Sun, 29 September 2019
Tonight we talk Untitled Goose Game, Link’s Awakening, some more WoW Classic Discussion and Bel makes a heartfelt plea to get folks to watch a 4 hour long video.
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Sun, 22 September 2019
HONK!!!!! So tonight we have some topics that have bumped around a bit. Namely talking about Accessibility versus Friction in Game Design concepts. This is very much on our minds now as a lot of things we thought we didn’t like, end up being what is providing the cohesion needed to keep moving forward in World of Warcraft classic. This however ends up creating a bunch of problems namely it is a real challenge to stay up to date with your friends so that you can keep doing content together. We talk about some systems that work and Tams disdain for mentoring systems. Finally we dig into Magic the Gathering and talk about Kodras most recent dive into Standard and some of the upcoming mechanics that will be arriving soon with Throne of Eldraine. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 15 September 2019
Tonight we have a handful of things to talk about that are not World of Warcraft Classic and were smart enough to start with those. First up Ash has been playing a lot of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and seemingly Tam and Ammo are stuck at the same point before things get interesting. From there we talk about Greedfall and confronting the legacy of colonialism in a fantasy Action RPG. Tam talks a bit about Kind Words, something that is not exactly a game but is most definitely a joyful experience that has conspired to make me late getting the podcast out this morning. Finally we talk at length about World of Warcraft Classic and some of the design differences we are noticing between it and Retail. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 8 September 2019
Last week we recorded our second half of the Shadowbringers spoiler show, but as a result it pushed a few topics off to this week. First we talk about Pax West and the experiences of Ash, Kodra and Tam as they roamed the show floor. After that we talk about the most recent Nintendo Direct and some of the titles that stood out. Lastly we go over our normal time talking about our most recent obsession World of Warcraft Classic. I am sure this will be a topic spread across many weeks but we at least start the discussion of our feelings about returning to a game that seemingly we still enjoy playing.
Topics Discussed
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Sun, 1 September 2019
Last week we recorded the first part of our deep dive and heavy spoilery show on the Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers Expansion. We realized that it was going to take more than a single night and opted to break it up into two shows. This week we record the second part of the show and finish our discussion. So we sit down and talk our way up to and including the latest raid.
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Sun, 25 August 2019
Every so often something affects the entire crew of the show enough to make us want to do an all hands deep dive into it. We had been waiting for the last few stragglers to finish up the Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers content before recording our big spoiler show, and over the last few weeks that happened. Tongiht we have the full normal cast as well as a friend of the show Shiana for a sit down as we crawl through the story of this expansion. Unfortunately, we realized there was no way to cram it into a single episode so we will continue next week with the second part.
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Sun, 18 August 2019
Tonight we talk briefly about Destiny 2 and the upcoming armor 2.0 and cross save changes. From there Ash talks about diving into Fire Emblem Warriors and why he thinks it is the best of the Warriors games. Bel talks a little bit about his new favorite Switch controller the 8Bitdo Pro+. Then Grace and Bel engage the rest of the group in some discussion about World of Warcraft and the Nazjatar and Mechagon areas. This leads into some talk about Classic and how some accessibility features have lowered the social aspect of the game. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 11 August 2019
Tonight we have a show where we clean up the trello card and run through a bunch of stuff that has largely rolled over from other shows. First up we discuss Games Workshop finally putting the pre-Age of Sigmar world to bed and cleaning up the factions. From there we discuss Kodra’s experiences with the very early access Gloomhaven Computer Game. Kodra talks a bit about Gencon 2019 more specifically the Stellaris Board Game and True Dungeon. We discuss Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and a very brief discussion about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. Bel really wishes someone else was reading House of X and Powers of X so he could discuss it. Lastly Thalen talks a bit about the Gundam Mobile game and how it is still better than New Gundam Breaker. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 4 August 2019
We were once again down a large number of folks because life happens and we were clearly on a streak of shows including all members that had to be broken. Unlike last week however we have some topics! Bel talks a bit about playing Final Fantasy V for the first time without using the Four Job Fiesta rules, which we all know is backwards. We talk a bit about Final Fantasy XIV including Eden Savage being released. From there we talk a bit about Fire Emblem Three Houses and the comparison to Persona as far as social links go. Bel also gets informed of the casual no-perma-death mode which was the feature that kept him away from the series. Bel talks about the Destiny 2 Solstice of Heroes event and returning to the game after a bunch of content had been released. Finally we wrap up with some talk about the Warframe summer event and Super Soaker combat. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 21 July 2019
Tonight we talk about more Shadowbringers, which I am sure is a massive shock to our readers. First off we talk about the thirst that the internet seems to have for several of the characters and why Urianger is always the wrong choice for that sort of thing. From there we talk about the Eden raid fights and why we are apparently misremembering all of these fights. From there we talk comic con announcements namely She-Ra and Steven Universe stuff with a side jaunt into the announcement of the next Magic the Gathering set bringing us back to Lorwyn. Finally we wrap things up with some talk about Kodra delving into some harder Mario Maker 2 levels. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 14 July 2019
Tonight we talk about the Switch Lite announcement and how it may not be for all of us, but is absolutely the use case for at least one of our numbers. We also wonder how long before we get an announcement of the console only Switch Pro, since we now have a handheld only version. We dive into the Magic 2020 set and some of the interesting metas that it does a good job of breaking up. From there we talk about Battle Passes and the one MTG Arena has landed upon specifically. Lastly we talk a whole lot of nonsense about Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers I believe with minimal spoilers. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 7 July 2019
This is a bit of a challenging week, and we largely went into it not knowing if we actually had a show or not. If you look at our trello there is mostly just a bunch of comments about how we played nothing but Shadowbringers this week. Kodra played a few things and we talk about Tametsi and Mario Maker 2 some more… and then there is a brief interlude about the TennoCon Stream. However the majority of this show is us talking about Shadowbringers and we have limited ourselves to only talking spoilers up until the first Trial. This is of course because we are progressed to various points in the story… and my god does the story matter this time. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 30 June 2019
Tonight we have a show made up in part of some roll over topics. The first of these is World Next Door an action puzzler which leads to general discussion about action puzzle games and the challenges with them. From there we talk about Wizards Unite and some of the problems with it. Continuing on we take brief stops at Vermintide and Mario Maker 2 on our way to some Shadowbringers discussion. We make an attempt to do some spoiler free commentary about the Final Fantasy XIV expansion so far.
