The AIE Podcast #309 – BlizzCon War Stories Rock!

On this episode of The AIE Podcast…

    Tetsemi: Raid the Bank…. Is that legal?
    Mewkow: Play ESO plus.. for free!
    Mkallah: MEGA is eminent!
    Tetsemi: LOTRO is Legendary!
    Mewkow: And, we have Lanctharus and Kardinal here to talk to us about Blizzcon!

All that and more coming up right now…

Podcast Audio

Raw Video

Open
Welcome to episode #309 of the the podcast celebrating you, the Alea Iacta Est gaming community, the die has been podcast. This is Mkallah: To my left is Tetsemi: – (catch phrase here). And to my right is Mewkow: (catch phrase here). This week we have Lanctharus and Kardinal on to talk about Blizzcon! Welcome, guys!

Ok, we’ll be digging into AIE and Blizzcon shortly, but first, let’s cover this week’s news…

AIE News

Streaming and guild podcast news
SWTOR Escape Pod Cast 265: Live Ossus Flyby
http://www.newoverlords.com/swtor-escape-pod-cast-265-live-ossus-flyby/

This week @AIESema, @MaxTheGrey and Astromech EPC-265 do a live tour of the new planet Ossus on the PTS.

SWTOR Escape Pod Cast 266: There Is Only Pieces
http://www.newoverlords.com/swtor-escape-pod-cast-266-there-is-only-pieces/

This week @AIESema, @MaxTheGrey and Astromech EPC-266 continue to slice Flesh Raiders and other wildlife to pieces on Tython as we get back to our Jedi story progress.

NOMADS
Destiny 2 – A lot of guildies are taking advantage of the free game offer running now through the 18th. See the Destiny channel for discussion of guild support for getting things going, getting gear progression on in end game, etc.
https://www.destinythegame.com/battlenet

And if you find yourself enjoying the game, there is currently a refer a friend event where existing players of the Year 2 Forsaken expac can invite those with the free copy, or even those that haven’t bought Forsaken yet, to play with them and earn all sorts of fun rewards. These include an exotic sniper rifle, a ship, and even an exotic sparrow for those that refer multiple friends.
Fallout 76 – There may also be a few guildies diving into Fallout 76 starting on November 14th. The B.E.T.A. seemed to go well enough, and I am at least is looking forward to exploring the radiated wilds of West Virginia. This is a multiplayer Fallout experience, so if you are a FAllout fan, and want to play with fellow guildies, feel free to join in.

Mandatory Fun Nights
Where the fun is mandatory but the attendance is not.

Monday – GW2 9:30 pm Eastern
Tuesday – SWTOR 9 pm Eastern
Friday – ESO 9 pm Eastern
FFXIV 9 pm Eastern

Saturday – STO 10 pm Eastern
Noob Raid 11 pm Eastern

WoW
Noob Raid news – We decided to be brave and left behind the safety of LFR to venture into Uldir normal last night We managed 3/8 bosses before Vectis ended our rampage. A ton of fun was had and we are looking forward to trying again next week.

Kardinal, tell us your first hand experience with the chaos that is NOOB raid! (Can throw to Kardinal if you want; I was there. 🙂 I can make a story of it. )
Noob raid’s been very popular, full/almost full every week.
Been doing LFR, been successful, but in spirit of learning, wanted to deepen people’s knowledge
1shot Taloc, adjusted and 2shot Mother, laughed through trash, 1shot Fetid, and….we learned a lot on Vectis. Got the mechanics, need the practice.
Failure is good. Teaches us that it’s okay and fun to fail.
“Progression is wiping”
Most importantly, we laughed and had fun and there was no tension.

December community events: COOP for Winter Veil, no date yet;

Time After Timewalking event on Friday Dec 7th at 9pm Eastern/Server. LK Ulduar Timewalking raid. Details will be posted soon to the blog.

November Officer Play Date: Nov 30th at 10:30 pm Eastern we are having an Overwatch night. Everyone is invited. Come get to know your fellow officers outside of WoW. Let’s see how many custom games and groups we can get going.

Raid Bank Pilot Program: This program is doing really well, and we are getting a lot of positive feedback. If you are interested in applying for a raid team guild bank tab, please email us.

(Kardinal’s in BLTN, can talk about our experience and why we love it. Much more convenient. Don’t have to know who to send to. Don’t need to know what’s needed. Just throw whatever we think is useful in the guild bank. Anyone who needs, takes. Just need to trust your teammates, which we all do. Because we’re AIE.)

