Episode 56 – Frozen Crickets
Posted: January 20, 2014 Filed under: Show | Tags: Breja, closed beta impressions, Diablo III, Diablo: A Love Story, dred, hardcore, jaetch, Jen, Melkor, Nevik, Ni no Kuni, Reaper of Souls, Reaper of Souls beta, red team gaming, Sibcoe, song of the show, state of the beta, wizard Leave a comment »Show notes originally posted by Nevik
In this episode, we are sadly once again without our 4th Musketeer, Lanntonio, but we persevere and get down to business by discussing what we’ve been up to in-game: Breja is nearing the end with his barbarian, Jen has spent some time on a crusade, and Nevik lost his hardcore, self-found, solo, no-stash wizard.
In this episode:
* We read, and respond to, a solitary email we received from one of our wonderful listeners. Thank you for the email Smokimus! Keep them coming, really!
* We received tweets from @pergosmaster, @Rilandune, @Hawgeye_CTR, @VictorCaslstedt, @HomeTownHero008, and @eG_acefisher1. Thank you for your tweets. Don’t forget that you, too, can send in your thoughts via social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
* Have you looked at a calendar recently? February 4th is quickly approaching which means Nate Kenyon‘s newest novel, Diablo III: Storm of Light, will soon be available for us to consume. If you can’t wait that long Blizzard recently posted an excerpt from the novel.
“Then tell us what insights you have gained from Chalad’ar, Wisdom,” Imperius said, his voice mocking once again. “Tell us what to do with the stone. The Council has been divided on this for too long. Or are the rumors among the angels correct, and you have yet to consult the chalice?”
* We discuss, at length, the merits of allowing the unpopular closed beta (and 2.0.1 PTR) builds to linger over the holidays. Should a new build have been ready to go prior to Christmas or shortly after New Years? Has letting it linger damaged the public perception of Reaper of Souls? We discuss both sides of the argument and are looking for your input as well, send your thoughts to show@shatteredsoulstone.com.
* Speaking of beta builds for Reaper of Souls, Blizzard recently announced that the pre-download for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls is being targeted for the end of January now live.
“No One Can Stop Death” by wacalac
Links for you to Visit:
* During Nevik’s “rant” on the current state of the Reaper of Souls beta he failed to mention that our good friend Sibcoe over at Red Team Gaming put together his thoughts and opinions — which mirrored Nevik’s own — in a more eloquent manner. Below you will find links to what Sibcoe published:
Monster density has been a very polarizing topic on the Diablo III forums and Sibcoe from Red Team Gaming had something to add to the discussion.
http://youtu.be/QUsCj9REvaA
Blizzard is big on “super-balancing” almost to a fault and Sibcoe from Red Team Gaming discusses the merits of needing over-powered builds in an ARPG.
http://youtu.be/3R3RY005I3c
* We missed it last episode and failed to mention it, but Sibcoe from Red Team Gaming reignited his State of Diablo III series with the twentieth installment featuring guests Jaetch and Dred from GrindEXP.com.
http://youtu.be/6aa207TPjrY
* Ever wondered what a Diablo-themed Hearthstone would look like? DeviantArt user Dexistor371 has you covered with his mock-up concept Soulstone: Heroes of Pandemonium.
* Were you fortunate enough to attend Blizzcon? Did you run into Maghda? If you answered no to either of these questions we have you covered. DeviantArt user FirstKeeper published a professionally taken photograph. It should certainly make you wish Maghda had a larger role in Diablo III; we know Rho certainly wishes she did.
* Tatasinke is back with another edition of his Paper.li newspaper, the New Tristram News. Check it out and subscribe!
Song of the Show:
Melkor is back with another Diablo inspired rap, this time expanding the focus beyond Critical Mass, the passive of the soon to be past. His latest musical creation, titled Diablo: A Love Story, features guest vocals by FloMaxx. Our good friend Jaetch lended a hand and put together the music video to pull everything together. We hope you enjoy it!
Have a Diablo III related comment, question, story, or rant that you’d like to share with all of us? Send your email, or short audio comment, to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com.
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Episode 39 – Every Cloud has a Silver Lining
Posted: May 10, 2013 Filed under: Show | Tags: account bans, anniversary event, Auction House, Breja, community round table, Diablo 3, Diablo 3's BIRFDAY, diablo.incgamers, dred, economy, gold cap, gold dupe, hardcore, Jen, ladder, lanntonio, Nevik, new tristram news, One Life to Live, patch 1.0.8, red team gaming, Sibcoe, silver lining, softcore, state of diablo 3, suggestions, tatasinke, twitch.tv, Xanth Leave a comment »Show notes originally posted by Nevik
In this episode, we open the show a little … differently on account of what might be perceived to be the darkest day in Diablo 3’s history. After sharing our thoughts on what transpired we get down to business by discussing what we’ve been up to in-game: Breja level capped his wizard, Jen was able to sneak in some time with their launch-night demon hunter, Lanntonio is fully vested in hardcore, and Nevik did another thing he thought he would never do!
