Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 364

Final Fantasy XIV Reborn, Arma 3 Online Coop, State of Decay PC, Train Simulator 2014, Shadow Warrior, GTA V Update, SteamOS and The Future of The PC, Your Emails and More!

It's a full house this week at Allen, Cory, Elysium, Julian and Shawn catch up on what they've been playing and take a deep, dark look at SteamOS. We also update on the GWJ donation drive!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Blink - Workbench Music - http://workbench-music.com - 42:05

None - Workbench Music - http://workbench-music.com - 1:15:54

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Comments

If you want to get excited about trains you could do worse than watch Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in Unstoppable. A great film with lots of gritty technical details about derail speeds, etc. If that film doesn't get into Railway Simulator nothing will.

For anyone who wants to give FFXIV a try based on the podcast be sure to check out the thread for the GWJ Free Company

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

There are about 25 of us or so and we are pretty active, feel free to join us. We are all having fun.

If you want to get excited about trains you could do worse than watch Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in Unstoppable. A great film with lots of gritty technical details about derail speeds, etc. If that film doesn't get into Railway Simulator nothing will.

Actually, I really liked that movie.

PC Accelerator? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Good to hear all the positive thoughts on FFXIV. Been watching Demyx play it and while it's not my cup of tea, it's great to see the game doing well the second time around. It's very cool that they put controller support in the PC version too.

Also, I don't think Valve isn't going to lose much sleep about their controller not working with Blizzard titles. Blizzard doesn't have their games on Linux nor are they on Steam, and I doubt Valve is going to worry about supporting titles that aren't on their service, at least at the start.

I guess I'm the right audience for a SteamBox?

My library is up over 200, and while there's dozens more games I "have access to" via all the various bundles I've purchased over the years, I don't count them because they're not on Steam.

So something that lets me play my library of games on my big screen is certainly going to be of interest to me, especially if it's half the price of a PS4/Xbone.

The Steam announcements were a little dissappointing, but I am interested to see where they go; it is definitely a long term play.

I would say there is practically a 0% chance they would make HL3 or any game SteamOS exclusive. SteamOS is freely available and most PC gamers would just dual boot into it to play the game. Why make their current customers go through such an unnecessary step to play their game?

I could imagine that they make it a Steam exclusive as a way to pull console gamers into their ecosystem either on SteamBox or PC.

bookoo327 wrote:

Why make their current customers go through such an unnecessary step to play their game?

I understand why you're saying this, but if we look back at how Valve has rolled out the trading cards, and even the steps involved to get into the Hardware Beta, they certainly love "gamifying" the process.

For instance, with the Hardware Beta, you will get a Level 1 badge for doing 4 things, one of which is try out Big Picture mode. Then you get to Level 2 by filling out a form to enter the beta.

Up until that point, I had not tried Big Picture mode at all - but offering a badge for spending a game session with it was a decent give/get for me to try it. And now that I've tried Big Picture, I'm a lot more willing to play around with hooking my PC to my TV, or consider a SteamBox, or even a dedicated SteamOS that I interact with +95% through a game pad.

shoptroll wrote:

PC Accelerator? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Next week: Panelists debate whether Cory runs Boot or Byte.

wordsmythe wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

PC Accelerator? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Next week: Panelists debate whether Cory runs Boot or Byte.

Maybe Cory's one of the Beagle Brothers?

Some quick notes about Final Fantasy 14:

The subscription is just $13 a month if you only have one character per server. Since any character can be all classes, it is the better deal for most people.

PS3 and PC play on the same servers. I'm playing on my PS3 and for the most part it had been fine. PS3 players will get a free upgrade to the PS4 version, and that beta is scheduled to begin in February (when the PS4 launches in Japan).

Many if us are on Midguardsormer (sp?), and they will soon be offering free server transfers for a 5 day period.

I have really enjoyed the game and I plan to subscribe at least for another month.

Elysium wrote:
If you want to get excited about trains you could do worse than watch Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in Unstoppable. A great film with lots of gritty technical details about derail speeds, etc. If that film doesn't get into Railway Simulator nothing will.

Actually, I really liked that movie.

It was a big surprise to me. I wasn't expecting anything other than an average, mildly entertaining movie but, the way they handled the escalating situation, the characters (good old Denzel) and the sense that everything is based on the way the trains actually work, made it something special.

I watched it with my Dad. He isn't a big movie person but he's always liked trains and we were both hooked from the start.

All this ARMA 3 talk has me on the fence. It sounds awesome, and I love Military FPS, but I'm worried I won't have the time to bust through the learning curve.

Mukman wrote:

All this ARMA 3 talk has me on the fence. It sounds awesome, and I love Military FPS, but I'm worried I won't have the time to bust through the learning curve.

Right there with you.

bookoo327 wrote:

I would say there is practically a 0% chance they would make HL3 or any game SteamOS exclusive. SteamOS is freely available and most PC gamers would just dual boot into it to play the game. Why make their current customers go through such an unnecessary step to play their game?

I don't think they'll make something SteamOS exclusive at the expense of angering existing PC customers. But... they can certainly use SteamOS and Steam Machines as a reason to not make HL3 available for consoles. Take a look at how well they've supported TF2, L4D2, and Portal 2 on PC. Then look at how little they've been able to support them on consoles.

If you want to play HL3 or L4D3 or Ricochet 2, you're going to need either a Steam Machine or a PC running SteamOS/Win/Mac/Linux.

Or, they'll have a Live CD allowing you to boot into SteamOS without needing to go through the OS installation.

