Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 98

Warhammer Online, Too Human, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Force Unleashed, Strong Bad's Cool Game, Chrono Trigger, Trying To Do Too Much, Your Emails and more!

Feels like forever since we had a proper show, doesn't it? This week we're all back in our comfy seats and going right into a whole whack of new games. We also talk about games trying to please everyone and failing magnificently.

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: 

Intro/Outro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"Washaway" Ian Dorsch - 0:40:24
"Carving Away Stone" Ian Dorsch - 0:59:28

Comments

Wow... you post these at midnight?

You guys are hardcore..

weswilson wrote:

Wow... you post these at midnight?

You guys are hardcore.. :)

Damn straight, and you don't even know about the hookers.
I've said too much.......

Like clockwork, the lullaby-tones of the GWJercast take me to dreamland...

What's with last week's show again? If everyone was chipmunk sounding, couldn't you just run a pitch change via Audacity?

Attempting to please all comers is the exact opposite of taking risk in video games. The only type of environment that can create that type of game is the risk-averse one (or the spastic).

Suikoden III gets ignored again!

As far as the credits for developers go, how about sticking them in the post instead of the podcast. Similar to the music credits.

You were right the first time, it's Public Quests in Warhammer Online.

Notes on the WAR coverage:

Hilarious listening to Rob say "party quests" over and over again. You even corrected Elysium's attempt to say it right (public quests). I hope you're embarrassed now, Gorgeous.

There was a patch right before the Preview Weekend that broke the monster pathing system, Mark Jacobs posted on Warhammer Alliance about this. They're working hard on fixing it before Open Beta.

You're right about the danger that people will all go do the first PQ in a tier and ignore the next three. The solution to this is form an open group in the first one, and ask people to go with you to check out the other ones. Of course if you're playing a healing class it's a lot easier to twist arms

Why don't you guys (Rabbit, Rob, Zenke) visit this thread and weigh in on the guild, server, faction selection questions?

Because I am a follower, not a leader.

Hilarious listening to Rob say "party quests" over and over again. You even corrected Elysium's attempt to say it right (public quests). I hope you're embarrassed now, Gorgeous.

You know what's even funnier? It wasn't me.

Rob

I knew it was a word, but hadn't made the Stan Lee connection.

Hm, it was Certis. Why did I get that wrong? My bad. Anyway he was SO enthusiastic, and so wrong.

Excelsior!

Great podcast - my morning commute was very enjoyable in spite of sitting next to a woman who bathed in perfume. By the way, we are two days away from PAX...

Hilarious listening to Rob say "party quests" over and over again. You even corrected Elysium's attempt to say it right (public quests). I hope you're embarrassed now, Gorgeous.
KingMob wrote:

Hm, it was Certis. Why did I get that wrong? My bad. Anyway he was SO enthusiastic, and so wrong.

Certis: Tell me about the Public Quests
Elysium: Yes, the Party Quests are awesome.

You sir, are twice wrong. Twice! He's the one who talked at length about it.

You should have explained to us non-MMO enthusiasts what RvR means.

I think it means Rage via Rob.

Wow - he gets his own acronym. RvR officially needs to be entered into the drinking game lexicon.

rabbit, Elysium, Certis et Al wrote:

(...)

It is quite funny that the difficult controls of Bionic Commando ReArmed are so well accepted. It's the player's duty to master them. A real hommage to the original!

When you talk Alone in the Dark though it's obviously a sh*tty game.

I call double standards!

(The grammar hammer is my penis.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixolyd...

There is only one public quest I have come across that isn't able to be completed by 4 players. One of its stages has objectives that you have to defend in relatively far apart locations simultaneously. So if you have a dedicated group, you can easily complete the other 10, at least, that I have found in the Tier 1 newb zones.

My first blush with public quests points to them being easier to find early in Destruction zones. The most I have found in one factions area is 5 in the Chaos tier 1 zone. I am assuming that will be consistent with the other 5 races.

I highly recommend Certis try the greenskin starter area the next chance he gets to play the game. The first 2 quests are standard fare though one of them hilariously involves mud slinging. I don't want to spoil anything but the 4th quest or so is reminiscent of the early teaser cinematic and the fate of its orc star.

