AggroChat #169 – Legendary Nonsense

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

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This is another one of those nights when we thought we had nothing to talk about…  but ended up having stuff to talk about.  We start off the night talking some more about our recent experiences in Guild Wars 2.  From there we get into some Robo Squid fun… and talk about how Gnomeregan is still horrible.  From there Thalen and I talk about how West of Loathing has suddenly caused us to start playing Kingdom of Loathing again.  Kodra talks about finally grasping why Tam loves Agricola so much.  There is a brief offshoot conversation that leads us down the path of Magic the Gathering Commander and the game in general.  We finally wrap things up with a talk that starts with painting miniatures and ventures forth into creativity in general.

Featured Topics

  • Guild Wars 2
  • Gnomeregan Is Horrible
  • Kingdom of Loathing
  • West of Loathing
  • Agricola
  • Magic the Gathering Commander
  • Painting Miniatures
  • Creativity

Five Doctors

Five DoctorsOne of the things that I do occasionally with some coworkers is go to the live broadcast of Rifftrax.  The concept there is a little odd given that the actual “live” show is in Nashville but is simulcast to theaters around the country…  two of which are in the Tulsa area.  Generally speaking we all meet for dinner first and then attend whatever they happen to be Riffing at that time.  Traditionally this is some movie down on the deep B and or Cult status list.  I think the last one I saw before last night was Samurai Cop back in March, and hands down the best one ever was them taking on The Room.  The weird thing about last night is that I was not terribly sure how I would feel about them Riffing on one of my Fandoms.  I’ve been a Doctor Who fan since my father indoctrinated me during the very long rein of Tom Baker.  Whatever concerns I might have had vanished quickly because their send up of the Five Doctors was amazing.  Pretty much everything we ever thought while watching some of the campy 80s shows…  took verbal form.  If you have a chance to see it I highly suggest it.  They are doing the traditional rebroadcast on August 24th so you might check to see if it is available at a theater near you.  I highly suggest the “live” Rifftrax experience in general.

Past this I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to talk about.  The problem with a Rifftrax night is that I don’t get home early enough to really do much in the way of gaming.  It was not long before I was downstairs conked out completely.  The following story is related for humor… and for evidence of how generally dead to the world I was.  I turned in pretty early and at some point during the night I apparently got up to use the restroom.  I don’t remember this at all, instead it was just like I suddenly woke up and was on the toilet….  and had apparently been there long enough to have my legs completely fall asleep.  So in my sleepy state I had to figure out how to finish my business…  and then pull my pants up and somehow stabilize myself as blood goes rushing back into my legs.  There was a point where I legitimately considered crawling on the floor to bed.  Even weirder was when I managed to hobble my way to the bed and sit down…  I couldn’t quite reason how to lift my then “full on pins and needles with a vengeance” legs up into the bed so I could lay down again.  This is of course way more than you bargained for when you decided to click through to my blog this morning.  While I do suggest Rifftrax… I would not suggest this whole walking on legs that you can’t actually feel thing.  It is an overrated experience.

 

Cruel Grey Button

Cruel Grey Button

I honestly don’t have a whole hell of a lot to talk about this morning.  The world has been crazy between me and my work and juggling managing four different initiatives…  and my wife and her normal back to school frantic rush.  In theory at least in my world I am hoping that in the near future one of those initiatives wraps up and I can at least drop one team from my radar temporarily.  On the school front tomorrow is the first day back with kids, but my wife has been in “back to normal” mode since Monday.  The new normal however is extra stressful this year because there were some fairly severe last minute changes.  I know I have talked in the deep past on this blog about the forensics class she tag team teaches with a science teacher.  On Monday, the first day teachers reported back… that other teacher that she relies on…  decided to quit.  This of course throws everything into a state of immediate turmoil because moment now is about preparing to have a completely different teacher doing the co-teach thing with her.  Thankfully someone she is pretty close with ended up getting the position, but yesterday abruptly turned into a full day of helping this other teacher move classrooms and set up.  Today in theory is going to be about trying to discuss what the hell they are going to do…  when the kids arrive tomorrow.

