The Grindys, The Golden Gears, Best of 2024. This is the final official podcast record for the year 2024, and we have our own LEGALLY DISTINCT accolades to hand out. A wild and packed year of video games. Who better to dish out the accolades then two dudes who play too much MMO. 

The MSQ Roundtable has assembled once more. Preach, Okaymage, and Jesse Cox have all returned to discuss the major story content that was released in the semi-recent “Crossroads” 7.1. The Story following Baby King and everyone's new favorite Jafar Ja lizard. The entire roundtable is now living the current life. Divining what will be released in what patch, what story beats will be covered where and what that means of the future of Final Fantasy as a whole. 

Following the swift completion of the recent Futures Rewritten Ultimate Race to World First, we have assembled a crack team of panalists to discuss the raid and the drama that followed. Mr Happy is fresh off his completion of the Ultimate. Llamatodd joins the show for the first time after casting the first clear moments. Okaymage is still in the Echo studio! So add-us-on to your schedule, plugin your headphones and listen to these tools.

We are approaching the Holiday Season, which means it’s also the Award Season. Garrett has returned and has opinions on the FFXIV Mobile announcement. Can DLCs be game of the year? Will we have a big sweep? Or will all our favorites walk away a winner. 

Mr Happy returns to school the boys in Extreme Final Fantasy. After a full week of hardcore progging some midcore content, Garrett and Kyle have questions about boss design, 2 minute windows and more. No better guest for a trip down memory lane than the man who has been here for it all, Mr. Happy.

Top news of the week, 7.1 is incoming for Final Fantasy 14, but that’s not all! The final Halloween is here. Garrett watched the big movie of the year and Kyle has played Silent Hill 2. There’s a lot of Magic the Gathering on the brain and even some Monster Hunter Wilds viewed from afar. Emails and more! 

As we look forward to 7.1, we also look back at the MSQ that was Dawntrail with our friends Preach, Okaymage, and Jesse Cox.

Can it be? 100 episodes of Grinding Gear! Has experienced 100th episodes makers we know whats best for this kind of event, a normal show. 

There are some big topics around the gaming space this week. MTG art, after a track record, is under fire for using Ai art. A Final Fantasy 14 article on PC gamer is pointing out the Midcore problems with end game. Dragon Age: Veilguard Approaches and hopes begin to rise. All this and a little Dawntrail spoiler mailbag question at the very end. 

When last we left out intrepid Florida boys, they were hunkering down for Hurricane Milton on its way to Florida. We have come out the otherside safe but with many stories to tell. Two hosts, two different paths. Video games? We’ll get to em next time.

On the eve of Hurricane Milton, we are boarded up and locked in. Florida is bringing out all the stops for Kyle’s first season and Garrett is an experienced storm rider. Even with weather on the horizon, it has been a while since we’ve had an event-free-guest-free episode. Garrett has been getting into Spooky Season and continuing Star Wars Outlaws. Kyle saw (most of) Transformers One and finished Astro Bot. Thank you all for the well wishes and we look forward to podcasting with you on the other side.

We just had our first IRL GG Meet in Orlando, Florida! The podcast this week is the full live show we put on in front of a live crowd. Thanks again to everyone who came out to the show and all of you supporting us through Patreon and YouTube memberships. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to put on events like these.

It's a big week here at Grinding Gear! Our first non-conference meetup is this weekend! YouTube metrics are wild. Spooky season begins. And much more!

Endy is back! Space Marine 2 is out! And MMOs are cooking!

Final Fantasy 1 has been completed. Discuss.

Okaymage makes her triumphant return to give us the inside scoop on World of Warcrafts newest expansion, The War Within. The perfect guest does indeed exist. Okaymage started playing WoW in Legion, well after the rose-tinted glasses of us olds. Jordan got deep into Mythic plus and raid content before taking their first break at the end of Shadowlands/Early Dragonflight for Final Fantasy 14. Let's see, so far, how things look on the other side. 

We are joined by Huskybythegeek, the video game guitar cover youtube artist, best known for the insanely huge FFXIV medley projects. In this musically focused gaming episode, we break down Husky’s staggering workflow to bring together 200 musicians as well as his history with gaming. For Garrett, there are Punk Rock conversations and Kyle is reminded what a “wooden” guitar is called.

Every MMO is having a 2024 release? More on that later. Patreon is up to some biz. Under Apple pressure, they might be getting rid of our weekly-per-content-post format in favor of only supporting monthly posts. For now, do nothing, but we wanted you to hear about it from us. A slightly shaken Garrett and Kyle continue from there. Kyle has been on a video game journey with his son, culminating in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Garrett has gotten into Balatro. Then we lead you through the MMO madness that his happening over the next 2 weeks.

Supportourbromance.com. No joke, it means a lot to us.

Frosty, host of FF14 esports, World First and the Mogtalk podcast joins the episode. Should we call him a community pillar? Is that still a phrase? The Community Pillar discusses what let down this wild road of content creation. What it was like being embraced by Square Enix for events and how that journey brought him to produce last week's World First event.

Our AFK journey has concluded. Garrett and Kyle return from two weeks of touching grass, or more likely sandy beaches. Kyle has been completely Dadding off the grid, while Garrett in classic fashion stayed in tune with on goings. Speaking of ongoings, we got the official War Within Cinematic Trailer? Is this the trailer? Robert Downey Jr is coming back as Doctor Doom. What we played, what we watched and more.

We may be off on our family vacations, but that won’t stop us from releasing a podcast! Join us as we answer questions about tacos preferences, traveling, where we want to travel, our bucket lists, and much more!