Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Good Morning Folks! We start off the show with some random talk about Rick Astley and the history of Rickrolling. From there Bel talks about getting a Commander tag and going for the obvious best choice… that Catmander. Kodra talks about beating Axiom Verge and his struggles with M.A.S.S. Builder not quite being detailed enough. From there we talk about the launch of the Last Epoch Multiplayer patch and the struggles of instant 8X growth. We talk a bit about the challenge of a game launch and scaling servers without overbooking capacity. Then we finish out with some discussion from Tam about the Star Citizen 3.18 patch and its own server capacity issues.
Good Morning Friends! Yesterday was a pretty glorious day at least so far as I knocked out a bunch of things in Guild Wars 2. Sometimes I just stand around admiring the majesty of our Guild Hall from the rainbow bridge. There is this dumb side project I created which is using a bunch of the super adventure box clouds… to create a way up onto the rooftops… then Thalen branched off of this with the rainbow bridge. I heartily approve of this particular brand of nonsense… and honestly, I think Thalen and I may have been the only two people to have placed anything in our guild hall ever. I know I have Tequatl backbones for days if we want to build a pillow fort out of them. I have nothing better to do with those drops so I always deposit anything from world bosses in the decorations bank.
I know I talked about the noodle cart yesterday, but I thought I would bring it up again. I picked one up after experiencing it from a random player in Rata Sum, and last night while waiting on Tequatl I opted to throw mine out there. Notice how the player beside me has two players in their cart and I have two players in my cart, and a third player has also thrown theirs out beside me. Before the start of Tequatl, their noodle cart was full of people as well. I love objects that create casual social interaction like this. Often times folks chat away while sitting on the cart and these are so much better than the “Box of Fun” or the “Bobblehead Laboratory”. I would love to see them create more multi-person chairs like this that have a purpose behind them. It would probably even be cooler if eating the noodles actually gave you something like the birthday cake food buff.
So first accomplishment of the night is that I finally managed to catch the meta event in Seitung and collected that piece of the turtle saddle. I mean I had done this event several times before, but never when I was actively on the correct step on the achievement chain. I managed to catch someone doing a train and caught Echovald Wilds and Kaineng City as well. Not that I needed the other two, but it was a source of some pretty good loot. I have to admit that I have contemplated buying a commander tag many times. When there is one on the map, folks seem to automagically coalesce behind it. The problem is they also expect the commander to have a clue about what is going on, which I do not entirely yet. It does however seem to be a huge boon for actually doing any sort of activity though, so as I delve into making groups I feel like I probably need one.
Shortly after resetting, I decided to check the group finder tool and happened onto someone in Strike Training forming a group for Kaineng Overlook. I was legitimately working up the nerve to do the same thing, so I very happily joined their team. This was the last piece that I needed for the turtle mount, and within ten minutes we had filled our party of ten and shockingly had a pretty reasonable group balance. What is even more shocking is the fact that eight out of the ten of us had never been there before, and we somehow managed to one-shot the encounter without much in the way of training. What helped me specifically is that the markers and warnings used in the fight seem to be pretty standard from what I have seen in other games. There is a mechanic where it puts numbers over the top of your head, and we all spread out to the edges because this was something I had seen several times in Final Fantasy XIV as the boss attacks each of us in that order.
Just like that, I was able to go back to Arborstone and turn in my quest and get my very own turtle friend. In the grand scheme of things, this was a much easier quest chain than I needed for the Skyscale, but it did require actual group activity rather than largely being a solo activity. This means the only mount that I do not have currently is the Gryphon. I’ve started on it, but I guess will actually start devoting some real effort to getting it finished. When we were doing Kaineng City Blackout, the Commander was using the Gryphon and there was no way that I could keep up with them over Skyscale so I absolutely understand the specific use case for that mount. In truth, there is a pretty solid use case for every mount, and since the new meta in Gyala Delve requires a Siege Turtle at times… I figured I would get mine so that I could at least fill that role if none were available.
After getting my Siege Turtle I turned my eyes to my next objective of the night which was to finish out the Battle for Lion’s Arch and more specifically the Breachmaker portion of that quest. I boarded and defeated Scarlet and after a bit of back and forth finished Living World Season 1. I will say that already Living World Season 2 feels so much better than I remember it because I understand the events that led up to that point. I get why Kas is so guarded about letting Jory do anything because she almost died during the battle on top of the Breachmaker. I get why Taimi is so weird about Scarlet and seemingly obsessed with her, and I get why Braham and Rox are being a wet blanket about it. There is also the fact that I care about these characters way more than I did when I was first dipping my toes into this content having not seen much of the Living World Season 1. This is going to help massively for anyone starting out the game now without the wealth of years of experience and understanding of the lore.
