Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 451

The Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Ronin, Race The Sun, Twentys, NPC Relationships, Your Emails and More!

This week Cory, Allen, Shawn and Julian talk about some of their favorite NPC relationships.

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.

Thread of The Week
Your gaming Kryptonite – Higgledy - Gremlin

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps

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Show credits

Sponsors: 
Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Coactive (Over My Shoulder Mix) - BigBot Audio Drop - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 34:42

And All That Between (Game Edit) - BigBot Audio Drop - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 50:43

Comments

The Garrus and Tali hook up at the end of Mass Effect 3 was great. One of those out of the blue, unexpected romances that are great to witness.

Yay! Someone else played Hohokum!

That's a lovely little game.

I've really enjoyed the story of the Gascoignes in Bloodborne (sad as it is), though it seems easy to miss. The story unfolds with very little action on the part of the PC (basically you're just a messenger.)

Spoiler:

At one point I encountered a little girl, Viola whose parents had both gone missing. The father had gone out to hunt, the mother had gone to look for him and hadn't returned. She asked me to find her mother, who would be wearing a red necklace. She also gave me a music box that she and her mother would play for her father to "remind him of who he was when he lost himself."

I loaded the music box into my active item, futzed with it and pressed on. Eventually I got to the boss, Father Gascoigne. Via frantic button mashing, I accidentally used the music box and it completely staggered him! My initial joy at walloping him was quickly replaced with the sudden realization that this boss was Viola's father. And near where he started was the corpse of the mother (a corpse I initially missed - the heavy implication being that he had killed her.) I returned the necklace to Viola, and, well, things continued to get depressing.

Of course, thank you Julian, THANK YOU! Minsc and Boo, of course!!! So awesome. Love those two.
And thanks Certis, you're not so bad yourself, save for the detail that you still can't pronounce my callsign.
I'm going to elaborate on the other example I spoke of on Twitter because I'm still very very taken with this lesser known adventure game that I finished last month and how finely crafted it is. The great relationship I thought of was the one between the protagonist Samantha "Sam" Everett of the game Gray Matter and neurobiologist and recluse Doctor Styles. Without spoiling too much, they were perfect foils for each other, one an outgoing upbeat young illusionist and the other a cantankerous, gruff professor. They shared certain things, but they were clearly mirrors for the other. Dr Styles always wears a glove on his right hand to hide an injury and Sam wears a single glove on her left hand as part of her costume when she puts on a magic show at one point. Life and circumstance brings them together when she ends up his assistant, and what is at first wariness on both sides changes, several times, over the course of the game: veiled suspicion, compassion, outright dislike, concern...
Anyhow, I really recommend it to any adventure fan.

And please, please... No Baldur's Gate 3. Leave that series as it is, which is finished and complete. Incoming spoilers for Throne of Bhaal... At the end, the Child of Bhaal either ascends or relinquishes her divine essence. End of story. Now that's not to say that I wouldn't enjoy new games in the Forgotten Realms setting, of course, but my Bhaalspawns have completed their journey.
Generally, speaking of reboots, remakes and spiritual successors... In general, I don't really care, as long as it's well done.

Great episode, was super interesting!!

I'll just leave this here...

Yes!!! Murray the demonic talking skull!!!! Love that guy. Curse of Monkey Island really was the best in the series.
Thanks Rat Boy!! I'd almost forgotten that tidbit. Gotta love our talking skulls.
And in Planescape: Torment, Morte (you know, as in *Death*) is a **flying** talking skull.
Which reminds me I'm really looking forward to Tides of Numenera, which is a spiritual successor.

In terms of reboots/remakes/spiritual successor, what are the Assassin's Creed games? They all take place in the same world, but are they actually related anymore?
Between the time I sent the email about rubber-banding and Allen Cook confidently flubbed my name I played Red November and another game that used the last goes first mechanic. It works really well when players are represented by a single piece, but it wouldn't work in a game like Risk or Catan where the table flip is always the best strategy.

