Tonight we are down both an Ashgar and a Kodra… and the intro felt really weird to start with Grace.  Tonight we had one of those nights where we felt like we didn’t have an awful lot to talk about… but then wound up running over time anyways.  Bel talks about his experiences with State of Decay 2 on both Xbox One and PC and how it has changed from the original. Grace talks about her experiences with the Warmind Destiny 2 expansion that then spawns a discussion about why we feel D2 has a bad attach rate.  Bel and Grace talk about how not excited they are for Battle for Azeroth in World of Warcraft, but how otherwise generally awesome the experience of leveling alts has become. Tam and Thalen talk about their further experiences with Battletech and coming to terms with the random headshots.

Featured Topics:

  • State of Decay 2
  • Destiny 2 Warmind
    • Bad Progression Design
  • World of Warcraft
    • Battle for Azeroth Angst
    • Excellent Alt Leveling
  • BattleTech
Direct download: aggrochat_episode204.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:37am EDT

Tonight we are down a Thalen because storms cause power outages.  Among the topics discussed is the new Destiny 2 expansion called Warmind.  Belghast has spent a significant amount of time with it and has things to say.  From there Tam goes into his experiences with Battletech and why maybe being absolutely completely true to pen and paper sometimes has issues.  Ash talks about Pillars of Eternity 2… and how he has yet to actually play it but has spent a lot of time digging around in the JSON code. Finally we wrap things up with a discussion of Magic the Gathering Commander…  and how to build a deck designed not to win but instead to do interesting things and subvert the flow of the game.

Topics Discussed:

  • Destiny 2: Warmind
  • Battletech
  • Pillars of Eternity 2
  • Magic the Gathering - Commander
Direct download: aggrochat_episode203.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 11:06pm EDT

Tonight we are extremely happy that Tam is still with us.  Find out how exactly he has managed to be hit five different times by motor vehicles.  With his ability to take a fall he is still with us and healing… but still very sore. We talk a bit about the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general terms and attempt to be as spoiler free as possible.  Largely we discuss what a feat it is to have 19 movies and 11 television series that all more or less interact with each other in the same shared universe. From there Kodra and Belghast talks a bit about Magic the Gathering Arena and the new quick draft mode.  Finally Tam talks a bit about his experiences with Yakuza Zero and what a weird game that ultimately is.

Topics Discussed:

  • Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Magic the Gathering Arena Drafting
  • Yakuza 0
Direct download: aggrochat_episode202.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:23am EDT

This week we talk about the April AggroChat Game Club title…  Night in the Woods. This was Kodra’s pick and has turned out to be quite the emotional ride of the AggroChat crew.  This game is somewhat of a mirror in that it reflects back the baggage you bring with you. Each of us had experiences that felt very real and similar to things happening in the game but honestly it was a little hard to unpack all of that during the course of a show.  There is a blend of talk about he game and talk about our own upbringings. Definitely one of the most personal AggroChat shows to date.

Direct download: aggrochat_episode201.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:15am EDT

Tonight we are recording our two hundredth episode of AggroChat and we still have no clue what we are doing.  There was a joke floating around this week that “lets make a podcast” is the new version of “let's form a band” and honestly… it sorta is.  April 13th of 2014 I gathered up some of my friends and said, let's do a thing where we mostly just have the conversations we normally have on voice chat…  while recording it. Four years and some change later we are sitting at our bicentennial episode.

Tonight we talk about the Kulve Taroth event happening in Monster Hunter World.  Kodra and Bel talk about Magic the Gathering Arena and how this might actually be the answer to Magic for the Hearthstone crowd.  Kodra talks about his experiences with the Dominaria pre-release draft event. Finally we settle into a lengthy discussion about games with defined metas and the battle between playing the way you want and playing in a way that supports the meta compositions.

