AggroChat #106 – Mostly Overwatch and Demons

Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen discuss a wide range of topics… but mostly Overwatch and Diablo 3 Season 6

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This evening Ash, Bel, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen talked about a whole bunch of topics… but the largest amount of that time was devoted to Overwatch.  Over the last week a bunch of us have played the game and we had commentary on it.  Mostly several of us enjoy the game that is… but mourn the game that could have been with Titan.  We also talk about looter shooters in general and the problems The Division has been having with both rampant cheating, and bad loot design.  We spend quite a bit of time talking about Diablo 3 Season 6 and the rush that Grace and Belghast have been participating in.  Tam spent some time playing Always Sometimes Monsters, which lead into a conversation about the Steam Suggestion Queue.  Kodra has been playing Elite Dangerous again, which brings up a discussion of Eve Online.  Thalen has recently started the Stick of Truth, and we get into a discussion about the arrival of Ryzom on Steam.  This spawns a lengthy conversation about dead MMOs and the sequence in which we played various games.  Somewhere in there we also had a bit of a conversation about the Marvel Comics Universe.  This is one of the most rambling episodes we have recorded… but also the most true to our real life conversations.

Topics Discussed

  • Overwatch
  • Destiny
  • The Division
  • Looter Shooters
  • Diablo 3 Season 6
  • Always Sometimes Monsters
  • Steam Suggestion Queue
  • Elite Dangerous
  • Eve Online
  • Stick of Truth
  • Ryzom
  • Dead MMOs
  • Hellgate London
  • City of Heroes
  • Everquest
  • Final Fantasy XI
  • Mobile MMOs
  • Marvel Comic Universe

AggroChat #105 – The Gone Home Show

Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen talk about the April 2016 Game of the Month Game – Gone Home

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This week we discuss the April 2016 AggroChat Game of the Month title… Gone Home.  This was a pick by Grace, and honestly one that probably a handful of us would have never played.  However it also holds the special designation as being one of the few Game Club titles that we all universally liked.  We talk about the design of the game, and the narrative, as well as the context.  This game is the quintessential 90s game.  It is set in 1994, the year Belghast graduated from High School and with Grace and Thalen not being far behind that also.  For us it was this trip down memory lane that added so much to the experience.  In any case, as is always the case if you have not played Gone Home and intend to… spoilers are plentiful.

AggroChat #104 – Star Wars and Design

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen talk about the best Star Wars stories and also Level Design constructs

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Tonight we had a bit of a strange show, that traversed a wide number of topics.  First Ashgar talks about a game that he and Belghast played at Pax South called Stories: The Path of Destinies and how it is a good game in spite of largely being overlooked because of the horrible title.  Belghast goes into a discussion of the “Sherpa” culture in Destiny and how it shapes player’s actions in random groups. Kodra talks about Eterna the logical successor to Folding, which strives to solve the medical problem of properly sequencing RNA… and at the same time being a good puzzle game.  We get into a length discussion about level design constructs and what makes a universally good design.  Finally we delve into the topic mentioned last week, as we try and decide if there are more good Star Wars games than bad ones.  We also get into a discussion about what the best Star Wars story was.

Topics Discussed:

  • Stories: Path of Destinies
  • Sherpa Culture in Destny
  • Eterna
  • Level Design Constructs
  • Good Star Wars Games
  • Best Star Wars Story

AggroChat #103 – Reboot Done Right

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen celebrate two years of AggroChat and discuss more games!

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This past week marked the second anniversary of the AggroChat podcast.  For two years we have been coming together every week to discuss whatever we happened to be playing.  So this is a great time to thank you our listeners for putting up with our rambling.  We still very much feel like we don’t know what we are doing, but keep doing it anyway.  This week we discuss the Overwatch Beta weekend that finally some of us managed to get into.  Belghast contrasts his experiences in Overwatch with the Doom multiplayer weekend as well.  Grace talks about the Wildstar Faction changes and how they are essentially the worst of both worlds.  Ash and Bel talk about the Ratchet and Clank reboot, and how this is the way that all reboots should work.  Kodra has continued to dig further into the world of Dark Souls and has some thoughts about it as it relates to learning Raid Boss encounters.  We all get sidetracked on a discussion about good movie ports, and how we probably need to have an entire show about good Star Wars video games versus bad ones.  Finally we wrap things up more or less with a lengthy discussion about how important it is to like the way your character looks in a game.

Show Topics

  • Overwatch Beta Weekend
  • Doom Multiplayer
  • Wildstar Cross Faction Letdown
  • Ratchet and Clank Reboot
  • Good Movie Ports
  • Dark Souls
  • Importance of Looking Good in Games