Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We had a bunch of topics left over from last week that rolled over to this week. First, we talk a bit about Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, the Shinobi Metroidvania. From there, we talk a bit about Summer Games Done Quick and some of the better runs. Tam talks about his plans to adapt the Starfinder 2 game system to create a Shadowrun Campaign. Ash shares his initial thoughts about Draw Steel, a new RPG coming down the pipe. We talk a bit about the upcoming Last Epoch Season 3, which drops on August 21s and some of the significant changes. We also talk a bit about Path of Exile II 0.3.0, which drops shortly after that on the 29th. Lastly, Tam shares some of his thoughts on actually playing quite a bit of Burrows and Badgers, a squad-based leveling miniatures game along the lines of Mordheim. Grace talks briefly about the new Dwarven Realms season that has started, and Bel shares his suggestions for the Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone and both Weapons and Barbarian by Zach Cregger.
Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We got the full crew and dived into the topic of what defines a game. Is it still a game if it mostly plays itself? From there, we talk about the recent acquisition of Eleventh Hour Games by Krafton and what it might mean for the future of Last Epoch. We reprise the topic of connecting with players since Kodra was out last week and had thoughts. This deteriorates into a general topic about Guild Wars 2 and chasing rare items. Tam shares the conclusion to his new computer topic from last week and what he decided to do. Finally, we talk a bit about how Hades 2 has released the last patch before the official 1.0 launch.
Good Morning Folks. I was sort of all over the place this weekend, dipping my toes in a bunch of different gaming ponds. However the absolute highlight of the weekend is attached to some deeply strange circumstances. On the 16th I got an email from Nintendo outlining how the Switch 2 Preorder lottery would work… and in it included the phrase “It’s your time to purchase” which it stated would be in the email you receive if you were chosen. Obviously I immediately turned around and searched for this exact phrase… and while I did not uncover an email from Nintendo it DID include an email draft that I never actually sent to a friend of mine… where I was sending them SWTOR patch notes. Thing is… this is a person that I used to talk to on a near daily basis… but had not talked to in years. We apparently had a brief conversation in 2021 but I have no working memory of this event.
We always had this weird tentative connection, and for the life of me I have no clue how we met because so much of my time in World of Warcraft is crusted with the dusts of time. However we sort of had this dynamic of being friends that went to different schools. Occasionally I would convince her to join in one of my mad schemes… or recruit her to join a raid here or there… but for the most part we operated in completely different circles. So completely out of the blue… and unlike myself.. I decided to email to see how they were doing. What shocked me the most is that I got a pretty quick response, which led to us chatting on Discord off and on throughout the day. I’ve lost contact with so many people over the years from leaving World of Warcraft to leaving Twitter, people who meant a lot to me and were really close friends… but also when it comes to online connections you never know how you are perceived in their eyes and how much of a friend they actually consider you. When I made a break from World of Warcraft I sort of put all of that in a box and shoved it into the back corner of a closet… and I am glad that I made enough of an impression for someone to be interested in reconnecting.
For other non-gaming related stuff, this was Eurovision weekend and it is always a highlight. Ace and I have been watching this for awhile… and then making random often snarky comments over Slack during the show. I feel like it was a bit weaker of a total show than some years, because there were way fewer “fun” acts and way more “serious” acts. It seemed to be the year of the torch song, and I was at least thankful if someone was going to go in that direction… that the best one won out. However the absolute highlight of the show was a collaboration between Kaarija and Baby Lasagna… the 2nd place but significantly better than the winner contestants from 2023 and 2024. They did this amazing fighting game mashup experience of their two fan favorite tracks… and then broke into a brand new song that they created together and dropped on the day the semifinals concluded. Unfortunately the ONLY way to see this if you are not in an EU country… is via this reaction video because the REAL video of the experience is region blocked.
Enshrouded dropped a massive patch that they are calling the Thralls of Twilight update. As a result Saturday I spent most of the morning playing a brand new character and new save file. There are so many immediately noticeable visual upgrades, but I have not really gotten far enough to experience many of the new content updates. I did something that I had never done before… which was place my original base flame on the edge of a cliff and then proceeded to build off the cliff creating a very defense-able location. My idea is that as I expand my base area… I can eventually build down into the shroud below. So instead of actually playing the game and progressing my character… I spent most of the morning carefully excavating the cliffs surface one 2×2 block at a time. I made a decent amount of progress and created this work platform down at the lowest point that the original blueprint of my base would allow. At some point I will start expanding down again to see how far I can get this time. As Ash stated during the podcast… I really am apparently a Dwarf because I do love hollowing out a mountainside.
