Chateau Belghast

Chateau Belghast

This weekend was a bizarre one.  We are still very much under the gun of a release date, and I attempted to do whatever I could to further that goal.  However for all of Saturday our building was without power, and I was instead on call just in case something went wrong.  The building power went down at 6:30 in the morning, and by the time we started recording AggroChat we had not yet gotten the all clear.  I was just hoping that things would cycle off of the generators as successfully as they did cycling onto them, and that I would not end up getting interrupted during the podcast.  Sunday was a mixed bag of work and doing all of the other things that we ultimately put off until Sunday like laundry and various errands.  The weekend as a whole wound up being a very random mix of games as I played whatever I could during the brief moments of downtime.  As you can see by the Chateau Belghast image above, I started fiddling around with Fallout 4 once again, and scrapped my old house and built this one instead.  The inside is largely unfurnished but I am digging the outside quite a bit.  It took me far longer than it should have to sort out how best to attempt centering the neon text, but in the grand scheme it seems to look okay.  The frustrating bit with their neon font is that is is in no way monospaced with the characters all varying pretty wildly in width.

Chateau Belghast

In Final Fantasy XIV I am still very much getting back in the swing of things, and have fallen into the pattern of doing Beast Tribe dailies.  In theory I started down this path because I wanted a reliable source of ventures for my retainers, so that I could keep sending out my gatherers on field exploration.  However I also really like mounts, and over the course of the last week or so I have been pushing up the Sahagin, not necessarily because I love the mount, but more because it was the next closest faction.  For a long period of time, it was the faction I was spending the rest of my daily allowance on while working on the Sylph.  Yesterday however I managed to push Sahagin across the finish line and now have my truly bizarre Sapsa mount to ride around on.  I figured what better place to take a picture of it than in the waters of The Mists, where the Free Company house is located.  Next up should be the Kobolds as once again…  they are the next closest given that I had been spending my extra ventures on them while working on the Sahagin.  I mean I know there are lots of other things I SHOULD be doing… but I just can’t bring myself to pug dungeons yet.  After a string of bad experiences with Palace of the Dead… I don’t much feel like pugging that one either.  The problem there is as we talked about on the podcast, is that if you fail…  you lose all progress gained which seems deeply punitive for a random group activity.

Chateau Belghast

Finally I spent a good amount of time this weekend playing Elder Scrolls online.  I failed to take any screenshots so instead you get an interior shot of my home.  I pushed forward the story line in Malabal Tor a bit, but the big problem with ESO is that I tend to wander wildly.  I find it extremely hard to stay focused and instead I wind up going after the next object on the horizon that looks interesting, and as a result never seem to end up getting my objectives accomplished.  There is always a fallen log to harvest, or an outcropping of ore to mine.  Whatever the case I find myself continuing to move steadily towards 160 champion levels, which is the current item cap.  Unfortunately I have a feeling this is probably going to change with Morrowind, but for the time being getting there.. and being able to craft a set of gear that will last me for a bit tends to be my focus.  The other thing that I am realizing is that 160 champion levels is just a drop in the bucket given that quite literally every build I find expects you to have at least four or five times that amount.  There is a part of me that wishes I had never actually faded away from this game, because at this very moment I am so impossibly behind the curve.  Then again I think that overwhelming amount of content is what has been drawing me there much in the same way as it did for A Realm Reborn until we caught up.  I know there is more to do than I have time to do it… and in some way that is insurance from ever really getting bored.

AggroChat #107 – Objectifying Corgis

Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Inky discuss a truly dizzying number of topics the largest bit focused on Stellaris

aggrochat107_720

This week we welcome back our sometimes host Inky… and I apparently get her confused with one of the other Pacman ghosts.  The title of this episode doesn’t really relate to the discussion other than it was a hilarious line that slipped out there somewhere along the way.  This week folks played a lot of Stellaris in both single and multiplayer configurations.  We delve into this game and its relation to other 4X games, and why this one clicks for some better than the normal fare.  We take a whirlwind trip through Fallout 4 and The Sims, before discussing Twitch Streaming.  I talk for a bit about my revised experiences with the new Doom reboot, and why I consider it far better than my early multiplayer experiences.  Grace talks about her return to Final Fantasy XIV and how much she loves healing butts.  This kicks off a conversation about MMOs and Raiding and winds up with Inky and I pining for Hellgate London again.  Finally we wrap things up with a discussion about Uncharted and the whole “cinematic game” trend of the 2000s.

Topics Discussed

  • Adorable Birbs
  • Stellaris
  • Fallout 4
  • Master of Orion
  • Crusader Kings
  • The Sims 4
  • Stardew Valley
  • Animal Crossing
  • Twitch and Streaming
  • Doom
  • Final Fantasy XIV
  • Destiny
  • World of Warcraft
  • Raiding
  • Hellgate London
  • Uncharted

 

AggroChat #102 – Rogue One Love

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Inky, Tamrielo, and Thalen talk about stuff!

AggroChat102_720

Tonight we welcome back to the show Inky, and talk a bunch of topics.  Tam discusses his experiences playing the latest XCom and how each of the AggroChat facsimiles fared throughout the missions.  Inky talks about playing the beta of the upcoming Fallout 4 survival mode.  We delve into a discussion about Funko Pops, Disney Infinity and Amiibo.  Belghast talks about the upcoming patches for The Division and Destiny and the positive and negative of each.  We all share the love of the new Rogue One trailer, and how it makes is happy to be Star Wars fans.  Finally Inky talks about a game has has been playing Submerged, which is something in the “walking simulator” genre.

 

This Weeks Topics

  • XCOM
  • Fallout 4 Survival Mode
  • Funko Toys
  • Disney Infinity
  • Amiibo
  • Division / Destiny Patches
  • Rogue One Trailer
  • Submerged

 

AggroChat #93 – Games of the Year 2015 Part 2

aggrochat93_720

Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Dallian, Grace, Kodra, Thalen and Tam talk about their favorite games of 2015.  This is the second part of a two part podcast.

Once again it is time for us to record our “Games of the Year” show, and this time around we did it slightly differently.  Last year we tried to come up with some title that represented the podcast as a whole, but it ended up being pure madness to get us all to agree on something.  This time we instead each picked three games to add to the list and now we are recording a show about all of those games.  Of note… this is not necessarily show about games that were released in 2015, but instead a show about games that were important to us during the calendar year.

This is being divided into two parts to cover the gap as myself and several others will be attending Pax South.  In this second part we talk about:

  • Tales of Zestiria
  • Witcher 3
  • Destiny – The Taken King
  • Diablo 3 Seasonal Play
  • Infinity Updated Ruleset
  • Fallout 4
  • Ori and the Blind Forest
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
  • Various Honorable Mentions