We realized that it had been a really really long time since we've had a normal show.  With the holidays and a handful of theme shows...  it has been amazing to have all of these special guests hanging out with us, but it had been far too long since we just did a normal "games we are playing" type show.  This week also is the return of our normal lineup of Ash, Bel, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen.  Tonight we talk about....

• Magic: The Gathering - Oath of the Gatewatch
• Diablo 3 - Season Five Launch
• Warframe - Co-Op Space Ninjas
• Undertale - a few more start playing
• Victor Vran - Secrets and Objectives Diablo-like
• Kingdom - Combat without fine control

Next week we will begin our "Games of Last Year" show where we finally get around to talking about the games we though were our favorites from 2015.

This week we return to the whole topic driven focus, because honestly they seem to work better.  We had several topics we wanted to discuss but for the sake of time we pushed a few of them off to another episode.  Once again we have the full cast of Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen. 

The topics we delve into...

• Rocket League - how we are apparently late to the party, and any time a game is getting played at the same time by wildly different groups of gamers... it should be checked out.
• Space Chem - how Kodra falls into a deep hole of trying to create the most perfect engine in this video game that plays more like a really good board game... and also at times a programming simulator.
• Otome Games - we talk about how our podcast got mentioned recently by Pizza Maid and Suishi Geisha...  and how it would be awesome if the games we liked to play had the same level of story fidelity that Otome games do.  This spawned an entire side discussion about story drive games in general.
• Co-Opetitive Games - the games where you are playing co-operatively but also at the same time competing with your friends....  also fertile ground for losing said friendships.
• Sandbox Games - We talk about the wall that happens in most sandbox experiences where we as players are just "done" with the game long before we have technically completed all of it.

For awhile now the AggroChat crew has deliberately put off talking about the events of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward in an attempt to allow folks to catch up on the content.  However this week the gloves are coming off and we are dipping into a full spoiler episode where we hash out the events that have occured since the 2.55 patch show.  We trace the steps of our characters from setting foot into Ishgard to the final conflict of the expansion, with as much details as we can think about in between.  This is a roughly two hour long show because of the truly large amount of content to go over.  We considered chopping this into two halves, but figured we would release it uncut.  We talk about our favorite characters, our most emotional moments and what we are looking forward to with future content patches.

This show we were without Tam who is travelling but still have Belghast, Ashgar, Kodra, Grace and Thalen.  For the most part we have all been caught in the gravity well of Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward, and are now pushing through the games gearing process.  This is working for some of us, but others are beginning to get highly frustrated.  We talk about the positives and negatives of the way the gearing system works.  While wandering around aimlessly through the show we also managed to get caught into a nostalgic timewarp as we talk about our early experiences playing Magic the Gathering.  Everyone remembers that new pack smell, and in many ways Grace and Bel both wish they could return to that nostalgic era surrounding the game and playing it with their friends.  Kodra talks about the new expansion coming out and the changes they have made to the game in a site that could be termed as "Worst Version" of existing mechanics.  It was a fun show if a very rambly one.

Due to the Independence Day holiday we opted to record this show a little early this week, and instead of spending Saturday night talking about games, we spent Friday night.  As a result there are several of us who were not quite to level 60 in Final Fantasy XIV but have since caught up and pushed through to the level cap.  However we spent a good deal of time not talking about FFXIV. Grace managed to finish the crazy attunement system in Wildstar and attended her very first raid.  She gives her opinion of the system and how it compares to WoW and FFXIV raiding.  Additionally we go down the rabbit hole that is the Four Job Fiesta and talk Final Fantasy V and the various group compositions fate has given us this year.  I apparently was one job off from the legendary group composition that the person who started the event go their first year:  Monk, Berserker, Beastmaster and Dancer.  Instead the gods saw fit to give me a Samurai so I could quite literally "pay to win".

We purposefully saved our discussion of Heavensward to the end of the show because I knew that was the one thing we were all playing.  It is extremely difficult to discuss this game without going into spoilers, so there are some details that might be spoiled if you have not played up through the Aery dungeon yet.  The awkwardness of this show was the fact that Ashgar is quite a ways behind the rest of us, making it extremely difficult to add to discussions... because at least one point during the show he made a conjecture that we knew the truth about, but could not really go into it for fear of spoiling key plot points.  My theory is that once we have all finished the 3.0 story arc we will do yet another big "spoil everything" show, like we did for 2.55.  The best snippet for me was when Grace decided to talk about her new loathing for Moogles after completing the Churning Mists zone.  Moogles are in fact lazy bums.

