Alea Iacta Est

On this episode of The AIE Podcast…

Gusty’s new guild challenge is too too cute

SWTOR- Return of the Hype- or, the Hype strikes back, take your pick

ESO- Trials planned, and bosses killed

Zoot’s a running (mount farms) in FFXIV

And, Jehdai is here to talk to us about AIE in Guild Wars 2!

All that and more coming up right now…

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Welcome to episode #379 of the podcast celebrating you, the Alea Iacta Est gaming community, the die has been podcast. This is Mewkow: To my left is Tetsemi: – (catch phrase here). And to my right is Mkallah: Hi folks, there is boozy bread pudding and apple tarts in the guild kitchen). This week we are joined by special guests Jehdai who is here to talk to us about AIE in Guild Wars 2 Welcome!

Before we start in on the news, let’s get back to Jehdai and find out what’s going on in Guild Wars 2- because there is a lot!.

GAME NEWS

GW2 Podcast Notes

• Game Overview
  • Mechanics
    • Hybrid Action/tab targeted combat
    • Every zone is scaled to you, so all content is current content
    • No gear treadmill
    • Level Cap has and always will be 80
    • Integrated wiki
      • /wiki <search term> will open you system web browser on the search page
      • SHIFT-<left click> will put a chat code for the clicked item on the current chat input and that works as a search term for /wiki.
  • Story overview with as little spoilers as you can.
    • (most of the story is fully voice acted)
      • Style change when season 2 starts.
    • 1-80 (Personal) story  Hero’s Journey Kill the death dragon
    • Season 1 – Crazy Salad Lady destroys the world and wakes up plant dragon
    • Season 2 – Finding the plant dragon
    • HoT – Kill the plant dragon
    • Season 3 – 2 dragons are dead, odd things happening, Last living member of the bad race from GW1 appears, and wants to help kill dragons,  hero gets a pet dragon
    • PoF – Human god goes nuts in the desert
    • Season 4 – PRAISE JOKO,  Crystal dragon is on a rampage.
    • Ice Brood Saga: Pet Dragon is all grown up,  , Big Cats(Charr) Civil War, Ice and Fire dragons want to kill each other

• What’s different if you haven’t played since launch:
  • Gliding from Heart of Thorns.
  • Mounts from Path of Fire + Season 4
  • Roles
    • Tanks, DPS, Healers, buffers
  • Game has different things to do at end game now
    • Dungeons
    • Fractals – slight better dungeons
    • Raids
    • Strikes – single boss raid encounters
    • Dragon Response Missions
    • World vs World PVP
      • Being revamped
    • Structured PVP, 5v5 instanced
      • Mostly Conquest/CTF mode
  • Gear
    • Ascended gear
      • Slightly better than Exotic Gear
      • Only needed for Fractals
        • Optional for everything else
      • Account bound and can be shared with all your characters
      • Can change stats at a cost
    • Legendary Gear
      • Same stats as ascended (but can stat swap with no cost)
      • No cost transmog
        • If your endgame is Fashion Wars, this is a big help
      • New way to get, through collections.
        • The game gives you enough mats to make 1 weapon per year through daily login rewards
      • Not just weapons
        • Armor can be obtained through Raids and sPVP
        • 2 accessories can be completed completing collections associated with LWS3 and 4.
        • Amulet can be obtained through return to dragons meta event, or sPVP
        • Rings can be obtained Raiding or WVW
        • Backs are from Fractals, WvW or sPVP
      • Can be copied to all of your characters through legendary Armory
  • Classes:
    • New Class Revenant
      • Introduced in heart of thorns
        • Channels heroes and villains from GW1 to gain power
        • Heavy Armor
    • Elite Specializations
      • Each class has 2 Elite specializations to choose from
        • These are unlocked with Hero points
          • CT Hero Points give 1 HP
          • Expansion HPs give 10 HP ( but harder)
            • Community run Hero Point trains happen often
      • Several Classes gain the ability to heal
        • Current meta is Rangers, Guardians and Necros for the strongest healers
  • Mastery System
    • Secondary progression system after hitting level 80.
    • Points are gained through achievements or they are floating out in the world
    • Most unlock story critical or zone specific buffs
      • There are a few that generally good for everything
  • Base Game is Free to Play
    • https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/230165307-Guild-Wars-2-Account-Types-Free-Core-HoT-PoF
    • https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account#Free_accounts
    • The restrictions are mostly there to make botting less viable. eg:
      • No daily login rewards
      • Chat/Mail restrictions
      • Fewer character and bag slots
      • Limited TP access
    • There is a staged set of unlocks to access content. Examples: level 10 to get into a non-starter map. Level 15 for Lion’s Arch. Level 60 for WvW.. Usually these unlock for the whole account at once.
    • Unranked SPvP is unlocked at level 2 and scales players to max levels with its own no cost gear system. Completely viable to play as a F2P. Ranked PvP unlocks at SPvP level 20.
    • No mounts EXCEPT there is mount rental for festival races  and for the rollerbeetle races..

