Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 426

Dragon Age Inquisition, Kingdom Rush Origins, Battlelore Command, A New Graham Rowat Reading, Your Emails and More!

This week we have a new reading by Graham Rowat! Sean, Shawn and Julian tackle a ton of your emails.

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.

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.01.22 Dragon Age: Inquisition
00.03.07 Kingdom Rush: Origins
00.08.37 Battlelore Command
00.11.59 Elite Dangerous
00.15.02 Graham Rowat reads: Shields Up!
00.24.34 Your emails!
01.01.01 Thread of the week: What Series do you really need to finish or start?

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Waking Up - Dexter Britain - http://freemusicarchive.org/music/De... - 15:01

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Comments

For what it's worth, when I first read through this episodes reading all that time ago, my son was just going off to school and I was deeply moved by the truth in those words. I think I stared off into space a good long while afterwards...

I remember reading the initial post, and feeling so proud of the child's compassion.

Huge thanks to Graham Rowat for an amazing job reading my piece. It is amazing to hear something I wrote in the hands of someone so skilled.

Elysium wrote:

Huge thanks to Graham Rowat for an amazing job reading my piece. It is amazing to hear something I wrote in the hands of someone so skilled.

I listened to this episode while waiting to see my therapist. Suffice it to say, your writing (and Graham's excellent delivery thereof) had my tearing up in the lobby.

Usually that's supposed to happen right before time is up for the session!

I wrestle a lot with whether or not I want to have kids one day, and that story definitely had some impact for me. So thank you for writing such a beautiful piece, and for sharing it!

Julian probably already found out, but word on the street was Battlelore Command doesn't have any online multiplayer (yet).

I'd picked up Kingdom Rush Origins a couple of days ago. It's definitely the best of the series so far - I'm only about 5 levels in, and still working on the original elfy-guy hero. The environmental stuff is definitely an improvement over Frontiers - lots of interesting bits with elves dropping potshots on people, or the magic-attack plants.

I was going to make a snarky comment on Morning GWJCC, then the article came up. Bastards...

mistergross wrote:

Julian probably already found out, but word on the street was Battlelore Command doesn't have any online multiplayer (yet).

No, it has LAN play and is a bit janky. I've had a lot of fun playing with my kids, but we've had a couple of disconnects that just kill the game entirely. Twice an iPad went to sleep between moves and then it's game over. I really hope they improve that as it's a frustrating blight on a great game.

mistergross wrote:

Julian probably already found out, but word on the street was Battlelore Command doesn't have any online multiplayer (yet).

No, it has LAN play and is a bit janky. I've had a lot of fun playing with my kids, but we've had a couple of disconnects that just kill the game entirely. Twice an iPad went to sleep between moves and then it's game over. I really hope they improve that as it's a frustrating blight on a great game.

May I ask where the show notes are that would have the link to the Rob Zacny piece about The Witcher?

Papageno wrote:

May I ask where the show notes are that would have the link to the Rob Zacny piece about The Witcher?

Missing in action, but here's a link regardless:
http://www.pcgamesn.com/the-witcher/...

Hee Hee. I was tickled to hear myself mentioned in the Thread of the Week discussion.

As I mentioned in the thread, I think it's a testament to just how much variety is out there that I have missed almost every seminal series of the past twenty years but still haven't wanted for gaming experiences.

With the mentioning of the iOS board games on this episode, I found out I never knew about the release of the Manhattan Project (although, probably a good thing in this case by the sounds of what Julian said) and BattleLore Command ( of which I've really wanted to give a try since I loved Memoir '44).

Is there someplace you can hear about upcoming and recent board game ports? I catch a few on Touch Arcade is all.

Oh yeah, and great job on the article, Elysium, and perfect reading by Mr. Rowat as always!

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Hee Hee. I was tickled to hear myself mentioned in the Thread of the Week discussion.

As I mentioned in the thread, I think it's a testament to just how much variety is out there that I have missed almost every seminal series of the past twenty years but still haven't wanted for gaming experiences.