I originally thought that when we set down to record this episode of AggroChat we would end up putting aside all pretense and simply talk about the Heavensward expansion for Final Fantasy XIV.  However what happened in reality is we ended up recording an extremely length show where we basically did that... AND a normal show as well.  While many or our weeks revolved around the launch of this new expansion...  we had to do something to bide our time until the Friday launch.  Grace has apparently been completely hooked on Marvel Super Heroes so we talked about that for awhile.  The other game she has been playing is Wildstar, so we spent a good deal of time chatting about how that game has been progressing.

In Final Fantasy XIV before the outage we managed to take down Shiva and Odin once again so we talked a bit about that.  Then myself, Tam and Kodra have been playing an awful lot of ArcheAge so we talk again about that and our progress so far.  Then finally when we start talking about Heavensward we get sidetracked on a lengthy debate about the merits of flight in MMOs and whether or not it is simply GM cheats.  Each of us brought our own perspectives to the conversation and quite honestly this could have been a show topic in itself.  Finally we talk about our experience so far with the Heavensward expansion to close out the show.  It is an extremely packed show, and clocks in just shy of two hours.

Tonight we get the folks together to record the fourth AggroChat game club show, this time devoted to Tamrielo's pick.  Shadowrun: Dragonfall is the second game in the Shadowrun: Returns series from the wildly successful kickstarter process.  While the first game focused mostly on getting the engine correct, this game focuses more on weaving an interesting narrative in the Shadowrun setting.  In tonights show we delve deep into the game and talk about the various choices we made while playing it.  Please be warned this is a full spoiler show, and we will talk about some of the plot twists and the alternate choice paths that you can make in the game.  I highly suggest that if you intend to play this game,  that you revisit this show after doing so as not to spoil any of the content.

This title is auspicious for various reasons, primarily because it is the first title that everyone joining in the show either beat or came extremely close to beating it.  Kodra and I started recording tonight and during the course of the show actually defeated it.  Ash however is in the final stretch making him only about thirty minutes away.  The other extremely unique thing about this game is it is quite literally the first game we have played that we all were able to give a big thumbs up to.  Join us next month for Kodra's title as well called There Came an Echo, which is a voice controlled real time strategy game... that is certain to lead to some strange conversations.  Additionally if you played Shadowrun: Dragonfall along with us, please drop by AggroChat.com and leave us a message with your thoughts.

Tonight we talk about the events that have essentially stolen our lives...  the release of the Manderville Golden Saucer and the FFXIV 2.51 patch.  The title of the episode comes from the fact that we have spent a good deal of the last week running hard mode dungeon and trial content for the slim chance of getting triple triad cards to drop.  Triple Triad has lead several of us to do all sorts of random stuff trying to obtain cards... and this week I capped Poetics almost exclusively through running trials at 5 poetics per run.  If there was ever a homewrecker of a patch... this would be the one.

So listen to us talk about all the awesome things that happened from Triple Triad, to Chocobo Racing to the insanity that is the Cactpot lottery.  However worry not... we talk about several other things in addition to all the Final Fantasy XIV gushing.  Tam and Kodra talk Elite: Dangerous.  Bel spends some time talking about the new building game Sky Saga, and Rae talks about her recent travels in Trove.  Kodra talks about his experience playing the indie game Deer God and several other points between.  It was a thoroughly fun episode to record, so we hope that translates well in the broadcast.

This evening we delve into our very first AggroChat Game Club title, the earthbound-esc JRPG Citizens of Earth.  We talk about our experiences playing the game on PC, Vita and 3DS and discuss the positives and negatives of each platform.  We then dig into the discussion of the game, its combat, systems, and story.  Finally we give the game our own version of a rating.  It was an interesting first game experiment, and we look forward to the next title which we discuss at the end of the show.  Next week we return to our regularly scheduled AggroChat format, and with it more than likely much discussion of the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV patch that we preview towards the end of this weeks show.  

This week was of course the week of Valentines Day, and as such we actually ended up recording a bit earlier than normal so that each of us could be free for whatever Valentines shenanigans we had planned.  At the suggestion of Kodra we opted to ditch our normal episode and attempt to record one in honor of the relationships in the games we play.  The problem is...  as we found out while recording...  video games are pretty bad at doing relationships still.  I personally think the show ended up pretty interesting, and well worth the listen.