AggroChat #168 – Raptors and Jick

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

aggrochat168_720

Tonight we return to the normal course of our show after last weeks unintended break.  We start the show off with a brief explanation of what happened then dig straight into some talk about Guild Wars 2 and the impending Path of Fire expansion.  From there we talk about West of Loathing, the pseudo sequel to Kingdom of Loathing one of the longest running web games than I know of.  Grace has been spending some time in the mobile world and talks about two games..  Legendary: Game of Heroes and Rabbit Evolution.  Ash talks a bit about the Monster Hunter Stories demo and gameplay in general.  Kodra dives into a few board games he has been playing…  Macao, Potion Explosion and Scythe.  From there we talk a bit about Magic the Gathering and how folks have been playing a bit of Commander.  Finally we close things out with a discussion of just how well Orcs have clicked with Kodra in Warhammer 40k.

Topics Discussed:

  • Guild Wars 2
  • Path of Fire
  • West of Loathing
  • Mobile Games
  • Legendary: Game of Heroes
  • Rabbit Evolution
  • Monster Hunter Stories
  • Board Games
  • Macao
  • Potion Explosion
  • Scythe
  • Magic Commander
  • Warhammer 40k Orcs

 

Scattered

The holidays are approaching fast and my brain is scattered in a billion directions trying to plan presents and decorations and cooking and travel. It is no wonder that I’ve been a bit scattered when it comes to gaming lately too. I’ve still been playing WoW. In what must be approaching a record for recent years I’ve been playing solidly since just before the pre-expansion patch. My interest is definitely starting to taper down now. The past few weeks I haven’t run any mythic+ dungeons and have barely been able to motivate myself to show up for raids. Most days I log in for my emissary quests and then wander off. I’ve gotten some mileage out of alts, but once they hit the level cap and have to run dungeons for professions quests I lose interest fast. I was hoping to get alchemy sorted on my newly-110 hunter, but the thought of having to do a quest in Vault of the Wardens stopped me cold. My next project may just be leveling things to 110 to see the class hall stories but it is frustrating that one of my key motivations for alting is so gated behind content I don’t like to engage with on alts.

Scattered

What I have been playing a ton of is Justice Monsters V. This is a minigame within Final Fantasy XV, which has been given a full mobile game treatment. It’s part pinball, part Puzzle and Dragons, and entirely fun. Individual games are on a timer so at most they can take 2-3 minutes which makes it perfect for a quick distraction in between holiday chores. It has a frustratingly bad pricing scheme for in-game purchases, but I’ve been playing for almost 2 weeks straight and haven’t felt like I needed to spend any real money to progress anyway. The game starts out very easy but the tables get progressively more interesting and the enemies get much stronger so it does have enough challenge to keep me from getting bored. Like PAD there’s obviously a lot of grinding to do to be able to upgrade and evolve your monsters. Unlike PAD, the method of leveling up is way less opaque. Also, I enjoy the pinball enough that it doesn’t feel like a grind yet. I’m genuinely enjoying playing monster pinball for its own sake and I get the occasional bonus of being able to power up my monsters every once in a while. The monsters you collect are all straight from the Final Fantasy universe, and while you don’t need to know anything about Final Fantasy to enjoy this game, it is a treat to see those recognizable creatures if you are a fan. It’s not the most complex and engaging game ever, but it is quite fun in quick bursts and  worth checking out for free.


Scattered

Scattered

The holidays are approaching fast and my brain is scattered in a billion directions trying to plan presents and decorations and cooking and travel. It is no wonder that I’ve been a bit scattered when it comes to gaming lately too. I’ve still been playing WoW. In what must be approaching a record for recent years I’ve been playing solidly since just before the pre-expansion patch. My interest is definitely starting to taper down now. The past few weeks I haven’t run any mythic+ dungeons and have barely been able to motivate myself to show up for raids. Most days I log in for my emissary quests and then wander off. I’ve gotten some mileage out of alts, but once they hit the level cap and have to run dungeons for professions quests I lose interest fast. I was hoping to get alchemy sorted on my newly-110 hunter, but the thought of having to do a quest in Vault of the Wardens stopped me cold. My next project may just be leveling things to 110 to see the class hall stories but it is frustrating that one of my key motivations for alting is so gated behind content I don’t like to engage with on alts.

Scattered

What I have been playing a ton of is Justice Monsters V. This is a minigame within Final Fantasy XV, which has been given a full mobile game treatment. It’s part pinball, part Puzzle and Dragons, and entirely fun. Individual games are on a timer so at most they can take 2-3 minutes which makes it perfect for a quick distraction in between holiday chores. It has a frustratingly bad pricing scheme for in-game purchases, but I’ve been playing for almost 2 weeks straight and haven’t felt like I needed to spend any real money to progress anyway. The game starts out very easy but the tables get progressively more interesting and the enemies get much stronger so it does have enough challenge to keep me from getting bored. Like PAD there’s obviously a lot of grinding to do to be able to upgrade and evolve your monsters. Unlike PAD, the method of leveling up is way less opaque. Also, I enjoy the pinball enough that it doesn’t feel like a grind yet. I’m genuinely enjoying playing monster pinball for its own sake and I get the occasional bonus of being able to power up my monsters every once in a while. The monsters you collect are all straight from the Final Fantasy universe, and while you don’t need to know anything about Final Fantasy to enjoy this game, it is a treat to see those recognizable creatures if you are a fan. It’s not the most complex and engaging game ever, but it is quite fun in quick bursts and  worth checking out for free.


Scattered

What I’m Playing: August 14, 2016

We’re almost halfway through Blaugust and I’ve managed to keep up with things so far, woo! This week my play time has still been pretty focused.

FFXIV: Once again the only time I played FFXIV this week was during raid. Once again, the time I did play was phenomenal. This game’s raiding is so fun and satisfying, and even old content still requires some thought and attention. I’m just too distracted by other things right now to give it the attention it deserves.

What I’m Playing: August 14, 2016

Steven Universe Soundtrack Attack: I almost forgot to mention this one, but I was talking with the Aggrochat folks about it last night before we recorded the podcast and figured other people might want to know about it too. I’m playing this fun little rhythm game on iOS. I like it because you can create and customize your own new gem (mine’s a Ruby!), and it has music from the show. Unfortunately it moves pretty quickly from “hey this is fun” to “furiously mashing at the screen not being able to keep up.” Maybe that’s a thing this type of game does? I admit I’ve not played any other rhythm games on my phone. Some of the songs are even sped up a bit from the show. I suspect it is because they want you to watch more adds and buy powerups that let you slow down the songs. Also not all of the levels are songs directly from the show, a lot of them are instrumental tracks, so don’t expect to hear all of the songs from the show right away when you start playing. In any case it is a fun enough little game and worth checking out for yourself if you are interested, just don’t expect a lot of depth.

Diablo 3: I’m still working away at my seasonal character. I’ve completed GR60 and the view ahead is all grinding for tiny upgrades and praying for ancient legendaries with good rolls. I have no idea if I will stick around long enough to finish another chapter of the season, but I’m still having fun for now.

WoW: Once again this is where I’m spending the bulk of my time. The demon invasions have gone from fun distraction to pretty great way to level, so I’ve been trying to hit them on my baby mage whenever new ones are up. between invasions and dungeons I’ve gone from 60 to 77 while barely setting foot on outlands or northrend. I actually like both of those expansions just fine, but it is pretty neat to have an alternate leveling pathway open up like this, even if it is only temporary. I suspect I’ll have at least one more character to 100 by Legion at this rate!