If you are the leader of a raid team that might be interested in this program once it is approved, or have questions or feedback about such a program, please email us with details such as:

Raid Team name
Raid Leader(s) name
Preferred AIE co-guild
https://aie-guild.org/blog/2018/10/aie-raid-teams-and-the-guild-vault/

ESO
There is a free trial of the ESO plus service that starts Thursday 11/15 and runs until Wednesday 11/21. The trail will allow free access to all of the DLC packs, the craft bag, costume dyes, and a 10% increase in experience and gold earnings. It’s a great way to check out some of the benefits of a paid subscription.
Also on 11/15 the Clockwork City Celebration event begins and runs until 11/21. During this timeframe double mats will be harvested from crafting nodes, there will be double reward boxes for completing daily quests, and the drops from all boss fights will be double as well. During this event you can earn two event tickets from the 1st daily quest to help you purchase the Indrik Feathers needed for the new Indrik Mount.
Mandatory Fun on Friday 11/16 at 9pm est will focus on the Clockwork City zone due to the celebration event.

STO
If you haven’t created an Age of Discovery Captain, It is highly recommended You start out in the timeline of the Discovery show. The story they put in for it is pretty good. There is even a references to some other cadets with names you should recognize.

Also Black Friday sales. They always have some great deals on in the c store, from bonus zen if you purchase it, to discounted ships, special packs, lots of stuff.
Currently the Phoenix prize packs are back, but you only have until tomorrow 10am PST to claim a free one or buy them with dilithium.

There is a 20% of sale on all lobi store items until tomorrow 10am PST as well.
Also until December 6th, the lifetime subscription is $100 off, so currently only $199. If you have been debating it, or waiting on a sale, now is your time.
Tis the season for sales.

SWTOR
1) 5.10 dropping on Dec 11. It’s a big update with lots of guild stuff in it. We are really looking forward to it.
2) November MEGA coming on Nov 30th. We promise no one will die. Honest!
3) December MEGA is also a go. Beware – there might be snowballs involved. More details as we get closer.

Last night. We had SWTOR Unite. Which was….. All of the SWTOR podcasters united for a night and we took on the Gods from the Machine operation. AIE was well represented by Max, Sema, Marcus, and a last minute fill in was Corley. We went for about 4 hours and had a blast. In the end. Izax was still standing. But what a great night.

FFXIV
Though is is more news for FF15 than FF14, on December 12, those that own a copy of FF15 will be able to participate in a fun side quest, as FF14 invades Eos. The Miqo’te adventurer, which is curiously in starter gear, has come to chase down the primal Garuda. Hopefully, Noctis will return the favor and visit us in Eorzea.

EVE
#Making EVE Great Again

Nothing much, except more betrayals within alliances (so you end up with fights that are free for all, or where your ally helps your enemy). Even with CCP being bought out, the players are the most important resource in EvE, and Tears Do Flow Them Rivers!

Also WAR! WAR! WAR!

Onslaught Winter update is coming Nov. 13th

We just maybe, maybe making a new home for ourselves by stomping on some poor unsuspecting alliance’s neck. Oopsies!

What does that mean for AIEU? Why our specialty of course! Moving

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/221606966433153024/510315359065341952/unknown.png

LOTRO
The Legendary Server opening is something the AIE team is jumping on. You can describe it as WoW Classic of LotRO. We have a guild there and a handful of people kicking off new old-school characters.
https://www.lotro.com/en/legendary

Only VIPs / VIP Lifer can access them, and we’re effectively starting over all at once. I suspect Helegrod, the first raid back in the day, will be the ultimate goal after hitting level 40.
Currently “A I E” is on Anor, but we could move to Ithil if warranted due to login queues. SSG is offering free transfers.

GAME NEWS
Mew, Tet, Lanctharus, and Kardinal – tell us about your Blizzcon experience and your takeaways!

The themes of our talk:

1) the ability to talk to nearly anyone and know you have common interests.

2) the availability and eagerness of developers to talk to anyone and everyone who approached them.

Tetsemi – Overall thoughts are positive, lots of announcements, both expected and unexpected. Loved listening to the Before The Con panels, as well as all the panels at Blizzcon. The WoW panels (especially the Q&A) and the Warcraft III Reforged panels were amazing. The Costume/Talent contest was very well done, definitely bring back Darren DePaul for that, and the Warcraft Horde vs. Alliance voice actor panel was worth it with Laura Bailey singing Daughter of the Sea live.

Content thoughts –
WoW had much more information than I thought and I’m already scrambling to level up characters and finish achievements so I can keep up when it’s release.
Warcraft III Reforged was an instant buy for me as I can’t wait to play it again properly on new graphics.
Hearthstone – I like that they’re doing a troll expansion tieing into the current WoW expansions, it looks fun, I’ll probably dabble in it.
Heroes of the Storm – I love the story behind the new character they introduced and hopefully the lore behind the Nexus will be interesting. I find it interesting that they’re trying to flesh out the story behind it.
Overwatch – I’d pay money for the character of Ashe, but thankfully all the characters are included in the game. Loved the cinematic, and I really like that they stretched their programming and story wings a bit and made B.O.B. (Do something!) her ultimate. Can’t wait for more story on the Deadlock gang.
Diablo – Just the announcement peaked my interest in DIII again and I’m playing a seasonal Necromancer. All I’m going to say, with apologies, is that was the wrong venue to announce a Mobile game and the decision to make that the final announcement with the first Q&A panel afterword just didn’t work for me. I feel sorry for the CM team and dev team dealing with the fallout from the announcement. I’m really excited to try the game out and see how it plays and I love that they’re exploring the time between D2 and D3 in the game. More lore is always good.

