Our live radio broadcasts are currently on hiatus while we work on improvements to Sanitarium.FM's core services. For further information, visit our Discord.
Another week has passed in WoW and I’ve progressed slightly more with both my alts. This week we found a place for Bodeclaw to feel very much like they belonged, and honour the noble sacrifice of a farm animal to a piratey cause.
I’m Pretty Sure This Is Racism…
Sorting out the final bits of the quest for Princess Poobah was pretty easy truth be told. Run round the back of the island, find the biggest ape there (again) and kick Mukla’s ass with the help of my ever trusty boar. The quest completed and the quest marker removed from my list and map (which is quickly becoming one of my favourite things to do), I mounted my Swift Springstrider (which again, is becoming one of my favourite mounts) and swam across back to the mainland coast to run up the beach and hand in more quests.
All I had to do now was try to find that cave entrance. I prepared myself for a long search…
Oh. Well that was easy. Should have listened to Lone when he said “Follow the main path.”
Back in Booty Bay, I set about handing in various quests and learning my way around the levels a little bit better than I had the previous week. This involved a lot of running in and out of buildings and I had to go by paw, as atop my Springstrider I was too tall to fit in some doorways.
I encountered the cow in the second level of a building. At first I was very confused as to why it was here… then realised that downstairs was a leatherworkers. I very quickly left, eyes a little wider for that poor beast’s future. (Yes I know, I’ve murdered many an animal over the last few months – they were quests okay?)
Eventually I found my way up to the top of the tavern and those in charge of Booty Bay. Thanks to my investigations in other questlines, it seems I was to help uncover a plot from the Bloodsails to attack and take over Booty Bay. I accepted the mission to abduct some documents from their encampment. But first I had to take a really good photo for video game confusion’s sake…
I’m so going to find as many Assassin’s Creed spots as I can now. With both alts. Look forward to that in the future.
Anyway, I went along and stole the plans with a little elimination of pirates along the way. Well, they were attacking me and i had to defend myself. And my boar, who as we all know really adores me.
The questline then took me to the enemy crew’s recruiter in an attempt to get an agent on the inside (why is it always me?)
Unfortunately it wouldn’t be that easy. He demanded I bring him the head of the Sailsmaster in Booty Bay to prove my loyalty, as he’d heard rumours of a ‘pandaren hunter’ killing the Bloodsail’s crew members. I returned to Booty Bay and spoke with the Tauren Sailsmaster. And he proposed a plan to pass a cow’s head off as his own by jamming a large pirate’s hat on it.
… Wait, a cow’s head?
Brave farm animal, you gave your life willingly. I will not let you down and let the Bay be taken…
Wait, How Many Worgen Are Here?!
Bodeclaw found themselves on a journey down to a former druidic place to combat the corruption that had taken hold of it by releasing the souls of those taken over the the darkness. Oh, and to collect a sketchbook left behind.
Fortunately there were a lot of other guardians around, attempting to fight back the corruption but it’d taken a fairly firm grasp on the land around me. It was still natural looking, but so much darker and moodier… giant tentacles and flails writhed from the ground, slimes oozed around and fae dragons found buried in the ground…
(Don’t you love glitches?)
The quests I had to do here were fortunately over very quickly. I ducked in, defeated and claimed what I needed and raced back to hand in those quests. Neither one of the quest givers required me to go back in, and thus I continued on my way to Farwatcher’s Glen. It wasn’t that far away and sticking to the paths I got there pretty quickly. And discovered that for once I was not one of a few of my kind…
Farwatcher’s had so many Worgens, with only a few of other races around. I immediately went and set my hearthstone to teleport me back to the inn here and set about collecting up the questlines in the area. I then went upstairs to sleep and discovered that I really needed to relearn pillow.
After a sleep I ventured down to the area a number of my quests required me to visit, the Charred Vale. I had been told there were Black Whelps in the area, and set about hunting them for one of the questlines given to me by a houndsmaster. I also saw Black Drakes but avoided them for the most part. I also had a jetpack to leap up the Vale and upon getting to the right area decided to use it…
I should have known. Where there’s Whelps and Drakes, there be dragons too. And I know enough lore to know that the black dragonflight aren’t exactly friendly, even without having to complete the next part of the quest which is to smash the black dragonflight eggs scattered around me…
Hello there! I am CyberGoblin and I have recently joined the team to cover Final Fantasy 14. In this first post I shall be covering the major changes in the impending second expansion: Stormblood.
