gw2

Visions of Flailing

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Good Morning Folks. I have no clue what I am doing anymore. I have my first counseling session this afternoon so we will see how that goes. I am still having the minor hallucinations that my wife is still here in this home, but like it is more a feeling than actually seeing or experiencing anything. Many folks have told me this is normal, and honestly it probably is. My brain is hardwired to expect her to be here and that does not go away in a few weeks time. I also have a meeting with a financial advisor in a few weeks to talk about how best to handle a bunch of stuff that I am dealing with. Most of which is in a holding pattern until we have a death certificate. Everything needs a death certificate and I am mostly just trying to function until that point. Tomorrow I have taken the day off because I have to move everything out of her classroom, so that they can prepare it for another teacher to move in. Thankfully her teacher pals have offered to pack everything up for me, and it will just be a matter of trucking things home and stacking the boxes up in the garage for now.

This morning I am probably going to be wildly flipping back and forth between my real world stuff… and gaming stuff because that is effectively how my brain works right now. I am latching onto distractions like a life raft, and we got some good distractions in abundance this week. Guild Wars 2 released a reveal trailer for their upcoming Visions of Eternity expansion and it looks awesome. Whoever is responsible for the motion graphics for their expansion logos… they need a fucking raise because this one is the best yet. SOTO and Janthir Wilds were both awesome, but the story being told by this logo is freaking phenomenal. I am really looking forward to the updates to the Skimmer mount because right now… it is the one that I use the least unless I have to be doing underwater stuff. I’m also looking forward to more shenanigans with the Inquest because they are one of my favorite bad guy groups. I am not sure how excited I am for more Elite specs, because quite honestly… I rarely change my builds and something is going to have to be really freaking cool to get me to change things up.

Depending upon how the counseling session goes, I might be ready to dip my toes back into Thursday night nonsense in Guild Wars 2. I have not mentioned any of this to Ammo, Sol, Ash, Thalen, or Sita… but I might do that throughout the day. I know there are a bunch of weeklies that we would even work on, like I could tag up and run bounties to knock out that one. I am also down with more Fractals or Dungeons because there are so many of those that I have not run. I’ve come to realize that my go to for knocking things out in Guild Wars 2 is running rifts in the Janthir area, because they are so much easier to get to than the Rifts in the SOTO area. They area great way to knock out general kills, defiance breaks, combos, and a few other general things because when you start one up… you almost always have a large group. Quite honestly Rifts in general are one of the best things that they have added to the game because they are so easy to get going.

Over in Path of Exile I am still slowly grinding up levels. I dinged level 99 yesterday over lunch and am starting to chip away at the large grind towards level 100. For now I am just pouring my last few points into 5% life nodes. They are generically useful, give me slightly more righteous fire damage… and quite a bit of just general survival. I might do something more clever but I can sort that out once I am actually level 100. I am trying to decide if I want to make a second character or not. I was running up an Elementalist to play with the Golems and was contemplating doing a Penance Brand of Dissipation power charge stacker to see how that goes. I would like to have some sort of a bossing focused character just to rip through invitations faster than righteous fire. There are a ton of challenges that I still need to work on to get my sad little totem pole a bit bigger before the end of the league.

There are a bunch of challenges that are pretty close to wrapping up. Some of them I just need some luck, like finding Infamous Mercs that I can steal gear from that I have not already stolen. Then there are things like the fact that I need to do a Cortex where my merc survives, and I think if I switch to my tanky bossing merc I should be good there. Sanctified Scarabs is in theory just me running a bunch of scarabs from various different league mechanics on a map with a minimum of 80% item quantity which should be reasonable enough to do. My Einhar tree makes a pretty decent base for generic usage of other scarabs so I might start working on those tonight. Remarkable Realms is worse this league because it is 40 maps instead of running one of a specific set of maps. I think previously it was 18 maps in total… so I just need to churn through the maps that I have banked up in order to finish that one out. Either that or pick a map that is not heinous and run that one over and over. Most of the unique maps are annoying in one way or another. I should grab Kodra at some point and force him to run them with me so he also gets credit.

