Grace

Content by Grace

AggroChat #66 – Bear Selfie Madlibs

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alphabear

Tonight was a bit of an odd evening, because I absolutely went into this podcast not really thinking we had all that much to talk about. The truth is anytime I think this… it ends up being a record breaking show. We recorded for roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, and after editing it still weighs in at a whopping hour and fourty five minutes. We apparently had lots to talk about. It would not be an AggroChat without discussing Final Fantasy XIV, and tonight we focused heavily upon our recent experiences in Bismarck Ex and with the Alexander raid. We talk about the influx of new players into the community, and how sometimes this has had a negative effect on the cohesion of the community as a whole. Since the Four Job Fiesta is still going on, some of our folks talk about their experiences there especially as Kodra, Ash and Tam have all completed the game at least once, and Ash and Kodra are now on their second play through.

We get the title of the show from a discussion Grace brought to the table about the mobile game Alphabear that has recently invaded twitter. It is a hyper cute game by the makers of Triple Town where you help adorable bears spell words…. and then you get rewarded by crazy selfies that they take that end up being a random assortment of the words you spelled. From there we dug deep into the new Magic the Gathering core set outlining the Origins of all of the Planeswalkers. We also get sidetracked on a length discussion about minature gaming that talks about Warhammer, Infinity and a little WarMachine and the hobby in general. Finally I talk about my recent experiences in SkyForge and some of the problems I had with the game. It was an evening packed with conversation, that we ultimately had to reign in and cut short a few times for the sake of time. Hopefully you all enjoy it as much as we did having the discussion.

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On Loot Explosions

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Lookin' good Feelin' good

Ok maybe not feeling 100% good, since my efforts at the Hero’s Journey fitness challenge mostly make me want to curl up on the floor, but I’m sticking with it!  Today I want to talk about something near and dear to the hearts of all MMO players: Loot.

The acquisition of more and greater loot has been on my mind a lot recently, since I’ve been dipping my toe into the waters of WildStar raiding as well as gearing up for raiding in Final Fantasy XIV. Gearing up to a raid-ready level in WildStar may have been a slightly unusual process for me since I was 50 for a very long time before I set foot in a raid. This meant I had bits and pieces of gear from questing, reputation vendors, and crafters, as well as a couple week’s worth of rewards from contracts. This got my power level to be “ok” for raiding, but if I had wanted to be optimal I would have had to run dungeons. At the raiding level, the gear is mainly random drops, with a few pieces available through the currency vendors. This system, combined with the attunement process, ensures that folks are spending a lot of time practicing with WildStar’s combat before they get enough gear to move on to the next stage of progression.

The 3rd boss in FFXIV's new Alexander raid

In contrast, FFXIV tends to funnel people into raid content fairly quickly once they reach the level cap. The currency you need to turn in for raid-ready gear could be easily farmed in a matter of days. One difference here is that in FFXIV, everything is locked behind the story quests, and the story forces you to experience almost all of the dungeons and “trials” (generally 8-person single-boss encounters). The designers of FFXIV can pretty much assume that if someone has reached level 60 they probably can handle early raid encounters, so they allow people to get to that content quickly. A change in the Heavensward expansion has also replaced loot in the first raid with tokens that can be redeemed for raid-level gear for any class.

Honestly I’m a fan of the token system. There is no feeling crappier than killing a difficult raid boss only to have it drop loot that nobody in your group has a use for. Tokens are less exciting, but mean that someone will be getting something useful almost every time you kill that boss. Still, even when random boss drops can feel frustrating or disappointing, WildStar has one thing that nobody else has. There is nothing I love more than seeing the loot explosion spray in beautiful purple (and sometimes orange) out of a dead boss for everyone to see!

Source: Moonshine Mansion
On Loot Explosions

AggroChat #65 – That New Pack Smell

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mtgrevised

This show we were without Tam who is travelling but still have Belghast, Ashgar, Kodra, Grace and Thalen.  For the most part we have all been caught in the gravity well of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward, and are now pushing through the games gearing process.  This is working for some of us, but others are beginning to get highly frustrated.  We talk about the positives and negatives of the way the gearing system works.  While wandering around aimlessly through the show we also managed to get caught into a nostalgic timewarp as we talk about our early experiences playing Magic the Gathering.  Everyone remembers that new pack smell, and in many ways Grace and Bel both wish they could return to that nostalgic era surrounding the game and playing it with their friends.  Kodra talks about the new expansion coming out and the changes they have made to the game in a site that could be termed as “Worst Version” of existing mechanics.  It was a fun show if a very rambly one.

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Hero’s Journey!

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This post is a bit about the Gracie behind the keyboard, so if you’re looking for WildStar fun you’ll have to stop by next week.

Still here? Great! This week Chestnut of Gamer Girl Confessions has been drumming up interest in doing the Hero’s Journey fitness challenge. Since she’s a fellow blogger, lover of WildStar and a member of my FFXIV free company I knew that she has excellent taste, so I decided to join with her. Since in real life there’s no way I could keep up with all the double jumping, telegraph dodging, and general running around that in-game Gracie does every day, I will be starting the challenge at the easiest setting. Hopefully by having a great group of friends going on this journey together I will be able to stay motivated and stick with it.

Are you interested in following along on the journey? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter! The more the merrier!



Source: Moonshine Mansion
Hero’s Journey!