season 3

Ranger vs Mordremoth

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Good Morning Friends! This weekend I fell out of my ARPG grind and back into some Guild Wars 2. Diablo IV was largely a disappointment and while I got lots of hours out of the game, I can’t say that most of them were really enjoyable. I am still very much engaged with Honkai Star Rail, but there is only about an hour’s worth of play that I can get out of that game on a day-to-day basis without spending additional money or banked resources. I got my Spriggan in Last Epoch up to Monoliths but I can only handle so much of that at once because they end up feeling very repetitive in their current state. With the announcement of the Secrets of the Obscure expansion, it has stoked my desire to get back engaged with Tyria. While my Necromancer has completed all of the content but Living World Season 2, I spend way more time on my Ranger and I am using that character to complete all of the content in the order of release.
Over the weekend I finished up Living World Season 2 and completed all of the Heart of Thorns expansion. I have to say, it is a much more enjoyable experience having played through all of Living World Season 1 then seeing the characters evolve in Living World Season 2… and finally having the major events play out during Heart of Thorns. It all has so much more impact because when I did the content initially… I had no real clue what I was doing and at the same time kept trying to treat Heart of Thorns like a traditional MMORPG expansion pack. I also have a much more stable grasp on the lore of the world thanks to having completed all of it once before. Having already unlocked most of the Heart of Thorns zones through gameplay on the Ranger, it also meant that I could largely focus on only completing the story missions.
The other huge benefit of this playthrough is that I now have access to a SkyScale, which means that most content becomes trivialized by significantly greater movement ability. I thought maybe it would make Tangled Depths more palatable, but that isn’t really the case. I have come to love the zone for what it is, and I greatly enjoy doing the Chak Gerent event… but it is still a nuisance to try and figure out where the quest marker is actually sending me. I still do not feel like games in general do a great job of visualizing the Z-Axis when to quests, and there are many times that I just sort of had to rely on previous knowledge of the game to get me in the vicinity of where I was supposed to go. That said… there are some really cool areas of Tangled Depths like this cavern with glowing mushrooms.
Another thing that greatly enhances my enjoyment of the game has been having BlishHUD turned on. For example, in the Roots of Terror map, I came across this chamber filled with Chak. There was a handy Blish HUD reminder that I could get achievements for killing 1, 10, and 50 Chak… so I spent the next bit of time exterminating every single Chak in the chamber until I got the Mastery achievement. There have been a few cases where I was already doing one thing… that seeing how close I was to completing another achievement caused me to press on and go for it. I generally enjoy playing the Ranger more than I did the Necromancer, and as a result, I feel like I am way more likely to go back and retry some of these maps later to pick up the remaining mastery achievements as a result.
Last night I started Living World Season 3 before deciding that sleep needed to happen. I remember this season really fondly, at least in part because the map designs were so good. Bloodstone Fen is a bit of a butt, but with maxed-out gliding and access to a Skyscale, it should be pretty trivial. This is part of why I am excited about Secrets of the Obscure and giving everyone an easier path to the Skyscale. It just makes everything so much more enjoyable when you don’t have to fiddle around with frustration mechanics. Guild Wars 2 does this amazing job of adding different layers to the map, and then also makes it a bit of a slog to move between them based on Mastery mechanics alone. The Skyscale is admittedly a bit of an easy button, but for me personally, it is making my enjoyment of the content so much higher.
I think my ultimate goal is to get caught up on all of the content on my Ranger before Secrets of the Obscure drops on August 22nd. That is going to be a bit of a rapid pace to go through the content, but I think if I am ONLY focusing on the story… it might be doable. It would also serve as a bit of a nice refresher before the new content drops as well. I get that the new content is supposedly not going to require you to have completed any earlier content to understand, but it would still be nice to have everything unlocked fully on the character I am enjoying playing the most. I mean that might change when I can swap things up with new weapon options in the expansion, but for the time being… I like being a longbow/greatsword dude. The post Ranger vs Mordremoth appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Please Mind Spoilers

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Spoiler Town

Please Mind Spoilers

Last night was the second half premiere of Season 6 of the Walking Dead, and man….  was it a roller coaster.  I am not however going to talk much about the show, because I don’t want to give anything away for those who have yet to see it.  This seems like a sensible position, and it also tends to color my reactions on twitter…  because just like Star Wars Episode VII I didn’t want to be the one to rob the magic of the moment from anyone.  With a big show like this, there is always talk on Twitter about the inconsiderate nature of some, who start emoting about specific events on a show or a game immediately.  For me personally…  spoilers don’t mean that much and if I was going to watch a show or play a game in the first place…  I am still going to play said game/show even if I know the entire plot.  However I realize most people are not like this.  There are a lot of folks who love the thrill of not knowing if our team of stalwart heroes will survive the episode, or if they really can get out of this jam.  For the sake of the people who are not me, I’ve learned over the years how to share my excitement over something… and emote freely…  without actually giving much detail away.  So this largely involves focusing on my feelings, or the overall experience and not necessarily plot details.  Once I got used to it, I honestly find it a much more enjoyable way to share my experiences.

