Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 142

Arma 2, Overlord II, Trine, Zonk's Impressions of Mass Effect iPhone, King's Bounty, Special Guest Chris Remo From Idle Thumbs!, A First Look At Dungeons & Dragons Online Free to Play Change, id Goes Bethesda's Way, Bioware Mates With Mythic, Our GoG.com Contest Winners, Your Emails and more!

This week Chris Remo joins us to talk games, news and his strong, principled stance against piracy, Gamefaqs and murder. We also have a special hands-on look at the new Dungeons & Dragons Online free to play system and announce our GoG contest winners. You people are spoiled. Spoiled! If you want to submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563.

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. You can also submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563!

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Comments

Here is Grubber's image:

IMAGE(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7351/sacredgold2.png)

Good show guys.

I think the thing about porn/internet/gaming and authentication (and i'm going to assume some things here since i've never bought porn on the internet) is that it seems to be different infrastructure than the game industry: i.e. you have lots of little shops or individual 'actors' and 'actresses' promoting themselves and they probably make money but most of them probably don't make a lot. Then you've got the portals where there are more 'artists' on one site but the premium content is probably relatively less in revenue when split between the contributors than on the dedicated sites.
Now, you may think that this sounds similar to the indie part of the games industry and you'd be right. I'm not sure how the "mainstream", big budget porn industry has survived in the mainly post-celluose era... maybe someone can enlighten me?

Another thing about the whole porn thing is that i'm pretty sure that most porn isn't DRMed up to the gills - once you pay for it (or get it for free) you're not stuck with something that you're never going to be able to access without going to the source of where you got it from.

Yeah, the internet made porn more accessible and probably more profitable (anonymous buyers etc) but that's because it offered ease of access to people who could not face the social shame of approaching these things in the physical world.

In summary, there's a whole raft of issues that separate parts of the porn industry going online (and their measure of success) to the equivalent in the games industry. The only really comparable situation is with music and film/video.... music has become more DRM free with time and video is pretty still full of DRM and is still quite young for the official services and they're working out the financing kinks in the equation.

I also think that Corey is a little wrong in how he perceives the experience of playing old games for the first time in a modern setting. One of the things that differentiates games from music and even traditional 'physical world' games is that they age and they generally age badly. If you're used to playing new, up-to-date game experiences, going back to play Secret of Mana without the benefit of nostalgia will probably leave you feeling like the game is overrated and is pretty basic etc. (in fact wasn't there some game journalist post somewhere fairly recently that exposed how bad the game was?).

Discovering the Beatles music, while lacking some of the social hype and experience, is not really any different than it was back when they were first released... the music is still the same (and is actually going to be improved as of this September) experience and isn't made to feel old by comparison with modern music. Unfortunately, we can't divest ourselves of our 'future' knowledge of where games have managed to get to and that will taint our experience of an older game, no matter how forgiving you are as a person.

I'm glad that other people out there think "What if I was a Katamari ball right now?" while driving.

They should do a podcast where they discuss the various things in thier lives that have made them think about rolling a katamari ball about

iTunes and the download link are not currently working. I guess I'll have a boring drive to and from work today.

MacBrave wrote:

iTunes and the download link are not currently working. I guess I'll have a boring drive to and from work today.

Here's a mirror if you can't get the link to work.

Duoae wrote:

I also think that Corey is a little wrong in how he perceives the experience of playing old games for the first time in a modern setting. One of the things that differentiates games from music and even traditional 'physical world' games is that they age and they generally age badly. If you're used to playing new, up-to-date game experiences, going back to play Secret of Mana without the benefit of nostalgia will probably leave you feeling like the game is overrated and is pretty basic etc. (in fact wasn't there some game journalist post somewhere fairly recently that exposed how bad the game was?).

Discovering the Beatles music, while lacking some of the social hype and experience, is not really any different than it was back when they were first released... the music is still the same (and is actually going to be improved as of this September) experience and isn't made to feel old by comparison with modern music. Unfortunately, we can't divest ourselves of our 'future' knowledge of where games have managed to get to and that will taint our experience of an older game, no matter how forgiving you are as a person.