• The Expansion: (or why is jehdai on the podcast)
  • Sometime in Feb, it will drop
  • Adding Cantha – East Asian fusion  themed area that was in GW1
  • New Elite for each class
  • 2 person Turtle mount, with guns
  • Fishing
  • Boat Mount
  • 4 new zones
  • New Masteries
  • New Legendary Weapons
  • New Strike Missions
  • New Guild Hall – We will be relocating from where we are to this one

• What you can do before the Expansion drops:
  • AIEx is on Dragonbrand, in the US zone.
    • If you can’t get into DB that is OK, be sure to be in the US zone if you want to play with AIE.
    • The only thing that realm matters for is WvW, and that is scheduled to change in the next year where it goes to a guild based system.
  • Fresh Start
    • You will need both expansions (sold with End of Dragons right now) and I highly recommend grabbing the living world stuff.
      • A lot of story stuff happens in the living world.
      • Just doing them, and the stuff for Return to Dragons will get you a legendary amulet
    • At a minimum this is what I would do to prep for the expansion
      • Be 80 (either do it the long way, or boost)
        • The boosted gear is really good now
      • Start Heart of Thorns
        • Unlock gliding
      • Then start Path of Fire
        • You get the Raptor Mount right away
        • Unlock Canyon jumping for your Raptor
        • Go to the zone up north and get your Bunny, and the zone down south and get your skimmer. (you can get these after you unlock
      • Catch a HoT HP Train in LFG
        • Do the entire run, there will be one HP you can’t get in TD
      • Unlock your first Elite Spec
      • Then do a path of Fire HP train ( or do it solo, or with a friend, the Path of fire ones don’t’ need a big group)
      • Unlock that second spec
      • Do the last episode of Season 4
        • Start Skyscale Grind (this is time gated)
    • Now you can do whatever you want. You will be able to glide, and you will have 3 mounts, plus the skyscale. I would play through the story at this point and work on unlocking my mount masteries.
      • If you want to unlock your 3rd elite spec right away, you will need about 250 HPs.  If you boosted you will have to go back to central tyria to get these.
      • It’s worthwhile to go to each zone and unlock all the way points. You get a gold star next to your name if you explore all of CT.
  • Not a Fresh Start
    • Get your skyscale
    • Finish all of your return to zone Metas to finish the return to dragons meta and get your legendary amulet (this is the cheapest legendary in the game as it only costs time).
    • The community does a lot of cool stuff to keep you busy
      • Infusion trains – Start at pinata in Crystal Oasis at reset and hit all the bosses that drop infusions (this is guild wars 2 endgame here, fashion wars)
      • HP trains on your main and your alt
      • The community runs a Raid Training discord where they train people the raid encounters
        • Raid Academy – ask either myself or Hushwolf for the discord invite (they might not all comply with our community standards, and they aren’t AIE, but it’s an excellent resource to start raiding).
    • Find a legendary item you like and start working on it.
    • Dailies
      • Do 3 of things and get 2 gold and some spirit shards
• What is AIE doing?
  • We would like to bolster our active numbers
  • We (Jehdai) would like to move our guild hall to Cantha
  • Our MFN is Monday at Time (You’ll see Dejara in Discord)
  • Occasionally Maellung runs a dungeon night
  • I would like to get a dedicated group into Fractals, Raids, and Strikes

Thank you so much for all of that great information! Now, it’s time for this week’s news…

AIE News

Community
Mandatory Fun Nights

Where the fun is mandatory but the attendance is not.

