Featuring: Ace, Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We have the entire crew this week but have a bit of a rolling start without Tam as he was finishing something up in Star Citizen. We begin the show with some talk about Relooted a game about recovering antiquities and returning them to their rightful homes. After that, we discuss Destiny Rising and how it appears to be in maintenance mode lately. No one had it on their bingo card, but we talked a bit about the drop of the Warlock class in Diablo II Resurrected and how it is also coming to Immortal and Diablo IV. Tam shares his thoughts about playing Warhammer: The Old World and how it is not exactly the game he thought it was going to be. We discuss a bunch of rapid-fire topics from the recent Sony State of Play event, and then Kodra dives into Thinky Games and Shape of Dreams. We discuss the failed state of Highguard and 2XKO and what it means for multiplayer games in general. Finally, a quick blurb that we are all looking forward to Horizon Hunters Gathering, and they should give us all keys to test it.
Good Morning Folks. I have to be blazingly honest here… I did not have it on my punch card that we would be getting an expansion for Diablo II this year. However, we got exactly that as part of the Diablo anniversary celebration, and it was a shadow drop, meaning I have already played a bit of the brand new class in Diablo II, the Warlock. I have to say it is pretty freaking awesome, at least in the early levels, it feels wildly overpowered. Granted, you can only really have one minion so far, but I am sure that changes over time. You summon up your demon goat buddy, and he proceeds to lay waste to everything around you, while you bop things over the head with your floating weapon. I think the floating weapon thing is honestly a really nice touch because it differentiates this class from other classes that start out feeling like they are shittier versions of the Barbarian… looking at you, Druid.
What is wild about this is that the Warlock class is coming to three games in the Diablo franchise. It’s a bit of a bummer that Diablo III is left out of the love here… but I feel like probably it and Diablo 1 both got dropped for the same reason, they do not have a shiny new client built with modern development technology. We already have the Warlock in Diablo II, but it is coming to Diablo IV at the end of April and to Diablo Immortal in June. Not that I give much of a shit about Diablo Immortal, but I will probably be playing whatever season coincides with the April 28th start date of the Warlock drop in Diablo IV. I will always be down for more Minion gameplay coming to games. So far, at least it feels pretty solid, and it has actually made me want to play some more Diablo II Resurrected. Generally speaking, D2R gameplay is way too slow for my tastes these days, but it might be fun to do at least a full playthrough on the Warlock.
In other news, we got a new Lunar New Year event in Destiny Rising, so maybe it is not entirely out to pasture fully. I lack the cultural significance of all of the stuff that coincides with Lunar New Year events, but they often are big deals in Japanese and Chinese games, and so far, that seems to be the case here as well. Essentailly the normal Frontline events are being replaced with new encounters with the red and gold fireworks themes. Doing these earns points towards the larger event that is going on, and will ultimately also earn you pulls for the reworked version of Ikora. I played three rounds or so of Frontlines yesterday and had a reasonably good time doing it. This is mostly a pretty chill activity and is exclusive to Jiangshit Metro, aka Space China. Is it massive and new and exciting? Not really. However it is something and I have to give them credit for it.
Yesterday evening, we got a new State of Play event from Sony, and probably the biggest news for me personally was the upcoming release of Death Stranding 2 for the PC. Sure, I have a PS5 and could have played this game at any point I wanted to, but I greatly prefer playing open-world games with a mouse and keyboard whenever possible. The PC release of the first game dropped during the height of covid lockdown, and it was extremely poignant as we were all adjusting to a new way of life, much in the same way as the characters in the game were. I’ve never been a massive Kojima fan, but I did really enjoy the quirky lore of the world in this series and look forward to seeing more of it. I may have also developed a crush on Fragile, and am interested in seeing more of how things progress in this world. Troy Baker’s character in this series is also completely batshit crazy, and I am interested in seeing just how over the top he is in this version.
Next up, we have a really freaking cool-looking Castlevania game from some of the folks behind Dead Cells. Not that I necessarily have much to say about this, other than the fact that I will be playing it when it drops. At least based on the trailer, I would guess this is more in line with Castlevania 1 and 3, and not a more role-playing game experience like 2 and Symphony of the Night. I tend to prefer the Castlevania RPG games where you level up and collect gear and such, but it does not mean that I don’t appreciate the more standard platformer style games. It might be a bit more modern platformer than I would like, but we will have to see how it plays. Games like Silksong tend to require a level of manual dexterity that I no longer have with a controller.
