On this episode of The AIE Podcast…
- Mkallah: Nerd gathering news
- Mew: Psstt, anyone want a kitten?
- Tetsemi: Would you like some free EVE?
- Mkallah: Final Fantasy for the Holidays
- Mew: There’s a new emperor in SWTOR, no it’s not Max
All that and more coming up right now…
Podcast Audio
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Welcome to episode #265 of the the podcast celebrating the Alea Iacta Est gaming community, the die has been podcast. This is Tetsemi, and I have in front of me a spreadsheet of everything we need to do get ready for Christmas: To my left, having a panic attack, is Mkallah: – (Hey, AIE, there are tiny pumpkin tarts in the Guild kitchen, and lemon snowball cookies, and gingerbread crinkle, and ….) And to my right, as cool as a cucumber, is Mewkow (put in catch phrase here) This week we are joined by special guests Max and Sema. and we are talking about AIE in SWTOR and catching up!
Ok, we’ll be talking to Max and Sema and catching up shortly, but first, let’s cover this week’s news…
AIE News
Community
Welcome to Parannor, the latest AIE Officer to accept the mantle of officership. Condolences and/or congratulations can be sent via AIE Discord and generally in WoW where he spends the majority of his gaming time with AIE.
Microsoft has added a new Club Feature to Xbox One and Jehdai has created one for the guild. It’s listed as Alea Iacta Est
http://forum.myextralife.com/topic/57331-alea-iacta-est-xbox-club/
Well, we have some good news and some bad news. As you probably know, Nerdtacular 2017 tickets went on sale Tuesday. AND, they quickly sold out! According to the truly awesome Scott Johnson, more tickets will be opening up! The best way to keep posted is either checking back at Nerdtacular.com or follow Scott, the lord of the Frogpants, on twitter – @scottjohnson (but, you probably knew that).
Oh, and if you are coming to Nerdtacular, come find us! Tet and I are making it for sure and if more tickets open up, we may see Mew, Mrs Mew the geekily awesome, and Baby Mew.
And speaking of the gatherings of the nerds, thanks to the organizers, staff, AIE members, and guest that stopped by the guild hall at Blizzcon! Oaten in the forums put a short shoutout to the Guild Hall for welcoming non AIE members, especially for the live Instance recording.
NOMADS
According to Stigg, the Nomad Minecraft server will be shutting down on December 16th, 2016 and world data will be made available via Dropbox (or a suitable) platform.
http://forum.myextralife.com/topic/57344-shutting-down-the-nomads-minecraft-server/
WoW
We’re 6 weeks into the 9 week storyline Insurrection in Suramar, leading up to breaking into Nighthold. This is the follow on story after the Good Sumaratan achievement and it’s story lines in Suramar. A new piece opens up every Tuesday with the server resets and is heading to a final confrontation with the Nightfallen leaders and the opening of the Nighthold raid.
Also, if you like testing things, patch 7.1.5 is up on the PTR and is dealing with a lot of class changes that are upcoming, the newly redesigned Brawlers Guild, and the introduction of micro-holidays to the make the world feel a bit more alive.
Don’t forget, the Feast of WInterveil starts on December 16. Speaking of Winterveil gifts, Blizzard’s tradition of supporting the Make-A-Wish foundation continues this year, as the company has revealed this year’s charity pet for World of Warcraft is a cat named Mischief the Fel Kitty. It is absolutely adorable and all of the proceeds go to a great cause.
And, if you’d like a sneak peak at the micro-holidays, there’s a good post over on WoWHead about them – http://www.wowhead.com/news=257684/7-1-5-holiday-updates-micro-holidays-and-world-events
EVE
EVE is now officially Free to Play!