I still do not love Dry Top, but apart from the quests I at least have Skyscale to move around it rapidly. I remember unlocking the zone the very first time and having to use the dumb Zepherite crystals. I get annoyed at having to continue to use them for mobility during the story quests, but those at least are limited in scope. I get that someone at ANet put a lot of work into creating those baubles and wanted to show the technology off… but it doesn’t make me like them anymore. I am going to try and burn through Living World Season 2 since I have seen it before so that I can start Heart of Thorns properly soon. My goal is still to play through all of the stories on the Ranger, but I have been cheating a bit when I see a group open in one of the Living World maps and using “Teleport to Friend” to get access to the zone without doing the story.
All told it was a great night and a great place to put Guild Wars 2 to bed for a bit. I know starting tonight I will be spending a lot of time playing the new Last Epoch Multiplayer patch, so it might be a bit before I check back into Tyria. I love my turtle so much and have started working on unlocking its masteries. It still floors me how much I love this game today after spending so much time frankly not understanding why anyone else did. There is part of me that wishes I could teleport back to the version of me that was in the alpha program all those years ago… and make him understand what was special about the game so that I could have experienced everything as the content rolled out. Then again if I could do that… I would probably be just as jaded as the folks who seem to dislike Gyala Delve so maybe it is better that I approached with relatively fresh eyes over the last few years.
The post Siege Turtle Get appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! You ever have one of those nights where you spent the entire evening playing a single game… but also feel like you made no real progress in it? That was my night and I am not entirely certain what I have to show for it. I know I was playing from at least 6 pm CST onwards because I caught the early Tequatl at server reset, but I have no clue how to account for the rest of my evening. I know I teleported into a few zones to help with bounties for folks who posted a plea in the “Looking for Group” tool and added a few people to my friends list through doing that. I did not however get over my fear of posting my own groups and actually doing the strike that I needed to do. I think at some point I gave up on the notion of either miracle-ing my way into an existing group posting for what I needed or getting the fortitude to do it myself and moved on with other activities.
That meant going back to Lion’s Arch for what I knew would be the final conflict and Scarlet Briar sacking it. I say this without concern about spoilers because… it is sort of a known secret at this point. Even though many of us never experienced the Living World Season 1 content, we have been confronted that the Lion’s Arch or the Claw Island missions are not the same ones that we see today, and ultimately probably went to the wiki to find out why. I am an old enough player to remember both versions of the city fondly, and while there are folks who wish we could go back to old Lion’s Arch… I have to say I greatly prefer what is colloquially referred to as “Disney Lion’s Arch” because it makes a more usable hub city. Destruction of your main city is still one of the most daring moves I have ever seen a game make, and I am not entirely certain it was a good call for the longevity of the title. It created some bitterness in the players who were fond of it before and a lot of dissonance for the players that came later.
Essentially there are two copies of Lion’s Arch that you experience in the story. The first is as the attack has fallen upon the city and toxins are building up around you, while you attempt to rescue as many as you can. There is a miasma meter that ticks up over time, and you do whatever you can to save whoever you can in the process. I only made it so far as rescuing Evon Gnashblade and I think 30 citizens before the gunk claimed me and ended the mission. I am not sure if you can legitimately do all of the objectives that you have presented in front of you in the time you have available. What does not help this process is the fact that all of the enemies appear to be infinitely respawning. I learned this the hard way pretty quickly when I was carefully clearing everything before starting an escort, only to have it immediately respawn on top of me.
The second instance that you encounter is “retaking” Lion’s Arch after regrouping with the refugees in Gendarran Fields. The new map is essentially one big meta as you fight enough skirmishes in a region to get the boss to show up, and upon defeating the boss you take back control of that sector. For the purpose of my quest, I needed to do enough events to fill a bar similar to earlier steps in the Living World Season 1 content. I stuck around and helped out in trying to retake the city, and we failed miserably at fighting one of three legendary bosses that have a Red/Green/Blue resistance scheme. The one we were fighting was Blue and vulnerable to Red or Green… but I could not seem to get my team to go over to the green puddle and get the corresponding buff so we could actually finish the fight. We got close, however, for only having a half dozen or so people fighting it. We failed the instance though but did get more than far enough to finish my quest.