The other thing that I have contemplated… is streaming again. Mostly just as a way of interacting with other human beings while I am playing mostly single player gaming experiences like my beloved ARPGs. I have a pretty beefy gaming desktop and it would not be a big deal to stream while playing most of the games that I play. I used to really enjoy doing this, but it always got really weird and made me feel like I was making myself unavailable to my wife while I was doing it. Now that it is just me… I have lots of time to kill before sleep claims me. I can’t say that I would ever be a good streamer, and there is no way in hell that I will ever turn on a camera. Just thinking it might be something fun to dabble in again on the side. Mostly it is just one of those intrusive thoughts that has started appearing in my head and I am not sure if I am going to allow it to take purchase there or not. If I did stream it would be over on my sad little Twitch channel which I believe is still an affiliate. I streamed consistently enough during the launch of Elder Scrolls Online to actually qualify for that. Apparently I have $71.31 in payouts that I am due… that I sort of wish I could just send to a charity somewhere. Accepting subs always seemed really fucking weird.

I legitimately have no clue what I am doing half the time these days. I think once some of the looming things finally are dealt with… I will maybe begin to allow myself to develop a new normal, but right now everything is too damned fresh. I should really spend my weekends working through some of the things that I need to work through. One of my good friends mentioned a pen and paper game, so I might be tagging in on that soon. I also need to sort out a good place to paint and assemble some miniatures for that purpose. I just do not know what I am going to do long term with my life and I am trying to figure out a lot of things. Thanks for sticking around and reading my nonsense as I flail.

AggroChat #527 – Worms, Dragons, and Mercs

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Featuring: AmmosArt, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks! We have the full crew this week, and Kodra and Thalen have made their way into Dune Awakening, so we talk a bit more about that game. Bel asks what the dumbest thing we have done in a video game to make currency. Ash is back in Guild Wars 2 and attempting to catch up on the story. Kodra and Tam share their thoughts about the Microsoft PuzzleHunt event and contrast it with the MIT Mystery Hunt. Bel shares his early experiences with the Mercenaries of Trarthus as the Secrets of the Atlas expansion kicks off in Path of Exile. Grace talks a bit about Be My Horde as it lets you play a Necromancer, raising an army in a Vampire-Survivors-like game. Finally, we talk a bit about Deltarune actually getting a proper release and Toby Fox accepting money for the game.

Topics Discussed:

  • Kodra and Thalen Join Dune
  • Dumb Things for Money
  • Guild Wars 2 Catch Up
  • Microsoft PuzzleHunt
  • Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas
    • Fun With Mercenaries
  • Be My Horde
  • Deltarune Purchasable

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

AggroChat #526 – Fear the Sun

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Featuring: AmmosArt, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Hey Folks! We are down a Grace this week, but still end up filling up more than our normal slot full of nonsense.  There is a big sale going on right now for Guild Wars 2, and if you have ever thought about checking it out, now is the time. The Nintendo Switch 2 was released, and we are all pretty happy with it so far, and was at least a MASSIVE upgrade over the OG launch Switch. We talk a bit about the Summer Games Fest… which we only found out this week was not plural… thanks to LRR.  Tam and Bel have been playing the Dune headstart, and it is a wild gaming experience. Tam talks a short bit about TMNT Splintered Fate and Bel gives a heads up that Path of Exile 3.26 is coming next week.

Topics Discussed:

  • Big Guild Wars 2 Sale
  • Nintendo Switch 2
  • Summer Game(s) Fest
  • Dune: Awakening
  • Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate
  • Path of Exile 3.26 Next Week

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Wilds is Cursed

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Hey Folks! Last night instead of our usual Guild Wars 2 nonsense on Thursday nights… I attempted to do some Monster Hunter Wilds again with Ammo and Sita. We have tried to do this a few times… but something always ends up causing problems. The first time Ammo chain crashed until I lost power… and then when the power came back… I lost internet. Last night the entire time we were playing Sita sounded like a robot… and every time we engaged anything one or more of us would get dropped from the linked party. Dealing with Capcom multiplayer is a very specific realm of hell. Then we realized the thing we were trying to unlock and group up for… is a Solo Arena quest. So we had a lot of us all hanging out on voice and being frustrated together as we attempted to “Akuma”. But hey… Barrel bowling is still fun as heck.