First and foremost there are the new areas: Gyr Abania which is the region surrounding Ala Mhigo and for the first time the game will take us outside of Eorzea and into Orthard, the far eastern continent. There are six new zones, a new city, a new hamlet (basically Revenant’s Toll or Idyllshire) and a new housing district.
Each of the new zones will be fairly large – about the size of those in Heavensward but they all have two aetherytes so no repeats of the Dravanian Hinterlands which had none so you had to teleport into the extreme busy end game hub and walk out.
Another big addition is swimming and diving both on foot and with a mount. The former will also be retroactive to some of the old zones (the Costa Del Sol part of East La Noscea have been shown) but diving will not.
There will not be any underwater combat, indeed taking any damage underwater has been confirmed to be a one-hit kill. The development team has publicly mooted the idea of incorporating this into content such as dungeons where you have to evade defences however nothing has been confirmed or shown of this.
The next major new content are the dungeons and trials. At launch there will be nine new dungeons and at least two new trials. Locations seen have included a haunted ship graveyard, some sort of heavy artillery installation and a ruined temple of some sort as well as the underwater palace in the screenshot below.
The two primals in the confirmed trials are Laksmi the Lady of Bliss, a summon from Final Fantasy VI which focused on party healing and this time around is the goddess of the all female lamia beast tribe the Ananta. The other new god on the chopping block is original to Final Fantasy XIV like Ravana was in Heavensward. Susano, also known as Lord of the Revel is in fact one of many deities worshiped by the mercantile turtle beast tribe the Kojin.
To fight these new encounters players will have access to two new jobs – Samurai and the long requested Red mage – both of which are DPS. In addition there are several brand new abilities and mechanics added to the existing ones
Samurai is a lightly armoured melee DPS which will trade utility for extremely high single target damage and will focus around building up to unleash a single devastating attack.
Red Mage on the other hand is a ranged caster, using their rapier and crystal in tandem to combine the two major schools of magic: black and white magics. Red Mage gameplay will focus largely on building up black and white mana before diving into melee range to unleash a powerful burst combo and then diving back out to cast a finisher.
Additionally the cross class system has been reworked. Instead of the current system of having to level certain classes for specific abilities such as levelling Thaumaturge to level 26 to get Swiftcast you instead have a pool of abilities shared by role: Tank, Healer, melee physical DPS, ranged physical DPS and caster. As with before there are 5 slots and a number of existing abilities – some of which were not cross classes before – and some new ones can be picked depending on the instance.
In addition to the dungeons and trials we are also getting two new raid series. The eight man raid will be the Interdimensional Rift which will focus on Shinryu and Omega and will have a normal difficulty and a harder mode which like Alexander will be called Savage. The twenty four man raid series is called “Return to Ivalice” and is being guest written by Ivalice creator Yasumi Matsuno. Aside from the name very little has been confirmed however Game Director Naoki Yoshida has commented that playing Final Fantasy Tactics is probably the best way to prepare.
The official logo for the Pokémon franchise internationally
As is customary for Nintendo, overnight fans of Pokémon were surprised by the sudden announcement of a Pokémon Direct scheduled for 3pm British time today, with the promise of news of “future entries in the franchise”. Lasting just 8 minutes, the Pokémon Direct was a short and sweet affair, making three major announcements without going into detail about any of them – but here’s a summary of what we DID see.
Pokkén Tournament DX
As many people likely expected, Nintendo is bringing a Pokémon game to the Switch, although it’s not a main series RPG as many had hoped. Following in the footsteps of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, another of the most popular games on the Wii U, Pokkén Tournament, is coming to the Switch in an upgraded form. Pokkén Tournament DX will be bringing the popular Tekken-inspired Pokémon beat-em-up to the Switch on September 22, 2017, augmenting the original 14-Pokémon cast (and two additional alternative forms) with additional characters such as Darkrai, Scizor, Empoleon, Croagunk, and Decidueye. Three-on-three team battles are also being introduced to the DX release, alongside online ranked matches and friend-only group fights.
