On this episode of The AIE Podcast…

We will see you at Nerdtacular
Renegades is giving a galaxy far far away vibe
SWTOR celebrates with 4 crazy nights
the STO Starbase is expanding
And, we have our first show of 2026!

All that and more coming up right now…

Podcast Audio

Raw Video

http://youtu.be/RNmHGBUf5gU

Open
Welcome to episode 441 of the podcast celebrating you, the Alea Iacta Est gaming community, the die has been podcast. This is Mkallah: To my left is Tetsemi – (catch phrase here). And to my right is Mewkow: (catch phrase here). Happy 2026, folks! The first week and a half has felt like a year and we are all getting back into the swing of things.

Ok, we’ll be digging into what we’ve all been up to shortly, but first, let’s cover this week’s news…

AIE News

Community
Nerdtacular 2026 has been announced- the event that we affectionately refer to as the Nerd Family Reunion is back for the first time since 2017. Lots of information on Frogpants.com, including tickets and hotel details. The event is scheduled for June 11-13 and will be held at the Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek in Salt Lake City. All three of us have tickets and have been chatting about how we can record a live show.

Mandatory Fun Nights

Where the fun is mandatory but the attendance is not.

Sunday – Destiny 2 8:30 pm Eastern
Monday – GW2 9:30 pm Eastern
Monday – STO 10:00 pm Eastern
Tuesday – SWTOR 9:00 pm Eastern
Wednesday – HFO Mythic+ Mayhem (WoW) 8:00 pm Eastern
Friday – ESO 9:00 pm Eastern
Saturday – LotRO 8:30 pm Eastern
Saturday – FFXIV (Maps) 9:30 pm Eastern
Saturday – Noob Raid (WoW) 11:00 pm Eastern

Streaming and Guild Podcast News
We have a ton of AIE member podcasts! Want to know where to find them? Look no further than here-

New Overlords Podcast (Max and Sema)
https://www.newoverlords.com

Boards and Swords (Chris and Philip)
https://boardsandswords.com/blog?category=Boards%20%26%20Swords

Dr. Gameology ( Dr. Daniel Kaufmann )
https://drgameology.com/

STO – Fleet Action Report (Grebog and Nikodas)
https://www.youtube.com/@fleetactionreport

A Podcast Reborn: A FFXIV Community Podcast (Brandon aka Old Man Franks, Meagan, and Rho) – NSFL
https://www.bonusroll.gg/directory/a-podcast-reborn/

NOMADS
Destiny 2

The new expansion Renegades is chugging along- it is a very”Star Wars themed” expansion. We get lightsabers! It’s got a very cool Darth Revan/Kylo Ren feel to the new bad guy. We get to be kinda like bounty hunters and work for the criminal syndicates doing contract jobs as part of the core activity for the expansion. Earning reputation with each syndicate gains new abilities to use during the contract runs. Not much going on Guild wise. Things are pretty slow overall in Destiny 2, the community is waiting on the new Roadmap to see where things are going. Rumors and hopes are high that a Destiny 3 gets announced. If you are in Destiny 2 and Just_Wargus online feel free to reach out for a hand with anything.

ARK – got a pretty dedicated group in there right now

WoW
Resting up for prepatch of Midnight. Housing is going well. Remix winding down. Noob Raid started up again after its holiday break. A new addon, XFaction for cross guild communication is working well.

The last days of Legion Remix are upon us. We are in the final 7 days, so get those last minute runs done now. There is still transmog gear to grind, pets, mounts, and exclusive legion remix only housing items to grab before they are gone. If you ever wanted those legion artifact appearances, this is it.

SWTOR
In SWTOR, we closed out 2025 with our Winter Nights celebration which was 4 evenings of guild activities including a tour of World Bosses where we took a piece of armor off after each successive fight, stronghold tours, dressing up in our Life Day finest, a clothing drive on the starter planets, a parade of Life Day mounts, and a cracking good trivia night. Great way to spend the last gaming week of 2025.

On to 2026! Next week is Total Galactic War! Again! This time we are ready for it. Mostly. We will be maximizing conquest points this week by doing group activities, crafting, and class stories. GSF and pvp are also good ways to rack up the points, if you are so inclined. Keep an eye on discord for any last minute group stuff that may pop up.

ESO
Nothing new really. It’s been quiet due to the holidays.

FFXIV
Just had a new patch and things are going well. New MSQ, Savage raid tier is open and the world first race is already over. New trial with a train, new Unreal trial with everyone’s favorite lady to hate and feel sorry for, Tsukuyomi’s Pain. The cosmic crafter and gatherer area has new updates, and crafters have pink heart themed items to make new. Hildebrand has more story, and the Air Force One GATE has a new place to fly around and pew pew.. The Strategy Board is live, and everyone is clearly using it for helpful raid explanations and mechanics demonstrations. Totally.

Free login campaign has started. Up to 96 hours from when you start it. Ends February 9th.

STO
KDF fleet has made some big strides with the fleet holdings. The Starbase will complete the Tier IV shipyard in just about a week. Which means after that we can start tossing resources in for a tier IV Starbase. Also the Research lab is closing in on Tier III.

What all this means is more fleet ships will be accessible. And once the research lab hits Tier III, the purchasable trait slots will be available.

Fleet Action Report has been doing playthroughs of the missions showcasing accolades and recruit special tasks, while letting you know what rewards could be handy for your ships or on ground. We will be completing the final mission of the Iconian War arc this week. Which you can catch us live recording the episode Thursday 10pm eastern.

Fun nights are Monday 10pm eastern. If you want to group up and run any STO content, looking for help with something, or just want to hang out, come join us.

LOTRO
Not much is happening. In general players are leveling, working on the epic quest, and enhancing their legendary items.

If anyone is looking for help leveling or enhancing their legendary items please reach out to Maelllung and they’d be happy to help!

And with that, let’s get back to what we have been doing in and out of game!

GAME NEWS
HOST CHAT
Question of the show- what was the geekiest gift you received for the holidays?

CLOSE
And that’s our show for tonight. While the chatroom begins suggesting show titles, we want to thank everyone for joining us.

If you have a question or comment about our show, you can email us at podcast@aie-guild.org You can find us on the AIE Discord and BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/aiepodcast.bsky.social. We record live with video once a month on Sunday at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. You can join the chatroom and play along with us on our website at https://aie-guild.org/podcast-live-stream/ and look for the link to our discord server at https://aie-guild.org. And for past episodes, you can see them on our Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAIEPodcast ! Our theme was composed by the amazing Andrew Allen, follow him at @keyswithsoul!

And now it’s time to play all of the great AIE member segments we received this week, including…

We will see you all in February. So until then, AIE…

– This is Mkallah
– This is Mewkow
– This is Tetsemi

And this has been… The AIE Podcast.