Sunday – WoW Classic 2 pm Eastern
Sunday – STO 8:30 pm Eastern
Monday – GW2 9:30 pm Eastern
Tuesday – SWTOR 9 pm Eastern
Tuesday – FFXIV (Casual Raiding) 9:30 pm Eastern
Wednesday – FFXIV (Fun Night) 9:00 pm Eastern
Thursday – FFXIV (Progression Raiding) 9:30 pm Eastern
Friday – ESO 9 pm Eastern
Friday – FFXIV (Late Night Fun Night) 11:00 pm Eastern
Saturday – LotRO 8:30 pm Eastern
Saturday – FFXIV (Maps) 9:30 pm Eastern
Saturday – Noob Raid (WoW) 11 pm Eastern

Streaming and Guild Podcast News
WTOR Escape Pod Cast 412: Getting Gear in 7.0
https://www.newoverlords.com/swtor-escape-pod-cast-412-getting-gear-in-7-0/

Bryant Wood, Bioware Systems Designer, posted some extensive notes on gearing in 7.0 including some new news. We break it down and talk through our plans for gearing up.

Working Class Nerds – Episode 138: Guardian Down Cast!!!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/143519/9967450-episode-138-guardian-down-cast?t=0

Marcus and Nick are joined by Hazel and Gatr of the Guardian Down Podcast! Hazel and Gatr are the hosts of the Guardian Down Podcast which focuses on Destiny 2. The three of them chat podcasting, Star Wars, and of course Destiny 2’s upcoming expansion The Witch Queen!

You can find more of Hazel and Gatr at:
https://guardiandowncast.libsyn.com/
https://open.spotify.com/show/7BVJBQAH1Sg1lgF0v3c8Ct

Boards & Swords #188 – Essen is Bought, Tony Hawk the Board Game? (Feat. Beneeta Kaur!)
https://boardsandswords.com/blog/bs188
Now that the holidays are over, are things back to normal? Not entirely, as we have special guest Beneeta Kaur (twitter.com/beneeta_k) on to tell us what she’s been up to recently!

Fleet Action Report – Episode 81 It’s Very Cold in Space part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZPYl0Wg_wU

On this episode of Fleet Action Report, a Star Trek Online informational livestream: Nikodas and Grebog are called to defend the Deferi from a group of aggressive aliens. Who are those that would attack the delicate Balance of the Deferi, and can we stop them?

WoW
WITT’s All Monk Fun Run was postponed, as many of the participants are still gearing up. We look forward to seeing what a full raid Touch of Death will do bosses. Muhahahaha! There are plans afoot for an All Paladin run and a repeat of the All Druids in coming weeks. Anyone interested, contact Gustytail.

Gustytail also has a new Guild Challenge! This Wednesday is 02/02/2022, and clearly, the best way to observe this is to WEAR A TUTU — or your best approximation. In game or at home, embrace the silliness and twirl like no one is watching. Then post in pics or it didn’t happen.

Gustytail will be disappointed if @CyberWaif doesn’t have something suitable at the ready.

WoW Classic
Mount Hyjal and Black Temple have opened their doors to the unwary adventurers, piling up corpses sky high on their doorsteps… ah, adventurers and the attraction of new loot !

FFXIV
Map night continues! We’re entering the exciting Excitatron 6000 every Saturday at 9:30 pm eastern. Check the pins in the ffxiv channel for more info.

Our lovely community member Zoot is also running mount farms on Friday at 8pm eastern. Level requirement depends on what is being run, but it’ll generally adapt to whoever wants to come. Don’t be intimidated if you’ve never done an extreme trial before! They’re not as hard as the name Extreme might imply.