Over in Guild Wars 2… I am back on that World vs World grind and so is Sita. Specifically we both bought Legendary Weapon Kits and I am chasing the very dumb goal of making Sunrise. This however is only a means to an end, because it will in turn allow me to make the Voltron of Guild Wars 2 weapons… Eternity. We even managed to drag Ammo along for this nonsense… but in truth… grouping with friends in WvW is pretty much pointless because it is not like you can actually see each other in the giant “Zerg” huddle. The key trait that you need to learn to succeed in this game mode is find the tag and stand on the tag… and then move only when the tag moves. We had a good commander that was flanked by some really freaking phenomenal healers and were able to “OutZerg” the other teams as we captured their stuff.

We were exceptionally successful and in a single average I managed to do half of a Gift of Battle reward track. I believe Sita who had started this grind before me came within a fraction of finishing his up. I am really looking for the WvW Rush event in July and will probably just bank a bunch of Gift of Battles because they are always useful… and also the track in general is a decent way to get Mystic Clovers. More importantly… I passed rank 100 in World Vs World and got the new title of Veteran… which seems weird that this is higher than General was. Why do I care about WvW ranks? Well I kind of want to make the backpack… which itself will require that I have rank 350. Only 248 left to go. I am hoping I can make a massive dent in this during the WvW Rush and hopefully finish that off… and will absolutely probably just be living in WvW during that time. Thankfully I find that whole nonsense shockingly enjoyable… for someone who is traditionally a massive CareBear.

Dune is out… or at least the headstart is out and I played a bit of it last night. Enough to get through the very beginning of the tutorial and out into Hagga Basin which is the first real zone. I watched a video about how limited the Trooper ends up being and how I should probably just play a Mentat which has a turret… so I did that thing. It really probably is the correct decision because very early you can get a bunch of “makes guns better” abilities. The turret unfortunately is kind of shit. I expected something more akin to the pop up turrets in The Division. What it is instead is a grenade that you throw… and then when you “detonate” it, it turns into a turret that maybe fires off three bolts before exploding and if you are standing near it… you take damage. I am not extremely sold on this game yet. I like the vibe and I am a massive Dune geek… but also the gameplay feels more extreme than I like my survival games. Dealing with lack of water is a massive problem… but I have a thing that lets me drain my victims of blood and convert that to water so hopefully that will make things easier. What I really need though is a Literjon so that I can carry water with me.

I am very much in the bumblefucking my way around the desert mode right now, but at least I have a crappy shelter. I strategically set up my shelter in a valley that stays almost entirely in shade no matter what time of day it is, that happens to be right beside one of the vacuum sealed caves. Given that things respawn in the world pretty regularly, this gives me a pretty decent source of scrap metal as well as some lootable chests that have a few materials that I do not have any use for right now… but are flagged as orange in color which makes me think at some point they will be useful. For the moment I am stumbling up the tech tree and the entire game will probably feel much better once I have a way to carry around water, and a way to traverse between the assorted rock outcroppings more easily. I have “walked without rhythm” my way to another outcropping… found a much larger scavenger camp than I am used to…and died without remembering to set down a respawn beacon. Tonight I will probably make my way back over there and try and retrieve whatever I dropped in my backpack.

The other huge benefit of where I decided to set up my base is that on the other side of the sealed cave… is a small scavenger camp. Essentially when it respawns… I can set down my turret, unseal the cave door… and let the turret kill the two Scavengers without me having to lift a finger. This gives me a somewhat reasonable renewable source of blood to then convert into water with my purification machine. There are various lootables around the camp as well, but I am not sure how much value a handful of Solari will have in the grand scheme of things. I have a contract to deliver scrap metal to someone, but it is also way across another open stretch of desert which terrifies me at the moment. I will probably wait until nightfall to cross so that I won’t have to also worry about the impact of direct sunlight. I am in this weird state of equilibrium with the game where I don’t love it and I don’t hate it… I just feel like I need to push through the awkward first steps that any survival game has.

Yesterday was also the content reveal stream for the Secrets of the Atlas expansion for Path of Exile and it looks amazing. However if I were to sit down and start talking about it… it would be a whole other blog post. I will probably save that for Monday. I hope you all have a phenomenal weekend and if you too are venturing forth into Arrakis, drop me a line and let me know what you are thinking about the game so far.