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Sun, 23 June 2019
Tonight we have a few new things to discuss and a few topics that bumped from last week. However first off we talk about Four Job Fiesta the charity event where you run Final Fantasy V with a randomly assigned set of jobs. Next up we talk about the sheer blasphemy that is how well the Games Workshop Contrast paints work. From there we go into how damned good Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is and how it is exactly the game we wanted it to be. Kodra geeks out about the Silksong Nintendo Treehouse demo and who much he is looking forward to that game. Tam talks about his recent run through of Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition on Tablet, and we end the show with some talk about SGDQ or Summer Games Done Quick starting on Sunday. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 16 June 2019
Tonight we actually record episode 256 and we believe the first time have all seven active members of the show on at the same time. We start the show with a bumped topic about Lapis X Labyrinth and then dive into a lengthy stream of consciousness ramble about the various things we saw from E3. As a result we talk about over thirty games… during which I probably lost count of a few in my running list.
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Sun, 9 June 2019
Tonight I completely butcher the intro because my co-hosts decided to get clever with it. Tonight we talk about a lot of stuff that is coming out ahead of E3… which in truth is the only time that matters given that the only people who care about the actual show are the ones attending in person. We talk about the Google Stadia presser and Destiny 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 news that came out of it. We talk about the only thing from EA that matters… the progressively less vaporware Jedi Fallen Order. We talk the weird case of the Magic the Gathering Animated Series and then on to Pokemon Goodest Boy Edition. Lastly a brief topic about how Ubisoft is dumb. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 2 June 2019
We start the show off with an explanation of what exactly happened to the end of Episode 253 and why Tam had to build a brand new server for us to record on. From there we dig into the Shadowbringers class design tweaks and how they tend to land on the side of making things less janky and more accessible to players. Bel also has another revelation that the expansion is right around the corner. Bel talks briefly about the weird decisions Nintendo is making surrounding Super Mario Maker 2 and stopping us from playing with our friends. This is a continued version of a long topic that is Nintendo Still Does Not Understand the Internet. They do however understand product promotion which is part of a whole discussion about the fact that E3 is starting next week. Lastly we wrap up with a discussion about Modern Horizons and how Magic seems to be making some really interesting decisions that are paying off for them. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 26 May 2019
So just a heads up we had some technical difficulty while recording the show. Apparently the server that we use to record on was slowly dying throughout the night and culminated in a grand crescendo at the end with us all getting disconnected. As a result we cut off abruptly. In between these issues however we talk about Final Fantasy XIV Live Letter and the upcoming class changes. Bel talks about how Crowfall is turning into a game and feels like less of a tech demo than it did. Tam talks about Total War Three Kingdoms. We discuss the madness that happened after last weeks show and lots more people signing on to the World of Warcraft Classic madness. We wrap up with a topic about some of the cool stuff Games Workshop is doing. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 19 May 2019
Tonight we are down an Ammo and start off with a discussion about hosting providers and the process of moving the 77,000 files that make up AggroChat.com. From there we talk about MMO Housing and the madness that is camping an opening in Final Fantasy XIV. Bel got into the WoW Classic Beta and talks about his experiences of relearning the game and plans to start a dungeon and raiding guild called Decades Behind once things go live. Kodra talks about how Server Transfers started the process of destroying Server Communities which leads to some hopes of static servers in Classic. We talk for a bit about the PC RPG Pathfinder: Kingmaker and how it is close to the campaign. Finally Bel talks a bit about getting a new tablet and venturing forth into Tablet gaming.
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Sun, 12 May 2019
After a week off you can effectively blame Belghast for filling the Trello full of partial topics, and the rest of the show for not replacing them with something meaningful. As a result we have a fairly fragmented show. In importance news however Ammo is joining the team permanently. The most important thing discussed however is the fact that Tam gave us a new term… that of the noble Melon-Snake. Here is a quick rundown of the varied topics discussed: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trailer, Xur coming to Fallout 76, Monster Hunter World Iceborne and Bloodstained Ritual of the Night release dates, Unplayable Magic Decks, The madness of Arcade emulation, The sad state of Anthem. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 28 April 2019
Tonight we are down a Grace and a Thalen but have picked up a special guest. Ammo is the official unofficial AggroChat Artist given that she has done most of the artwork that you have seen over the last few years associated with both AggroChat and the Aggronaut blog. First up we talk about when breaking the rules of a game makes for a better experience. From there Bel talks about Marvel Heroes notalgia and quelling it with the Mobile game Marvel Future Fight. From there Bel talks about his new Mayflash f500 fight stick and some discussion about Mortal Kombat 11. We talk a bit about the release of War of the Spark on Magic the Gathering Arena. Ash talks about the Lancer pen and paper RPG system, and finally some discussion about Persona 5 Royal. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 21 April 2019
Last week we failed to announce the 5th anniversary of our show so we start off talking a bit about that. From there Bel goes into a discussion about the BlizzCon Spirit and how he seemingly has caught the Star Wars version and returned to SWTOR after the Star Wars Celebration announcements. We talk about the game quite a bit and then get into a discussion of Jedi Fallen Order which we missed from last week. From there we talk Magic the Gathering Arena and how Kodra is finally playing Standard. We also talk about doing some direct Duels and the current Magnificent Momir format. Finally a discussion about Pagan Online that devolves into a discussion about upcoming ARPGs in general. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 14 April 2019
Going into the show we had what seemed like a pretty slim set of show notes… but somehow we actually ended up bumping topics. We start off with a discussion of Grim Dawn since Bel and Grace have been playing it. This leads into a talk about loot generosity spawned by the loot filters in both Grim Dawn and Path of Exile and that ends up going off in its own direction. We talk a bit about the Star Wars Episode IX trailer which spawns a discussion about the Star Wars Cinematic Universe… which winds its way to the Marvel Comic Universe… which winds its way to a general discussion about Comic books. Finally a brief topic about a Warframe learning from its mistakes and trying a do-over on the Hildryn event. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 7 April 2019
Tonight we delve into the esoteric talking more about concepts than concrete things. Bel leads off with a discussion of a game he has been playing lately Outward, and how it feels like we remember Everquest feeling even though it is not entirely certain if that was the purpose. From there we delve into a topic that has been sitting on our list for awhile but kept getting bumped due to time… namely Focus-Consuming Games as in the games that as a lot out of the player. This starts a discussion about the constraints on our time and how occasionally a game is just expecting you to be playing it as a hobby. From there we delve into a topic spawned from a YouTube video linked below… discussing how a lot of Games as a Service titles are manufacturing discontent among the players to spur them into making purchases. We discuss that there are a lot of lessons to be learned in how to do this well from the Mobile Gaming space and how in many cases Genres don’t matter the way they used to. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 31 March 2019
Tonight we are down a Tam and also down having a constructed list of topics to go from. The only roll forward topic left on the list is decidedly a “Tam” topic so we end up more or less winging it. There is a decidedly Pax East flair to the show given that a number of topics we discussed circle things announced at or going on during Pax. However none of the crew actually attended this year. Related to this we talk about The Outer Worlds, Magic the Gathering Mythic Invitational, Wolfenstein Youngblood Trailer, Borderlands 3 Trailer. There is a brief interlude about returning to Final Fantasy XIV which Grace has done this week, and another oddball topic as Bel discusses getting Cemu the Wii U Emulator up and running and playing Breath of the Wild rendered in native 4k. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 24 March 2019