Mewkow
Halloween with Mickey
Con before the storm/World of Podcasts – Great podcast panels. Lots of elbow rubbing afterwards. Good talks with CTR folks.
Blizzcon – Security lines were unexpected. Locked down food trucks. Lindsey concert was great except for the jerks.
Sheraton meetup with Grimm, Mezotea, Senior Geek.
Dizcon –

Lanctharus

Kardinal experience with Blizzcon
Lanc’s Plain Jane experience getting to Anaheim
The epic drive to Anaheim from Downtown LA
But wait! There was controversy after all!
Poor ol Diablo
People butthurts about the mobile game – But hey! That has been covered to DEATH
Dumz security protocols is dumz
Great to see old and new AIE friends at Blizzcon
Nawkar
Talking about the old days raiding Karazahn with Tarrq and the boys
His son who is now a teenager joining in on our reminiscey talks
Seeing Solomon again
Brian Ibbott
Why I like going to Blizzcon so much?
Guild outreach
What’s working
Opportunities
Overwatch
Ashe looks pretty cool
Can I have a Bob?
What we will be trying to do next year?
Revamped Guildhall process
Raise that money yo!
Probably a change of venue
Look into standardizing the procedure
Kardinal
I had an amazing time meeting everyone from Devs to AIE to new people. Enjoyed the planned content, but even without it, it’s a wonderful and unique experience.
Highlight of sessions: “When is the Horde going to get its real warchief back???”
Themes:
Developers are everywhere, available, and eager to talk to you.
Randomly – QA Mgr for Hearthstone. Tech people after the “Inside Blizzard” panel. Tech people love to talk because fewer people tend to appraoch them. New Executive Producer (head) of warcraft, John Haight. Global director of CS. Wyatt Cheng spent 3 hours in the Marriott Lobby.
Scheduled- Reached out to two Blizz devs via Twitter and made times to talk to them. Doing that gave us time to get really in depth. 2 hours each.
You can talk to anyone there and know that they’re interested in the same things you are. Impromptu fun conversations include:
Ex1 – Austrians
Ex2 – Cosplayer
Ex3 – Group of alliance players at Con before the Storm
Also: Surprisingly easy to get tickets at the last minute.

“The other day, John Staats released his WoW diary. The one he wrote when he was working on Vanilla. I was reading it last night. This is very relevant to the whole conversation, I think:

“In the spirit of education, the first thing I would like to impress upon you is one of the most surprising lessons I learned: Public speculation is always wrong. Always. Blizzard operated under a blanket of scrutiny, and only after I was in the meetings could I appreciate how inaccurate public analysis was. Unless you’re in the room, you have no idea what’s going on. Unless someone knows firsthand the reasons why a company makes decisions, popular conjecture is completely off. For a company as secretive as Blizzard, the tinfoil-hat theorizing about why we did anything was severe, cynical, and reactionary. It struck me how people universally assumed corporate decisions were thoughtless or callous—like if a feature was dropped, it was done so without regard for the feelings of the fan base. When decisions were made for financial grounds, people assumed it was because developers lacked imagination. Whenever technical or gameplay decisions were made, it was assumed the company was penny-pinching. I’m not even referring to the trolls dredging the game forums for flame wars; I’m talking about the intelligent, well-substantiated, and reasonable arguments about why Blizzard did this or why Blizzard did that. But…all of it was wrong and certainly not because the fan base was stupid. People were wrong because they considered only variables that were public knowledge—which were only a fraction of the pertinent factors.”

CLOSE
And that’s our show for tonight. While the chatroom begins suggesting show titles, we want to thank Lanctharus and Kardinal for joining us. And don’t forget, after the show is the AIE podcast stream, this week they are doing:

@lanctharus
@KardinalHunts

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://bit.ly/AIEPodcastDiscord . Our theme was composed by the amazing Andrew Allen, follow him at @keyswithsoul! or visit his website http://keyswithsoul.com !

And now it’s time to play all of the great AIE member segments we received this week, including…

Ask Buxley – @AskBuxley
Overly Dramatic News – @HuntsTheWind

Next time, it’s our end of year wrap up episode, since we are taking December off!. So until then, AIE…

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

And this has been… The AIE Podcast.