I disagree wholeheartedly. In the same way that older movies as far back as the silent era can be engaging and exciting experiences today despite technological innovations and new conventions for the language of film, older games can still be fantastic. While there have been changes in the way that games are designed, the value of old games doesn't lessen or degrade. Secret of Mana isn't a bad game today even if it wouldn't have been made the same way if released now.

And the Beatles most certainly can feel out-dated. The production on their songs is mundane by modern standards, and the songs themselves offer little to fans of modern genres like hip-hop and techno. They can seem very antiquated if approached properly.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

I disagree wholeheartedly. In the same way that older movies as far back as the silent era can be engaging and exciting experiences today despite technological innovations and new conventions for the language of film, older games can still be fantastic. While there have been changes in the way that games are designed, the value of old games doesn't lessen or degrade. Secret of Mana isn't a bad game today even if it wouldn't have been made the same way if released now.

And the Beatles most certainly can feel out-dated. The production on their songs is mundane by modern standards, and the songs themselves offer little to fans of modern genres like hip-hop and techno. They can seem very antiquated if approached properly.

I don't get your reply, Adam. In the first paragraph you say that old things aren't outdated or devalued by our experiences with new things and then in the second you point out that old things are devalued and outdated by new things....

My point wasn't that old games are inherently bad but that coming 'from the future' we see the faults of those things more clearly which, IMO does devalue them and makes them harder to appreciate when it comes to games and film. IMO, books and music don't suffer from this as much as recording technology and.... well, paper, hasn't changed that much. Sure there are 'styles' for recording songs (and genres) and writing style books but i think that those are more personal preference and can't be boiled down to 'man i played Splinter Cell conviction last week and in comparison this Syphon filter/Spliter Cell 1 control scheme just doesn't cut it by comparison.... the graphics are really terrible and the AI is rubbish!'.

MacBrave wrote:

iTunes and the download link are not currently working. I guess I'll have a boring drive to and from work today.

Weird, I was getting a blip too. Seems to be working off and on now, which means it's a libsyn issue. I'll see what I can do.

nossid wrote:
MacBrave wrote:

iTunes and the download link are not currently working. I guess I'll have a boring drive to and from work today.

Here's a mirror if you can't get the link to work.

Thanks, that worked.

Thanks for picking my email! My picture is part of a children's book I am writing, "Grubber fights the Ogres: A Romance"

Not trying to defend Romero, but could he have been trying to make a joke about ZeniMax sounding like Cinemax, which is often referred to as Skinamax?

Duoae wrote:

I don't get your reply, Adam. In the first paragraph you say that old things aren't outdated or devalued by our experiences with new things and then in the second you point out that old things are devalued and outdated by new things....

I was trying to point out how your example (the Beatles) can be false from a certain point of view. Personally, I believe that the Beatles will have value for all listeners here in the future, but from a certain perspective I can see how someone would see their music as having been hurt by listening to it in the context of the modern era.

Essentially, my first paragraph is my personal view of older things; my second paragraph is a different possible view.

Duoae wrote:

My point wasn't that old games are inherently bad but that coming 'from the future' we see the faults of those things more clearly which, IMO does devalue them and makes them harder to appreciate when it comes to games and film. IMO, books and music don't suffer from this as much as recording technology and.... well, paper, hasn't changed that much. Sure there are 'styles' for recording songs (and genres) and writing style books but i think that those are more personal preference and can't be boiled down to 'man i played Splinter Cell conviction last week and in comparison this Syphon filter/Spliter Cell 1 control scheme just doesn't cut it by comparison.... the graphics are really terrible and the AI is rubbish!'.

I don't want to debate how recording technology and techniques have or have not changed over time, so I apologize for not responding to that.

