What are you playing?

[Fil]

Goddamn. Elden Ring patch just buffed all kinds of shit. Colossal weapons got a big buff, which has been my choice so far.

Elden Beast going down now I bet.

[BillyG]

I took another like two dozen attempts and several new specs. Finally fucking destroyed Elden beast with a blasphemous blade build. I am steamrolling ng+ and trying to do the quests I missed the first time. i am thinking frenzied flame this time.

[Captain Russ]

Definitely my favorite aspect to the game is involved with that one. Platforming. Sure. Why not? What could go wrong for an acrophobe?

I've not had flopsweats as much in my life as when I'm jumping in Elden Ring. Best of luck, Billiam.

[Abraham Smashington]

This weekend's Sea of Thieves shenanigans were fucking AMAZING and I only wish I had it recorded if only to show people who don't play or think it's dumb to show them why I love this.

So backstory - the new chapter in the adventure started last Thursday. The jist is that the rarest creature in the game (the Shrouded Ghost - a ghostly white Meg that has haunted the Sea for ages and spawns normally like once in every 500+ Meg spawns) is trying to be summoned by Captain Flameheart in his nefarious bid to come back from the ether to rule. You start the mission, sail out to a specific area to find Merrick (think Quint from Jaws) on his ship that has been marooned due to a Meg taking a chomp outta it and shipwrecking it on some rocks. You get there and on his capstan there are 4 empty plates. It is your job to kill 4 specific types of Meg, take their soul, and bind it to an effigy, bring it back to Merrick's ship and do the next step. Keep in mind, this whole adventure is server wide AND in order to complete it you NEED 5 pirates AFTER you get all 4 effigies placed on Merrick's ship (at most you can have 4 on one ship, so like our crew could only have 4 of us which means we'd have to find a random player to do this with).

Lesley and I head over to Merrick's ship, see that people have already finished and brought back 2 Meg effigies so we grab one of the other ones to go complete it. We head to the specific island according to the map, summoned the Meg with the special flare given to us, killed the Meg, grabbed its soul, and were heading back to Merrick's WHEN THE SERVER WIPED AND MERGED US INTO A NEW ONE. This happens when you're the only group on a server for a specific time. The good news is that we still had our effigy and were still able to head back to Merrick's ship as a server merge doesn't affect any loot OR mission you're on personally BUT server wide missions are affected. The bad news was the other effigies that were already done WERE RESET thanks to the server merge so we essentially had to start over.

We said fuck it, grabbed the second of four effigies needed and sailed off to complete that as we were still getting the specific mission deeds in order to 100% the adventure and get the special figurehead and title. We head into the Devil's Roar (the hardest area on the map with exploding volcanos that will FUCK YOUR SHIT UP) kill the Meg in that area, grab the effigy, and head back to Merrick's ship.

As we are getting closer we see a random brig who are rocking the Athena emissary flag (meaning they are legends like us and decided to roll the dice with rocking an emissary flag to make extra money off of Athena loot) anchored. Now this is when then game can go one of two ways:

1. the group you see is cool, we dance and laugh, we have fun and we leave each other alone
   
   OR
2. the group you see is a bunch of murderous assholes that want nothing more then to blow up your ship, pvp you, and steal everything you have....

We roll up to the ship and I take out my bullhorn (the thing you can use to yell at other players not in your group) and start yelling that we're friendly, we would love to finish this adventure, and pleaseeeee don't kill us. We hear one of them yell back "WE ARE FRIENDLY TOO, WE WILL HELP YOU".

Cautiously we anchor, and get on Merrick's ship. All three of their members also jump on and we stare at each other for a minute until I start just dancing to break the ice. They all dance, we laugh, and they ask what needs to be done to finish this adventure. I tell them there are two Meg effigies left to do and we'll grab one and they should grab one. They tell me they talked to a group earlier who said that they barely finished the mission with a full Galleon and 2 Sloops doing it. I say, "Let's just try to see how far we can get here...couldn't hurt. I know we are just a group of a Brig and a Sloop but may as well try!" I tell them that once they finish they need to come back to the ship and so do we and then the next step happens. They set up to the west side of the map, and we set off to the NE side. We alliance up (meaning we can see each other the map) and proceed to go our separate ways.