The Breachmaker is Scarlet Briar’s giant flying airship drill and you see it during the cutscenes upon zoning in during the attack on Lion’s Arch the first time. I got far enough in the quest chain that my next step is a story mission which is likely an attack on that Breachmaker itself. Last night when I got there I did not really have enough time to get engaged in anything that would potentially take that amount of time. The problem with Guild Wars 2 story sections is they are not really a predictable length and as a result, I need to make sure I have an hour or more before diving into them. A lot of them take considerably less time, but every so often there is one that will take a few hours to get through. Unlike FFXIV, this game is not exactly good about warning you.
Other than the Lion’s Arch nonsense, I encountered this contraption yesterday… and Arena.Net got another 600 gems out of me. This is the Noodle Cart Chair, and unlike most other chairs… up to 2 other players can join you and there is a button to press to eat noodles. This was me and another player sitting on the chair together in Rata Sum, and every time I have thrown mine out I’ve ended up with someone joining me. This is maybe one of the coolest cosmetic microtransactions I have seen because it adds something social to the experience. I mean I love noodles anyways, but this is just delightful and the animation of watching the jadetech making noodles, washing bowls, etc is just magical.
Another thing that I did yesterday was to spend some time fishing because I have been waiting around in Seitung lately hoping to catch someone doing that meta event. That is one of the two steps I have remaining for the turtle mount. So when I am not procrastinating about starting a strike group, I am idling in the zone hoping we end up with enough critical mass to complete the boss. It did give me a chance to play with another microtransaction that I picked up a while back. I love the octopus fishing pole and the way its tentacles move subtly as you idle between casting. Fishing in Guild Wars 2 is not necessarily the best system I have experienced, but it is far from the worst. Would that all games could have a fishing system as good as New World. It is enjoyable enough and I should really get more used to throwing my pole out while waiting around for Tequatl to spawn.
Tonight my plan is to try and knock out the last steps of the Lion’s Arch quest chain, and then move on to Living World Season 2. I will probably also try to keep tabs on both Strike groups and Seitung meta in order to hopefully catch one of those. I need to look up the event table for that zone so I know how often it fires. Tomorrow, however… will be all about the drop of the Last Epoch Multiplayer patch.
The post Lions Arch-Ish appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! I swear sometimes all it takes for me is to complain about something and then the universe decides to immediately make me wrong. Yesterday I complained about how difficult it was to get a Dragon’s End group so that I could get my turtle egg. Then yesterday over lunch while eating my shin ramen, I zoned into Dragon’s End with the thought of grinding out some Writs, and moments later… an entire map’s worth of skyscales arrived. So I had to hold on for dear life because I had won the lottery and was able to join up on the commander and ride along for a meta completion. The final fight sucked a bit and it took me a while to realize I could resurrect on an airship and fly back down to the battle. The part that freaked me out a bit is that I did not specifically get a turtle egg of any sort drop… instead the only way I knew I completed it was that I got an in-game mail telling me to go to Arborstone. I am sure I probably got an achievement as well but so many scrolled by for completing the event that I absolutely missed it.
The Commander also did a Dragonstorm so I rode along for that event as well. While the group is going you might as well get as much out of it as you can. I know I talked about this yesterday but if you find yourself in a group with a good commander then you should just go with it until the train ends. This was maybe the easiest Dragonstorm I had ever done, so kudos to that team. I think about the time I play something over lunch, I am getting the benefit of the oceanic crew doing activities because there are often things going on in zones. I learned this early in my gaming career, but “Aussies” and “Kiwis” are just fucking awesome to play with when it comes to group content. Back during our Late Night Raiders days in OG World of Warcraft, we had a contingency of about twenty Australians and they were all amazing. I miss gaming with my friend Banzai, which reminds me that I should try and check up on him.
After the squad wound down I started chipping away at some of the requirements for the turtle. Luckily I had been growing Kale for ages in my home instance garden, so I had more than enough of that. I might even liquidate my reserves at this point. I was able to get through the first hurdle which was making turtle baby food and then bought my way through the fishing requirements. This left the “Suiting Up” achievement to complete which involves completing a bunch of events, hearts, and bosses in Cantha. After last night I am down to just two sub-components, getting a successful kill of Renyak in Seitung, and completing the Kaineng Overlook Strike Mission. The last bit is what worries me as I have not completed ANY strike missions. I’ve been watching the looking for group “training” section to see if anyone posts a Kaineng Overlook, but so far no luck. My plan is to post a message maybe tonight looking for a group and admitting I have no clue what I am doing. The Guild Wars 2 community seems pretty chill so we will see if this holds for group activities.