As to the rest, I believe that games, like all other works of art, should be approached on their terms rather than on yours. In other words, if I'm playing Splinter Cell and believing it to be a bad game because it's A.I. isn't as good as the A.I. in Splinter Cell: Conviction then I'm not fairly evaluating Splinter Cell as it exists but am instead evaluating it as I think it ought to exist. This is no different to me than slagging Super Mario Galaxy for not having guns and a cover mechanic; those things are external expectations I've brought to the table. Ideally, Splinter Cell would have been designed with it's current level of A.I. in mind and will play accordingly. If Splinter Cell has A.I. that is poorly implemented, that's one thing, but if it's simply not as complex as A.I. encountered elsewhere, that's something else entirely.

A better example of this might be Doom. By modern FPS standards, Doom is rubbish. Even ignoring the lack of high definition graphics and endless texture passes, the nuts and bolts of the game aren't up to snuff. You can't look around; the enemies run right at you, ignore cover, and frequently shoot one another in the back; the levels don't even remotely reflect real world spaces or even the ways in which real world spaces could be designed; you cannot tell which direction damage is coming from at any time; and almost no effort is expended on creating any sort of narrative. If one plays Doom expecting Half-Life 2, one is going to be disappointed because Doom simply doesn't have any of the things we've come to expect from a first-person shooter and indeed are considered to be no-brainer inclusions in any entry into the genre.

However, Doom remains a genuinely stand-out video game because it was designed with its limitations in mind. The enemies, while stupid, are placed carefully in each level to get the maximum impact out of what they are capable of doing. The levels aren't intended to reflect reality but are instead a series of clever tricks and traps to navigate and survive. Damage that could be coming from any direction is used specifically and deliberately to confuse and frightened the player. All of these things are indicative of good game design that is fun and should be appreciated whether the medium has moved on from them or not. Like the surreal, mechanical compositions of Metropolis, the gameplay of Doom is beautiful devoid of context and on its own terms.

I want to second the Overlord II love, I finished it last night and it surpasses the original in almost every way. Writing, graphics, gameplay, all are just top notch. For $30 on Steam it's a steal.

But that's the thing... most people used to playing today's games are going to go in and measure the old game against their own previous experience (which are recent games). It's an inevitability and if you can go into an experience (whether it be a game or film or song) and personally disengage your previous experiences and not have any sort of comparison then our minds are too different to be able to agree on this.

I believe it's possible for people to appreciate things based on the knowledge of what was available at the time of release but they cannot be there themselves or place themselves in the mindset of those people any more than i can truly understand the fear of the world and the unknown that lead to people hanging and burning witches in the middle ages. Our experience taints our view whether we like it or not.

If I really boil down what I'm saying, and I realize that this slightly contradicts some of what I said, then I believe that a game's age and the context in which it was released are irrelevant. I believe that a good work of art is always a good work of art regardless of the time and context of its appearance. If an older game seems to be mediocre today, then it was mediocre when it was released, as well. I still don't believe that it's fair, or even worthwhile, to compare a game against our expectations for that game rather than or in addition to what the game actually has to offer.

I didn't really care for the PR drone about the in-store items for DoD Online. I'd be interested in checking out the free version of the game when it comes out, but I haven't heard too many great things about DoD online in general.

About the PS3 button being too sensitive - I have an 80 GB model and I have to tap it pretty firmly to turn it on. Maybe the sensitivity of the button is different depending on how old your PS3 is?

Good guest. Good show. I'll still never play D&D, but Trine is certainly looking fine.

It's disappointing to hear you guys dismissing Rare without having ever discussed Banjo Nuts and Bolts on the podcast. It's built around one of the more amazingly original core gameplay concepts I've seen in recent years, the vehicle building system. It's astonishingly sandboxy in that it presents you with a goal, and if you can think of a vehicle that can help you accomplish the goal in any particular way, you can probably build it. It basically boils down to creating your character's moveset uniquely suited to the task at hand, and it's really something special.

Aside from the mediocre launch titles, Rare's 360 output has been really stellar. Commercially, though, they never went anywhere, which is probably why Molyneux was put in charge of them during Microsoft's European studio reorganization recently.