After over 13 years of paid subscriptions, EVE Online’s recently revealed free-to-play experiment is now live. In a bid to boost its dwindling player base, CCP’s latest expansion allows both new and existing players to explore the EVE universe for free. The new pricing model is known as Clone States, and is the headline addition to the game’s latest expansion, EVE Online: Ascension. New players will automatically start off as “Alpha Clones,” with free access to all of EVE’s world, though they’ll be limited to to certain skills and spaceships. Pilots who want the complete EVE Online experience can opt to pay the $10 (£7) a month subscription, upgrading their player state to “Omega Clone,” unlocking the game’s full gamut of skills and spaceships.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/16/eve-online-is-now-free-to-play/
SWTOR
SWTOR Escape Pod Cast 170: KotET Story and New Planets
@AIESema, @MaxTheGrey and Astromech EPC-170 talk about the Charles Boyd story stream, new planet announcements and some of the community preview videos being released this week including our preview of the Crimson Fang Uprising.
SWTOR Escape Pod Cast 171: KotET First Impressions
@AIESema, @MaxTheGrey and Astromech EPC-171 talk about our first impressions of Knights of the Eternal Throne and the 5.0 expansion changes
Don’t forget the new expansion, Knights of the Eternal Throne launched on December 2nd. As long as you were a subscriber on or before December 2nd, you will get access to KotET.
http://www.swtor.com/eternal-throne?intcmp=sor_bwa-mkt-t-us-hp-277
Also, for those folks finishing up DvL, a special shoutout from Arv to Dent and Pristzz for helping him with the Hard Mode Flash Point piece of his DvL achievements.
http://forum.myextralife.com/topic/57329-pristzz-et-al/
GW2
It is a good time to log in and play the third chapter of the living story season for free, if you’ve bought the expansion, Heart of Thorns, for GW2.
If you haven’t bought Heart of Thorns, you get an instant level 80 with any version that you do purchase – http://buy.guildwars2.com/store/gw2/en_US/html/pbPage.heartofthorns?_ga=1.127548813.1817224794.1469643919&cid=32:5::::Global:40
Make sure to hop into the GW2 channel in the AIE Discord, especially if you’re coming back to the game, as decisions about where to put skill points, what to focus on, etc. can be a bit confusing, there is help out there, use it!
FFXIV
No Final Fantasy XIV news this week, beyond some minor patches, but there is some news in general! Tuesday, November 29th, the stand alone Final Fantasy XV came out for the Xbox and PlayStation and people are loving it! (I even have a copy of it waiting for me, but you know, I have all this free time…)
Also, if you previously have purchased and registered FFXIV, they’re having a Free Login Campaign: Up to 96 hours from Dec 1 2016 through Jan 4 2017 – http://forum.myextralife.com/topic/57350-free-login-campaign-12-1-2016-1-4-2017-4-days-game-time/
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/7f6f03825f75fdb71701f7ad9f68cbf4d8ab3bca
STO
- Starting October 25, the ‘Agents of Yesterday – Artifacts’ first mission, ‘Echoes of Light’, was released with multi-week rewards for replays. This week is the 5h week with all the first 3 week’s rewards unlocked and restricted to level 60 captains only.
- The 2nd and 3rd backstories, ‘Tales from K13’, has been posted on the website blog. Having survived an unexpected time jump to 700 years in the past, we learn the incredible fate of the surviving Federation crew and Klingon prisoners on Star Base K13. These stories are true to the highest standards of Star Trek as well as exciting yet poignant must-reads. The Captain shall refrain from spoilers.
- Fixer-upper Star base K13 is now a playable and upgradeable star base available to AIE fleet holders. Along with the Fleet’s first star base, we now own TWO star bases! This 700-year-old rust bucket needs mats and TLC to bring it up to Star Fleet and AIE code as a new Fleet hangout. We hope the galactic housing bubble doesn’t burst anytime soon!
- Three new Tier 6 Science Vessels, one for each faction (Federation, Klingon and Romulan) are released for sale in the C-Store! Each of these science vessels have a Fleet variant available as well as a new Console and Starship Trait.
- Take advantage of the return of the ‘Research and Development Weekend’ as well as the ‘Upgrade Weekend Event’! These events will run from November 24th to November 28th. Get 2X Technology points for crafting new equipment AND upgrading existing equipment for no extra cost in mats!
- Don’t forget: The AIE Fleet’s original Star Base, as well as Star Base K13, are always seeking contributions of materiel. Do your part by checking out current donation requests in the Fleet’s in-game menu.