Tonight we talk about Baba Is You, a game that has sort of come from out of nowhere but dominated large chunks of our time recently. From there Bel talks about how Division 2 has improved upon the original, which leads is way to a discussion about the political ramifications of the game and how UbiSoft claims there are not any. From there we discuss Sekiro and how it is in many ways a brand new Tenchu game. Finally we discuss the Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest Tokyo reveals. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 17 March 2019
Tonight signals the triumphant return of Doctor Grace! I cannot adequately express how happy we are to have her back among our number. As far as topics go… we once again punt forward the only topic that we had planned and replace them with a few discussions gathered up moments before we started recording. Tonight we talk about Anthem and get Grace’s impressions so far… as well as dig into some of the frustrations around high end loot and weird item scaling. Thalen tells us how to learn to love Eureka in Final Fantasy XIV and get past the fact that it is so grindy. Finally we wrap things up with a discussion about the Super Mario World Rom Hack scene and the differences between Vanilla and Chocolate. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 10 March 2019
Tonight we start the show with a heartfelt congratulations for our very own now Doctor Grace, for passing the gauntlet and defending her thesis. While I am certain we will revisit this point when she officially returns to the show, we thought it was worth noting tonight. After derailing completely on a discussion about the origin of the Garter snake… we dive into Pokemon Scotland aka Sword and Shield and the little bit of information we know about it at this point. From there Bel talks a bit about the Magic the Gathering Deck Builder's Toolkit league that he is starting at work and why he went down that path. Kodra breaks off from this into a discussion about the game Gruff, which leads to further talk about how balanced asymmetrical play is really hard to design. We then dig into some of the large patches that happened this past week… namely Anthem that occured mere hours before recording the show and Warframe that occurred earlier in the week. Bel and Tam talk a bit about their impressions so far about the tweaks made that make the characters feel significantly more powerful in Anthem. The rest of the crew that plays Warframe… which is basically everyone but Bel… dive into a discussion about the changes that were made to the melee combat system and some of the things that are soon to come as well. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 3 March 2019
This week we talk about the topic that has spent the most time so far rolling from show to show because we didn’t feel like we had enough time to properly address it. We have a Trello board where we stub out future topics, and before Christmas Tam put the topic of Silent versus Voiced protagonists on that board… and we are finally getting around to talking about it. Not surprisingly we spent almost the entire episode on this one topic as there is a lot of stuff to unpack here about characters and whether or not we are meant to place ourselves into them. We also talk briefly about the Warframe Nightwave alert system that just went into that game. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 24 February 2019
This week we are still down a Grace but also down a Tamrielo because work travel happens. Tonight we start the show with a discussion of Civilization VI and its new Gathering Storm expansion. This introduces the fearful Hockey Rink building and Mountie fielding Canadian Army… and also natural disasters. Then we get into a discussion about Anthem and our feelings about the release. I think as a whole we are largely enjoying it, but even at that we talk a bit about the problems the game is having. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 17 February 2019
This evening we discuss the Anthem “Launch” and the spreadsheet that is required to understand it. We give a quick summary of our experiences and how it is turning out to be really freaking good. From there we dive into Silksong the Hornet DLC that has turned into its own larger than the original Hollow Knight game. We also talk about the first Nintendo Direct of the new year and all of the games that got announced. Bel tortures Kodra with some brief discussion about Keen Dreams showing up on the Switch. Finally we dive into a topic about playing games for what they are actually good at rather than trying to bend them to our will.
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Sun, 10 February 2019
Tonight we have a bunch of not entirely related topics, but there is at least a minor theme of how you end something is extremely important. Bel talks a bit about his experiences with the latest brand name beta in the form of Division 2. From there he also shares some frustrations with the way Assassin’s Creed Origins is ending which leads its way into a larger discussion about what makes a satisfying game ending. We talk about what this means for passive media and how it might be different for interactive media. We then get into a discussion about progression systems and why fixed ones often times feel better than completely random ones. Finally we have some assorted digression about us looking forward to Anthem as a non-PVP mmo that somehow leads its way to FFXIV housing?
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Sun, 3 February 2019
Tonight we talk about a bunch of things that have been sitting in our list as well as a quick revisit of Anthem and how much difference a week can make. We all for the most part struggled last weekend but things have gone extremely smoothly this weekend. From there we talk about the revelations from Fanfest Paris… and the new Gunbreaker class giving us Gunblade Tanks! We talk a bit about the various titles coming out for the Switch in the near future and close up with a postmortem of Octopath Traveller.
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Sun, 27 January 2019
Tonight we talk mostly about the Anthem Demo and our thoughts about it. Having played it or at least repeatedly attempted to play it... we have things to discuss from our feelings about various Javelin types to the general feel of the gameplay. Additionally we talk a bit about Ravnica Allegiances which officially came out this week. Kodra and Bel have been drafting some on MTG Arena and talk a bit about the mechanics that they are enjoying. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 20 January 2019
Tonight we have a fairly packed show as Ashgar is recording from Pax South 2019. As such we start off with a rundown of some of the games he played. From there Bel talks a bit about TemTem or a game he backed but forgot to fill out the survey for that is actually a Not-Pokemon MMORPG. We dive into some talk about games that have massively overhauled themselves specifically discussing Stellaris and Warframe. Then we get into a discussion about normal and mundane things happening in games and how it sometimes enriches the experience in ways you don’t at first expect. Finally a quick discussion about Elder Scrolls Online and the Necromancer before we realize we have gone well over time.
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Sun, 13 January 2019
There is an auditory warning, but we figured we would throw one out here as well. During about the last 15 minutes of the podcast something went wrong with Bel’s audio where the last bit of every statement got clipped. So you essentially lost the last word he was saying. This weeks show starts with a discussion about Kickstarter projects, which leads into talk of some of the things we have backed and how Bel is that guy that fails to fill out surveys. From there we jump into a discussion about Far Cry 5 and how it is a game where the forced story gets in the way of everything else. This leads into a discussion about Destiny 2, the Bungie divorce from Activision, and even to some discussions about how important publishers actually are now. This also includes a bit about the bidding war for Gamestop between the folks behind Hot Topic and the folks behind Redbox. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 6 January 2019
This week we set out a plan of some dozen different topics… but only actually made it through two of them. Last we recorded the Games of the Year show and this week we started things off with some discussion of a few of the honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the list. From there we had a discussion about what games interest us for the upcoming year… and the list we gathered up is sorta nonsense. I have no clue what order we actually tackled them in so just sorta going to make an attempt at listing everything out. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 30 December 2018
This evening we do our traditional Games of the Year show, and apparently we are way less verbose than we used to be. These shows used to get chopped into two roughly hour and a half long shows… but this year we managed to do it in pretty much two hours straight. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that we churned through nineteen games in the process. Ultimately we each pick roughly five games that were important to us during the calendar year, and some overlap always occurs. This year less overlap happened than is normal.
