Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 274

Deus Ex HR: The Missing Link, King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame 2, Saints Row The Third, The Old Republic, Special Guests Justin McElroy and Russ Pitts, Your Emails and more!

This week Cory, Elysium and Shawn are joined by Russ Pitts and Justin McElroy to talk about their plans(ish) for their new gaming site.

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.

Sponsor

Audible
Tech Thing Daily
Game Thing Daily
Good Old Games

The Old Republic
Deus Ex: The Missing Link
King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame 2

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Die Anyway (BigBot Audio Drop) - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 34:05

True (BigBot Audio Drop) - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 1:01:14

Comments

Shawn, you fool!

I highly recommend that you go back and play Minerva's Den. It's a delightful piece of piece short-story content that takes just a few short hours to complete. As someone that couldn't stomach the slogging pace of Bioshock 2, that piece of DLC made me not regret my original purchase.

Certis you handsome devil, thank you for dissing Fantasy Online. made my day.

imo if Rabbit plays it, he will defend it to the hill. dont let him play it

Listening to this now and going along with what Russ or Justin say about corporate mouthpieces taking over the roles of the gaming journalists... Does anyone else's flesh start to crawl when they see a "Bioware Pulse" video?

stevenmack wrote:

Regarding Black n' White options in The Old Republic - did one of the main plot points of KOTOR2 not cover the possibility of a "grey" alternative path?

e.g:

Spoiler:

The grooming of the main character by Kreia to follow Revan's footsteps and choose an alternative path to the rigid good/evil options offered by the Sith and Jedi

.

I could be remembering it wrong through.

Gravey wrote:

Aren't "evil = jerk" and being penalized for not pursuing a moral extreme two BioWare mainstays? Those two things are definitely what have always turned me off any BioWare game I've tried playing.

LarryC wrote:

None of the recent Bioware games involve protagonists who could be considered evil. In fact, a jerk Shepard creates an interesting contrast with the polite and urbane Saren.

I guess that's all been said, then. BioWare started the transition away with KotOR, and by Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it was "stop to help the puppies" or "I have no time to help the puppies, the galaxy is at stake!"

hbi2k wrote:

I mean, GWJ is ostensibly an amateur site, but it's putting out more thoughtful original content than most professional sites, many of which really do fit the stereotype of gaming press as an unofficial PR arm of various video game publishers.

Elysium wrote:

I think that's fair. Sometimes I know I can get caught up in the mentality of where GWJ was born and has been, and that isn't necessarily always where it is at the moment. We're always trying to strike the right balance (meaning sometimes you lean this way, and other times that way) that keeps us independent and relatively lean but helps us maintain what we do.

As long as d-bags like me continue to forget to donate during the fund drive, well, I don't at all begrudge the ad. Though, I wonder how many conversions you could possibly drive. It seems every one of my good podcasts has a message from Audible.com. It's almost a requirement to be considered a good podcast!

One suggestion that comes to mind with the Audible advert: why not throw the old conference call theme on it as a backing track?

As it stands right now, the transition from the normal podcast discussion into the advert is a little jarring, since it just sounds like Shawn cuts off the rest of the crew to tell you about this great audio book he's heard about. With a backing track, it's clearly segmented from the rest of the episode.

Plus, not only does it serve as a nice callback for some of the folks who have been listening to the show for a while, it also gives you an opportunity to increase the Podunk quotient on the podcast.

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Pure genius

+lots

Tanglebones wrote:
OzymandiasAV wrote:

Pure genius

+lots

#TeamAlwaysRight

Transitionless podcast ads always remind me of how they used to do it in the early days of television, when you'd be watching Flintstones or the Andy Griffith show and all of a sudden in the middle of the episode, apropos of nothing, the characters would take a break from the plot and start gabbing about how much they love [Name Brand Product].

And then they'd just go back to the episode like nothing had happened. So surreal.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:
OzymandiasAV wrote:

Pure genius

+lots

#TeamAlwaysRight

I'm all about increasing the "Podunk quotient," but Certis will surely have to check with the advertiser first, as they may not approve of there being any backing audio during their ad.

I'm going to sound like a douchebag - but are we getting close to the end of the weekly fawning over SW:tor yet? I'd fast forward through the segments if time tags were used, however as it stands it's tough to quickly skip over, especially while driving.

AndrewA wrote:

You guys, stop having fun!

They're playing an MMO, not having fun.

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Plus, not only does it serve as a nice callback for some of the folks who have been listening to the show for a while, it also gives you an opportunity to increase the Podunk quotient on the podcast. :)

Have great memories of that twang, esp the snare drum that signaled another tasty treat

Just wanted to +1 Justin's comment about Saints Row The Third respecting the player's time. Open-world games suffer from serious bloat by nature of their genre, so finding ways to limit the player's activities to those that are the most fun — i.e., by trimming the fat of traversal, fetch quests, etc. — is much appreciated.