In this episode:
* We read, and respond to, another mountain of emails we received from our wonderful listeners. This batch comes to us from Torrack, Master Do, and Commander Bird. Thank you for the email! Keep them coming, really!
* We received tweets from @Dienforce, @shawno, @Rilandune, @Medros, @eG_acefisher1, @Daladria, @HometownHero008, @Lylirra, and our very own @The_Breja! Thank you for your tweets. Don’t forget that you, too, can send in your thoughts via social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
* We discuss, at length, the arrival of patch 1.0.8 and the infamous gold dupe bug that proliferated the softcore community and the fallout from for as long as it was available to be exploited. Darkest day in Diablo 3’s history? Quite possibly, but we wrap up the discussion with some positives that we can hope to see come from this debacle.
* In case you don’t follow us on Twitter and missed the exciting announcement, ALL of the Shattered Soulstone will be in attendance at Blizzcon 2013! GET HYPE! We can’t wait for November, but thankfully it is still a ways off to give us plenty of time to plan out what special things we’ll be doing at Blizzcon.
* Next week we will see Diablo 3 turn one year old (well, based on its launch day at least ^^) and we will be holding an event to celebrate! For more details head on over to our Diablo 3 Anniversary Event page.
* We also see the return of a certain special sound-bite. No idea what it could be, really. No really, we have no idea. Nope. Definitely couldn’t be related to something red and intoxicating. NOPE. No way.
We’re still looking for intro submissions for our Intro Contest. Prizes haven’t been nailed down, but at the very least you could win a $20 (US) Battle.net Balance Card! Send your intros to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com. Keep them shorter than 45 seconds (30 preferably) and make sure to utilize royalty-free music or music from Diablo 3. Deadline for this contest has also not been nailed down, but we’re hoping to have a new intro in time for the anniversary of Diablo 3 going live.
Links for you to Visit:
* Sibcoe and Dred are back and joined by a familiar voice from State of Diablo 3 past as Ken rejoins Red Team Gaming to discuss the current state of Diablo 3 in the 18th installment of Red Team Gaming’s on-going series: State of Diablo 3. One warning though, this episode is a little more heavy on language and is at times NSFW, so we will only be including the link.
* Tatasinke continues to pump out regular editions of his New Tristram News paper.li newspaper. Check it out and subscribe!
* Xanth produces the fantastic column, One Life to Live, over at Diablo.IncGamers.com and recently had a chance to share the enthralling story, Knocking at Death’s Door, of hardcore (near)death of Galxx, a paragon 90 barbarian played by a 54 year old Chicago’ian woman. If this doesn’t get you pumped to play hardcore, we don’t know what will.
* Artist ChaoYuanXu recently completed a breath-taking piece of art featuring the Archangel of Justice (well Wisdom … now), Tyrael. Check out ChaoYuanXu’s other amazing pieces of art over at chaoyuanxu.deviantart.com.
* Back in April Blizzard shared the amazingly cute fan art by Crimson-Nemesis with their Fan Creation of the Week blog post on the official site. Check out more of Crimson-Nemesis’ artwork over at crimson-nemesis.deviantart.com.
* Finally we round out a trifecta of art with an amazing rendition of Mephisto’s Visage by artist/sculptor Evernight. For more pictures of this amazing piece of art, check out the forum thread created by Evernight.
Have a Diablo III related comment, question, story, or rant that you’d like to share with all of us? Send your email, or short audio comment, to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com.
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Episode 37 – It’s Not the Size of Your Revelation
Posted: April 10, 2013 Filed under: Show | Tags: apple, blizzcon 2013, blizzcon tickets, Breja, console version, cosplay, David Lines, deviantart, diablo expressions, dred, hardcore, horadric hamburger, intro contest, Jen, Julie Humphreys, multiplayer improvements, Nevik, playstation 3, playstation 4, red team gaming, tomb raider, white wine, wizard, Wyatt Cheng 1 Comment »Show notes originally posted by Nevik
In this episode, we are without our dear fourth musketeer and missed him dearly. Fortunately the rest of the crew was able to overcome numerous technical difficulties and we get down to business by discussing what we’ve been up to in-game: Jen finally played their male wizard again, Breja may or may not have lost his Apple, and Nevik recorded from inside a bottle of white, white wine!
In this episode:
* We read, and respond to, another mountain of emails we received from our wonderful listeners. This batch comes to us from Chad, Amrik, and Torrack. Thank you for the email! Keep them coming, really!