We kill our third Meg, grab the soul and start heading back to Merrick's ship when we see a level 5 Reaper on the map (these are the people that like nothing but killing everyone and stealing their shit 99% of the time and it's made worse now that Rare removed the Arena gametype which was basically deathmatch in the game and was completely separate from the adventure mode so now there seems to be WAY MORE Reaper flags flying).

Lesley and I start bemoaning the fact that our night is probably ruined because this ship is right next to where we need to go. At this point we'd already spent like 2 hours doing everything above so I say "fuck it, let's just head to Merrick's and see what happens."

Remember how said I our alliance buddies were Athena emissaries? Well....when someone is a level 5 Reaper, they can then see ALL OTHER EMISSARIES on the map so they can hunt them. The whole idea is that while the rest of us pirates are doing our own thing or working for one of the other emissaries (Gold Hoarders, Merchant Alliance, or Order of Souls) the Reapers are basically the group that hunts everyone.

At this point we're heading back to Merrick's ship to turn in the effigy and see that the Reaper ship is heading directly at our alliance buddies. We get close enough to see Merrick's ship AND then in the distance we see our alliance buddies getting hit by cannonballs from the Reapers BUT they are flying directly at us.

The people on the ship are all yelling "WE HAVE REAPERS FOLLOWING USSSSSS" Now, Lesley and I aren't great at PVP and usually try to steer clear of it. But we're either gonna die like punks OR at least give it a go in this instance. Our allies anchor up next to Merrick's boat and turn in their effigy. So at this time, all 4 effigies are on the table and we're ready to move on to the next part of the adventure BUT because of the Reaper ship coming at us we're trying to decide the next course of action.

We yell out to them "ARE YOU FRIENDLY?!" and we get a "YES!" response back. Cool. We see the Reaper ship pull up sails and they are still a decent distance away. Cool. Then one of our allies spies a rowboat heading our way.

"HEY YOU ON THE ROWBOAT, ARE YOU FRIENDLY?"

......rows closer

"ARE YOU FRIENDLY?!"

.....rows even closer

That's when we all spied the same thing. This rowboat had 3 powder kegs on it and 2 of the Reaper ship members.

"SHIT! KEGS! THEY ARE GOING TO BLOW UP OUR SHIPS!"

We jump off of Merrick's ship and see a guy swimming underwater with a keg right at our boat. One of my allies and myself got lucky and were able to snipe him under the water and blow up the keg before it hit any of our ships.

BUT during this we missed their other player with the other keg which made it past us and then proceeded to hit my ship. We luckily were able to also kill that guy but the damage was done. Lesley started bucketing water out of our hold as our boat was sinking while one of our allies were patching holes in our ship. Thankfully we were able to fix our boat.

With 2 of the Reapers dead, we now know:

1. These Reapers have no interest in completing this quest with us
   
   AND
2. If we don't destroy these guys, then all of our hard work in just getting the 4 effigies will be for nothing and we'll have to try it all over again another day

NOTE: Now in this game the three ship types are: Sloop (1-2 players and 2 cannons), Brig (2-3 players and 4 cannons), and Galleon (3-4 players and 8 cannons).

The level 5 Reapers are a fucking Galleon, we're a Sloop, and our alliance buddies are a Brig. So the Reapers already have 2 extra cannons on their one ship compared to our two ships combined.

We all get to our respective boats and get ready for a fucking battle. I work our cannons like our lives depend on it (they do) and the battle begins. This is some fucking Master and Commander shit right here. I'm shooting chainshots at the Reaper's mast like crazy as I also see our allies doing the same thing. As the Galleon ships have 3 masts you want to knock those fuckers over so they can't maneuver unless they stop what they are doing to fix them.