XP comes in 3 varieties: rank xp, renown and influence. You earn rank xp for questing, killing npcs and players. Renown is earned through PvP objectives: killing players and rvr npcs, capping and holding objectives. Higher renown rank unlocks better gear at Renown (pvp) merchants.

Influence is the pve counter to renown. Completing quests, and public quest objectives and npcs will earn you influence. As with renown there are influence merchants to purchase gear from. I don't believe there are influence ranks. I think its more akin to an additional form of money.

A lot of us are very passionate about WAR in the MMO forums. Don't take any minor quibbling as dissent. Most of us think really highly of our WAR experience.

RvR = realm vs. realm competitive combat = large scale player versus player combat = the difference between Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 3

Elysium praises GTA again?

And no one's edited the page with a link to GWJ Conference Call # 98, where the word is prominently featured?! Tisk tisk.

Just to add one more to the multiple narratives game list, how about Jet Force Gemini?

It has the three different characters that all met up mid way through the game and some levels that needed revisiting by another character based on their indivdual abilities.

And it also had a co-op mode that works for two different levels of players, but it is unfortunately not available til later in the game.

This may have also been a game that tried to do too much all at once. I think they also put in some 4 player split screen multiplayer modes.

interstate78 wrote:
rabbit, Elysium, Certis et Al wrote:

(...)

It is quite funny that the difficult controls of Bionic Commando ReArmed are so well accepted. It's the player's duty to master them. A real hommage to the original!
When you talk Alone in the Dark though it's obviously a sh*tty game.
I call double standards!

Where did we lavish praise on BCRA? Where did we say it's the player's duty to master something? Confused.

rabbit wrote:

Where did we lavish praise on BCRA? Where did we say it's the player's duty to master something? Confused.

Alright, alright, I went a bit over the line. you didn't really praise BC ReArmed. I don't remember who talked about Bionic Commando in the podcast but he mentionned the extreme difficulty and timing and all but didn't mention it being a problem and took it lightly as if ''that's how it's supposed to be''.

I'm just yanking your chains with Alone in the Dark. I keep bringing back the subject and all but I realize how somebody may be turned off by it

So I'm not going to talk about it anymore now hehe, case closed.

The GWJ crew must not have heard the news that Alone in the Dark is getting some major patchwork done for the PS3 version, fixing many of the problems they have previously mentioned. Also, they're going to be patching the 360 version as well.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php...

As for the main topic, I've tended to respect companies that have huge ambitions and fail more than companies who have limited scope but exceed brilliantly at it. It's probably unfair on my part, as I'm not taking into account that developers need to stay in business, and ambitious games are far more expensive, and the risk for failure is higher. But I get annoyed when companies like Blizzard, who have an obscene amount of resources at their disposal, don't have nearly the ambition that a smaller, more struggling developer might have.

Flashing back to the 90s, I'll take the buggy but ambitious mess of Daggerfall over the extremely polished Diablo any day.

Thorak wrote:

The GWJ crew must not have heard the news that Alone in the Dark is getting some major patchwork done for the PS3 version, fixing many of the problems they have previously mentioned. Also, they're going to be patching the 360 version as well.

The podcasts are recorded over the weekend previous.

At the same time, I think we've reached a point where major patches to buggy or poorly-built games are largely expected. While I appreciate not leaving consumers to wear the jacket for a design company's mistakes, I'd much prefer games be polished before publishing.

Hey, thanks for reading my email guys! I see where you're coming from, you could fill entire podcasts crediting the developers of the games you discuss, but it's moreso just something to consider.

PS. And yes cramps, Suikoden III, but man was that a terrible game! Mainly due to the inane dialog. I guess I'm just too old for saccharin sweet story even if they do try to lure me in with Quentin Terentino[sp?] type plot threads. To each their own...

offtopic belated PPS. Can't wait for Dragon Age, that interview with Gaider filled my GWJ void last week. [don't get any lewd ideas] Thanks Shawn and great joaaooorbhh!