I'm pretty sure out of all the series mentioned in the podcast, the only one I've never touched is The Witcher.

quasiChaos wrote:

Is there someplace you can hear about upcoming and recent board game ports? I catch a few on Touch Arcade is all.

There's an iOS Board Games blog on BGG which has that (and more) covered. Also, Pocket Tactics usually covers them too.

Thank you so much, Sean, for writing and sharing "Shields up". It really resonated with me, at least from the parent's perspective (since my son is only three and probably won't ever feel comfortable with his peers). I wasn't in a waiting room like Harpo, but I definitely choked up.

Interesting topic, that of those franchise we'll enver touch. I know most if not all GTAs, but I don't think I'll ever play them.
But seriously, Elysium, even I've played a Zelda, and I've never owned a console! (It was Ocarina of Time on my high school's boyfriend's N64. Which, let's face it, was a lot more fun than the boyfriend. )

And thanks for the link, Tangles, I was wondering about that too.

Eleima wrote:

Thank you so much, Sean, for writing and sharing "Shields up". It really resonated with me, at least from the parent's perspective (since my son is only three and probably won't ever feel comfortable with his peers). I wasn't in a waiting room like Harpo, but I definitely choked up.

Interesting topic, that of those franchise we'll enver touch. I know most if not all GTAs, but I don't think I'll ever play them.
But seriously, Elysium, even I've played a Zelda, and I've never owned a console! (It was Ocarina of Time on my high school's boyfriend's N64. Which, let's face it, was a lot more fun than the boyfriend. )

And thanks for the link, Tangles, I was wondering about that too.

De rien

I'm elated that you guys answered one of my emails on the podcast! Thanks for making me a "celebrity" in my house for 5 minutes, and I really enjoyed the discussion of game interfaces that it sparked.

Additionally, I loved "Shields Up" so much I replayed it for my wife to hear. Kids and their unique personalities, contrasting their experience with your own, deciding when to "protect" them and when to let them fly -- all poignant topics in my life right now, and this reading helped get at things that had been rummaging around in my head for a while.

My thread is famous!

Is the thread of the week linked in the show notes somewhere? I'm not seeing it, but I'm in the middle of a week of nonstop holiday parties so it might just be because my brain is melting.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Is the thread of the week linked in the show notes somewhere? I'm not seeing it, but I'm in the middle of a week of nonstop holiday parties so it might just be because my brain is melting.

Found it.

Well, I have never finished a Zelda game...

Galactic Civilizations 2 is a bit basic currently. If you're going to get GalCiv2, get and play both expansions up to Twilight of the Arnor. The latter expansions feature random galaxy events, super-Abilities for the factions, and faction-specific buildings, ship equipment, and tech trees. All of these add a lot of flavor and texture to the Galaxy as you play.

CivBE recently released a patch that overhauled game balance. I'm personally not a fan of where the patch went, but it's a work-in-progress for Firaxis. I'm optimistic that they'll get it sorted out eventually. CivBE borrows the hex tiles and 1UPT parts of Civ5, but the sensibility and balance of many things is kind of more Civ4. It's got a very different feel from Civ5, in keeping with its scifi theme.

Another fantastic podcast from the GWJ crew. I just have one bone to pick, and it's something that has always bothered me when it comes to games discussion. I'm that guy who always writes in about how if someone could nail the in home wifi streaming experience, it would be awesome. And almost without fail, you guys have always summarily dismissed my notion that this is a thing a lot of gamers "especially PC gamers" want.

It's not that I don't want to sit at my desk and game. Heck that is where 80% of my gaming takes place. But when I'm sitting down to a telltale title or something that works great with a controller (racing game or my recent playthrough of Alan Wake), having the option to stream would be amazing.

So as I said, my thoughts had been pretty well dismissed by you guys on the podcast...until I just listened to this episode and lo and behold...I'm not the only guy on the planet that can't believe someone has not figured this out yet. Vita remote play has figured it out, gai kai and onlive figured it out a while ago, and I'm willing to guess that the latency issues experienced by whoever tried it on the podcast are either due to internet connection, insufficient processing power on the laptop, or setting resolution too high for streaming.