I connect with a chainshot and knock their front sails down, our allies connect with a chainshot and knock their midsails down, and then I start hammering their boat with cannonballs.

As this is happening the Reaper boat is shooting our boats with cannonballs and fireballs. I see our allies boat is on fire and their mast is down so I tell Lesley to head to them ASAP so we can assist. The Reapers shoot a member from their boat onto ours. He kills Lesley but didn't see me so I proceeded to fuck his shit up and murder his face. The other ship yells out "We just killed one of the Reaper guys on our ship!" At this point the Reaper ship is 2 members down while they wait to respawn. We go hard as fuck at the Reaper ship and they're going hard as fuck at us.

This goes on for like 20 mins. All three of our ships are just circling Merrick's shipwrecked ship and I see that the Reapers have pretty much almost destroyed our ally's brig. Somehow Lesley gets us right next to the Reaper ship which means we are inbetween both ships and I throw a ton of firebombs on their ship which makes it go up in flames. Meanwhile Lesley comes down to the deck and starts just blasting them with cannonballs. Our ally team use this time to patch their boat and get into attack position...Continued in next post due to length

[Abraham Smashington]

continued...

The Reapers try to run and we give chase. Again, we knock down their masts and start their ship on fire. It looks like we may sink these fucks but then the special cannonballs come out. They anchor ball both of our ships but since I know what color those balls are I turn hard right so when our anchor drops, our ship pulls a 90 degree turn which puts our cannons directly at the Reaper ship. I chainshot their mast and get a few more cannons off while Lesley gets our anchor up and patches holes and the Reapers get away. This battle alone was like 45 mins and we still haven't done the next part of the adventure.

Both our ship and our ally head back to Merrick's ship to assess damage and check inventory. We were all sweating hard and gobsmacked none of us sunk. Most of our wood and cannonballs were used in this battle. We watched the Reaper ship run back to Reaper's hideout and then disappear. So in theory, they turned in their flag and logged off OR turned in flag and then would come back.

All of us were discussing what we should do. Should we wait and see if the Reaper ship comes back for another battle or do we start the next chapter in the adventure and hope they dont come back, kill us, and take the spoils?

We said fuck it and decided that the fact we all survived that battle, we owe it to ourselves just to see what the next chapter is. With all of the effigies on the table, the next part is for at least 5 pirates to play the "Summon the Megalodon" sea shanty in order to summon the Shrouded Ghost. Well, we did it. We played our hearts out. Then a rumble came and a loud roar and there it was in the distance. The Shrouded Ghost....it came out of the water like Jaws in Jaws:The Revenge. We both set off in our boats to go try to kill this fucking thing.

It was a battle. This was the toughest Meg in the game so far by a magnitude. One bite would leave multiple holes in your ship or would kill you if you got bit. During this battle all of a sudden we hear Flameheart's voice and then all of these portals from the underworld open up and now there are dozens of ghost ships all around us AND the Meg. The other ship is yelling, we're yelling, they're getting their ass kicked, we're getting our ass kicked, all the while the threat of that Reaper ship coming back is still a thing.

After what seems like an eternity we kill all of the ghost ships and then it's the final push against the Meg. It's almost dead, we're almost done, and then it happens. A bit from the Meg was too much for our ship and Lesley and I couldn't bucket water fast enough or patch the holes. We were screaming "NOOOOOOooooo" and our ship sunk. Shit.

Lesley and I swim towards our ally's ship so we could at least help bucket water and patch holes when I see a normal shark speed past me and I hear Lesley yell "FUCK". The shark killed her. I luckily made it to the ship and helped the other team. The meg at this point is going nuts and in less than 20 seconds hit the boat twice. There were at least a dozen holes in this ship and it was sinking fast. Their captain yelled "I'll patch, everyone else bucket!" The three of are bucketing water like our lives depend on it (which they do) and he's patching like a mad man. Then Lesley spawns again BUT since our boat was sunk she's now on a completely different island than us.