One thing about SteamOS that I haven't heard mentioned yet is that a lot of Windows games run natively on Linux just fine via WINE. So it's possible that a good portion of Steam's game catalog that only has a Windows binary could be tested under SteamOS using WINE, and then simply made available for play on SteamOS regardless of whether an actual Linux port is available. Then there might be two classes of SteamOS games: SteamOS Compatible, and SteamOS Native. Couple this with an effort to provide a Steam Controller mapping for older games and the SteamBox could launch with a huge library of games to choose from.

wordsmythe wrote:

Next week: Panelists debate whether Cory runs Boot or Byte.

I loved Boot so much.

Aristophan wrote:

Some quick notes about Final Fantasy 14:

The subscription is just $13 a month if you only have one character per server. Since any character can be all classes, it is the better deal for most people.

PS3 and PC play on the same servers. I'm playing on my PS3 and for the most part it had been fine. PS3 players will get a free upgrade to the PS4 version, and that beta is scheduled to begin in February (when the PS4 launches in Japan).

Many if us are on Midguardsormer (sp?), and they will soon be offering free server transfers for a 5 day period.

I have really enjoyed the game and I plan to subscribe at least for another month.

If you pay $15 a month you can have up to 8 characters per server, but there's not a whole lot of reasons to have more than one character per server.

I got my PC version for free because I bought the collectors edition of 1.0. I paid $40 to buy the PS3 version as well. You only need one subscription to play on both systems. I actually switch between the two based on what I'm doing and if the PS3 is tied up. The PC has better graphics, but also has a propensity to lock my computer up occasionally due to my almost 4 year old graphics card. Once I get into the action, I barely even notice the graphics though, so I can still do everything on the PS3, and I don't get any crashes on it. The PS3 has no screen tearing at all, while the PC version has screen tearing galore sometimes.

I just barely created a new character on Midgardsormr. I've mostly been playing with the RealLifeComics people on Excalibur, and the RPGamer people on Leviathan.

Part of the reason I like PC gaming is so I can alt-tab between apps and have a football game streaming on monitor 2. I could see it for a set top box but on my main PC it would just feel like a nuisance to get a small framerate increase (maybe).

Also, I forget who mentioned it being $300 sitting next to $400 - $500 consoles. There is no way they could get it close to that price point and not sell at a huge loss. If it was profitable, PC manufactures would have gaming rigs going for that price currently. Right now you are looking at around 600-700 to buy something with a OK video card in a not so small case. The streaming only one at $100 seems perfectly reasonable though.

During the listener questions many games are discussed. Since these aren’t included in the show summary here are the games that get some love in "Your emails!"

Question on Full-Motion Video
Wing Commander
Tex Murphy
Night Trap
Bear Stearns Bravo
Pronunciation Book
My Little Conspiracy Theory
Command and Conquer

Question on Card Games
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Love Letter
Dominion
Family Business
Guillotine
Campaign Manager 2008
Times Square
Bonanza
Gloom
Koi Pond
Game of Souls
Belle of the Ball

What about SteamOS built into something like a SamsungSMART TV? Could that be useful enough for someone to use SteamOS on their basement rig, but occasionally stream to the big TV in the living room? Is that killer app-ish, or just a novelty that aids use?

Spaz, I love the thought of it built into a TV. I suppose it would depend on how cheap the steam components could be made for. It would be great if I'm spending an extra $100. If the TV is $500 more than its non-Steam competitors, I'll pass.

I question if there is a market for any of this besides the controller. I wish Valve the best, but it wouldn't surprise me if it the idea fizzles and dies earlier rather than later.

Political Games....how did no one mention Republic: The Revolution or A Force More Powerful?

gorilla wrote:

During the listener questions many games are discussed. Since these aren’t included in the show summary here are the games that get some love in "Your emails!"

Question on Full-Motion Video
Wing Commander
Tex Murphy
Night Trap
Bear Stearns Bravo
Pronunciation Book
My Little Conspiracy Theory
Command and Conquer

Question on Card Games
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Love Letter
Dominion
Family Business
Guillotine
Campaign Manager 2008
Times Square
Bonanza
Gloom
Koi Pond
Game of Souls
Belle of the Ball

Keithustus wrote:

Political Games....how did no one mention Republic: The Revolution or A Force More Powerful?

I love you both.

wordsmythe wrote:

I love you both.

Also Hidden Agenda

wordsmythe wrote:
gorilla wrote:

During the listener questions many games are discussed. Since these aren’t included in the show summary here are the games that get some love in "Your emails!"

Question on Full-Motion Video
Wing Commander
Tex Murphy
Night Trap
Bear Stearns Bravo
Pronunciation Book
My Little Conspiracy Theory
Command and Conquer

Question on Card Games
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Love Letter
Dominion
Family Business
Guillotine
Campaign Manager 2008
Times Square
Bonanza
Gloom
Koi Pond
Game of Souls
Belle of the Ball

Keithustus wrote:

Political Games....how did no one mention Republic: The Revolution or A Force More Powerful?

I love you both.

Thank you guys so much for that!

wordsmythe wrote:
Mukman wrote:

All this ARMA 3 talk has me on the fence. It sounds awesome, and I love Military FPS, but I'm worried I won't have the time to bust through the learning curve.

Right there with you.

That makes 3 of us. I have never tried any of the ARMA games, but the slower pace (compared to your Battlefields and CoDs) looks like it would be more up my alley. Plus the "role-playing" option if you are with good people.