#and I dont even have the omega mount in-game?

[deoxygenated]

The other half of that dream is like we were exploring a wilderness. A huge canyon system deeply carved into the mountains. I kept calling it Thanalan but it wasn't actually.

The terrain was more like if the Grand Canyon were also Wulingyuan. It's real and huge to us but the dream zoomed at one point to show we were in a studio on like one of those tables they use for environments for miniatures but elaborate detailed.

It zooms back in and then my group and I are deciding where to go. There's beasts along the trail we've fought and the portion I really recall is when we had to figure out safe water travel.

We were heading to a Solar Flower near the endpoint where the canyons met the ocean. A tree began to engage in battle with us, shooting lightning at my teammates. From my hidden spot I quickly leafed through a book until I found the trees name. So I prayed.

I-Jeuine I named the tree and asked it to stop attacking us. We wanted safe water passage. The tree continued the lightning until it considered my plea and stopped.

It told us it could give us passage only here and to have true permission we would need to go to the solar flower and use it's energies to beg succor from the ocean.

I was overjoyed so I thanked I-Jeuine and let it know that was the plan. Relaying the information to my team we carried on.

This is where the restaurant bit happened.

Then we met some musicians. We were arranged in a circle trying to get help from another tree. But other people were also there. A duo next to us kept playing music and so we danced to keep up.

They were impressed and asked if we can make noises they can sample to make new songs. I'm like I have the perfect guy and mentally the mount list pops up and I'm like Omega (ffxiv) makes a cute noise it would be perfect.

So I summon the Omega mount and the musicians are pleased.

It gets fuzzy after here.

[aurimeanswind]

New Show, New Deal—Sunday Chats—3/11/18

Something-something-Amber is the Color of Our Energy.

It’s been a long week. Let’s chat.

Work/Life/Balance

Now that I have officially started my first full time job (a day job, separate from all the other things I do, don’t worry) it’s been a lesson in living this last week. A hard lesson. I have a lot to learn as far as work/life balance is concerned, but not only that, games, media, friends, and all that lies between.

It’s odd, because I think my momentum is building, right? It always feels like that when we lead up to a big event, for me, PAX East. For those who dont’ know, PAX East is my E3, as someone who has never been to E3. I plan private dinners, meetings, interviews, get to see a ton of people, and it’s the only event I annual get to spend time in as press, and it’s an opportunity I don’t take lightly. I wouldn’t know the people I do or be in the position I am now without PAX East.

So that’s a level of good, notable stress on the shoulders, on top of working a ton, and being exhausted, and my continuous inability to sleep. It’s all a mess, but it’s an exciting time, like I said, momentum building. It’s the most careful I can be about an update in my life. Laying in my bed Friday night I legitimately considered ending the podcast, shutting down IrrationalPassions.com, and calling it a day. Hang up my keyboard and quit on a dream that seems ever-more impossible to achieve.

I didn’t. But that gives you an idea of the stress and fear I live with everyday, haha. I don’t say this to scare you, reader, I give you this to let you know it’s all around. You and I, if you fall in this camp, both have been there. And for now I persevere, and I hope you do too.

I have so much exciting work to do, regardless. 

Tomorrow, at 9am Eastern Daylight Time, Get Acquainted launches into the world with it’s first episode.

I’m terrified, obviously. But excited too! Go subscribe on iTunes (and now Google Play too!) and that way it’ll push to your device automatically when it launches tomorrow morning.

It’s a bit rough, I have a lot to learn and grow, but my first guest was amazing and a great sport. 

Now, onto the business...

What’s On Tap

Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition

I talked about this on the podcast last night but for 15 dollars its a cool expansion wrapped up here.

Basically all of the second half of Chapter 14 has completely changed, creating a new dungeon, tons of new bosses, and adding a bunch of new cutscenes. 

It gives some new closure with some other characters, and is a really enjoyable new part of that game. It’s cool post-post game content, and they added Omega Weapon! Any Weapon-based bosses are my jam, so that got me excited.

Overwatch

Long story short, I got back into Overwatch, and that game is still great.

All the changes to Mercy have made me a worse Mercy player and that bums me out.

Yakuza 6

So much to say about this game. Check back with me on Friday for my full thoughts.

I’m having a very enjoyable time, in short.

Questions

If you want to ask me a question (for whatever reason) and be a part of Sunday Chats, look for my tweet every (or most every) Sunday afternoons with the hashtag #SundayChats in it. Respond with your question, and then we get busy. That’s it!

Well, I mean this question itself goes some places. But It’s hard to think of the best question I’ve ever been asked. I feel like I don’t casually get asked a lot of questions, it’s always in a formal interview setting or Sunday Chats, which is in itself formal in its own right, and those kind of more invasive or off hand or casual questions can tend to be the most memorable or the “best”.