Cbirdsong wrote:

It's disappointing to hear you guys dismissing Rare without having ever discussed Banjo Nuts and Bolts on the podcast. It's built around one of the more amazingly original core gameplay concepts I've seen in recent years, the vehicle building system. It's astonishingly sandboxy in that it presents you with a goal, and if you can think of a vehicle that can help you accomplish the goal in any particular way, you can probably build it. It basically boils down to creating your character's moveset uniquely suited to the task at hand, and it's really something special.

Aside from the mediocre launch titles, Rare's 360 output has been really stellar. Commercially, though, they never went anywhere, which is probably why Molyneux was put in charge of them during Microsoft's European studio reorganization recently.

That's actually on my "games to play during a new games slump" list. The demo did nothing for me, but people seem really high on the retail release.

While listening to the podcast, Corey mentioned that Shawn's Wii was experiencing some issues, namely that the video card was overheating. I was experiencing some similar issues with my system a while back (namely, having to restart it a few times before ANYTHING would display on the screen and periodically severe pixel flickering) and decided to try something. I noticed that the air coming out of my Wii exhaust fan was quite warm as soon as I booted it up, and when you think about it, there really is no reason for it to be that warm upon start-up. So, I decided to turn off the Wii-Connect 24 feature in the system options, and since then I haven't had any problems: my boot-up issues are gone, and so are the video artifacts. Give it a shot, it might help out your issue.

While listening to the podcast, Corey mentioned that Shawn's Wii was experiencing some issues, namely that the video card was overheating.

That was Rob

I'll give that a try! Now that I think of it, I had to enable Connect 24 a while ago ...

Now you can have your resurrection cake and eat it too.

Shazam wrote:

I didn't really care for the PR drone about the in-store items for DoD Online. I'd be interested in checking out the free version of the game when it comes out, but I haven't heard too many great things about DoD online in general.

Yeah I hear you. We had 45 mins if it, and rob cut it down, but I thought some of the decision making was interesting. I'm going to poke around in the new beta this mnth and reform an opinion. Prior experience was that it was almost too party centric. Which is if course completely in keeping with the pen and paper game.

Certis wrote:
While listening to the podcast, Corey mentioned that Shawn's Wii was experiencing some issues, namely that the video card was overheating.

That was Rob

I'll give that a try! Now that I think of it, I had to enable Connect 24 a while ago ...

dhaelis actually makes a good point that I never considered mentioning to you all. Two weeks after I got my Wii I turned off the Connect 24 because the side (bottom, whichever way you have it) was quite warm and I found that to be the culprit. It's a fair amount of heat and you guys might seriously want to think about turning it off. Just in case.

Badferret wrote:

Not trying to defend Romero, but could he have been trying to make a joke about ZeniMax sounding like Cinemax, which is often referred to as Skinamax?

You're giving the guy way more credit for thought that extends beyond the surface of anything than he deserves.

I can't remember the name of the listener who was fretting over being stuck in the previous generation but:

There's no reason not to jump into the current console generation. The Xbox 360 is $200 and it's been nearly 4 years since it has launched, so there's tons of games at $20 or less that are more than worth playing (not even counting the tons of great, cheap downloadable games.) I can understand the point of view of conserving as much money as possible, but it's stupid cheap to get a 360 (you can get a Pro unit for under $200 if you look around for deals) and I have a list of at least over a dozen games hovering around the $20 price point that i'd love to get as soon as I clear my current pile.

It seems weird stating that King's Bounty is like Heroes of Might and Magic when Heroes of Might and Magic was a remake of the original King's Bounty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Bounty

Yes, I'm being a pedant...shush

Re: Trine. I pre-ordered the game on Steam, regardless of the free Shadowgrounds. $29.99. It released today for... $19.99. Dick move, on their part, methinks. For shame.

edit: looks like it might be a screwup somewhere along the line, according to the dev forum

edit2: yup, definitely jumped the gun. It's been fixed now. *sheepish*

Thoughts on The Hunter, based on the podcast discussion of ArmA: what if The Hunter were a war game? The experience of stalking through a forest for hours, alert and on edge but not literally in action, is actually common in war (or so all those Vietnam movies have taught me). War games are all more or less instant action, but The Hunter shows that they don't have to be -- they could aim for long tension and care punctuated by intensity.