The above tweet is an example of something I said last night while watching the show.  It helped me to get the jitters out that were building up inside of me, but at the same time…  gave away nothing.  What Walking Dead episode doesn’t have a bunch of ups and downs… and while everyone who was also watching knew exactly what I was talking about…  it didn’t do anything to spoil the folks who get the show two full hours behind.  This isn’t just Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones, or whatever else happens to be the hot “It” property.  I would love to see this same logic applied to almost anything.  Games like Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online, and The Secret World all have deep story content… that involves the same sort of ups and downs and plot twists you might expect from a novel.  In the guilds I have been responsible for, I have always tried to stress keeping guild chat as a spoiler free place so nobody had to accidentally log in and get all of that build up spoiled.  Some however are always careless, and while you can scold someone….  once the spoiler is in an open channel it is impossible to remove.  Mostly what I am asking for is for folks to be more considerate about the shared space we have be it Twitter or the chat channels in games themselves.  It is lovely that you don’t mind spoilers…. because largely I am in the same camp as you…  but be thoughtful of the folks who really do.  Is your few minutes of excitement really worth ruining someone else’s entire experience?

RWBY Season 3

 

Please Mind Spoilers

Another event from yesterday that could have been spoilerific… was the public release of the final episode of RWBY Season 3.  There is so much amazing stuff happening in this show right now… and a lot of stuff that also makes me super sad inside.  For similar reasons to Walking Dead, I am not going to go into a bunch of detail since I know folks are still catching up.  Over the last few weeks I have gone through this interesting evolution of not actually knowing what RWBY was really, to getting interested…  to binge watching my way through the entire series run to this point.  This means that I actually got to watch the last three episodes with the rest of the world as they were publicly released around noon on Sunday.  Now for sponsors they get access to the show on Saturday, and I honestly expect that come next season I will be counting myself among this number.  It isn’t often that I find something that I literally want to tell people to stop everything they are doing and “watch this thing now”, but with RWBY it definitely falls into that category.  There is just so much to love here, that it is going to be hard to cram it into a blog post.  Basically RWBY takes all of the parts of Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Naruto that I truly love…. and gets rid of all of the parts that annoy the fuck out of me. On top of that… it is populated with tons of awesome women characters….  who are not simply there for gratuitous eye candy.

There are a lot of aspects of Anime that are just lost on me, mostly because I don’t understand the Japanese Cultural references… or at least not all of them.  I’ve called RWBY an American Anime… but in truth it is more than that… it is a global internet Anime because in truth… the references and reactions that it draws upon could be understood by pretty much ANYONE using the internet and social media.  The most impressive thing about this show is how watching it compressed like this… has made me realize just how damned impressive the improvement from season to season has been.  The first season… while really good… was cludgy as hell, and it quite literally felt like they were using poser to do this (which they were).  From that point on however… they started to master the tools and by season 2 it was already feeling more like traditional animation.  Season 3 however skyrocketed that quality bar, and I would pretty much put the show up against anything in the air.  I really look forward to seeing just how much improved Season 4, because they are teetering on that edge of what traditional animation can provide…. but with motion capture and 2D rendering.  If you are already indoctrinated into RWBY, we need to talk… because so much shit is going on.  If you are not however… I highly suggest you catch up… this playlist has through S3 E6 but it is the best playlist I was able to find on YouTube.  Once you are hooked then it is time to go to the actual source and the Rooster Teeth RWBY page.  Most of the episodes are 12-16 minutes long, and it is well worth your time even if you squeeze them in between other activities.

AggroChat #93 – Games of the Year 2015 Part 2

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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

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Media Consumption 10/10/2015

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Netflix Binge Time

This week things felt like they were starting to get back to normal.  Since last week was so freaking crazy I ended up taking Tuesday off and just hanging out around the house.  That meant it was the perfect time to binge watch something on Netflix.  Unlike the previous week there have been multiple times that I simply hung out downstairs with the laptop and television, and as such have some shows to talk about.  Of note, if anyone has something they suggest I watch feel free and chime in.  I am always looking for something interesting, but the caveat is it must be available either through Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime streaming.  I know iZombie has started back up, and I have the episodes recording to my DVR but am largely waiting on my wife to watch them since she also was able to get into the previous season.