SWTOR
We are starting to feel the hype for 7.0. It’s just two weeks away. There are all kinds of ideas floating around for how to prepare and what things to do first. If you’d like to join in on that discussion be sure to join us in discord in the swtor channel.

Last week, the guild made a run at winning a planet in Total Galactic War. We fought the good fight, had a lot of fun, and put up more points than we ever have before. Early on in the week, it became clear that really only one other guild was even a challenge for us. We went neck and neck with them for most of the week, but on the weekend, they really poured on the steam and took a commanding lead. Afterwards, their guild leader congratulated us on a battle well fought and shared with us that they had not had more fun in swtor in a long time. It was a good week!

ESO
We’ve spent the last couple of weeks killing world bosses in Clockwork City and Summerset for the Daedric War Celebration so we could earn event tickets for the new pet and other rewards.

Trials are on the agenda on nights we have 12 people online for MFN’s.
We will also be doing our usual zone clears, public dungeon clears, and group delve runs.

At the global reveal live stream they announced the Legacy of the Bretons Year-long Saga and that the next chapter (expansion) is called High Isle.
The first DLC for 2022 is called Ascending the Tide and will come out on March 14th for PC and March 29th for console and kicks off the year long adventure with two new dungeons. The High Isle chapter will be released on June 6th for PC and June 21 for consoles. There are two additional planned DLCs (one dungeon pack and one story zone) that will come out later in the year.
The new chapter will explore the islands of High Isle and Amenos and involves a main story line that ties into the Legacy of the Bretons year-long saga. It brings with it a new in-game collectable card game called Tales of Tribute, a new 12 player trial, two new companions as well as new world events, delves, public dungeons, world bosses, and stand alone quests.
There will also be several updates and quality of life improvements.
Pre-purchases are on sale now and will grant immediate access to a new mount and pet. The pet is only available if you pre-purchase before April 4th. In addition, if you pre-purchase you will get a few additional rewards at launch such as a new costume, a pet, treasure maps, experience scrolls, and a crate.

STO
The fleet is about to take a massive step forward with fleet holdings. (By the time of the podcast) We have started working on unlocking the military tier V upgrade. This is a big project and every little bit will help us get this done.

The reason this is so big is it is the final upgrade for the military tier of the Starbase. It also means we will have access to all the fleet ships, minus one that comes from the colony. And most importantly once complete it will allow us to start working on the Starbase tier V upgrade.

Grebog wants to send a huge thank you all to the fleet for their hard work getting us here and their continued hard work on these projects.

Grebog has been asked what will this mean once we are done with all of these? How can I still get fleet credits? There will still be plenty of ways we can get fleet credits from provisioning projects to temporary boosts projects.

Fleet fun nights are every Thursday at 11pm. We do things from helping people level to running TFOs and event tasks.

GW2
See Game Notes above

CLOSE
And that’s our show for tonight. While the chatroom begins suggesting show titles, we want to thank Jehdai for joining us.

If you have a question or comment about our show, you can email us at podcast@aie-guild.org. You can also follow us on Twitter. The show is at @aiepodcast. Mew is at @themewkow, Mkallah is at @cyberwaif,and Tetsemi is at @ivorytiger. We record live with video every other Sunday at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. You can join the chatroom and play along with us on our website at https://aie-guild.org/podcast-live-stream/ and our Discord server for chat at https://aie-guild.info/discord . And for past episodes, you can see them on our Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAIEPodcast ! Our theme was composed by the amazing Andrew Allen, follow him at @keyswithsoul! or visit his website http://andrewallenmusic.com/

And now it’s time to play all of the great AIE member segment we received this week, including… Well, no segments this week, but if you want to try your hand at creating one, we would love to have you!

Next time, we’ll be talking to Gusty in WoW. So until then, AIE…

– This is Mewkow
– This is Tetsemi
– This is Mkallah

And this has been… The AIE Podcast.