We also got more gameplay of Control Resonant, and while I still mourn the fact that we are not playing as Jesse… I love this weird shared universe and will be here on day one regardless. I am really looking forward to just how kooky the world is going to be, given that we are apparently playing with gravity and surfaces. It seems like the corruption of the Oldest House has spilled out into the real world, and I guess New York is suffering as a result. I love the visuals, so this should be a heck of a lot of fun.
Lastly, we got another video update on Tokon Fighting Souls, and while I am not as big a fighting game player as I once was, this game looks like a lot of fun. I am all on board with playing Magik in a fighting game. I am super pumped that Steve Blum is doing the voice for Wolverine as well. I hope that means he will be doing the voice of Wolverine in the game that Insomniac has been working on as well. Anyways, it should be a lot of fun, and will likely look beautiful in blazing 4k on the 65-inch television that I picked up not too long ago. At some point, I really need to hang up a curtain rod so I can put up some blackout curtains over the awkward round window in the livingroom.
There was honestly a bunch of other interesting stuff announced yesterday, so if you have the time it might be worth watching it in the background while doing other things. Either that or, at a minimum, hitting the PlayStation YouTube channel to see if there are any trailers that stand out to you. After showings like this, it really hits home just how far Microsoft is falling behind in this race. They conceded the PlayStation 4 generation, and as a result, lost the generation when everyone shifted to digital purchases. It is going to be nigh impossible to claw their way back from this, especially when Sony keeps dropping banger exclusives left and right. I will probably never be a console-first player, but I doubt I buy another Microsoft console because I have barely used my Xbox. Going forward, I will probably have a Sony console, a Nintendo console, and then my PC for everything else.
Anyways. Was there anything you were super pumped for in the State of Play? Have you been playing the Warlock in Diablo II Resurrected? Drop me a line below.
Featuring: Ammo, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
Tonight we start off some discussion about the unseasonable weather that has caused a few of us to experience negative 15 fahrenheit days. From there we discuss BlizzConline and how we went into it with extremely lowered expectations. We discuss the things that were announced namely Diablo 4 new class and Burning Crusade Classic. From there we venture forth into a discussion about Valheim a game that Bel has played for awhile but failed to recruit other players into until Tam and Kodra did this thing. The entire AggroChat crew seems to have reached a critical mass and is exploring this norse land of mystery. Finally we briefly talk about WandaVision and how weird the show must be if you don’t at least have a summary understanding of the characters.
Topics Discussed
Thawing Out from Hell Freezing Over
BlizzConline
Anduin is the Arthas?
Diablo 4 Rogue
Diablo 2 Remastered
Burning Crusade Classic
Lost Vikings Returns
Diablo Immortal
Mobile Game Woes
Valheim
Survival Done Better
Low Fidelity but Gorgeous
Building a City
Adventures and Shenanigans
Bel Ruins Everything
WandaVision
Zero Spoilers – What is this like if you don’t already know the characters?
This weekend was a largely chill en devour that focused on lots of gaming while either upstairs in my warm warm office, or downstairs snuggled into a blanket on the sofa. It was my original intent to spend lots of time hunting monsters with friends, and I did in fact manage that for a bit Sunday afternoon. I also managed another goal which was to craft the Horizon Zero Dawn set of Palico gear which Kenzie is currently wearing. It admittedly feels a little weird at times to talk about Kenzie in game versus Kenzie the real life cat, but I still feel like if you didn’t name your Palico friend after an actual cat you are a monster. The other big happening of the weekend is that I dove head first into a game that I had been wanting to try for a bit.
Wolcen Lords of Mayhem is an Action Roleplaying Game that draws its inspiration from Diablo 2, Path of Exile and to some extent Diablo 3. It’s funny how a genre that largely spawned from a single came can branch and wind up fairly divisive. There is an entire community that feels like Diablo 2 was the ideal version of the game, another that feels like Path of Exile is the true successor to the throne… and a whole other group of people that care nothing about that noise and happily play Diablo 3. Wolcen is this weird amalgam in which I can see some of the best traits of each of those camps, as well as pulling in some other games in the genre like Titans Quest and its eventual successor Grim Dawn. Essentially it is a good start at trying to build a brand new modern ARPG.