Dark Matter – Season 1

Media Consumption 10/10/2015

Dark Matter is one of those shows that folks had been suggesting to me for some time now, but I never really got around to watching it.  When I first checked to see if the show was streamable somewhere, I was only able to watch like the last five episodes through Hulu.  Now the entire series is on Netflix and it seemed like the perfect time to watch it.  I can’t think of this show without also comparing it to another SyFy channel show Killjoys.  There are moments where you wonder if this is set in the same universe, because they seem extremely similar.  Distopic future where corporations control pretty much everything, and folks are forced to carve out their lives on the fringe of society.  The twist here is that the  crew woke from out of cryosleep only to find that they have all had their memories erased.  During the first season we spend a lot of time trying to sort out who they are and what exactly they were doing, and at the same time blending together as a team.

So far my two favorite characters are “Five” aka the hacker stowaway girl, and the Android…. that they sadly just keep calling Android.  I am hoping in season two they finally give her a name, because I like the character and actor playing her.  If you are a fan of Lost Girl it is the same actor that played the Fae Doctor on that show, and sometimes love interest of the succubus title character.  What is awesome is that obviously there is some malfunction with the Android as she is starting to develop emotions, which makes the experience very “Data” like.  As far as the hacker… I knew she looked familiar and it finally hit me.  She is the little girl that played Alessa in the Silent Hill movie, and I IMDB’d to confirm it.  There are moments where the show gives me very Cowboy Bebop vibe to it, as they wander around space looking for jobs to pull…. so you know they can eat and have fuel.  All we need now is a genetically modified Corgi.

Arrow – Season 3

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Also showing up on Netflix is season 3 of Arrow, which I somehow completely missed arriving until last night.  While playing SWTOR I binged my way through about half of the season and plan on trying to finish it up today.  So far I am liking it, but I am not super keen on some of the events that have transpired.  There is a lot of this season that just feels like it is set up material for future events.  I feel like I also really need to watch Flash after this to help piece together some of the parts that are missing when ONLY watching this season.  The cross over episode felt a bit odd, because I am assuming it started with Flash.  Also the lengthy set up for Atom has been interesting but a little contrived.  I am also not super sure what is going on with the character of Felicity this season, she seems to be shifting personalities a lot.  I am largely cool with Laurel taking the mantle of Black Canary as well.  The problem with the DC universe is that I only really know a shallow version of it that tends to be very Batman-centric.

Growing up I was a Marvel kid, and the only comics I really delved into were the Batman and Green Lantern universes…  other than Superfriends that is.  Marvel always felt like the universe of gritty anti-heroes and that was the sort of thing I thought was cool.  DC however tended to have much more detailed story arcs, and they obviously did a far better job of licensing their properties than Marvel since we have the ability to see all of these cross overs.  Obviously the whole handing Cupid over to Suicide Squad bit… is going to end up biting them in the ass.  I am hoping as the season goes on we see more of the Suicide Squad, especially as this season and season four probably really need to set up for the Suicide Squad movie, seeing as that is not a part of the DC universe that most people know anything about.  Well that is other than Harly Quinn… at this point everyone knows and loves Harly Quinn.  Looking forward to finishing the season today, as I continued to work my way through the Bounty Hunter storyline.

Fear The Walking Dead – Season Finale

Media Consumption 10/10/2015

The funny thing about Fear the Walking Dead is how the episode finale had two vastly different effects on me and my wife.  Up until this point in the season she had been watching the episodes with me, and it seemed like maybe she was almost getting into the show.  Whereas honestly I was bored and kept waiting for the inevitable other shoe to fall, because having been a long time walking dead watcher…  you knew the bad stuff was coming eventually.  Finally in this episode everything starts to go wrong, and this is the point at which my wife completely loses interest.  It seems like she is fine with a world where people have to sort out how to survive, but not so much in a world where they are constantly being chased by the dead.  Daniel still rises from this episode as my favorite character, namely the only one who is truly prepared to exist in this world.  The only problem there is he takes what is a bad situation and makes it even worse by letting loose the first horde.

In earlier episodes we find that they were using a stadium as a shelter, much like they did in Katrina with the super dome.  Something goes wrong and people start turning, and the military is unable to sort out who is living and who is dead and just ends up chaining the entire contents in essentially assuring that all two thousand plus people end up as zombies.  So when Daniel turns them lose to use them to attack the military compounds, it gives us a hint and maybe HOW the hordes form.  Maybe they get started when zombies finally break out of places they have been pinned up in and keep wandering together because they don’t exactly have free will.  Which makes you wonder… where exactly did the mega horde near Alexandria come from?  The big thing I wanted from Fear the Walking Dead, was more insight into WHY the world fell to hell and that seems to be something that was not on the menu.  Largely I am disappointed in the show, and the lack of Talking Dead after it was a problem for me.  Talking Dead essentially played the role of having someone to talk about the show with, in a strange way.  I am hoping when Season Two comes around they will do a “Talking Fear” show or something like that.  In any case this week we get the return of the real Walking Dead show so in the meantime I am pretty amped for that since experiencing the watered down version.