AggroChat #288 – Unlikely Alliances

Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
First off big thanks to @devoradordeflan for letting me use their artwork to illustrate the first topic on today’s show card.  We kick off with a discussion about something that is bringing me life, aka the Doom Eternal community and the Animal Crossing community creating artwork highlighting the apparent friendship between Doom Guy and Isabelle.  From there we go into a topic about Learning vs Memorization in games and we discuss Rogue-Likes, Bullet Hell Shooters and Platformers as some examples. We talk a bit about the pacing of Fire Emblem and how Kodra keeps comparing it to Persona 5.  Kodra also has played a lot of Bloodstained and doesn’t really get the hype and as such we talk about the bad port that is the Switch version and how maybe he just likes Hollow Knight better. Ash starts a topic about 504 the Board Game Generator and Kodra talks about how it is effectively a career worth of ideas left on the cutting room floor.  Finally we talk a bit about how great the server emulator communities are with Bel talking about his recent journey back into City of Heroes and talk with his similar sojourn into Star Wars Galaxies.

Topics Discussed

  • Isabelle and Doomguy Friendship
    • Unity Between Two Fanbases
  • Learning vs Memorization
    • Rogue-Likes
    • Bullet Hell Shooters
    • Platformers
  • Pacing in Fire Emblem
    • Comparisons with Persona 5
  • Bloodstained
    • The Bad Switch Port
    • Comparisons to Hollow Knight
    • Talking about past Casltevania
  • 504
    • Board Game Generator
  • Emulator Server Communities
    • City of Heroes Homecoming
    • Star Wars Galaxies Legends
    • Everquest 1999

AggroChat #287 – Server Room Is Lava

Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
The release of this show was delayed a bit this morning because I tried really hard to apparently release the show from two weeks ago all over again due to my gross incompetence. However now that I have righted that particular ship… please enjoy the show! After having to miss last week we had more topics than realistically could fit into a show and only actually made it through three of them.  The first is the launch of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem and how maybe early access isn’t actually a game launch in certain circumstances. We talk about the myriad problems with the online components of the game and the struggles with an indie trying to buy server capacity for high volume bursty connections.  Thankfully there is an offline mode which allows us to talk a bit about why the game is worth the struggle. From there we talk about the impending Final Fantasy XIV 5.2 patch and the most recent live letter previewing features coming up for the game. Lastly we talk about returning to an alternate future where the NGE didn’t kill Star Wars Galaxies as Tam convinces Belghast to play Star Wars Legends.

Topics Discussed:

  • Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem
    • High Capacity Launches are Hard for Indies
    • Going from 1000 to 65,000 concurrent users in a day
    • The solid underlying single player experience
  • Final Fantasy XIV Live Letter
    • 5.2 Patch
    • Catching up
    • Free Company Leveling Up
  • Star Wars Galaxies
    • Star Wars Legends Server
    • Piloting Rebel Starships
    • Tam talks Bel into Playing
    • NGE and Combat Update

AggroChat #286 – Paper Diablo

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

Tonight we talk a bit about some technical difficulties that almost prevented us from recording the show.  As a result if anything sounds weird we are on a different server, and will likely be on yet another different server next week.  Grace was able to join us so we finally get to talk about Paper Diablo aka Book of Demons. Throughout the weekend I saw the strangest comments over our staff slack channel about a game called What the Golf and Tamrielo finally explains what the hell is up with that.  Kodra and Tam talk a bit about the close of Kentucky Route Zero. Bel talks about diving further into Spiders games and playing Technomancer and how once again their ambition outstrips their technical prowess. Ash talks about CrossCode and we wrap things up with a random topic about the perils of opening a Game Store.

Topics Discussed

  • Book of Demons
  • What the Golf
  • Kentucky Route Zero
  • The Technomancer
  • CrossCode
  • Perils of Opening a Game Shop

AggroChat #285 – All Hail the Ferrite Bead

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

Tonight we start the show by letting you off the hook and explaining a reference that originally I was just going to make the show title without explaining. Bel has been playing an obsessive amount of Greedfall and it is the sort of experience that the deeper he gets into the game the more his opinion of it improves.  Tam has been playing Elsinore a game where you recast Hamlet with the goal of trying to get Ophelia to survive. In many ways he says this is the game that he wished Return of the Obra Dinn had been. Bel talks about TemTem the not-Pokemon MMORPG which will likely give the storied franchise a run for its money because it is really well done.  Kodra takes our advice and explores Into the Breach and has an “Oh Crap It’s 2 am, how did that happen” moment. Finally Bel is astonished that Theros Beyond Death brings back Underworld Dreams at Uncommon rarity.

Topics Discussed:

  • The Mighty Ferrite Bead
    • What it does do
    • What it cannot do
  • Greedfall
    • Improving Opinion
    • Games that Sucker Punch You
  • Elsinore
    • Obra Dinn with Better Story
  • TemTem
    • As close to a Pokemon MMORPG you can get without being sued
    • Legitimate Competition for Pokemon
  • Into the Breach
    • Oh Crap It’s 2 am
  • Theros Beyond Death
    • Underworld Dreams is Uncommon?