The game itself is completely gorgeous, which admittedly was the first thing that I noticed about it. I stumbled onto this game when D3 community YouTuber Rhykker did a video talking about it. I have been trying very hard to avoid playing alpha/beta/early access games because they tend to sour my impression and excitement when the final product is released. However when I saw the game play I promptly threw that rule out the window and slammed my $19.95 on the table to join the testing. Firstly please note the game is very much an alpha build and in my short time playing it I have encountered all sorts of bugs including being hit by a monster a few times and having it teleport me back to base without actually dying.
This is absolutely a buyer beware sort of experience, but for me at least I felt like I wanted to help fund the games development because they have some pretty big plans. They are even brave enough to post their long term roadmap in the form of a Trello board for the backers to look at and comment on. Similarly there is a community Discord available as well so folks can leave bug reports, comment on game play and leave feature requests. The little bit of time I have spent roaming around the chat channels have made me realize that the game already has a super devoted following. As far as the lineage of this game goes… it is my understanding that it originally started out as a mod for the game Crysis designed to allow folks to create an ARPG on the CryEngine. From there it turned into a Kickstarter project called Umbra, and then at some point the name shifted to Wolcen which I find insanely awkward to pronounce.
What makes the game extremely interesting to me is the fact that there are no classes. You start as either a Male or a Female character with pretty robust sliders and character creation options. From there your character becomes whatever you want it to be in the form that everything is treated like a spell… be it a melee attack or an orb of lighting being hurled at the target. How you begin to spec out your character determines how effective you are going to be in your goals. Not surprisingly I have largely focused on melee with a sword and shield build designed to get in… dish out a bunch of damage then use the games active dodge system represented by the green pips above the skill bar to get out safely.
Admittedly it does not always work because the monsters in this game hit super hard and involve a lot of movement to be able to take them down successfully. I spent some time streaming Sunday morning and died over and over to all sorts of silly situations, and with no difficulty slider currently… it could get frustrating if you are not willing to keep throwing your face against this game. As far as speccing your character you are given a combination of the traditional stat based system that allows you to allocate points each level into the core areas that you want to be improving. On top of that each individual skill has its own tree of sorts that largely involves you choosing one of two options… with one focused on efficiency and another focused on either dealing more damage or increasing the effect of your attacks.
Lastly you have the “Gate of Fates” or what I tend to call it the Sphere Grid, which is a sequence of thematic choices you make as a character in how you want to build it out. Now when I said there were no classes in this game… in theory that is probably a lie because you could think of the skill trees presented on this grid as classes. On the inner ring you have Arcanist, Guardian, Legionary, Thief and Hunter. On the second ring you have Elementalist, Warden, Maleficent, Gladiator and Trickster. Then on the third ring they have a single tree so far called Assassin, but I fully expect that their goal is to keep expanding outwards. What makes this interesting is there is an NPC in town that allows you to rotate the rings connecting up any first tier tree to any second tier tree. So as a result right now my Legionary tree is rotated to meet up with Gladiator and in theory your “Class” becomes the combination of which trees you choose to mash together.
Admittedly it was in the sphere grid that Path of Exile largely lost me as a player because it kept expanding… and keep seeming more and more like nonsense. However with Wolcen it feels more manageable because essentially I am making one of five choices… each time I move outwards on the grid and can feel pretty happy to just stay within those lines. There are a lot of things not messaged well in the game… including this sphere grid. So for example I did not realize I could rotate it until I had already started putting some points into Guardian. That said it doesn’t necessarily feel like those points were wasted either because I am getting the blended effect of both trees at the same time. I would imagine late in the game you would have more than one tree fleshed out on each of the rings… and as such keep tweaking the subtle nuance of your character design.
Essentially I broke my no alphas rule… because I really want to see this game come to fruition. What is there right now… has an awful lot of potential and I can see how it could be turned into serious competition for the Diablo 4 throne. I will always love Diablo and the action rpgs that have spawned out of it. I’ve spent many an hour playing games like Titans Quest or even the MMO variants like Devilian. Already Wolcen has managed to capture the essence of what makes a Diablo style game good… all the while taking this raw material and blending it into something fresh feeling. They are taking the genre into an interesting direction that combines the accessibility of Diablo 3 with the madness of Path of Exile to produce something that I think will have staying power. I fully expect that this is going to be one of those games that I keep popping back into as new features are added. I am sure it is still a few years away from exiting early access, but the product that is there already feels good to play. If you are so inclined and are willing to deal with a slightly buggy product… I highly suggest checking it out.
