The troublesome trio of WAR Bloggers (Keen, Snfzg, and Syp), are back with another episode of ChaosCast!  This episode is packed to the last second with round-table discussion about Warhammer Online.  The game has been out for ~3 weeks now and we have a LOT to say about release, what we’re playing, what we’ve observed, and what we expect from the game in the coming months.  We also had the opportunity of recording this episode on the same day that Mythic patched in the 1.01 patch so expect lots of impressions on how Mythic did with their first major patch as well as our commentary on various changes.

[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3/ChaosCast_Episode__7.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2rYVCxZW9nAg[/podcast]

Show Notes/Outline
Round-table Discussion:
Open-forum of random discourse!
- What have we been playing? Likes? Dislikes?
- Launch
- Server Queues
- Scenario Queues
- Is there Open-RvR?
- How much will the game change once we start getting a decent rank 40 population?
- Collector’s Edition – worth it in the end?

1.01 Patch – First Major Patch to the game (part of the Round-Table discussion)
- AoE Grinding Nerf
- Bugs/glitches introduced in the patch
- Additional thoughts on WAR’s first major patch

Welcome to the Community
- http://www.datoughest.com/
- http://tok.blogwarhammer.net/
- http://warhammer.gamepressure.com/

The Blowhole
Our listener mail section where we take the questions YOU submitted to us on our blogs and do our best to answer them with a discussion.

- Jakad asks: I would like to hear more about the PQ reward system.  How does a tank or healing class stack up to the DPS classes when trying to rank #1 Top Spot on the PQ Participation. It seems that the pure dps like the Squig Herder will always come out on top.  How is healing implemented into PQ Participation?
- Odius asks: The interview w/ Carrie Gouskos was awesome for insight into the ToK at the time. Since the game has been out for a few weeks now, how do you feel it adds to the game, and do you think you will find yourselves maybe going back to collect the titles for some of the more “strange” unlocks?

We apologize for the late arrival of this episode but such is life and its complexities!

If you have any questions you would like to see featured on the next episode of ChaosCast please leave them in the comments section of one of our blogs. We also welcome suggestions for topics and any other feedback you might have regarding our show.

As promised when we released Episode #5 we have come back quickly with another episode of ChaosCast!  We, the troublesome trio of WAR Bloggers (Keen, Snfzg, and Syp), give you our full-blown details of the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning beta and have a lengthy round-table discussion about things like balance, how the beta testing process has played out over the months, our favorite RvR and PvE anecdotes, and lots more.

[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3/ChaosCast_Episode__6.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2rYVC1Y2BjBg[/podcast]

Show Notes/Outline
Round-table Discussion:
- August Newsletter
- The flow and history of beta as it has evolved over the past months
- Closed Beta (3.3) and what it borked
- Preview Weekend thoughts
- Our favorite PvE and RvR anecdotes
- Top 3 Career Choices
- Class Balance / Population Balance
- Is WAR Solo friendly or is it truly a group oriented game?
- Launch Predictions
- What we’re going to do on Day 1

The Coin of Fate
A new feature in ChaosCast where the host roasts the other two with rapid-fire questions!

Welcome to the Community
- http://www.blog.warhammerinsider.net/
- http://textwall.blogspot.com/
- http://MyWARSpace.com/

The Blowhole
Our listener mail section where we take the questions YOU submitted to us on our blogs and do our best to answer them with a discussion.
- Clinton asks: If you are playing/leveling with some friends, will you be able to pick different races and still be able to level/play together? For eg. If I pick a greenskin and my mate picks a chaos character will we be able play together straight away or do we have to wait till later levels or do we only play with our own race?
- Wrenn asks: Why did you name your site “The Greenskin” and not “Flat-headed balls of snot?” (R.A. Salvatore reference: “Road to the Patriarch”)
- BC asks: No MMO ever stays the same as it is released. Put on those Nostradamus and Miss Cleo hats and predict the one or two major changes you see to the gameplay one year from September 18th.
- Jayson asks: What’s the deal with instancing in WAR from what you’ve seen in beta? Don’t you feel that limiting certain situations of the game to X vs X players takes away from the Massively Multiplayer Online experience? Is the enhanced system performance a good enough trade-off for you to look past this?

It’s a long episode coming in at over an hour but we’re pleased with how the Round-table discussion turned out.  As the game comes closer to launch our podcast will continue to evolve.  We hope you enjoy this episode and what we have planned for you in the future.