What I love more than anything thought is just like the Skyscale, my baby turtle loves me and follows me around. Whenever I zone into Arborstone the turtle comes running… or what passes for running at the pace of a giant turtle. As soon as it gets within range of me the heart bubbles start floating up which completely melts my heart. It is dumb how a game can make me care so much about a virtual pet, but it absolutely does. Growing up we regularly had turtles that would come and eat the leftovers of the dry cat food, and I would regularly befriend them. I remember I had a turtle that I named Yertle, because of course you have to name a turtle Yertle… that I drew designs on his shell with a paint pen. I have no clue if that is harmful to a turtle, but he didn’t seem to mind. I would bring him random treats… mostly in the form of lunch meat that he really loved. Having a big doofy turt following me around Arborstone is bringing back all of those memories in a constant flood.
I continue to be surprised at how seemingly poorly “What Lies Beneath” is being taken at least by the YouTuber crew of Guild Wars 2 players. I think the first component at play is that none of them seem to appreciate the amount of work that resurrecting Living World Season 1 had to have taken by Arena.net. The assumption is that it is recycled content so it is just a matter of re-releasing it… and while technically there are some components of it that are, it is very clear that everything was rebuilt from the ground up. You can look at Living World Season 1 content and compare it to Living World Season 2 content for example, and the re-release is way more akin to what we might expect from the most current content releases from End of Dragons. The content was better than it ever was at the release of the game and is structured in a modern and accessible way rather than what I remember from the tiny bit of the Living World that I experienced. I’m a developer… re-releasing code is always a misnomer because you always have to refactor it to meet current standards which takes time and effort and careful surgery to make sure that you don’t completely break everything.
The other big problem that I see is that Guild Wars 2 is sort of everything to everyone. Inside the game there is enough content to be able to support a bunch of different communities that all want something slightly different:
Raid
Small-Scale PVP
World vs World
Strikes
Dungeons
Fractals
Fashionistas
Legendary Crafters
Trading Post Barons
Casual Map Completion
Meta Trains
Story and Lore Hounds
There are probably several others that I am not even listing out, but each one of those has a dedicated community that feels that Arena.Net should focus the game on their interests. So at any given time, any release is going to let someone down. The consensus that I have heard is that folks felt like there simply was not enough story and that there was not enough going on with the Gyala Delve map. There were no new masteries and the map is completely devoid of hearts. The component that I do agree with more than any of them however is that the final boss fight of the current meta is not great. Killing the same boss four times in a row per platform is a bit annoying, and I wish there had been some sort of “Voltron” thing going on where the three platforms coalesced into the center platform into a larger boss for the final phase. I enjoy the meta enough to have run it a half dozen times so far, but I am not the biggest fan of that final boss. Killing the bosses that spawn afterward is way more enjoyable as a whole.
I mean every game has its doomers, and Guild Wars 2 players honestly have more reason than a lot of games to feel that way. The history of the game seems to be a history of false starts and wild shifts in direction, trying to narrow in on how exactly the game should proceed with its content. Would I like the quarterly updates to have a bit more meat on the bones than Gyala Delve did? Absolutely… I think everyone would. Was I fine with what we got? Absolutely, because I got quite a bit of enjoyment from the gorgeous map and will likely be adding it to my rotation of low-key metas. Content creators oftentimes end up being the biggest doomers because their livelihood lies on a constant feed of information both positive and negative to bring eyeballs to their content. Outrage usually sells better than joy, but it is up to you to moderate your own reaction to their content. I think Guild Wars 2 is in a really good state, but I feel that way because I have ten years’ worth of content to fully explore. Maybe if I had been playing this game as my ONLY game for the last decade I would feel differently.
In the meantime, however, I need to get over my fear of human beings and get a strike group going. I really do want to get more comfortable building groups in the game. I don’t have a commander tag, but if I can get comfortable doing some lower-stress grouping, I might pony up for the 300 gold and buy one. I did the math yesterday and a commander tag is about $15 in gems so in reality it would probably be worth that to me to have one eventually. There is a version of me from the past that would absolutely be leading zone meta events, but that is a version that was not responsible for managing human beings in his daily life. Moving into management in the work world decimated my desire for any sort of responsibility in game.
The post Doofy Babby Turt appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