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Sun, 23 December 2018
Tonight we are down a few people and have a fairly scattered show where we cover a bunch of topics… but none of them super deeply? You can tell we were all somewhat out of it because while editing the podcast there were a bunch of really lengthy pauses. Tonight Bel rails in the Elder Scrolls Patcher apparently being blocked by various ISPs including his. He also talks a bit about the Destiny 2 Dawning Event and making questionable baked goods. Thalen talks a bit about the FFXIV Starlight Celebration event. Bel spins up a topic from his blog about the seeming return to NDA restricted games testing. Thalen talks about Return of the Obra Dinn, and Kodra a bit about Gris. We discuss the topic that has bounced around a bit on the significance of going Left in video games. There is some brief discussion about Artifact and how it is trying to right the ship… and some of the MTG Finance speculation that came into that market quickly that is super angry about the price crash. Finally we talk a bit about Starfinder and Pathfinder in general and the lack of really good ready made third party modules. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 9 December 2018
Tonight we had more topics than we had time to talk about them, but we managed to hit the majority of them. First up Bel talks about his frustrations with Black Armory the latest content drop in Destiny 2 and their overarching plan of content releases going forward. He also talks a bit about the Last Wish raid that he got drug through this week. From there we talk a bit about the Game Awards and how weird it is that they are actually relevant. We discuss how it is turning into E3 part two as major shows give big release information… and occasionally they give an award for things between the commercials. Grace talks about Hades the new title from Supergiant Games and how it jumps right into her wheelhouse of the Action RPG blended with a Rogue Lite. This also starts a discussion about how Epic Games is vying for serious competition with Steam by discounting their cut of sales. Finally we talk about the new Smash Bros game and the World of Light adventure mode. Featured Topics
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Sun, 2 December 2018
Tonight we talk a bit about Monster Hunter World Winter Star Event and how maddening the Tempered Kirin is. From there we talk about the closing of MMOs and specifically the loss of Wildstar. Several of us have returned to Final Fantasy XIV as is often the case at the end of an expansion. We briefly talk about some frustrations with World of Warcraft and then go into a discussion about puzzle games you can zone out while playing specifically Tetris Effect in VR and the amazing Lumines. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 25 November 2018
Tonight we talk about a bunch of differing topics… that sorta blend together into a mix of ideas. We start off with some discussion of Thanksgiving Leftover abominations. From here Belghast talks a bit about his experiences with extremely Hardcore players on mobile phone games. This sorta leads its way into discussions of MMO Design problems, which itself leads to talking about the FFXIV Shadowbringers expansion announcement. We discuss the problems with the Blue Mage and how the Limited Class construct is probably not the right way to do it. This leads eventually into a discussion of the shenanigans that Tam and Kodra and crew have been up to in Fallout 76. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 18 November 2018
Tonight we talk about a bunch of things starting off with the interesting and also sort of weird experience of watching a movie, and having a live orchestra play the soundtrack. Ash talks about his experiences with the new Spyro the dragon and the practice of modernizing games without really changing the original gameplay. From there we talk about the insanely charming Pokemon Let’s Go game and how it is seemingly way more sticky for a few of us than core Pokemon games. Tam and Kodra talk about how with Diablo 3 on the Switch they finally understand what Grace and Bel see in this game. Grace talks a bit about the new Netflix She-Ra. Bel talks about his disappointment in the newest Hellgate: London steam release. Finally we end up in a lengthy conversation about Fallout 76 multiplayer and how this game does not deserve the grief reviewers have been heaping on it. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 11 November 2018
Tonight we are down a few people but pick up with a topic that sorta got skipped from the previous week which is Deltarune the new Toby Fox Game. From there Kodra talks about his experiences with The Messenger and then the game Getting Over It. At which point we discuss how much Kodra apparently loves meat grinder games. Bel talks about the purchase of Obsidian and inExile and how it is probably good for the longevity of those studios. From there we discuss the conflict between investors and game players…. Fighting for the soul of a game beginning with the news that Destiny 2 is “Under Performing” and sorta going off in different directions from there. Bel talks about his experiences trying a bunch of new Mobile games and encounters the weird trend of mobile games that literally play themselves. Finally we move into a discussion about how much Ashgar would like us all to try Cross Code. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 4 November 2018
Tonight we have a packed show full of topics to discuss because as we hurdle towards the holiday season… a bunch of stuff is happening. First up we talk about Super Smash Bros Ultimate and the inclusion of the World of Light single player system. From there with similar Nintendo topics we talk a bit about the Diablo 3 Switch release and just how good it feels. Chaining off that we get into a discussion about Blizzcon 2018 and the announcement that the community was not prepared for… Diablo Immortal. We try and break this down a little bit, talk about the positives of it, and explain why the community as a whole freaked the hell out in a very toxic and dangerous manner. Admittedly somewhere along in here we jump around through a bunch of topics but eventually settle into a discussion of World of Warcraft Classic and all of the things Bel quite honestly didn’t remember from playing on a retro client. Saturday afternoon Bel, Tam and Kodra spent a few hours roaming around in Fallout 76, so there is some talk about how much they are now looking forward to the release. Finally we wrap up with a brief discussion of Deltarune, which honestly happened in a few places during the show… but will likely be reprised next week.
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Sun, 28 October 2018
This week we welcome Thalen back from his Japanese sojourn, and with that we have a brief reprisal of the monetization topic from a few weeks back. From there he talks a bit about his own experiences in Japan and how watching Tam experience it for the first time brought back all the feelings of his own first memories. We talk a bit about slow game starts, primarily Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and then some talk of Persona games. From there Bel talks a bit about digging into Destiny 2 Forsaken and all of the quality of life tweaks that have been made. From there we discuss Starlink and how the Nintendo Switch Digital Deluxe version is the correct way to purchase this game. Finally at the very end there is some talk of League of Legends Worlds. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 21 October 2018
Tonight we lead off the show with a brief explanation of why there was no show last week. Namely Bel was at a wedding, Grace still in DC, Tam and Thalen in Japan… and Kodra and Ash probably wisely decided not to record a duo show. No offense to any of the bajillion podcasts out there that are always a duo show… but that isn’t our schtick. Since Tam is in fact back from his vacation we talk a bit about his experiences on his first trip to Japan. This leads into a discussion about the Pokemon Go culture and how popular the game is there. From there Bel talks briefly about his nonsense “Wireless Ethernet” set up and playing the latest God of War game over it. From there we delve into a discussion about the Hollow Knight Randomizer and Steel Soul mode. Finally we briefly touch on The Messenger and Gris. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 7 October 2018
This week we are down half of our show, but weirdly enough ended up very close to our original line up from the first few AggroChat shows… only missing Rae. We were concerned we might not have enough material for a show, but wound up only about 10 minutes short of our average which seems pretty good. Tonight we talk about Monetization in Free to Play games and in part why some games it feels good to spend money on, and others it feels exploitative. This explores mobile games and mmorpgs as well. From there Bel talks a bit about his experiences restarting with Monster Hunter World PC and how weirdly most of the progress was raising his skill and not necessarily his gearing. Kodra talks about his experiences with Mega Man 11 which leads to a discussion of this golden age of modern 2D side scrollers. Finally we wrap things up with some discussion about Guilds of Ravnica and how it feels in a constructed and sealed environment on MTG Arena.
