Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 344

Sid Meier's Ace Patrol, Neverwinter Online, Iron Man 3 Spoiler Section, Game Dev Tycoon, The Most Important Things in Gaming (To Us), Your Emails and More!

This week Shawn, Cory, Elysium and Julian talk about the most important things in gaming.

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
00.02.13 Neverwinter Online
00.20.59 Game Dev Tycoon
00.28.04 Sid Meier's Ace Patrol
00.32.42 This week's topic: The Most Important Things in Gaming (To Us)!
01.06.23 Your emails!
01.30.24 Iron Man 3 spoiler section

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Freestyle - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 32:16

Crowdpleaser - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 1:05:54

Comments

This week Julian, Elysium, Allen and Justin McElroy talk about what they see in the MMO genre and what they're looking for.

We've secretly replaced the show notes this week with the show notes from last week... lets see if anyone can tell the difference!

Oh, and you guys should do movie spoiler sections more often!

Redwing wrote:

Oh, and you guys should do movie spoiler sections more often!

Seconded. If you guys are up for it, you should occasionally do post-credits segments that don't necessarily deal with games.

Sean: have you tried this grass seed? The stuff germinates on concrete so it should grow in your backyard (unless it's been salted by raiding barbarians or something).

Also, in regards to Shawn's mention of downsampling, Tested did a great article on it.

plavonica wrote:

Is the Iron man 3 spoiler section at the end or do I have to hope for the best?

At the end after credits, like usual.

Erm. Re the companions question, emotionally engaging companions go back to Floyd in Planetfall. It might be that the latest generation of graphics technology can create more visually engaging companions, but RPGs and adventure games have been doing this for decades now

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/xnuKIUJ.jpg)

I'm with Redwing and PaladinTom - really liking the post-credits off-topic banter, and it's in the perfect place after the credits.

I know this was recorded earlier in the week, but there is now a Kickstarter for Shadow of the Eternals. So they're double-dipping like Chris Roberts did with Star Citizen, most likely due to the higher profile of Kickstarter.

EDIT: Glad to hear discussion about being willing to accept the fact that certain games don't appeal to you, or just being ok with skipping out on the current hotness. That's certainly happened with me for plenty of games like Minecraft or Call of Duty. Nothing against either of them, but just not my thing.

I'm sad Cory and Shawn still feel ostraciszed for not liking Monaco

I'm surprised no one pointed out that if you wait 6 months to buy a game, you're also getting a better product since you get the benefit of any patches or additional content that were issued in the interim. Even more so if you can get the "Gold" or "GoTY" version in the sale with all the DLC or expansions included.

It's not like this isn't some new phenomena either, publishers were doing this for PC games as long as I can remember.

Ahah, I was excited to hear about Shawn's multi-monitor experiences! I was dangerously close to going down that path (specifically for Euro Truck Simulator 2) myself, but the need for a very beefy GPU is what made me balk and reconsider my options. I settled on TrackIR.

For anybody who finds the multi-monitor thing overwhelming, I can wholeheartedly recommend TrackIR as a great alternative, at least for some types of games. It's a small fraction of the cost of the extra monitors (especially if you need a whole new GPU to drive them) and it works quite well. There are some types of games which it would not map very well to, but for any sim-style game which supports it the TrackIR should be a very nice addition.

Of course, at this point, I suppose you could just wait for an Oculus Rift instead...

Spoiler:

So why the Shane Black hate? Normally when i hear people talking bad about him its folks still reeling from shock of the apparent ease of his first 2 movie deals. He does reuse a lot of the same themes, but they just seem to stand out when to compared to others trying to do the same.

ranalin wrote:
Spoiler:

So why the Shane Black hate? Normally when i hear people talking bad about him its folks still reeling from shock of the apparent ease of his first 2 movie deals. He does reuse a lot of the same themes, but they just seem to stand out when to compared to others trying to do the same.

Spoiler:

Beats me. I happen to think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was brilliant, and more or less single-handedly kickstarted Robert Downey Jr.'s career revival. Black's style is very much in evidence in Iron Man 3, though, so if you're not into it, I can see the film falling flat.

Wait, Weird Worlds had a kickstarter and I missed it? I love that game!

Re: Kickstarter

I think it was Jeff Cannata who was saying that even though his Kickstarter crossed the line to being funded, he still was trying to get his total number of backers as high as possible. For some things, that number is important.

So, if there is a kickstarter that is already funded, and I'll probably just buy the thing when it comes out, I still toss in $1 if I am excited about it.

Tanglebones wrote:

Erm. Re the companions question, emotionally engaging companions go back to Floyd in Planetfall. It might be that the latest generation of graphics technology can create more visually engaging companions, but RPGs and adventure games have been doing this for decades now

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/xnuKIUJ.jpg)

Maybe I should have called it a resurgence! I know that it isn't exactly new for games to feature companions that engage with us on a emotional level, but to see it pop up in so many AAA games in such a short time made me feel that it's significant at this point in time. That more than a few developers are making a strong effort to connect with their audiences emotions. I was glad that Alyx Vance was brought up as well. As soon as I fired off the email I felt like I was going to go to a special hell for omitting her.

I also was happy to hear my definition of core-gamer got some strong reaction. And while I claim no expertise on the subject, I still feel that the core, target audience of AAA titles is still the young 15 to 30 male. This is what I was trying to convey in my email.

Happy Birthday Sean! As a fellow member of the '73 club I salute your brave descent ascent into 40!

Tanglebones wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Spoiler:

So why the Shane Black hate? Normally when i hear people talking bad about him its folks still reeling from shock of the apparent ease of his first 2 movie deals. He does reuse a lot of the same themes, but they just seem to stand out when to compared to others trying to do the same.

