Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 154

Majesty 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC), Aion Launching, NHL 10, Designing and Selling Complexity, Emails and more!

This week, Hasbro principle game designer Rob Daviau joins us to talk designing and selling games. Sean Sands also tells us exactly what kind of guy he isn't. 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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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"Atlantis" - Sketchbook (Pneuman) - http://blag.linuxgamers.net - 0:22:55
"Twilight Bay" (James 106) - 0:46:14

Comments

Great show, and great guest. I want me some ribs!

I have preformed said oral defense of the thesis of the rules before.
I have also had the Julian Murdoch "Welcome to the world of BSW" speeches before which explained everything in about 5 sentences.

Great show as always.

And I'm a HUGE fan of the Majesty 2 game. It did improve on the original by allowing you to promote your characters in later games and removed the 10 different cleric guilds in Majesty. I'm savoring it slowly because I know its gonna be a long long time before we see an expansion, if we ever do.

Also, very interesting insight to board games thanks to Rob. I'm wondering if the long lead time between ordering for Christmas is due to the limited number of units they produce for each game and why it hasn't been improved upon.

Great show guys. Excellent guest appearance. It's always nice to spice things up a bit.

Yes, board game creation is my definition of spicy.

This was a very fast-moving show; it made my bus-ride fly by. I was surprised when it ended.

Thanks for making me aware of Majesty 2, as well. I was completely unaware of the idea behind the game and assumed it to be a low rent Age of Empires rip-off. Since I'm abysmally skilled in RTS's, I never would have considered it. Now I have to wait for a sale.

And for the record, Elysium is a gay night-club, located in the underworld, that brews its own beer. Certis is a breakfast cereal sold by gnomes that offers lucky consumers free flights to Albany. There, now we never need to talk about anyone's username-origins ever again.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, no one mentioned Goodjer Monopoly during the board game segment.

Edit: Rabbit, if I win the statue, you can have it. I can't have nice things.

Conference call needs to be twice as long for twice the tasty goodness!!!

I'm confused. Does the 360 version of Rock Band 2 not have stars? The PS3 version does . . . I'm guessing Elysium just misspoke or something.

Anyway, good show, though short, but great guest. It's nice to have multiple avenues of sarcasm. And I'm not saying that sarcastically, I'm dead serious. . . . That too can be construed as sarcasm. Crap.

I'm confused. Does the 360 version of Rock Band 2 not have stars? The PS3 version does . . . I'm guessing Elysium just misspoke or something.

It does during the song, but then it just shows the score on the selection screen. Great, I've got 175,000 on Tom Sawyer, but I don't remember if that's good. The Beatles also shows whether you got those stars on Hard, Easy or Xpert[sic].

Spoiler:

Certis is awesome!

Rabbit, if i win the Sander Cohen statue i'll give it to you.

Good show guys.

Elysium wrote:
I'm confused. Does the 360 version of Rock Band 2 not have stars? The PS3 version does . . . I'm guessing Elysium just misspoke or something.

It does during the song, but then it just shows the score on the selection screen. Great, I've got 175,000 on Tom Sawyer, but I don't remember if that's good. The Beatles also shows whether you got those stars on Hard, Easy or Xpert[sic].

Ahhh, gotcha. Yes, that is annoying.

This week, Hasbro principle game designer Rob Daviau joins us to talk designing and selling games.

I read this as "Hasbro principal game designer Rob Daviau..." and now I can't stop thinking of Mr. Belding.

Yeah, it's that kind of day.

Big thanks to Rob for taking time out of our Beatles RB marathon to record with me this weekend. For the record, we did indeed plow through the whole game, one of us playing bass and singing, the other playing guitar, alternating. The podcast was the perfect break.

Rob Daviau was an excellent guest. I really enjoyed hearing his views on game design.

Had a good time on the show, though I suspect I yelled a lot due to the fact that I was new to wearing headphones and actually using a mic.

Am I the only one who had the opposite reaction to Beatles Rockband when comparing it to RB2 in that I find the Beatles game actually has a lot MORE depth to its catalog? (Obviously not including DLC.) Of the 45 or so songs on RB2 maybe only 15-20 I are ones I want to play more than once, and maybe only 5 are ones I want to sing along with. With the Beatles pretty much all of the songs are repeat players.

(Also, to be a total dink about it: the Shadow Complex "Minimalist" achievement is there because they wanted to recreate the phenomenon of Metroid speed-runs. Just saying.)

I wouldn't say this in person (about anybody, really), but I think Rob might be cooler than me. It might be because he's allowed to wear stubble on the job.

Elysium wrote:

Xpert[sic].

*Hurk!*

Thanks for sharing that. Now I feel justified in my decision to wait and pick it up used.

Instead of the usual book, I listened to the call last night before nodding off. Great stuff, guys! I especially liked the portion on designing and selling complexity. Gaming is gaming to me, regardless of its form. That peek into the board game industry was fascinating and indeed showed a lot of similarities with the electronic gaming industry.

Oh, and my wife was laying next to me doing facebooky stuff. Several of your comments got a chuckle or a question from her. Gaming for her is in the "something to do" category rather than the "something I MUST do to stay alive" place where I put it. I expected her to tune it out, but you held her interest too. A gaming-oriented podcast which can do that is worthy of praise!

Thanks Lou! I have to ask ... did you get lucky after listening to the show?

Spoiler:

Julian Murdoch is known as the Spanish Fly of podcasters.

Certis wrote:
Spoiler:

Julian Murdoch is known as the Spanish Fly of podcasters.

Certis just made me throw up in my mouth a little.

As a HUGE board game geek, I appreciated the brief deviation from electronic games; Rob was a great guest to have on. He was articulate and insightful. Bring him back on sometime down the road!

Certis wrote:

Thanks Lou! I have to ask ... did you get lucky after listening to the show?

Spoiler:

Julian Murdoch is known as the Spanish Fly of podcasters.

Spoiler:

... and Shawn Andrich is known as the "thinking about baseball, thinking about baseball really hard" of podcasters.

Spoiler:

Premature Podcastulation.

Spoiler:

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Good podcast, as always. Keep on keepin' on.

Certis wrote:

Thanks Lou! I have to ask ... did you get lucky after listening to the show?

Spoiler:

Julian Murdoch is known as the Spanish Fly of podcasters.

Spoiler:

There's no luck involved! Still, not immediately after, no. We did wake up to some bow-chicka-wow music though, and I'm unable to prove that Julian isn't somehow involved. (As much as I'd like to.)

rabbit wrote:
Certis wrote:

Thanks Lou! I have to ask ... did you get lucky after listening to the show?

Spoiler:

Julian Murdoch is known as the Spanish Fly of podcasters.

Spoiler:

... and Shawn Andrich is known as the "thinking about baseball, thinking about baseball really hard" of podcasters.

Does that make Elysium the "Lie back and think of Azeroth" of podcasters?

Spoiler:

Stop abusing the spoiler tag, you freaks.

Elysium wrote:
Spoiler:

Stop abusing the spoiler tag, you freaks.

Ah, c'mon. Spoiler tags are the new Kitty Cat Dance.

Rob D.! Very eloquent. Thanks for joining the podcast, and we hope you come back soon.

Elysium, you need to get you one of these.

http://brandonbird.com/elysium.html

Demiurge wrote:
This week, Hasbro principle game designer Rob Daviau joins us to talk designing and selling games.

I read this as "Hasbro principal game designer Rob Daviau..." and now I can't stop thinking of Mr. Belding.

Yeah, it's that kind of day.

"Principal" is correct!