So here we are again. Someone please make this happen. Valve being the most likely candidate it they would get their heads out their butts with these useless steamboxes and steam controller that NO ONE WANTS and pour their focus into a do it all $99 to $150 streaming focus box thats plug and play with a beefy CPU for stream decoding. And then there is a dark horse. The new Nexus Player from Google uses an x86 cpu. It's got a decent little processor, bluetooth support, a usb connection, 1gb of ram. Maybe Steam OS can be ported to it and that might make it a cheap solution until Valve gives us something.

Again, the second, and I do mean second, someone gives me an affordable streaming only box running steamOS, I'll buy two. One for me and one for a friend of mine who games on steam.

I think the streaming issue is partly because of the fractured marketplace. Samsung TV screens absolutely do not play well with others, despite Samsung's attempts to stuff a streaming protocol down everyone's throats. Not even the more system-agnostic DLNA works well, and I suspect it's because no one wants to prioritize that over their own systems. Basically, the same reason why you can't use an Xbox controller with a PS4.

LarryC wrote:

I think the streaming issue is partly because of the fractured marketplace. Samsung TV screens absolutely do not play well with others, despite Samsung's attempts to stuff a streaming protocol down everyone's throats. Not even the more system-agnostic DLNA works well, and I suspect it's because no one wants to prioritize that over their own systems. Basically, the same reason why you can't use an Xbox controller with a PS4.

I think you're absolutely right. I cannot wait to be free from the tyranny of the HDMI cable. So far, it seems latency is the number one issue at the moment, but with a fast in home WiFi network, it would seem that latency should be an issue that's relatively easy to overcome.

I'm holding out hope for a solution. Many have promised what I'm looking for, but none have quite delivered. In home streaming via steam seems to be hit or miss for folks but I'm thinking this will be big in the future.

Please someone help me out here. I don't dare listen to last three podcasts because Dragon Age. On a scale from 1 to OHMYGODSPOILERFEST howcspoilery are we talking here? I haven't had a chance to touch the game yet but would love to listen to all three of episodes.

groovebeat wrote:

Please someone help me out here. I don't dare listen to last three podcasts because Dragon Age. On a scale from 1 to OHMYGODSPOILERFEST howcspoilery are we talking here? I haven't had a chance to touch the game yet but would love to listen to all three of episodes.

I'd rate it on a 1.

I am in the early days of Dragon Age (ONLY 20 hours in, but I had played for fewer hours when I listened to the podcasts), and there are no story spoilers in the podcasts.

There's discussion of some mechanics, some stuff you see in the opening area, whether the peeps are enjoying the game. I have not found it to be spoiler-y, unless you don't want to hear ANYTHING about the game at all.

Felix Threepaper wrote:
groovebeat wrote:

Please someone help me out here. I don't dare listen to last three podcasts because Dragon Age. On a scale from 1 to OHMYGODSPOILERFEST howcspoilery are we talking here? I haven't had a chance to touch the game yet but would love to listen to all three of episodes.

I'd rate it on a 1.

I am in the early days of Dragon Age (ONLY 20 hours in, but I had played for fewer hours when I listened to the podcasts), and there are no story spoilers in the podcasts.

There's discussion of some mechanics, some stuff you see in the opening area, whether the peeps are enjoying the game. I have not found it to be spoiler-y, unless you don't want to hear ANYTHING about the game at all.

Yup. The threatened spoiler section with Lara has yet to be released.

Edit: I'd actually revise that. There's a little bit more spoilerage in the episode where Shawn, Karla and Julian talk about the game mechanics. Nothing major, but if you're trying to maintain pristine innocence, you might want to avoid it until you've hit about the six hour mark of the game to be on the safe side.

Thank you to both of you for.your advice. It is very much appreciated. If there's nothing really major in there I will take the plunge. See you on the other side fellows.