Month: September 2018

October Daye

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I’m taking a break from my reading challenge list to do some comfort reading. Specifically, I’m starting up my approximately annual re-read of the October Day series by Seanan McGuire. I discovered McGuire a few years back, by way of one of her other series under the name Mira Grant. That meant I was slightly late to the party on the Toby Daye books, but I’m a voracious reader and they are short, easy reads. The biggest problem is that McGuire has obviously made some sort of dark pact or is secretly some sort of actual fae who doesn’t need sleep, because she is a hugely prolific writer. I often try to re-read all the Toby books every time a new one comes out, but it’s difficult. She’s now up to twelve books in 9 years. I anticipate at some point I’ll just have to keep endlessly cycling through them because there will be more than I can read in a year. Honestly I’d almost be okay with that – I find them hugely enjoyable. The main downside to that is I wouldn’t have the time to read all the other novels, short stories, poems, etc. that she publishes in a given year, much less anything by other authors. The last time a new Toby book came out I only read the last 4 or 5 books, so this is the first time I’ve re-read the whole series in a while. I find the early books keep getting better in the context of the full series. They stand find on their own, but some of the characters and storylines they introduce get fleshed out later. McGuire has a long story in mind and it’s quite fun to go back and see how things were set up to pay off years down the road. The biggest of these payoffs happens in book 8, and it is a revelation going back to the beginning and re-reading in light of what happens there. If you like urban fantasy that can be fun and not permanently grimdark, and that also doesn’t always focus on the main character’s sexual escapades like some other similar series (a pet peeve), I highly recommend giving these a read. Here’s all the books in the series so far:
  • Book 1: Rosemary and Rue
  • Book 2: A Local Habitation
  • Book 3: An Artificial Night (Note: This might be my favorite book of the series).
  • Book 4: Late Eclipses
  • Book 5: One Salt Sea (My other potential favorite)
  • Book 6: Ashes of Honor
  • Book 7: Chimes at Midnight
  • Book 8: The Winter Long
  • Book 9: A Red Rose Chain
  • Book 10: Once Broken Faith
  • Book 11: The Brightest Fell
  • Book 12: Night and Silence
 

AggroChat #220 – I Am Gorb!

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

aggrochat220

Tonight we record a show that has almost nothing to do with Gorb…  but you are going to get that as a name anyways because reasons. This is another one of those shows that has a bunch of topics that kept rolling over from other shows until we managed to align enough of them that sorta made sense together.  Tonight we talk about MMOs an awful lot covering the life cycle of the new player experience, returning player experience and the completely and total nonsense that happens at end game with power creep.

Rough Approximation of Topics

  • DPS Shortage
    • Why We Apparently Only Know Tanks and Healers
  • The New Player Experience
    • World of Warcraft
    • Final Fantasy XIV
    • Destiny Series
    • Warframe
  • The Returning Character Experience
    • All of the Above Again
    • How The Secret World did it Poorly
  • Power Creep
    • Why did we stat squish only to be irresponsible again?
    • Mudflation the term that actually came from MUDs
  • Nintendo Direct
    • We accidentally talk about stuff coming out on Switch

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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On PAX West 2018, Part 1

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As you may be aware, PAX West happened last weekend at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. A good time was had, and many indie games were played. Here are some of my favorites:

Risk of Rain 2

I had no idea this game was in development, although it was announced last year. The original Risk of Rain is possibly my favorite roguelike game. Permadeath doesn’t feel nearly as bad when your run was at most 40-ish minutes (and at that point you’re either dead or nearly immortal). Risk of Rain 2 is a faithful recreation of that experience in 3D. PAX West was the first public demo for the game, and it was one of the most crowded indie booths at the show. I got to try it out, but in two tries I died within the first two minutes on attempt #1 and died to the first boss on attempt #2, so it feels a lot like Risk of Rain.

Dragon Marked for Death

IntiCreates is calling this a “Dark Fantasy-Style Action RPG”, and that seems like a bit much. The developers largely responsible for a number of good 2D pixel art games lately (including the last few Mega Man games) are making a side-scrolling Action-RPG with co-op, where each playable character has different tools to navigate through the levels. Playable on the show floor were the warrior and the empress; the former focused on using his big axe and guarding, while the latter had a variety of melee and ranged attacks and a grappling hook. The final game will also have a shinobi and witch.

Spin Rhythm

As someone who is a sucker for Rhythm games, this one definitely caught my eye. In some ways it’s to DJ Hero what Rocksmith is to Guitar Hero, since they were demoing it on an actual DJ controller. Motion controls were also mentioned at the show for anyone who doesn’t want to buy a $100+ piece of hardware for use with a single (admittedly cool looking) game.* I hear the initial demo was for a mobile game, so who knows what control options will be supported by the time the game comes out, but I’ll be patiently awaiting more info about this one.

*Yes, I know people did this with dance pads and Rock Band. I’m just saying it’s not likely.

More to come later!

Weapons Dropped

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Weapons Dropped

Last night did not exactly work as intended.  I had originally planned on getting home and running some Mythics with my friend Grace but that didn’t actually happen.  Then by the time a guild group asked for me to do Mythics with them… I was mostly in the wrong mindset to be successful.  I did however hook them up with a healer friend of mine that was able to make the group work.  Tonight however I need to get started on running my four Mythics required for a chest of raid loot.  In theory we can probably make a group happen even thought Tam is travelling and not available this week.  I am sure I can probably dip into the guild to pick up a dps if we wind up short, since that seems to be what we are always short on.

Instead of Mythical Nonsense…  I ground the Warfront.  Essentially as of yesterday I was short three pieces of gear from having everything 340 or better.  I needed a pair of gloves, a second weapon and a second trinket…  the last I am not entirely certain is an option for coming from Warfronts.  I have not found a great source of everything that can possibly drop from a warfront cache, but what I did find seemed to only indicate pieces of armor and weapons.  At first I was starting to think this was going to be a repeat of my past outings…  as I got two more belts and two more cloaks…  but before the evening was up I managed to also pick up a pair of gloves and a one-handed axe giving me that second weapon.  Now I am effectively down to just the trinket, which means I could run LFR and hope that I get lucky or pick up one of the inscription trinkets.

Weapons Dropped

This also means that I am largely without purpose when it comes to secondary activities on the Demon Hunter apart from farming faction to eventually push everything to Revered.  I am not contemplating starting to run Warfronts on the Warrior in hopes of maybe getting a reasonable sword and shield option.  I keep thinking at some point in the near future they will make Warrior tanking not feel horrible, and the couple of Warfronts I have run as DPS have been way less enjoyable than running them as a tank.  Its an option… but I am not entirely certain I am ready to dive right back into a gear grind.  I’ve abandoned any illusion of trying to maintain some sort of split mains scenario, and am largely just going to focus on the Demon Hunter for gearing purposes.

That means if I can make one of the Sunday raids… and I am not already locked for the week…  I will just be dpsing as Havoc Demon Hunter instead of trying to do Fury Warrior.  That doesn’t stop the fact that Sunday is a really bad time for me to be raiding so the likelihood that I am going to make many of them… is pretty limited.  It is our hope to get a RoboSquid Armada based raid going on Wednesday nights, which is a far better time for me to be committed to raiding.  Also if I am going to raid… I really want to be tanking since I am lacking whatever stuff makes people care about how they are doing on the meters.

If you are a NA Server Horde Player and are curious what the hell RoboSquid Armada is… check out this post for more details.  It is sort of a dream of mine to kick start non-guild based raiding as a “thing” that actually happens again.  If nothing else we have an in game Battle.NET social channel and a discord that are places we draw upon for building Mythic groups.