the fact that EVERYONE is playing it. Everywhere you turn there is a viable group combination, and everyone is excited to be doing them. Guild chat teems with “do you want to run X dungeon?” and a chorus of “hell yes we do!”. Everyone is excitedly talking about this thing they found or this trick they just learned. Lunchtime becomes a discussion of specs and strategy, and every single person is looking forward to getting home and logging into the game to experience more of it. The launch of a game is like a massive sugar rush where everything is sunshine, rainbows and magical flying ponies.

The Crash

Like any good sugar rush… you know there is a crash coming, but at the time you simply do not give a shit because it is just so pure and enjoyable. The problem is… an amazing game experience causes each of us to play in ways that are simply unsustainable for the long run. We might neglect to do this or that chore, knowing that eventually this will snowball and become a weekend we have to be COMPLETELY offline to take care of. Additionally we are all logging hours in a mad push to keep up with each other as we barrel through the content at breakneck speeds in search of the next new game high.

When the crash comes… it is sudden. We go from 30 players online one night, to 15, to 5… as everyone falls into recovery mode. Some recover their gusto for the game experience a few days or even a week later… but others still are just spent from the climb. Now is the point that the reality of the game sets in. As a player you start to notice the features that don’t work quite right, or are generally short sighted or outright missing. You start to complain politely that the company is not addressing whatever dire need you feel is there. Finally the feedback loop of players starts to become a chorus… and ultimately a handful of players will determine the game is unplayable and move on.

The Feet Draggers

In every game launch, there are a handful of friends that for whatever reason will not allow themselves to commit and jump head first into a new game experience. They have all manner of reservations, namely that folks will not stick with this one… but in essence they are missing the point. We are not necessarily looking for the next hundred year game… I think most of us are chasing the high of the launch. Launching a game is extremely intoxicating… everything is fresh and new and unsullied… and jumping into that experience is unlike anything else in gaming. Those timid souls who watch on the side lines, until seeing their friends having so much fun becomes unbearable… they are ultimately missing the best part of the game experience.

By the time they commit and download the game… they have missed the game in its heyday if you will. They have missed the times when everyone is excited to be doing something, even to the point of begging to do it. They have missed a time when we did not quite yet have figured out what spec did what, and what ability worked the best. They have missed a time when every loot drop was full of possibility, and we never knew what wonder might be lurking around the corner. They have to become excited in a time period when everyone in the guild surrounding them is becoming progressingly less excited.

I always feel the worst for the feet draggers. They are sold a tale of an undiscovered continent, but by the time they actually commit to getting the game they are delivered a depleted territory instead. I have a number of friends who will hem-haw and drag their feet trying to keep from committing to anything new that comes around the corner…. only to eventually end up buying it and wondering where the magic went. The magic is always spent in the hazy days of launch and the weeks leading past it, and that experience where everything literally IS magic and new… is worth any sticker price.

Pax Guildana

After the initial wave of pioneers have faded away, or at least returned to sustainable play times… we have a period of the guild that I like to refer to “Pax Guildana”. A quiet peaceful time when those of us who enjoy soloing, cast off the flurry of activity that a launch brings on and return to piddling around with some friendly guild chat to bind us together. This is the quiet after the storm, and usually remains this way until the excitement builds about a brand new launch on the horizon. As much as I love the thrill of being a pioneer into a brand new game world… I like this as well. I like logging in to a peaceful and friendly guild chat, not really knowing what I am going to do that night… but more than likely doing something completely devoid of stress.

Dungeons and group activity still happens, but more out of a sense of needing to get someone this or that thing… or through a quest, than out of the sheer excitement of doing them. Then one day someone comes to guildchat, talking about how they have discovered some new and amazing continent littered with riches everywhere the eye can see… and the process begins to build again. The first waves of scouts leave the mainland and soon after the second and third waves are off exploring this new land, plundering its bounty. This of course… leaves only the foot draggers to hold down the fort hoping that the excitement will return. If the basecamp was built well enough… folks often WILL return… but not in every case.

Home Base

For me right now, Rift is my home base and Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn my forward camp. I can say that my intent is to keep it this way… but at no time can I ever really say for certain how things will change. Sometimes the forward camp becomes the new home… and we discover a new territory on the horizon. Other times we fall back to home only to find out the new territory was fallow and uninhabitable. For the time being, my intent is to play these two games and enjoy each of them as much as I can. However with so many games on the horizon… at least one of them… Elder Scrolls Online… a game I have been anxiously awaiting for what feels like years. I am not sure if Final Fantasy will become the new home, and we will embark from it for the shores of Tamriel… or if that adventure will be sent out from Telara.

Regardless of from where the ships launch, I know that they WILL launch… and likely launch again for Wildstar. As much as I try and claim that I don’t have interest in a certain game… I too often get caught up in the thrall of the addictive nature of a big game launch. Having seen these events play out all too many times… it is just too enticing to not join in the fun. As always I feel horrible for the foot draggers… because they never get to experience a game in its purest form… but instead are always resigned to get the slightly used version of the game in the process. I keep thinking one of these days… one of these games they will get hooked on the launch process as well because they will jump into it whole heartedly with no reservations. It will only be then, that they truly understand why people jump from game to game.

Wrapping Up

Well I need to get on the road, but before doing so I need to pack my laptop and feed the animals. This Friday I have traded the super awkward coffee for a super awkward meeting. Not terribly looking forward to it, but we must do what we must do. I hope you all have a great weekend. Tonight I will be participating in something NDA restricted, so tomorrow morning I will have to come up with something interesting to say… that is in no way related to what I did last night. Hopefully inspiration will find me between now and then.