Topics Discussed

  • Monster Hunter World
    • Kulve Taroth
  • Magic the Gathering Arena
    • Preconstructed
  • Dominaria Pre-release
    • Drafting the set
  • Playing the Meta vs Playing the Game
    • Warhammer 40k
    • Destiny
    • League of Legends
    • Heroes of the Storm
    • Monster Hunter World
Direct download: aggrochat_episode200.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:03am EDT

In a human sense AggroChat just turned 5 years old this last Friday…  but in a more correct sense we have now completely four entire years of this podcast.  I still feel like we really don’t completely know what we are doing here. As the patron saint of bad decisions…  Belghast journeys back into Everquest… not EQ2 but the original and talks a bit about how many of those systems have changed drastically.  Grace and Bel talk a bit about their Mythical Nonsense journey in World of Warcraft as they reached Mythic +10 this past week. We go into a lengthy conversation talking about encounter decision with several examples including Monster Hunter World and Dark Souls.  We talk briefly about the Dominaria expansion for Magic the Gathering and the release of Standard Ready Challenger Decks. Finally we wrap up with a little bit of discussion about the MegaMan event happening in Monster Hunter World.

Topics Discussed

  • Four Years of AggroChat
  • Original Everquest
    • Changed Systems
  • Mythical Nonsense
  • Encounter Design
    • Single Player Encounters
    • Multiplayer Encounters
    • Variable Number Encounters
    • Dark Souls Encounters
    • Monster Hunter World Encounters
    • Guild Wars 2 Mistakes
  • Dominaria Magic Expansions
    • Challenge Decks
  • Monster Hunter World Megaman Event
Direct download: aggrochat_episode199.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:21am EDT

Tonight we are back recording an normal show after last week's game of the year show.  This also marks the first show we are purposefully trying to time box at around 90 minutes worth of recording time...  which turns into roughly an hour of run time after editing.  The plan is to make this show a little easier to consume... and also easier to record for those of us who are in central and east coasts because some of our bigger shows lead to getting to bed occasionally around 1 am.  As a result we whittled down the list of topics a bit and wound up with essentially four solid topics to discuss.  As a result oddly enough the conversation seemed to flow much more easily so it may also be a good decision for our content in the long run as well.

Topics Discussed:

  • Bloodborne
    • Soulsian Games
  • Spring Blossom Event
    • Monster Hunter World
  • Neostalgia MMORPGs
    • Project Gorgon
    • Shroud of the Avatar
  • The Way Games Start
Direct download: aggrochat_episode198.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:05am EDT

This week we record the March AggroChat Game Club game…  The Sexy Brutale. This murder mystery puzzle game is Thalen’s pick and the crew talks about their experiences playing the game and sorting out how best to utilize those time warping powers.  This also happens to be the first show ever recorded without Belghast, and while everything seems to have gone off swimmingly… be warned that Bel does in fact sound weird this week. Please Look Forward to It!

Direct download: aggrochat_episode197.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:17am EDT

Tonight we talk a bit about the arrival to Monster Hunter World of the most annoying griefer…  Deviljho… aka Pickle. We also talk a bit about the weapon balance changes. From there we talk a bit about crafting systems in games and what we have liked and where they have fallen short.  From there we talk a bit about Eureka in Final Fantasy XIV and how it's a grind reminiscent of Everquest. Kodra delves into a discussion about Witcher 3 and the game once you get past the cringey bits.  Tam talks at length about Star Citizen and how much game is currently available. Then we wrap up with a short discussion about how Demon Souls has not held up the way the others in the series have.

Topics Discussed

  • Monster Hunter World
  • Deviljho - Pickle
  • Crafting Systems in Games
  • Eureka - Final Fantasy XIV
  • Everquest
  • Witcher 3
  • Star Citizen
  • Demon Souls
Direct download: aggrochat_episode196.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:03am EDT

The worst part about recording a podcast is trying to come up with a title for whatever the hell it was that we did the night before. We talk a bit about Belghast and his journeys into Phantasy Star Online 2.  From there Bel talks a bit about Neverwinter and the Stronghold system. Tam talks a bit about streaming Dishonored Death of the Outsider which turns into a discussion about streaming in general. We have a group of people who have been playing Legend of Five Rings Online and we check in for an update how the game has been going.  We talk a bit about Monster Hunter World now that Thalen and Grace have met Nergigante, which weirdly leads to some talks about Battle For Azeroth, Sea of Thieves and the desire for a Collaborative Sandbox game.

Topics Discussed:

  • Phantasy Star Online 2
  • Neverwinter - Strongholds
  • Dishonored Death of the Outsider
  • L5R Update
  • Monster Hunter
  • Battle For Azeroth Concerns
  • Sea of Thieves
  • Wanting a Collaborative Sandbox
Direct download: aggrochat_episode195.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:06am EDT