Topics Discussed
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Sun, 30 September 2018
Tonight my stalwart friends managed to make me completely fail at getting through the intro once more. The truth is I never know what Ash is going to say when I call upon him… tonight was not a thing I was expecting. The first game discussed was Spiderman for PS4 which had rolled over from a few shows. Next up the start of the MTG Arena Open Beta and the end of wipes… so that everything from this point in theory carried forward indefinitely. Kodra talks about his experiences playing Celeste and its interesting variable difficulty settings. We talk about Dragalia Lost and how it is once again taking the world by storm… as most Nintendo mobile releases seem to. Finally we talk a bit about Battle for Azeroth and why some of the systems and the grind involved with them feels bad and often times pointless. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 23 September 2018
Tonight we have another show largely made up of topics that have rolled over from previous shows when we ran out of time. We start the show with some reasonable methadone for Justice Monsters Five… in the form of a little early access Android game called Zombie Rollers. From there we talk a bit about Dragon Quest XI which leads to a discussion about Dragon Warrior and Quest titles in North America. Tam talks about his experiences with Hyperlight Drifter on the switch which leads its way to a discussion about Hollow Knight. This time said discussion is a spoiler filled dive and I highly suggest playing the game before checking out this segment. Finally at the very end we talk about Diablo 3 Season 15… the upcoming switch release, our hopes for Blizzcon and some of the rumors circulating. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 16 September 2018
Tonight we record a show that has almost nothing to do with Gorb… but you are going to get that as a name anyways because reasons. This is another one of those shows that has a bunch of topics that kept rolling over from other shows until we managed to align enough of them that sorta made sense together. Tonight we talk about MMOs an awful lot covering the life cycle of the new player experience, returning player experience and the completely and total nonsense that happens at end game with power creep. Rough Approximation of Topics
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Sun, 9 September 2018
Last week we did not have a show because half of AggroChat was at Pax West and no one really wanted to listen to Grace and I trying to do a show by ourselves. Tonight however we have the entire gang back with a bounty of games to talk about from Pax West 2018. This is a really long list and we managed to get through all of them in our normal allotted time. Be warned as we go further into the bowels of this list, the discussion points get considerably more brief. There were twenty eight games that I was able to catch… there might have been more and they may not be in the same order… but we gave it an attempt to track it all.
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Sun, 26 August 2018
Tonight we have the full group and end up talking mostly about World of Warcraft and the Battle For Azeroth expansion so far. If you listened last week... Tam became interested enough in the expansion that he renewed his account which lead to a whole sequence of events happening. One of which resulted in him finding out he had a hopelessly broken character. We talk about that event and the absolutely primo customer service he received as a result of it. We talk about the lack of players in War mode and how Blizzard apparently is planning on throwing more incentives towards playing in that fashion. We talk about our experiences in dungeons so far and how some seem way harder than others. We talk about the release of the Queen Azshara cinematic and what that maybe means for the future. We talk about how we are seeing some of the best storytelling in WoW's history through this expansion. Tam presents an impassioned defense of playing "boring" humans in fantasy games, which leads to a discussion more about world building than anything else. Finally Kodra talks a bit about his new career in Glitchless Speedrunning primarily through VVVVVV, which turns into a discussion about speedrunning and the glitchless variant in particular. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 19 August 2018
This evening we talk about a bunch of stuff but first Ashgar sings for us and makes me lose my shit… so working as intended. Grace and Bel talk about their experiences in Battle For Azeroth so far and how it turned out not to be as factiony as we expected. We also sorta convince Tam to give the story a shot even though we know he will bounce off it eventually. Bel talks about his recent journey into Mastodon and how it seems like a throwback to the early days of the internet. Tam also has joined in this process and talks about how the experience so far has been better for him than Twitter was. Tam also talks about his experiences with the game Detroit and so far how it seems to be less pretentious than the average David Cage fare. Finally we talk about some comfort gaming and enjoyable mechanical loops like Warframe, Destiny and Dead Cells.
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Sun, 12 August 2018
Tonight Belghast completely crashes and has to reboot, during the intro. Additionally Kodra also crashes at some point during the LARP conversation and we sorta have to move on while he comes back online. It is one of those shows. You have been warned. We talk about GenCon and the convention going experience. We talk a bit about Steambirds Alliance and what a bullet-hell-perma-death-steampunk-bird-mmo is like. If you have enough dashes you can connect any genres! We talk about Monster Hunter World on the PC and how it isn’t quite the dumpster fire that the internet reports it to be. We talk about questing in 4X games and why everyone but Bel seems to think this is an awesome. Then we sorta break down into a lengthy diatribe about Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and which versions were good at what. It's a Show! Topics Discussed
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Sun, 5 August 2018
As part of the 2018 Blaugust Reborn Initiative the blogger Chestnut from Gamer Girl Confessions (gamergirlconfessions.com) has challenged us to create some mini podcasts. There is a sequence of questions that we were asked to answer, and in my case I sorta gave some pretty big combo answers for most of them. You can find the full length of questions as part of this blog post (https://gamergirlconfessions.com/2018/07/30/imposter-syndrome-and-your-blog/). Essentially Belghast talks about how he got his start with Tales of the Aggronaut and some general advice to new bloggers. There is still plenty of time to participate in Blaugust this year so check out http://aggronaut.com/2018/07/09/blaugust-reborn/ for more details. |
Sun, 5 August 2018
Tonight we have as show that goes way off course, but often times those are some of our better shows because we follow the passion. Bel talks a bit about Blaugust Reborn and the successes so far. All of the talk about World of Warcraft has lead Tam to go back and play Warcraft 3. We talk about where all of the story beats come from and where World of Warcraft maybe went south around Cataclysm. We also talk about maybe that there should have been a World of Warcraft 2. We talk a bit about the new Richard Garfield game Keyforge and how Magic the Gathering is not actually the game he intended to design. Bel talks a bit about the concept of a Destiny Pen and Paper game which leads into a discussion about Modern Tabletop gaming… and how we need the gaming version of a Country Club.