Gold and Silver on Virtual Console
On the same day, Nintendo will also be re-releasing the second generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon Gold and Silver, to the 3DS Virtual Console. The last Pokémon games before the modern GBA and DS era, Gold and Silver allowed players to traverse both Kanto and Johto on their hunt to catch all 251 Pokémon across both regions and beat the 16 gyms. Famously remade for the DS as HeartGold and SoulSilver with many enhancements, the original games will now be re-introduced to the modern generation as eShop exclusives on September 22, 2017; and like the Red, Blue and Yellow Virtual Console releases, will also support Pokémon Bank, allowing you to import your Pokémon into Sun and Moon to bring them to the latest Generation. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Unlike the original games, there is no word yet as to whether transfers between the Red/Blue/Yellow VC releases and that of Gold and Silver will be possible – but we wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to have thought of this too, so watch this space for updates.
Ultra Sun and Moon
Perhaps the biggest announcement of all though is the reveal of the next main series titles. On November 17, 2017 Nintendo will release to Pokémon fans worldwide Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon, promising new monsters not found in the original releases and a different story, along with new features that, according to the video, “will allow you to enjoy your adventure even more, making this truly an ‘ultra’ title”. Details were scarce, with only ten seconds of footage shown, but there is a strong suggestion that the new titles will be a sequel/upgrade to the current generation Sun and Moon games, in a similar fashion to how Pokémon Black and White were later followed up by Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2 (commonly referred to by fans as Black 2 and White 2).
No doubt by now you’ll be wanting to watch these other announcements yourself as well, so enjoy the official announcement trailer below; and don’t forget to check back here for all your latest Pokémon and other gaming news!
It’s time for the weekly update on gaming Kickstarter campaigns!
As always we shall start with the updates, and unfortunately a lot of bad news this week. A number of campaigns are fast running out of time, with some having their remaining times marked in hours not days. Those struggling are Sons of the Void, Lost Cities and BLANK, with their times in the hours – as well as Abstract Arena, Fake News!, The End is Nahual: If I May Say So, PipPow and The Salt Fortress, all with a few days to raise sometimes most of their target goals. As well, one campaign has finished short of its target and that is INTERSTELLAR ROGUE. Once again there has been no update on the game’s campaign page for a while, so this could be a dead project.
However, there are some campaigns doing well and a few that have finished successfully. Street Masters Rise of the Kingdom was one I covered last week and it has since bypassed its goal comfortably. Three previously covered campaigns have finished and these are Kynseed (from the developers of Fable, so that’s why), Trouble For Hire (a novel idea) and Ashes of Creation (a very nice looking MMO).
Starting off this week with a tabletop RPG game with an 80s theme.
Rememorex takes those suburban horror films of the mid-80’s and brings them to life in the setting of this game. You play as just a normal kid, until things start happening and the ‘Strangeling’ arrived to ask you for help and make you the hero of all the cartoons you watch on Saturday morning television. Anyone who binged on those films or grew up reading the children’s horror series that spawned from them in the 90s will see a lot to love here.
Rememorex has already bypassed its $5,000 goal, but with 25 more days to go and something outside of the usual fantasy RPG setting, it’s worth a checking out!
Blood Ancestors is described as being a “competitive first person multiplayer game” in which the developers are hoping to fill a gap they saw in the gaming market. A team game, you and three other players must get the relic to activate a portal to return to your home world. You will be against the other team and the Blood Ancestors, protectors of the relic you need. It sounds as if it’ll be a fast-paced one, so if that’s your idea of fun this one could be for you.
Blood Ancestors has a €50,000 goal of which it has made €3,942 with 24 days to go.
Next we have a sweet-looking little 3D puzzler in which you’re a cube-shaped rabbit.
Bokube has over 70 levels to play through with 8 of those available in the demo you can download from the campaign page. You play by rolling the little rabbit cube around levels, pushing things around to solve puzzles and rotating the camera to get a good look around your environment. Each level will introduce some new element into the mix to keep you thinking.
Bokube has made $1,135 of its $5,000 goal and has 26 more days to run.
The sub-title of the campaign page describes the game as a “story-driven, hand-crafted, open-world, sandbox-style, zombie-horror survival game, crafted with passion by skilled zombie geeks” which tells you mostly what you need to know. The game will come with a starter tutorial, related to the story mode which you can then choose to carry on playing after completing the tutorial or instead roam off that path and carve out your own in the midst of zombie-infested woods.
Jaws of Extinction has 29 more days to run, and has made £1,180 of its £25,000 goal.