If you have any questions you would like to see featured on the next episode of ChaosCast please leave them in the comments section of one of our blogs.  We also welcome suggestions for topics and any other feedback you might have regarding our show.

ChaosCast Episode #4, the podcast brought to you by the troublesome trio of WAR bloggers (Keen, Snafzg, and Syp), is available for your listening pleasure! In this episode, which we refer to as “Telekinesis, pig’s blood, and the prom”, we sit down and interview Carrie Gouskos of Mythic Entertainment. As the Producer for the Tome of Knowledge, Carrie gives us the lowdown on how the ToK is coming along as well as lots of great information on what it’s like working for Mythic and on Warhammer Online.

During the interview there were a few things that stood out to me from the rest:

• Carrie hinted at something huge: “There is something that we have not yet announced about the tome that is going to, I think, blow everybody out of the water. It’s going to keep the game going forever and ever and ever.”
• The ToK will not be like the LOTRO Deed log (Kill 500 lizards) unless you want it to be. The ToK is designed to work naturally with the player as they progress in the game.
• ToK tactics only impact PvE.
• The Bragging rights section of the tome is a lot about competition with others.
• Carrie really pushed that the ToK will continue to be developed well beyond release.
• Carrie Gouskos min/maxes Choose Your Own Adventure books.
• Carrie Gouskos officially hates Lurikeens…

[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3/ChaosCast_Episode__4.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2rYVG-YWtnAQ[/podcast]

Show Notes/Outline
Roasted on the Spit:
We interview Carrie Gouskos, Tome of Knowledge Producer for Mythic Entertainment. (~40 Min of interview)

The Blow Hole (Listener Mail)
This week The Blow Hole takes the place of our usual Round Table Discussion as we sift through all the emails and questions you, our listeners, sent in.
1. Min/Maxing in WAR
2. Tactics in WAR – Balance or choice?
3. How young is too young to beta test?
4. What don’t we like about WAR?
5. Chrono Chaos stuff.

Welcome to the Community
- Bloghammer Online
- A fond farewell to WAR Noob

We would like to once again thank Carrie “Lurikeen Hater” Gouskos for allowing us to interview her on ChaosCast! It was a pleasure getting to hear her passion for what she does and I personally can’t wait to see how that translates into the game. We hope that you all enjoy this episode and welcome any feedback, questions, or confessions of your undying love on any of our blogs in the comment sections.

The troublesome trio of WAR bloggers (Keen / Snafzg / Syp) are back again for another episode of ChaosCast! Episode #3 is finally up due to our hectic schedules causing several delays, but we’re positive it was worth the wait. We had the opportunity to sit down and get to know Garthilk – the man behind WHA, the biggest and without a doubt most popular Warhammer Fansite/Forum out there, in a new segment titled “Roasted on the Spit”.

[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3/ChaosCast_Episode__3.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2rYVGwYGFnAw[/podcast]

Show Notes/Outline
The Blow Hole (Listener mail)
We take the questions that YOU submitted to us over the past two weeks and do our best to answer them and even mix in a little discussion.

New Community Sites: Werit Blog, White Tower of Hoeth, Warhammer Gaming Scene (currently down for remodeling), Wizards and Wenches

Roasted on the Spit: Garthilk, Site Manager for Warhammer Alliance
We sit down and interview the man behind the biggest WAR fansite/forum to discover why he does what he does, where his site is going, and more. After the interview Garth joins us for our Round-table Discussion to weigh in his thoughts on the topics.

Round-table Discussion:
1. June’s Newsletter
2. Interesting tidbits from the Baltimore Gamesday

We would like to thank Garthilk for taking the time to come onto our Podcast and answer our questions!

As always if you have any questions, comments, or reasons to profess your undying love to us please feel free to leave a comment on one of our blogs and it may end up in the next or future episode of ChaosCast!

ChaosCast Episode #2: “Technical Difficulties: Please Stand By…”, brought to you by the troublesome Trio of WAR Bloggers (Snafzg, Syp, and Keen), is available for your listening pleasure! Our first episode had a few glitches and issues that needed working out, but we’re all very pleased that Episode #2 shows a lot of improvement. On that topic, the title for this episode is actually an inside joke that Syp eludes to at the end of the podcast. My 2nd computer that we use to record was having major issues that turned what should have been a pleasant recording session into hell. Once I brought out the 3rd computer and got things squared away we were able to finish the podcast before my co-hosts declared mutiny.

Episode #2 is packed full of discussion; we managed to condense this episode into just about 50 minutes. Our goal is still to try and get these episodes down to 30-45 minutes without losing the content. We hope you enjoy!