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Sun, 29 July 2018
Tonight we sit down and talk through our feelings about Battle For Azeroth and its fairly tone deaf ad campaign. We dig into the "It Matters" videos and how it feels fairly irresponsible at a time when our country and world is pulled apart already by some fairly serious points of division. We talk about how playing World of Warcraft should be a thing to bring people together rather than pull them apart. We also talk about the Warbringers video series and how we are afraid it is setting up Jaina, Sylvannas and Azshara to be the next set of raid bosses. Finally we talk briefly about the novel and event that are leading up to this expansion. At the tail end of the show we talk a bit about drafting M19 in Magic Arena and Bel's nonsensical luck at pulling cards. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 22 July 2018
Tonight we are down a few people... in fact half of them. So you have to deal with the remainder that is left after you take away a Kodra, Thalen and Grace. For those who are caught up with their critical AggroMath skills... you are left with a Bel, a Tam and an Ash. Three individuals who have mostly been playing Elder Scrolls Online and as a result you get to listen to us gush about our most recent experiences... including Bel's Cross-Tamriel murder spree for a creepy dark god. Additionally you get to listen to Ash and Tam talk a bit more about Age of Sigmar and the interesting army choices where we all lose money for Ash not collecting Lizardmen. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 15 July 2018
Tonight we continue our recent tradition of picking up on topics that we did not quite have time for on the previous episode. First off we discuss our general feelings about “cheating” and by cheating we are talking about relying on guides, maps, and walkthroughs in additional to other more traditional cheats and mods. From there Bel talks a bit about his experiences with Orsinium and how playing through all three factions of the original Elder Scrolls Online content is paying off. From there we discuss long games that have a very clear failure state and how generally lousy that feels when it occurs. Finally we talk a bit about the recent ArenaNet community issues and share some of our feelings about it. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 8 July 2018
Tonight we record a normal show... and by normal I mean one that starts off completely derailing Belghast. We have a new way of trying to make sure topics that don't actually make it on a weeks show roll over to the next week... and as a result there are a bunch of topics that have been sitting in limbo for awhile that we dig into. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 1 July 2018
Tonight we record our June 2018 Game of the Month Show for the quirky parody RPG Evoland 2. This was Ashgar's pick because it largely expands on the part of Evoland 1 that felt really good. We talk about what the game does extremely well and how it fell a little short by maybe letting some of the sequences outstay its welcome. We also talk a bit about the July Game of the Month that we will be playing next month. |
Sun, 24 June 2018
Last week we went into the show with a long list of topics, and then wound up only talking about the news coming out of E3 2018. This week we attempt to pick up the pieces left on the cutting room floor and move on with some of the topics we missed. Bel talks a bit about getting into the survival mode in The Division. Tam discusses his journies into PSVR with Rez, Skyrim and Moss. Bel talks a bit about firing back up Elder Scrolls Online. We talk a bit about the release of Hollow Knight for the Switch and the beginning of Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta with its new Forbidden mode. Topics Discussed
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Sat, 16 June 2018
Tonight we start out with a list of topics to discuss… and never quite make it past E3 2018. This was one packed year with a bunch of interesting titles announced. We talk about most of the shows and some of the titles that interested each of us the most. We jump around a lot so it is more of a free form discussion rather than anything structured. This means we occasionally jump off and talk about things that are not necessarily E3 related.
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Sun, 10 June 2018
Tonight we return with a regular show but are unfortunately down a Tam and a Grace. We talk a bit about Magic the Gathering and more specifically the Battle Bond expansion set as well as Magic Arena getting the Full Standard compliment of expansions. Kodra is more excited however about the ability to do draft mode all the time without having to wait for the weekend events. Bel talks a bit about his recent binging of Dishonored and how playing those games in order turns it into a Mass Effect series sort of experience. From there Bel goes on about the madness he has been doing with Parsec Gaming. We talk a bit about how much we think the Atari VCS is highly possibly vaporware… which leads to some discussion about the lies that are often told at E3. Finally Thalen talks a bit about his experiences with a shop keeper roguelike called Moonlighter. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 3 June 2018
Tonight we talk about the May AggroChat Game Club game… Heroes of Hammerwatch. This was Belghast’s pick who largely though we needed a much more relaxing game after the deep feels that A Night in the Woods gave us. Additionally the first one was a lot of fun and it was well worth exploring what the indirect sequel had to offer. This leads us down a path where we talk about the differences between Rogue-lite and Rogue-like as well as some discussion about procedural generation versus hand built maps. We also talk a bit about the June game of the month Evoland 2. Topics Featured:
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Sun, 27 May 2018
Tonight we change things up a bit and instead of recording the Game of the Month show… we are in fact doing a normal style show. By normal… I mean we are recording with a Tam who has been day drinking. We start off the discussion with Dauntless that just launched on the 24th… and by launch I mean it is a free to play game going into open beta which is absolutely a launch. Ash talks about Hyrule Warriors on the switch and his experiences playing through it and all of the new content that came from the 3DS version. Tam talks a bit about Far Lone Sails a game where you drive a sailboat train and constantly keep moving ever steadily to the right. Finally we talk about games as escapism and this turns into a far darker discussion than I had intended it to. We each sorta talk about how we use games to cope with whatever we are dealing with.