Another game that I have been playing quite a bit of is Slormancer, which is a 2D ARPG with an art style and quirky animation style similar to Rogue Legacy. It is a really simplified version of the ARPG genre, and uses a dual stick style control scheme that would fit perfectly for a device like the Steamdeck. I’ve not actually tried it yet but that is on my list of things to do in the near future, because this seems like an ideal chilling in the backyard type game. It also has a bit of a feel of the 2D beat-em-ups like Guardian Heroes or Castle Crashers. I’ve not made it terribly far yet, but have gone far enough to unlock all of the characters and fight my first mini-boss. I think I probably prefer the knight to the huntress or mage, but have not really gotten far enough to unlock the various skill specializations. I know the mage got instantly better as soon as I specced into the ability that fires a second bolt after the first. Really cool game and I can see myself poking at it off and on for awhile.
I am also still playing some Last Epoch because every so often I just want to run a map. I feel like I am not engaged in Path of Exile for the moment, or at least not forcing myself knowing that when 3.26 drops I will be back with new force. Eleventh Hour Games keeps releasing quality of life updates, for example I noticed that when you click on an egg and search your bank… it highlights items with no legendary potential so that you can easily see which items that will work. More importantly though is the differentiation between the Tomb marker and the objective marker, making it much easier to complete maps in general. I know that my Not-Righteous-Fire Paladin is going to eat a nerf… because it is a bit too powerful… but I am hoping it lands in a still very playable state for next season. Though since they have already said Season 3 is going to be all about Necromancers… I am probably going to be playing one of those.
Guild Wars 2 lately has become my main game, and I am spending a lot of time in Dragonfall. I am not exactly sure WHY… but when trying to figure out my next project I landed upon Vision. This is an extremely long process that involves doing pretty much everything there is to do in the Season 4 zones, and yields a Legendary Accessory as a result. I figured I would start on the hardest of the zones… Dragonfall and have been slowly chipping away at various achievements. It might be easier to knock some of this out in WvW through using the Dragonfall Reward Track. Since I like WvW quite a bit… that at least gives me something to be working on again since I do not currently need another Gift of Battle. Probably the hardest sub achievement is going to be Championship Bout, which involves killing a laundry lost of bosses that spawn after you finish the zone meta event. In theory if there is a good commander and everyone is working together, you could probably get this in a single go. However without fail… the group fragments and folks start taking on random bosses meaning that no one group gets credit for everything.
I’ve made a lot of progress on various achievements though, and have used the Memory Essence Encapsulator for Dragonfall to finish that bit of the quest. This is going to be the hardest bit honestly, because buying each encapsulator costs a bunch of crafted resources… some of which I cannot make and will have to lean on the market board to pick up. The big problem is the Lesser Vision Crystal which requires 500 skill in either Armorsmithing, Leatherworking, or Tailoring… and I have not hit 500 in any of those. I guess that could be a side quest for awhile… to try and push one of those up. According to GW2 efficiency, my tailoring is the closest sitting at 465 currently. Since my friend that I talked about at the top of the post just started playing Guild Wars 2, and is playing a Necromancer… I might get some levels crafting them some gear which at least gives me a purpose behind spending the resources required.
Anyways… what matters the most though… is that I have objectives. That seems to be my key to sticking with any MMORPG is that I have some goal that I am working towards. When I achieve the goals I tend to fade away, so as long as I can keep grabbing a shiny new objective to work towards… I am way more likely to stick around for awhile. It was a good weekend, and I hope it is going to be a good week… though that is doubtful considering we have bad weather for the next several days. I am hoping no more tornadoes that come close to my house.
Featuring: AmmosArt, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, and Kodra
Hey Folks! We are down a few folks, but we had a lot to talk about. Bel and Grace have been watching Eurovision for several years at this point… and talk about some nonsense that went on during the Saturday show that was amazing. From there, Ash shares his broadening love of Taiko Drum games and tries to figure out a way to play them at home. Bel talks a bit about recent Last Epoch updates that have added quite a bit of quality of life to the game. Enshrouded got the Thralls of Twilight update that has massively improved some of the game visuals as well as added quite a bit more gameplay. Dwarven Realms is going through Chaos Week right now, and Grace has been playing the brand new Necromancer. Several of us have spent time playing Slormancer, and it is a phenomenal and easy to get into ARPG with a pretty delightful art style. Right now, Steam is doing Creature Collector Fest, and Ash talks about trying out several demos. Finally, Bel has returned to Guild Wars 2 and drug Ammo along for the nonsense. He talks about finishing up his fifth Legendary Weapon and setting his sights on the way more daunting Vision Legendary journey.
