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AggroChat #232 – Two-Tone Tales
Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra and Thalen
Tonight we are down a few people and have a fairly scattered show where we cover a bunch of topics… but none of them super deeply? You can tell we were all somewhat out of it because while editing the podcast there were a bunch of really lengthy pauses. Tonight Bel rails in the Elder Scrolls Patcher apparently being blocked by various ISPs including his. He also talks a bit about the Destiny 2 Dawning Event and making questionable baked goods. Thalen talks a bit about the FFXIV Starlight Celebration event.
Bel spins up a topic from his blog about the seeming return to NDA restricted games testing. Thalen talks about Return of the Obra Dinn, and Kodra a bit about Gris. We discuss the topic that has bounced around a bit on the significance of going Left in video games. There is some brief discussion about Artifact and how it is trying to right the ship… and some of the MTG Finance speculation that came into that market quickly that is super angry about the price crash. Finally we talk a bit about Starfinder and Pathfinder in general and the lack of really good ready made third party modules.
Topics Discussed
- Elder Scrolls Online Patcher Problems
- Destiny 2
- The Dawning Event
- Final Fantasy XIV
- Starlight Celebration
- NDA Testing Makes a Comeback
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Gris
- Going Left
- Night in the Woods
- Metroid
- Castlevania Symphony of the Night
- Braid
- Artifact Tries to Fix Things
- MTG Finance meets Artifact Speculation
- Starfinder
- Third Party Modules
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AggroChat #223 – Freemium Monetization
Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast and Kodra
This week we are down half of our show, but weirdly enough ended up very close to our original line up from the first few AggroChat shows… only missing Rae. We were concerned we might not have enough material for a show, but wound up only about 10 minutes short of our average which seems pretty good. Tonight we talk about Monetization in Free to Play games and in part why some games it feels good to spend money on, and others it feels exploitative. This explores mobile games and mmorpgs as well. From there Bel talks a bit about his experiences restarting with Monster Hunter World PC and how weirdly most of the progress was raising his skill and not necessarily his gearing. Kodra talks about his experiences with Mega Man 11 which leads to a discussion of this golden age of modern 2D side scrollers. Finally we wrap things up with some discussion about Guilds of Ravnica and how it feels in a constructed and sealed environment on MTG Arena.
Topics Discussed
- Free to Play Monetization
- Mobile Games
- Dragalia Lost
- MMORPGs
- Elder Scrolls Online
- Star Wars the Old Republic
- Neverwinter
- Monster Hunter World
- Skill Acquisition vs Gear Acquisition
- Small but awesome PC community
- Mega Man 11
- Hollow Knight
- Shovel Knight
- Celeste
- Bloodstained: Circle of the Moon
- Retro Feeling Modern Games
- Guilds of Ravnica
- MTG Arena
- Sealed Play
- Constructed Play
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Protecting Sanctuary
Tomorrow is the official launch of Blaugust and I am pretty freaking excited about it. I think last I checked we had something in the vicinity of 52 blogs signed up and I am hoping once the first topics start rolling in that number will keep incrementing upwards. July 25th through July 31st I have dubbed the Blaugust Prep Week, and what you can see from me and hopefully the other mentors is a series of posts talking about how to get started. These may range from technical discussions of WordPress vs Blogger vs Tumblr to more general discussions of picking a format for your blog or coming up with a name you won’t immediately outgrow. For the participants however, they should view this as a time to stretch their legs a bit and prepare for the month ahead. Get some of those early posts in so that you can sort out your own personal blogging rhythms.
Since we had a few more folks sign up I figure I should link their stuff here as well.
New Participants
- Joseph Skyrim – JVT Workshop
- Data_Error – This Thing is Neat
Once again if you have not taken the time to sign up, please do so. Considering we have all been there before deciding if we should be blogging at all… I promise you can do this thing. When you have signed up make sure you pop by the discord and come hang out as we chat about bloggery things.
One of the weird disconnects thematically that I have in Elder Scrolls games has always been the Dark Brotherhood. For the uninitiated, the Dark Brotherhood is a group of assassins that answer the call of the Night Mother. Around the game world individuals perform a ritual known as the Black Sacrament that calls on the Night Mother with a very specific prayer “Sweet Mother, sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear.” This prayer is heard by the Night Mother and relayed to the Listener of a specific sanctuary which then goes and seals the contract. We as players traditionally carry out these contracts that involve taking the life of someone who has generally speaking wronged someone else.
So you would expect that from within the Dark Brotherhood everyone would effectively be blood thirsty assassins ready to kill at a moments notice. While the last bit is true… the Sanctuary has a very different feel on the inside. The Dark Brotherhood represents some of the most weirdly sweet content in an Elder Scrolls game. The members all take care of each other like a family, and when you return home the various other assassins are generally happy to see you. There is something almost weirdly wholesome about the whole situation, and ultimately I think that is what makes the experience all the more unsettling.
Ultimately every tale of the Dark Brotherhood tends to end in the same manner, and I am wondering if the tale told in Elder Scrolls Online will be the same. There are several characters that I genuinely like… like the Nord who sheltered a scared werewolf girl and adopted her as his sister. Every game seems to have some characters that you just feel protective over… in spite of the fact that they are legitimately cold blooded killers. It is a bizarre juxtaposition that makes me completely uncertain how to feel about any of it… but it is also one of those guilds that I always look forward to seeing the storyline. It is progressing much slower than the Thieves Guild did, and I can’t say I am any better at getting a kill in without being noticed. That said it doesn’t really seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things as I can simply hide out until the heat and my bounty clears. The thieves guild and dark brotherhood skill lines are amazingly complimentary… and my only complaint so far is that I cannot assassinate folks during the thieves guild dailies without triggering “being seen” and reducing my timer.
May the dread father guide your blade.