* We received tweets from @Tigjamie, @theRealJFrench, @CkRtech, @eG_acefisher1, @Daladria, @shawno, @scanline75, @Diablo and our very own @QueenofHaiku! Thank you for your tweets. Don’t forget that you, too, can send in your thoughts via social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
* We discuss our thoughts and share our favorites from the Reddit /r/Diablo Short Story contest. To check out all of the winners head over to the Blizzard Diablo 3 blog which includes links to the direct /r/Diablo threads. (Note: This contest ran quite awhile ago and have been meaning to discuss the winners for quite some time now and we finally found the time to cover it)
* We finally know when Blizzcon 2013 tickets go on sale! Ready your F5 key on Wednesday, April 24th at 7pm pacific and Saturday, April 27th at 10am pacific.
* We discuss our thoughts on a few of the multiplayer improvements coming in patch 1.0.8 shared in the developer blog written by none other than the wizard-hater himself, Wyatt Cheng.
We’re still looking for intro submissions for our Intro Contest. Prizes haven’t been nailed down, but at the very least you could win a $20 (US) Battle.net Balance Card! Send your intros to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com. Keep them shorter than 45 seconds (30 preferably) and make sure to utilize royalty-free music or music from Diablo 3. Deadline for this contest has also not been nailed down, but we’re hoping to have a new intro in time for the anniversary of Diablo 3 going live.
Links for you to Visit:
* Eat Game Live was recently highlighted as FAN CREATION OF THE WEEK for their rendition of the Horadric Hamburger. We wish we had that many noms noms per second.
* If you’re not familiar with David Lines’ *ahem* line of cosplay, check out his DeviantArt portfolio. Diablo cosplay is the best cosplay, or at least we think so.
* Our friend, Dred, recently sat down with Julie Humphreys at PAX East to discuss the Playstation 3 version of Diablo 3. You can find a transcript of the video interview at Dred’s site, DiabloExpressions.com.
* Tatasinke has published another edition of the New Tristram News. Check it out and subscribe to get updates on the latest!
* Blizzard recently updated their Rollback Policy after some abuse of their previous policy. We highly suggest you check out the updates and suggest that you pick up an authenticator to protect your account from being hacked if you haven’t already.
Have a Diablo III related comment, question, story, or rant that you’d like to share with all of us? Send your email, or short audio comment, to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com.
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Episode 36 – Good Morning Nevik
Posted: March 27, 2013 Filed under: Show | Tags: Auction House, Breja, developer q&a, Diablo 3, diablo podcast, dred, flux, gosu, Itemization, Jen, lanntonio, Nevik, new tristram news, playstation 3, scoundrel, Sibcoe, sizzle reel, super hexagon, tamplier painter, tatasinke, tyrael's sword Leave a comment »Show notes originally posted by Nevik
In this episode, our dear family is whole once again as the Breja returns to regale us with his exquisite knowledge of auction systems. Yet before this riveting Auction House 101 the crew sits down and gets down to business by discussing what we’ve been up to in-game: Jen is in Hell (in more than one way), Breja snuck in some time on his wizard (and barbarian), Nevik is sleepy and dreaming of Super Hexagons, and Lanntonio cleared Inferno with his hardcore barbarian!
In this episode:
* We read, and respond to, an email we received from our wonderful listener, Rev. Thank you for the email! Keep them coming, really!
* We received tweets from @CkRtech, @Shawno, @Tatasinke, @Medros, @theRealJFrench, @eG_acefisher1, @zesty1986, and @marineblace! Thank you for your tweets. Don’t forget that you, too, can send in your thoughts via social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
* We finally got around to briefly discussing the exceptionally long forum post, The Salvation of Diablo 3: A Guide by Gosu, but we’re still looking to hear what you think! So give the thread a gander, take some notes, collect your thoughts and then send us an email, or participate on our forums to discuss some or all of the points Gosu brought up.
* We tangent into yet another discussion on itemization as prompted by Gosu’s (follow-up) thread and the first part of the second Developer Q&A which focused on itemization itself. What do you think about the potential changes? Is it enough? Send us an email and tell us what you think!
* We discuss the sizzle reel of the Playstation 3 version of Diablo 3 that was released at PAX East 2013. It is definitely a little different looking. Let us know what your opinions are by sending us an email or participating in a thread on our community forums.
Links for you to Visit:
* Our listener, Rev, provided us a link to a YouTube video by Moldran that better explains the exploit that some unscrupulous Diablo 3 players were using that prompted the change to how bids are handled in the auction house.
* Be sure to check out Dred’s site Diablo Expressions and Sibcoe’s official Red Team Gaming site. There you will find links to consume everything Dred and Sibcoe are producing.