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Sun, 20 May 2018
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:
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Sat, 12 May 2018
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:
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Sun, 6 May 2018
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:
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Sun, 29 April 2018
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. |
Sun, 22 April 2018
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
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Sun, 15 April 2018
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
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Sun, 8 April 2018
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:
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Sun, 1 April 2018
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! |
Sun, 25 March 2018
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
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Sun, 11 March 2018
This week we have a wide number of topics to discuss starting with the Nintendo Direct from March 8th and the fake out announcement of Smash Brothers. We talk a bit about Monster Hunter 4U and Generations and why maybe one is a better starting place in the series than the other. We talk about State of Decay 2 and the backlash over it being on the Windows Store only. We briefly talk about what it would take to make Desktop Linux a reality. Tam talks a bit about finishing the first route in Nier Automata and Bel discusses his experiences with Final Fantasy XV PC including the source of this screenshot. Finally we wrap things up with a discussion about the Legend of Five Rings Living Card game and that Tam has recently begun playing it online unofficially. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 4 March 2018
Tonight we record the March game of the month show… Pyre by Supergiant Games. Transistor was almost universally our first AggroChat game of the year, and as a result we had pretty high expectations about this game. However we wound up with a pretty wide swath of opinions ranging from love to hate. |
Sun, 25 February 2018
This week we went a little off course from our normal show. In truth we are all largely playing the same games we have been playing for the last few weeks. Instead Ashgar proposed a topic where we discussed what makes a grind work in a game. This eventually devolves into a discussion of mostly Monster Hunter World because it seems to have a really great grind mechanic. We also discuss traditional JRPG grinding, MMO grinding, and a bit about why the Destiny 2 grind isn’t really working out. Tune in and grind your faces off! Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 18 February 2018
Generally speaking when I think we have a short show… we end up recording a two hour long epic of nuance and random commentary. This is not one of those situations. We are still very much in a Monster Hunter shaped hole that may or may not be the footprint of the monster we are tracking. That said we do talk a bit about DragonQuest Builders on the Switch and Radiant Historia on the 3DS. However like clockwork we did in fact dig right back into the Monster Hunter goodness as we somehow managed to get Thalen to buy into this nonsense as well. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 11 February 2018
This week we record our 190th episode and for whatever reason each time we tick off a 10th episode it seems like a big deal. Last week during the bustle of getting ready for a show I completely missed a topic so we are leading off with that. Thalen talks a bit about the early access deck building game Slay the Spire. From there we talk a bit about our continued addiction to Monster Hunter World in spite of its flaws on the group interaction side. We talk a bit about our new D&D 5th Edition Campaign set in a custom game world of Tam’s design. Kodra talks a bit about bouncing off of Warframe and that leads to a discussion about games and accessibility. Tam and Ash describe Night in the Woods… and it begins to sound an awful lot like Bel’s experiences with his own home town. From there we attempt to close out the show but get into another discussion about Monster Hunter World before actually succeeding. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 4 February 2018
Tonight we are back after roughly three weeks off… one week missed because I had the flu and another week devoted to a game of the month show. As a result there are a bunch of things we have to say about a wide variety of topics. Bel discovers Wolcen a game attempting to split the line between Diablo 2/Path of Exile and Diablo 3. Kodra talks a bit about how well the Switch works as a mobile gaming platform and his experiences with Mario and Rabbids. Tam talks a bit about Nier Automata and how close he came to just giving up on that game. Kodra talks about his recent trip back to Atlanta and all of the board gaming that happened. Bel talks a bit about Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age and how it weirdly follows the Japanese control standards. Grace talks a bit about her experiences with the recent Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft patches. Then we go through a big discussion about our feelings in regards to the Monster Hunter World release and how we seem to have fallen into a big hole.
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Sun, 28 January 2018
This week we are back after an impromptu absence brought on by the Flu. It is time to record our December/January game of the month show… Persona 5. This was Tam’s pick and he went back and forth as to whether or not he should pick such a long game. However considering we recorded two full hours of packed conversation I am guessing it was a pretty great choice. We also announce Grace’s pick for the February game of the month… Pyre a game that surprisingly only one of us has played given just how much we tend to love games from Super Giant. |
Sun, 14 January 2018
Firstly I feel like I need to lead with an apology. I’ve picked up some crud over the last few weeks and as a result my voice is pretty rough. I manage to make it through the show but there are a handful of long pauses where I went into a coughing fit. Tonight we talk about how jealous I am that Ash is at Pax South and I am not. The timing was horrible and I wouldn’t have wanted to be there in this condition anyways. We talk a bit about Destiny 2 announced changes and Kodra’s recent experiences with Super Mario Odyssey. From there we dive into the recent Nintendo Direct and Tam’s current forray back into Final Fantasy XIV. Lastly we talk a bit about the Total War series, specifically Warhammer 1 and 2. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 7 January 2018
After our long holiday break we return to record the 2017 Games of the Year show. This time around we have sixteen games to talk about. When you get six hosts and ask them what their favorite games were for a calendar year… you are going to get a bunch of answers. Traditionally in the past we have split this into two shows, but this year we recorded it in one go for a show that weighs in a little over 2 hours long. It was a great year for gaming and as always we would love to hear what our listeners favorite picks were. Games Discussed
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Sun, 17 December 2017
This week we decided to bypass a traditional show and do a full spoiler episode for Star Wars the Last Jedi. We talk about the latest Star Wars movie and our thoughts given that they are super fresh in our minds at the moment. This is a very different sort of Star Wars movie and we have a wide variety of opinions on various aspects of the film. Once again this is a full spoiler show so I highly suggest not listening until you have seen the film… or in a few of our cases seen it several times. |
Sun, 10 December 2017
This week we record an unstable show… and by that I mean a huge chunk of the conversation is about the adventures of Tam, Ash and Kodra in drafting the new magic “un” set. From there we talk a bit about Unstable being Legal in Commander for a small amount of time and the ups and downs of Iconic Masters. We talk a bit about the Curse of Osiris DLC for Destiny 2 and the ups and downs of it. This weekend Monster Hunter World Beta is available on the Playstation Network so we talk a little bit about it and Monster Hunter in general. We talk a bit about Reigns: Her Majesty and Fire Emblem Heroes 2.0 release. Topics Discussed:
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Sun, 3 December 2017
We are back from our Thanksgiving Break to record our Divinity Original Sin 2 show. This originally was going to be our October game of the month but we decided we wanted to give this game a bit more time. As a result we recorded the Destiny 2 show in October and moved this to November. Even with that Divinity Original Sin 2 is a really large and complicated game and no one managed to beat it. However we do have a lot of things to talk about the way the game works and our experiences playing it. |
Sun, 19 November 2017
Tonight we record a fairly short show at least as far as AggroChat episodes go. We are down a Kodra because of a holiday party and a Thalen because he has officially cloned himself. This week we welcomed a tiny Thalen spawn into the world, and as a result we are likely going to have fairly spotty attendance from him for awhile because the new boss is brutal. This week we apparently played quite a bit of Super Mario Odyssey so we talk about the game and our feelings so far. Belghast spends some time playing Skyrim on the switch and how shocked he is about how well it works. Grace talks a bit about the World of Warcraft 13th anniversary event, and Ash talks about his thoughts regarding Sonic Forces. From there we delve into a discussion about Necromunda and various Warhammer 40k things. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 12 November 2017