Spoiler:

Beats me. I happen to think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was brilliant, and more or less single-handedly kickstarted Robert Downey Jr.'s career revival. Black's style is very much in evidence in Iron Man 3, though, so if you're not into it, I can see the film falling flat.

Spoiler:

I guess it's because Black doesn't really write scripts with conventional A->B->C narrative? Or maybe the humor and meta-commentary gets in the way of them connecting when he plays it genuine? I adore that stuff though.

What really convinced me Julian is bizarro me was him characterizing Iron Man 3 as simply skating on RDJ's charisma, and then going on to praise Iron Man 2 in comparison. If there ever was a scriptless turd saved by actor charisma it's Iron Man 2.

I also enjoyed Brutal Legend. It's a shame that Brutal Legend 2 never happened.

I can't look at Jack Black now without seeing Eddie.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Spoiler:

So why the Shane Black hate? Normally when i hear people talking bad about him its folks still reeling from shock of the apparent ease of his first 2 movie deals. He does reuse a lot of the same themes, but they just seem to stand out when to compared to others trying to do the same.

Spoiler:

Beats me. I happen to think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was brilliant, and more or less single-handedly kickstarted Robert Downey Jr.'s career revival. Black's style is very much in evidence in Iron Man 3, though, so if you're not into it, I can see the film falling flat.

Spoiler:

I guess it's because Black doesn't really write scripts with conventional A->B->C narrative? Or maybe the humor and meta-commentary gets in the way of them connecting when he plays it genuine? I adore that stuff though.

What really convinced me Julian is bizarro me was him characterizing Iron Man 3 as simply skating on RDJ's charisma, and then going on to praise Iron Man 2 in comparison. If there ever was a scriptless turd saved by actor charisma it's Iron Man 2.

Spoiler:

To each his own I guess. I enjoyed IM2 more than 3 also. The story beats in 2 were tighter, it seemed more fun overall (like a comic book!) and tied into the universe more (which I also like). I don't have any hate toward it though like Julian did.

Spoiler:

Why are we spoiler tagging these?

More movie discussion!

A spiritual successor to a game from more than ten years ago, by a new company, missing several of the producers....not the type of Kickstarter to which I normally contribute. They may have pretty videos and characters and whatnot, but that's a long way from gameplay worth buying. If I thought Eternal Darkness was the greatest game of the generation, sure, but I'll be satisfied waiting on metacritic on something like this.

Also: Dyack's last game was Too Human?

I'm constantly amazed that you folks make it to the end of these podcasts, let alone want us to do more post-credits segments.

Originally we were going to have Sam Jackson recruit Sands to the Avengers post-credits, but he didn't like the craft services table.

Demiurge wrote:

I'm constantly amazed that you folks make it to the end of these podcasts, let alone want us to do more post-credits segments.

Originally we were going to have Sam Jackson recruit Sands to the Avengers post-credits, but he didn't like the craft services table.

That prosciutto was crap.

Elysium wrote:
Demiurge wrote:

I'm constantly amazed that you folks make it to the end of these podcasts, let alone want us to do more post-credits segments.

Originally we were going to have Sam Jackson recruit Sands to the Avengers post-credits, but he didn't like the craft services table.

That prosciutto was crap.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/3fTNsiW.jpg)

Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it.

Sean really is the Tony Stark of GWJ.

Demiurge wrote:

Sean really is the Tony Stark of GWJ.

I hope someone got him this shirt for his 40th birthday.

Demiurge wrote:

Sean really is the Tony Stark of GWJ.

Elysium as Iron Man
Certis as Captain America
Demiurge as Thor
Pyroman as The Hulk

and featuring:

Rabbit as Nick Fury.

Photoshop! This must be photoshopped!

I just wanted to chime in to support Julian and his thoughts on Iron Man 3. The first movie was the best one, in my opinion, and I didn't like the second one when I saw it the theaters (though thought it was a bit better upon second viewing). The third one was just "okay," for the following reasons.

Spoiler:

Dammit, I went to a movie titled "Iron Man" and I wanted to see friggin' Iron Man. I saw Robert Downey, Jr. dealing with a kid for half the movie, and when he was in the suit, he was walking around or it was malfunctioning: not flying, not fighting baddies. The man didn't do practically anything as "Iron Man" until the very end, and even then, he was literally jumping between different suits: not his.

Don't get me wrong, Downey did a spectacular job, the effects were great (though I thought the 3D was unnecessary, especially after seeing Star Trek Into Darkness), and there were many entertaining points. As Julian said, though, it was "average."

But yeah, if you're going to do a darker film where the main character goes through Hell and has to come back from a bad place, do it closer to The Dark Knight Rises (albeit, not a perfect example...): break the main character, and bring him back all kinds of badass...in his costume...being badass.

Aristophan wrote:

Elysium as Iron Man
Certis as Captain America
Demiurge as Thor
Pyroman as The Hulk

and featuring:

Rabbit as Nick Fury.

Elysium wrote:

Photoshop! This must be photoshopped!

Challenge accepted!

IMAGE(http://s16.postimg.org/cr6s3f3g5/image.jpg)

Clearly, Cory as Thor turned out to look the best, but I do like the thought of Shawn (the only Canadian on the list) as Captain America.

MeatMan wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

Elysium as Iron Man
Certis as Captain America
Demiurge as Thor
Pyroman as The Hulk

and featuring:

Rabbit as Nick Fury.

Elysium wrote:

Photoshop! This must be photoshopped!

Challenge accepted!

IMAGE(http://s16.postimg.org/cr6s3f3g5/image.jpg)

Clearly, Cory as Thor turned out to look the best, but I do like the thought of Shawn (the only Canadian on the list) as Captain America. :mrgreen:

I'm not ... I'm not comfortable as Captain America.

Julian as Nick fury is white hot, though.