The only thing I really have to talk about is the fact that yesterday I fired up the Battle.net launcher… and got super excited when I noticed that they have added a new Activision section to the side bar of games.  This is starting to feel super real at this point and I now have a greyed out install button that should in theory become available at some point before the August 29th beta date.  It has been a really long time since I longed for access to a beta… but holy shit do I wish I could play Destiny 2 right now.  I mean don’t get me wrong I am loving my rediscovery of Guild Wars 2…  but I need some Destiny in my life.  The problem that I keep running into each time I boot up Destiny 1 is the fact that it feels like I am playing a game that is ultimately going away.  I mean I fully expect that the game will remain active for a period of time after the launch of Destiny 2…  but it feels like I am not really devoting time to anything meaningful.  I have a hard time getting excited about the concept of completing the achievement books.  The fact that they tied gear and rewards to them this time made it a little bit better, but it still feels like I am spending my limited time playing what is ultimately a disposable experience.  I admit this is a little ironic considering that I wish I could be playing Destiny 2 beta which is in itself a completely 100% disposable experience.

I am really excited about the prospects of playing the game on the PC and having access to my battle.net friends list.  I am really hoping that cross chat with other blizzard games is a thing that exists and that I can keep tabs on my WoW playing friends while I am off shooting Cabal for shiny loots.  I do however need to have a bit of a “come to jesus” with my friends list and prune it in preparation of the launch.  Not saying that there are people from my past that I really am happy that are in my past…  but also not saying that.  I am sure there are a handful of those people still hanging out somewhere in the bowels of my battle.net friends list.  I am also really hoping that with the launch of Destiny they introduce some sort of appear offline mode that they have been talking about.  There are nights when I just cannot deal with other human beings.  Counter intuitively the feature that I want the most from BNet is cross server chat channels.  My social connections have evolved to this state where I sort of have a guild without actually having a game.  What I mean by that is I have this stable group of people that I interact with on a daily basis… and slacks and discords that have become the new “guild chat” as it were…  but that it isn’t necessarily completely encompassed by a single game.  Having a social channel that spanned World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Starcraft Remake and now Destiny 2…  would be pretty great.  Sure one on one conversation is a thing that exists across game but it would be cool to have that extended guild chat feel to it.

Gaming Restless

Maybe it’s because it’s summertime. Maybe it’s the slow fade of the glow of new content. Heck, maybe the stress of work is bleeding into the rest of my life and causing problems, who knows? What I do know is that my gaming motivation is pretty well bottomed out at the moment. I have several easily achievable gaming goals dangling in front of me but by the time I’m home and sitting in front of the computer I don’t feel like tackling any of them. I’ve been logging in to do things when my friends have planned something specific, but outside of that I’ve been working on my creative projects or simply watching tv.

On the plus side, I can poke at mobile games easily while sitting on the couch. I’ve been playing mostly Legendary: Game of Heroes. That game has the most boring possible title but it’s been fun enough to keep me distracted while watching old episodes of Game of Thrones. It’s basically a Puzzle and Dragons clone, a match-3 puzzle game that fuels simple monster combat. While I enjoyed PAD plenty, once I got deeper into it I realized that the higher level mechanics and strategies for team building seemed to require a mountainous tome of eldritch lore to decipher. Legendary is much cleaner and more streamlined, has better graphics, and a surprisingly smooth power and leveling curve. I finished the entire base campaign and felt like the difficulty was appropriate to my level the whole way through. Now I have a break where I need to gain about 10 more levels before the extreme mode of the campaign unlocks, and in the meantime I can level up my heroes, farm resources, and participate in the weekly events to get cool stuff. It also helps that I can usually play for upwards of an hour without bouncing into pay walls or the dreaded free-to-play energy cap. It’s there, but it doesn’t feel punitive. It’s still a far cry from my beloved Justice Monsters V (RIP) but it has been a fun, free diversion for a while.

That’s about all the excitement there is to speak of around here. What do you do when you’re in a gaming lull?


Gaming Restless