- Q’s Winter Wonderland started last Thursday and will run until Jan 12th, with goodies galore. Check the STO website for detail
- Once again, please check out news, backstories, patch notes, forums, commentary, and other goodies at the Star Trek Online website
And with the news out of the way, let’s talk to Max and Sema about AIE in SWTOR and the new expansion!
GAME NEWS
New expansion… game changer… Knights of the Eternal Throne
How we got here:
Over the past couple years
Shadow of Revan… story resulted in the “awakening” of the Sith Emperor, Vitiate
Knights of the Fallen Empire…
Followed our journey tracking Vitiate down
Revealed that he had over time also been building a second empire, the Eternal Empire, based far to the edges of the galaxy around a system named Zakuul
Revealed that in this second life he had also had three children he was grooming to become part of his rule – Arcaan, Thexan, and Vaylin
Fallen Empire focuses on what happens when the Eternal Empire wages war on the galaxy and for “reasons” Arcaan take over and
Your character is central to the resistance to his tyrannical rule
The Alliance is created
DvL – Summer
Knights of the Eternal Throne…
For “reasons” Vaylin has taken over the Eternal Empire and is more tyrannical than ever
The Alliance must continue to work to save the galaxy
First impressions:
Sema
Tetsemi
Max >> Definitely like the story and chapters. Solid wrap up to the storyline and tied the loose ends together and explained motivations even better than I had expected… having fun with some of the new features and how the expansion has changed what people want to group up and do, at least for the moment
Mew- Simplification of abilities helps.
Expansion Features:
Story
Multiple difficulties – story, veteran with “master” to be added later in December
Direct access to replay chapters for achievements and other rewards (like CXP to be explained next)
Galactic Command
Tiers, Ranks
CXP and Bonuses
Crates
Thoughts on the grind
Dark vs. Light
Server wide meta battle over the course of hours repeating non-stop
Win state
DvL world bosses – possible addition to our Tuesday Mandatory Fun Night activities
(for those not familiar, quick 1 min pitch on MFN)
Rewards
Uprisings
New Flashpoint style content type
5 Uprisings
Fast combat, no cutscenes, many waves of adds but wrapped closely around boss battles
Additional mechanics, dynamic abilities, etc.
Thermal Devastator, Combat Clarity, etc.
Caveats
Subscription required
One time to unlock the story
Ongoing if you want to participate in CXP and end game rewards
Operations
No new ops at launch but they have been clear in recent dev streams that they know we want them and they want to respond, news and discussion on “large group content” is promised for January
Additional Notes (maybe skip this stuff depending on time):
Graphics updates
52 character slots – 2 new unlocked (for subs only?)
L65 character token, create character at 1, 60 or 65
“New harvesting nodes are now available for all Skills. These can be found in the Zakuulan Swamp and Zakuul cities alongside the Grade 9 harvesting nodes.”
Legendary “flair” in a new dropdown (20 pieces?)
Expertise is gone, Mastery crystals
Life Day coming soon with the promise of a new twist on the annual event
(including a Wampa companion via the cartel market)
CLOSE
And that’s our show for tonight. While the chatroom begins suggesting show titles, we have a shoutout or two
From Kero (Your WoW Money) – Shout out to lady Havah for getting back into WoW
From Gargao – Shout out to AIE’s tolerance of bad Gargao puns, and always welcoming me back when I fall in a creation hole and leave Azeroth for gaps of time!
And now we want to thank Max and Sema for joining us.
@MaxTheGrey and @AIESema
SWTOR Escape Pod Cast can be found on iTunes, YouTube and at newoverlords.com
Come join us on the Jedi Covenant server and ask for a guild invite!
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 usually 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://bit.ly/AIEPodcastDiscord . Our theme was composed by the amazing Andrew Allen, follow him at @keyswithsoul! or visit his website keyswithsoul.com!
And now it’s time to play all of the great AIE member segments, including
Overly Dramatic News – @HuntsTheWind
The AIE Raid Wrap Up – @TheMewKow
We are taking the rest of the year off and will see you in January 2017, so until then, AIE…
– This is Mkallah
– This is Mewkow
– This is Tetsemi
And this has been… The AIE Podcast.