Boooo.

She finds where we are on the map and starts sailing towards us with a fresh crate of wood and cannonballs. The rest of us finish bucketing the water out of the ship and patch the holes and see the Shrouded Ghost coming back around for another attack. We all load up our blunderbusses and 2 of us shoot the fucking thing while the other two use cannons and in what seemed like an amazing turn of fate, we all shoot at the same time and the Meg dies. We hear the celebratory music denoting we finished the adventure and we all let out a collective cheer. Lesley pulled up and boarded the boat we were all on. I hear from one of the guys, "Dude! Your wife is ripped!" I turned around and saw that due to a bug, Lesley was just in her underwear and bald. We all laughed, virtually high fived and took some victory photos.





Not gonna lie, this was probably the hardest thing to accomplish in the game thus far and I don't know if I'll be able to do it again for Ari and Ceej but shit like this (even when it doesn't end in a victory) is why I love this fucking game. It legit is the most fun game I've played in years.

[Timothy225]

I don't game, but that tale makes me wish I did. Three cheers and many flagons of ale to thee, Cap' Rerb and Lesel The Ripped!

clap-applause.gif

[Abraham Smashington]

it's honestly one of the most fun games once you get the gameplay loop. IT's also one of the most infuriating games once you get the gameplay loop. I try not to take it too seriously, but when you only have like an hour or two a day to play and you're whole session is fucked because someone else decides to sink you it's hard not to take it seriously.

That being said, even when that happens depending on the situation it can still be fun. Ari, Lesley and I mostly have fun just sailing around and doing quick shit while spamming silly emotes at each other.

[Timothy225]

As long as you guys are having fun, no matter what, you're doing it right.

[B_Metal]

Goddamn. Elden Ring patch just buffed all kinds of shit. Colossal weapons got a big buff, which has been my choice so far.

I've never played any of the Souls games but I picked up Elden Ring. I. AM. NOT. GOOD. I am getting better but hoooooooo-leeeeeeee fuck am I not this games target gamer. Even though it's handing me my ass BADLY I am still enjoying it. Go figure.

[Abraham Smashington]

I really hope Elden Ring comes down in price or goes on sale because I want to try that. I just know, like Jersh, I too am not that games target audience but I did enjoy DS3/Bloodborne once I figured it out so I'm hoping the same thing will happen here.


Kinda pumped for the new season in Deep Rock Galactic. Been awhile since I've been underground. FOR ROCK AND STONE!

[B_Metal]

I am enjoying the fuck out of it,I just am really not good at the combat yet. I'm learning but fuuuuuck is it a steep curve.

[BillyG]

My Playdate just arrived. Powering it up.

[Abraham Smashington]

lulz. you hipster.

[Abraham Smashington]

Ari and I dove back into Deep Rock Galactic last night and man they've added a bunch of shit since we last played and it's still a fucking blast to play with friends. AND unlike Sea of Thieves you can easily play a mission or two within an hour or less so that's nice.

FOR ROCK AND STONE.

[Abraham Smashington]

Ari and I dove back into Deep Rock Galactic last night and man they've added a bunch of shit since we last played and it's still a fucking blast to play with friends. AND unlike Sea of Thieves you can easily play a mission or two within an hour or less so that's nice.

FOR ROCK AND STONE.

We took it to a new level and added his kid and Lesley to one of our excursions. This game with 4 players who kind of know what they are doing ("Hey dad, should I use my shield now that you and Rob killed all of the creatures during that super stressful swarm?") is pretty great. They've added so many new mission types and bugs and shit. Ari and I who are are well versed in the game from a year or two ago were constantly finding new shit. Good stuff.



Lesley and I tried the new Pirate Legend quest called Legend of the Veil this weekend and it was a ton of fun. We kicked ass with it two seperate times and made a ton of xp and loot. It was fun.

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