ChaosCast Episode #2:
[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3/ChaosCast_Episode_2.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2rYVGyampgAg[/podcast]

Show Notes/Outline:
Round-table Discussion:
1. What first sparked our interest in WAR?
2. What race and class are we most looking forward to playing?
3. WHA poll analysis (fears vs. reality)
4. WoW copying WAR (release timing, RvR battleground, achievements)?
-Follow-up: Can any MMO at this point claim to have even one truly original idea (public quests)?
5. Michael Zenke’s criticisms of WAR, especially unfinished cities and features… another possible delay?

New Community Sites: Waaagh Insider, Cogworks, WAR Noob
Show your support for the community and visit these new sites that we recommend in our podcast!

The Blow Hole (Listener Mail):
We take the questions that YOU submitted to us over the past two weeks and do our best to answer them and even mix in a little discussion.

ChaosCast is about the community for Warhammer Online. If you have any questions, suggestions, topics, or feedback that we can use for our next or future episodes please leave a comment on any one of our sites. We hope you enjoy.

I am very excited to share with you all a project that has been in the works for a while now. A couple months ago Snafzg from The Greenskin, Syp from WAAAGH!, and Keen from Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog (me, duh!) got together and decided that we wanted to collaborate on some form of Warhammer Online project. We’re all rabid fans and bloggers of WAR and wanted an additional outlet or project since obviously blogging is never enough.

What is ChaosCast? It’s a podcast dedicated to bringing the online WAR community together. We’re hoping to bridge the WAR blogging, fansite, forum, and online community in a small way to prove that we’re a very tight-knit group of avid gamers. How will we do this? ChaosCast will cover a range of topics every episode including a community spotlight where we highlight various websites that stand out, Commentary on all aspects WAR, Q/A’s, hopefully some Dev interaction, and all things WAR.

Episode #1: “It’s my WAR and you’ll bleed if I want you to!”

• Why they’re doing this damned podcast in the first place
• Some stunning and not so stunning revelations from the May newsletter
• New community sites you should throw your eyeballs at (Book of Grudges, Da Big Waaagh!, and WaaagHead)
• The Wiki Invasion – RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
• The NDA – frustrations, definitions and how to get into beta
  
• Massively’s massively cool – too bad we weren’t invited – visit to EA Mythic!

[podcast]http://www.garageband.com/mp3cat/.UZCMYCuC4K2v/01_ChaosCast_Episode_1___It_s_my_WAR_and_you_.mp3[/podcast]

This first episode is much longer than our future episodes will be. We hope to record and publish a new episode every 2-3 weeks giving us a lot more time to focus in on less topics and get more specific. During the podcast you might notice some latency issues – I blame the Canadian. We’re still working out the kinks in the audio recording and learning to cope with Syp being a Wookie. We all have challenges to overcome, right?

We hope you enjoy the podcast and encourage you to leave comments on any of our sites. If there is anything you would like us to discuss in our next or future shows please feel free to contact one of us. Remember, we want this to be about the community and a big part of that is YOU!

We’re psyched to have our first Age of Conan Podcast up! We’ve been spending a lot of time the past few days playing the early head start and if not for the servers being down today for five hours we probably would have come up with an excuse to delay the podcast even longer. (Too subtle?) In other words, We like the game!

We tackle several topics in our first episode:

• Tortage (We close the door on this topic finally!)
• What classes did we choose?
• Aquilonia’s Main City: Old Tarantia
• The Wilds and Tesso: Aquilonia’s first questing region
• The Maze Dungeon of The Wilds
• Quests in general and our thoughts on them.
• Listener Mail – We take your questions and comments and dive in head first here on our show.

We hope you enjoy! As we said in the podcast if you have any comments, questions, or want to submit Listener Mail feel free to email us or leave a comment here.

As always the podcast is available for your listening pleasure right here on our website at the top of our main menu. (and hopefully iTunes has it up… *shakes fist*)

Here are some screenshots from The Wilds, The Maze, and Tesso. They’re not “high res” or anything but they give you a good idea of what the game looks like at 1680×1050 on just below medium settings. When we get our comps upgraded in about a week we’ll post some much better shots.

I had the pleasure of guest co-hosting the Wife-aggro Podcast this week with Sethanon.   We tackle some great topics like Blizzcon, Classic rule-set servers, NPD’s top 5 mmo list, and of course Age of Conan.

Definitely check out Wife-aggro.com and specifically podcast #52!  It’s a fantastic Podcast and I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Sethanon for having me.