This week we are back recording a traditional show, and as is often the case when we do a game of the month show… stuff happens that we don’t end up talking about. In this case BlizzCon happened and the announcement of both a new World of Warcraft expansion and the concept of “Classic” servers. Now I originally thought we would talk about this just a little bit before moving on to other topics… and instead we recorded damned near an entire show about it. We also talk a little bit about Wolfenstein 2 New Colossus or at least up to the point where Thalen and Kodra have currently progressed. From there we talk a bit about Destiny 2 and our experiences in the Leviathan raid. We discuss the faction rally that is currently going on which leads to a super in the weeds discussion about various weapons. Finally we wrap things up with Millennium Blades a card game about collectible cards games… that lampoons every part of the process. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 5 November 2017
This week we are doing some nonsense. Originally Divinity Original Sin 2 was the October game of the month, but we largely decided we needed more time with that game. As a result we swapped what was going to be the November game of the month in… since we were in most part ready to talk about Destiny 2 and primarily the PC release. So this week we are doing that and discussing the game that Belghast has devoted almost 200 hours playing already between both the PC and PS4 releases. He may or may not be a little obsessed about it, and that's fine because now the other members of AggroChat sorta understand his constant insane ramblings about it. Join us as we dig into the game and talk about whether or not this really is a worthy sequel. |
Sun, 29 October 2017
This week we have a more normal show after last weeks super serious one. We do however have a little bit of a call back in the form of a short discussion about how vocal minorities can negatively impact the press surrounding a game. We talk a bit about the launch of Destiny 2 on the PC and how relatively smoothly it has gone. We touch ever so briefly on the madness happening in Warframe right now with Twitch streams and free loot. From there we delve into Warhammer Shadespire and spend a good deal of time talking about it and past Games Workshop games. This leads to a bit of a discussion about the problem Magic the Gathering has with onboarding new players. Thalen talks about his experiences playing Orwell, and Tam and Ash talk a bit about the Legend of Five Rings Living Card Game. Finally we wrap things up with some talk about clicker games in general and two specifically: Paperclips and Succubox. Featuring
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Sun, 22 October 2017
We admittedly had grand plans and a whole list of things we were originally going to talk about this week. However once we opened the monetization can of worms it sort of dominated the show and a hour and a half later we decided it was probably just best to leave things to being a weird single topic show. This week we are down a Grace and a Thalen and Kodra is recording on different hardware while travelling himself. As a result there are a few rough spots that we attempted to clean up in post production, but corrupted audio is corrupted audio. All in all I feel like this is a really important show because it talks about the whole monetization thing from a series of different angles. I highly suggest you fight through the few rough spots because we unpack a lot of things during the course of this show. |
Sun, 15 October 2017
This is one of those weeks when we seemed to have more topics to discuss than could possibly fit in a single show. We even had to drop one for the sake of time that we will hopefully revisit in a future episode. We start the show off by talking about Shirogane Extreme mode… or the land rush for housing in the newly opened district in Final Fantasy XIV. Ash and Tam took one for the team and sacrificed sleep schedule to get us a brand new house. From there we talk about Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire expansion and some of the things we have noticed so far. Belghast talks a bit about the Iron Banner 2.0 in Destiny, and some miscellaneous discussion about how clans work. Ash and Thalen discuss Dragon Quest Heroes 2 and the Heroes game genre in general. We wrap up with a discussion on Warhammer starting with the brand new stand alone Shadespire game and then talk a bit about Warhammer 40k. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 8 October 2017
Tonight we talk about the September game of the month Horizon Zero Dawn. As is always the case with our game club shows, this is a full spoiler jaunt into this post apocalyptic vision by Guerilla Games. HZD was featured on our Games of the Year show, but since several had yet to beat it we did not do the normal deep dive that we do during a game club show. We talk about what might be the most interesting new science fiction property in recent memory. |
Sun, 1 October 2017
We are down a Tam and a Thalen, and in the case of Tam it was due to his birthday celebrations.. So if you see Tam online send him some belated wishes. This week we lead things off with some talk about Pokken Tournament and its recent release on the Switch as Kodra and Ashgar spent some time playing it this week. We talk about the Nintendo Switch in general and the fact that we all seem to prefer buying new games on it rather than older Nintendo consoles. We talk a bit about the release of Ixalan and some general discussion about the decision to go away from ultra rare chase cards. Belghast talks a bit about the larger Magic the Gathering market place and how this move seems to making prices a bit more stable so far. We talk a bit about our hopes for Magic the Gathering Arena, and how it might bring us what we actually have wanted for awhile… actual Magic in a Hearthstone package. Belghast talks about the Destiny 2 Faction Rally event and how he has collected all 12 weapons currently available from it. Ashgar talks a bit about his experiences in Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire and collecting mounts. Finally Bel talks a bit about the Final Fantasy Record Keeper 30th anniversary event that is going on currently. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 24 September 2017
Tonight we are a bit out of sorts since we are once again down two people… and for the most part have been playing games that will ultimately end up in a game club show. This leads to one of the more meandering shows we have recorded in a really long time where we transition from topic to topic without really announcing the leaps. This was also one of the harder shows to name so I picked one random snippet of obscure discussion from the middle of the show. The show starts with me varying my normal announcing order… and it just sorta continues going awkwardly from there. Enjoy!
Topics Discussed
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Sun, 17 September 2017
Tonight we are down both a Thalen and a Tam and get off on some meandering topics. We start off with some discussion about the Final Fantasy XIV Rising event that just finished and the introduction of the cheap dungeon. From there Belghast gets pretty deep in the woods talking about infusion mechanics and Destiny 2. We branch off from there into a discussion that is really hard to describe. Functionally we were having a chat about MMOs and whether or not the devs are obligated to provide a uniform experience for all players and all activities in a game. This branches out into a bunch of directions from the PVP/PVE debate to how uneven some of the artifact weapon quests felt in World of Warcraft Legion. Kodra talks a bit about his recent journey into the iOS port of one of his favorite Vlaada Chvatil games… Though the Ages. Ashgar gives us some updates on his experience playing through Monster Hunter Stories and we delve a bit into the new Magic the Gathering expansion Ixalan. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 10 September 2017
Tonight we have a bunch of stuff on the docket. We lead off with a discussion about Pax West 2017 that Tam, Kodra and Ashgar attended last weekend. From there we dive into some discussion about the Destiny 2 PS4 launch and how it has been consuming every moment of Bel’s game time. Another big accomplishment is that our Guild in Guild Wars 2 successfully captured the Guild Hall… and have unlocked a completely engrossing minigame in the form of upgrading it. We delve a bit into the mobile game Legendary Game of Heroes, and then veer off the deep end into some discussion about Sonic Mania and the Sonic Archie Comics. The insanity that follows continued long after the podcast… and ultimately had a bunch of us leaving the channel to avoid it. Lastly we talk a bit about Magic the Gathering Arena, their attempt to capture that Hearthstone goodness with actual magic cards. Topics Discussed
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Sun, 3 September 2017
This weekend we talk about a whole slew of topics that have gathered over the past week. We talk about Pax West and Gamescom and how the hype and announcements surrounding them seem to not be keeping up with past years. We talk about Thalen’s descent into Guild Wars 2 and a whole slew of topics related to it. We talk about arriving on Argus in the 7.3 World of Warcraft patch. We talk about the recent Destiny 2 PC Beta experience and how it cemented the decision to play on the PC for most of us. We talk about the Kung Fu MMO of a sort Absolver. We talk about the Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn card game, which leads to some discussion about Magic the Gathering Commander and Star Wars Destiny. Finally we wrap up with a discussion on mobile gaming and some more talk about Legendary Game of Heroes… and a little bit of pining for Glitch. Topics Discussed
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