During the NPC relationship chat and its turn toward NPCs being independent of the PC, I thought: Wouldn't it be cool in Mass Effect if, instead of pursuing Shep's romantic options, you could play matchmaker, set your friends up with each other, and see how that worked out?

And then for some reason I thought of Crusader Kings 2.

All these huge historical events -- crusades, the invasion of England, Muslim conquest, etc -- can roll right past you, while you're not central to them or even participating at all, especially if you play as a holder of a small realm.

Plus, individuals can have various relationships independent of you which can turn out badly for you, eg your steward is secretly an assassin, or your brother marries your disaffected spymaster and they plot to kill you.

Regarding the streaming question:

I don't know about ethical or not, but I'm pretty sure that if you're recording a one-on-one play session without telling anyone that you're doing it-- even if you don't publish in the video-- you're violating US Federal wiretapping law. It's basically a video phone call, and if you make a phone call (even to a random person) you have to tell the person on the other end that you're recording it. That's why customer service reps and call centers always inform you that "this call may be recorded" for quality or some such. You don't have to explicitly consent to being recorded, because continuing the call after being informed that a tape is running is considered assent.

It may be that there is a provision defining online multiplayer games as a public space where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, but I don't know if there's any case law addressing that question. Certainly WoW would be a public space, but one-on-one Hearthstone matches?

It's all academic to me, since I don't play multiplayer games if I can help it, but it's an interesting question. I wonder if anybody's "Dennis" has ever pressed charges against a streamer under wiretapping laws.

In Canada so long as one of the participants knows the recording is happening you don't have to declare it. If NEITHER participant knows it's being recorded then it's a whole different thing. That's why call centers have that warning.

I can't speak for the US though. I just assumed you all had listening devices implanted at birth.

Rabbit is wrong and Cory is right.

Point Break is the best movie ever made. Period. You can defend it as great cinema.

Certis wrote:

In Canada so long as one of the participants knows the recording is happening you don't have to declare it. If NEITHER participant knows it's being recorded then it's a whole different thing. That's why call centers have that warning.

I can't speak for the US though. I just assumed you all had listening devices implanted at birth.

It actually varies slightly by state, but in general that is the case here too (unless a judge grants law enforcement permission).

foose wrote:

Rabbit is wrong and Cory is right.

Sorry I didn't read anything past this because I was crying tears of validated joy.

I'm playing Race The Sun after Rabbit mentioned playing it. It is rather good

On the pronunciation front, I would pronounce my forum name as 'Higgeldy' as in 'Higgeldy piggeldy.' Higgledy is a legitimate alternative spelling of that word (at the time I chose it, my version seemed to be the right one but if you break it down I can see how you might want to pronounce the 'le' as it's written.) It isn't a big problem but there never seems to be a right time to mention it :).

So, how can it be that we have had two Conference calls that make reference to the Witcher card game called 'Gwent', and our resident Space 1999 expert Rabbit hasn't mentioned The Infernal Machine ?

Bias FX!

Serendipitously, I just purchased my first-ever electric guitar a couple of days before listening to this GWJCC. All I have right now is the guitar and a copy of Rocksmith 2014, but after hearing about Bias FX, I'm super interested in that!

I have some additional questions about it and I'd love to get some more advice from some more veteran GWJ guitarists, but I'm not sure where would be the best place to ask? Maybe the Rocksmith Catch-All, even though a question about Bias FX wouldn't really be a Rocksmith question?

I was going to point to this cool thread about software to use in conjunction with your RS cable, but it seems like the link is dead.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

I was going to point to this cool thread about software to use in conjunction with your RS cable, but it seems like the link is dead.

The link works if I swap out https for http in the URL.

Thanks for the link!

I'll also see if I can ping the site admins to fix SSL? If it was working in the first place?

Oh very clever!