* Our dear Papa Kangaroo, Medros, shared with us a link to an amazing replica of Tyrael’s sword, the Sword of Justice, by DeviantArt user and cosplayer Chiaku.
* Tatasinke is back with another edition of his New Tristram News paper.li site. Head on over and check it out!
* DeviantArt user Tamplier Painter is back at it with another piece of amazing artwork. Check out this amazing piece of fan art of Lyndon, the scroundel, as well as the rest of their work!
* Nevik mentioned that he’s been mesmerized by an addicting little game by the name of Super Hexagon. What is Super Hexagon? Check out the following video and prepare to pick your jaw up off the ground. (It really is possible to do what you see, we think ^^). Why not pick it up while it’s still on sale?
Have a Diablo III related comment, question, story, or rant that you’d like to share with all of us? Send your email, or short audio comment, to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com.
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Episode 35 – Illinois, not Illinois
Posted: March 12, 2013 Filed under: Show | Tags: Auction House, auriel, blizzard, blizzcon 2013, console, death and waiting, Diablo 3, diablo expressions, dred, fan art, hardcore, Itemization, itemization blog, Jen, journey, lanntonio, Nevik, new tristram news, paper.li, playstation 3, playstation 4, red team gaming, Sibcoe, tamplier painter, tatasinke, taylor davis, travis day, vikrey auction, violin Leave a comment »Show notes originally posted by Nevik
In this episode, we are sans the Breja as he was out celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday. Fortunately the stars aligned for the rest of the crew to sit down and get down to business by discussing what we’ve been up to in-game: Jen is within spitting distance of reaching Hell, Lanntonio is Death and Waiting, and Nevik is slowly transitioning to the hardcore mentality!
In this episode:
* We read, and respond to, another pair of emails we received from our wonderful listeners. This batch comes to us from Commander Bird and Lord Bacon! Thank you for the emails! Keep them coming!
* We received tweets from @the_ilude, @CkRtech, @The_Breja, @Lylirra, @nevikjames, @Tatasinke, @Rilandune, @Medros, @theRealJFrench! Thank you for your tweets. Don’t forget that you, too, can send in your thoughts via social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
* BLIZZCON 2013 was announced (November 8th and 9th in Anaheim, California)! We discuss our excitement about the possibility of going and the loooooooong road trip it will be for Nevik. Are you planning on going? Let us know! We’re hoping to have some healthy community representation.
* We had more to discuss other than the Blizzcon announcement as Blizzard unexpectedly had a presence at the Sony Playstation 4 event by announcing Diablo III for Playstation 3 annnnd 4. We share our thoughts and opinions on Diablo returning to consoles as well as some of the other details that surfaced after the announcement.
* As if we didn’t have enough to discuss, Travis Day published an Itemization blog about changes that he and the rest of the development team are looking to implement in Patch 1.0.8 and beyond.
* We attempt to explain the recent shift of the auction house bidding system to the Vikrey auction system. Sadly we were without our dear Breja to better explain it, so we’ll be sure to address the topic in our next episode.
* We mentioned a thread, The Salvation of Diablo 3: A Guide by Gosu, but did not have time to dig in to it. Instead we decided to give the post a more prominent discussion and allow YOU to contribute your own thoughts. So give the thread a gander, take some notes, collect your thoughts and then send us an email, or participate on our forums to discuss some or all of the points Gosu brought up.
Links for you to Visit:
* Sibcoe and Dred are back along with another episode which you can now find on iTunes! Check out Red Team Gaming‘s on-going youtube series: State of the Game: Diablo 3 — Part 16.
* Speaking of the fine gents of Red Team Gaming, be sure to check out Dred’s site Diablo Expressions and Sibcoe’s official Red Team Gaming site. There you will find links to consume everything Dred and Sibcoe are producing.
* Another fantastic collection of Diablo resources and news is Tatasinke’s New Tristram News paper.li site. Head on over and check it out!
* We seem to be on a hardcore kick and mention an interview over at Diablo IncGamers with Protatoe about reaching Paragon level 100 after losing a Paragon level 98 Barbarian.
* DeviantArt user Tamplier Painter has some amazing artwork. Check out this amazing piece of fan art of the Archangel of Hope, Auriel, as well as the rest of their work!
* Nevik shoe-horned a mention of an AMAZING video he found of Taylor Davis of Apothoeosis performing a fantastic piece of music — in costume no less — from the Playstation 3 game Journey. If you own a PS3 you owe it yourself to experience Journey.
Have a Diablo III related comment, question, story, or rant that you’d like to share with all of us? Send your email, or short audio comment, to Show@ShatteredSoulstone.com.
Show Links:
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