AggroChat #217 – Toots and Trolls

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Tamrielo

aggrochat217

This evening we talk about a bunch of stuff but first Ashgar sings for us and makes me lose my shit…  so working as intended. Grace and Bel talk about their experiences in Battle For Azeroth so far and how it turned out not to be as factiony as we expected.  We also sorta convince Tam to give the story a shot even though we know he will bounce off it eventually. Bel talks about his recent journey into Mastodon and how it seems like a throwback to the early days of the internet.  Tam also has joined in this process and talks about how the experience so far has been better for him than Twitter was. Tam also talks about his experiences with the game Detroit and so far how it seems to be less pretentious than the average David Cage fare.  Finally we talk about some comfort gaming and enjoyable mechanical loops like Warframe, Destiny and Dead Cells.

Topics Discussed

  • Battle For Azeroth
    • Convincing Tam to Play
    • Better Story
    • Shockingly Minimal Faction Nonsense
  • Mastodon
    • The New Not-Twitter
    • More like a BBS or Old IRC
    • Strength of Small Communities
    • Totally not another Ello
  • Detroit
    • Interesting story
    • Less Pretentious Cage
  • Comfort Gaming
    • Warframe
    • Enjoyable Mechanical Loops
    • Destiny
    • Dead Cells

AggroChat #216 – Belghast.exe has Crashed

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

aggrochat216

Tonight Belghast completely crashes and has to reboot, during the intro.  Additionally Kodra also crashes at some point during the LARP conversation and we sorta have to move on while he comes back online.  It is one of those shows. You have been warned. We talk about GenCon and the convention going experience. We talk a bit about Steambirds Alliance and what a bullet-hell-perma-death-steampunk-bird-mmo is like.  If you have enough dashes you can connect any genres! We talk about Monster Hunter World on the PC and how it isn’t quite the dumpster fire that the internet reports it to be. We talk about questing in 4X games and why everyone but Bel seems to think this is an awesome.  Then we sorta break down into a lengthy diatribe about Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and which versions were good at what. It’s a Show!

Topics Discussed

  • Kodra visits GenCon
    • Convention Experiences
    • Here we Go A Larping
  • Steambirds Alliance
    • Ashgar Needs This Game
    • Spryfox Is Awesome
    • Realm of the Mad God
  • Monster Hunter World PC
    • Mostly Fine
  • Quests in 4X Games
    • Bel Thinks it sounds miserable
    • Everyone else loves them
  • Starfinder Thoughts
    • Pathfinder 2.0 Thoughts
    • Devolving into a discussion about D&D Generations
    • 3.5 Thoughts
    • 4e Thoughts
    • Open Gaming License was Awesome
    • Bel says some stuff about Palladium Games
  • The Public Nature of D&D
    • Beginning with 3rd Edition to Now
    • Critical Role
    • Talking D&D on Talk Shows

AggroChat #214 – Bribed to be Content

Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Thalen

aggrochat214

Tonight we sit down and talk through our feelings about Battle For Azeroth and its fairly tone deaf ad campaign.  We dig into the “It Matters” videos and how it feels fairly irresponsible at a time when our country and world is pulled apart already by some fairly serious points of division.  We talk about how playing World of Warcraft should be a thing to bring people together rather than pull them apart.  We also talk about the Warbringers video series and how we are afraid it is setting up Jaina, Sylvannas and Azshara to be the next set of raid bosses.  Finally we talk briefly about the novel and event that are leading up to this expansion.  At the tail end of the show we talk a bit about drafting M19 in Magic Arena and Bel’s nonsensical luck at pulling cards.

Topics Discussed

  • Battle For Azeroth
    • The “It Matters” Ad Campaign
    • The “Warbringers” video series
    • The “Before the Storm” novelization
    • The “War of the Thorns” quest event
  • Magic Arena
    • Drafting M19
    • Nonsensical Pulls
    • Golgari Pride

 

AggroChat #212 – Respect Your Time

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

aggrochat212

Tonight we continue our recent tradition of picking up on topics that we did not quite have time for on the previous episode.  First off we discuss our general feelings about “cheating” and by cheating we are talking about relying on guides, maps, and walkthroughs in additional to other more traditional cheats and mods.  From there Bel talks a bit about his experiences with Orsinium and how playing through all three factions of the original Elder Scrolls Online content is paying off. From there we discuss long games that have a very clear failure state and how generally lousy that feels when it occurs.  Finally we talk a bit about the recent ArenaNet community issues and share some of our feelings about it.

Topics Discussed

  • Walkthroughs Guides and Cheats
    • Respecting our Time
    • Enhancing the “Fun Loop”
    • When we would not use them
  • Elder Scrolls Online
    • Finishing Orsinium
    • Payoff for finishing all original Content
  • Long Games with Failure States
    • Kingdom Death
    • Civilization
    • Battletech
    • Sim/City Builder Games
  • ArenaNet Issues
    • Emboldening Bad Actors
    • “Other” on the Internet
    • The Stress of Game Development
    • Bel’s Brain Broke