But my friend Jono asked me very good question at the end of his interview with me, he asked me “what would you do if you knew you could not fail”. 

Currently, I think my answer would be the same. Go listen to Episode 44 of Puttin’ in Work for that full answer, and that very good conversation too. 

Honestly, and I know this is silly, but Pirates of the Caribbean. I feel like there was so much potential there. I’d love to see the two Davy Jones movies explored in that space! And that part of that game was lauded for its graphics and what it did. So I’d love to see them go back and really stylize the hell out of it.

But like, let’s be real just give me Frozen.

It seems like they are focusing on new worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3, which they should, and obviously Olympus needs to come back, but they’re actually doing the story of that Disney movie now, finally, so I’m down regardless. Fighting off the Titans attacking Mount Olympus is really cool.

I really don’t know. I’m definitely down for that game and I’m looking forward to playing it, but I’m really worried about how long I am gonna play it, who I’ll have to play it with (outside of you Nato, of course) and what I’ll have to do in that game. 

So I’m looking forward to discovery what there is to do and see in that world. And honestly finally sitting down with a crew of four to play that game with.

Honestly, I don’t have one. I just looked up music albums fro 1993, and really nothing stands out to me. Obviously some artists do, but I barely listen to music before the year 2000.

Because I’m a lame millennial.

Sorry guys.

A very long list, obviously.

Honestly like, the thing I look forward to the most is the work. I love it. It’s a place i get to go and work and live my dream. For real. I get to meet developers, do interviews, write previews, network, party. It’s been even better since I’ve been taking a team there. 

Past that, just seeing friends and meeting people I admire. Like, Greg Miller is a good friend, honestly, but I barely get to see him every year, so that’s always a bit thing. My writing team? Same thing, they’re all really close friends who I talk to all the time, and I barely get to see them in a year. Not that that bothers me too much because I barely leave my house as is, but it’s still something I look forward to.

I really hope they figure out FF15 on Switch, I think that’d be dope. Even if it ends up being Pocket Edition. If it isn't? Probably not.

But Noctis in Smash Bros?

God willing.

Please.

Lord.

Two months, tops.

But Gus would have to enjoy the company of another living cat ever in his life even once for that to happen.

Hrm. 

An existential question and I don’t get many on Sunday Chats. 

I’d say at least 50%. I refuse to believe more than half of the 7 billion people are inherently “bad”. I’m not so ignorant to say that there is no “evil” or “bad” people. I think it manifests itself in subtle ways that just slowly corrupt your character. I’d say 70-80%, which I know is a bit margin. A margin of 700 million people, to be exact. But I think the trouble is the people who in some way aren’t good are more easily going to step on the folks that are. Because inherently the people who are good would rather give them the benefit of the doubt. And then they acrew power, and they play games like politics because it strokes that ego, that desire to rule, and then the folk farming, taking out garbage, and cleaning homes are the truly good people, happily filling in the gaps of our world, and the assholes are running the hotels, owning the companies, and, in our case, running our country. 

Some people would call it a food chain, others bullshit. I’d just say the good people of the world do trust each other, and they work together, and that’s something the shitty ones just don’t do I don’t think. Not really.

I know that all sounds super fantastical, but it’s my childish analogy that holds my worldview together. So, say what you will.

I’ll say this: I’d rather give someone the benefit of the doubt, a second change, and be wrong about them every single time then not give them that chance once and be wrong to do so. 

Doesn’t mean I can’t burn bridges. Doesn’t mean I don’t learn from my mistakes. Lord knows I hope I do, but everyone deserves at least one second chance.

Except our current president.

Fuck that guy.

Dude Jimmy Johns is a notional chain. Just because they aren’t in San Diego doesn’t mean they don’t exist!

It’s fine. It’s a decent sandwich shop, all cold cuts, that’s very fast, and pretty reasonably priced. 

Plus you can get their bread for 25c a loaf for day old, 50c for same day. It’s dope.

You’re Pole Dancing my man. I’m sure there are some good first-time tip videos on YouTube though!

Tomorrow. 9am. Give it a listen.

Oh and please go buy a shirt to Irrational Passions OTHER awesome new podcast called Input!

It’s our first IP Shirt in a long time!

https://teespring.com/official-input-tee#pid=369&cid=6565&sid=front

It supports our other new show and it’s awesome. I don’t try and sell things often, IP is still 100% free and so is Input, and buying this show directly supports the creators of Input. I’d appreciate you a ton of you bought it. 

That’s all I’ve got.

Thank you, as always, for reading. Always.

Do me a favor. Play some games. Keep enjoying what you have in life. And keep it real.