GWJ Conference Call Episode 464

Everybody's Gone to The Rapture, Satellite Reign, Cryptic Crossword, Alpha Bear, Destiny, Guild of Dungeoneering, Digital Environmental Theatre, Your Emails and More!

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This week Shawn, Julian, David Heron and Jeff Green talk about gameplay-less games and Environmental Digital Theatre.

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Comments

Digital Environmental Theater (DET) is better than Walking Simulator (WS)
But I like calling these games what they are, Artificially Restrictive Simulated Environments, (work in progress)

I had some wonderful holidays in Greece with a group of single friends. Two of the women have high level jobs in the civil service and would do The Times cryptic crossword at a speed that I'd take to do a regular crossword.

We'd lie on the beach, soaking in the sun and listen to the cryptic knots being untangled. Often, after knowing the question, seeing the answer and having heard all the working out in between, I still wouldn't completely understand how they got from one to the other. Very occasionally, once every third crossword puzzle or so (they would save them up for the holiday,) I'd do an end run around a clue and get the word just from the number of spaces and the few letters they'd written in. The two women would then go back to the clue, have a barely understandable discussion about the intricacies involved and then write it in. That was a great feeling.

I love that there's a huge chunk of time dedicated to Hearthstone and that it isn't even mentioned in the show notes. Sorry, but I kinda got distracted during that segment, and started wishing Elysium was on to talk about EU4.

GWJCC wrote:

If you're playing a MMO, just stop playing.

NEVAAAAAR!!!!!! I'm having so much fun with GW2, have been for three years (aside from a six month hiatus because life). The level downscaling which you mentioned on the podcast makes it easy and fun to team up with newer players, and I'm just so in love with the lore, the art, and the whole shebang. And since the GWJ guild has been mostly dormant, I followed other goodjers and joined Zealots of the Shiverpeaks, a GW guild which has been active across the two games and they've been so welcoming and helpful (they'd probably fit right in here). The teamwork and coordination has made it really fun.
But yeah, it definitely is a time commitment, and one I'm only able to currently make because of my weird living arrangements (and keep without harming Pile progress too badly). And Guild Wars 2 is really casual friendly. You're able to play maybe a couple of hours a week, still make substantial progress and have fun.

As for games without gameplay... I mentioned it on Twitter to Certis, but I've only recently discovered the visual novel genre and have really been enjoying my time with the three games of the genre I've played this year, one of which you may already be familiar with (Hatoful Boyfriend, Seduce Me the Otome and Cinders). It's a nice change of pace from other genres, and I've already been moving away from FPS for a while now, favoring adventure, puzzle and platform games. Oh and RPGs, of course.
I really do thinking that the people who are criticizing being rather vitriolic about the Digital Environmental Theatre genre need to loosen up and let people play these games if they're having fun with it. I didn't enjoy Dear Esther, but you don't see me going on a vicious rant on social media. I just thought it wasn't for me, was interested in the new experience, and that was that. I really liked Gone Home though. As was said so well, Gone Home really invites you into its world.

Really looking forward to the next Radio Play!!! TheBrennil better be in the next one, because she was so freakin' awesome.

Yeah, my mention to Certis was of Cookie Clicker, as emblematic of the ZPG phenomenon that hit a couple of years ago. There's something zen about them..

That said, I'm just beginning to dive into FFXIV, after spending stints diving back into WoW and SWTOR again this year. I think they scratch a similar itch - where grind brings rewards, regardless of gaming skill.

The mention of servers gone to the void... any City of Heroes alumni in the house ?
CoH was my first MMO. I was a costume whore.
City of Villains was also well received and had some great ideas.
I loved the exploration, the companionship of our +100 strong Supergroup (founding member !).
I had so many alts. I'd leave for months, and then go back to change my outfits, and just experience flying and superjumping again.
I remember my main character's first adventure out of Atlas Park into The Hollows. There was a quest to kill Frosty. It was so difficult to traverse the level (before the nerf) at low levels and ended with costly death after death.
But some people chose to be Taxis. They dressed as yellow cabs and offered teleports to low level characters across the zone.
My mind was blown. I was hooked ! My first lvl 50 dressed as a Longbow, and then patrolled The Hollows offering assistance to anyone that was struggling.
The character creation and personalisation has not been beaten, both at an asthetic, and power tree level in my opinion.
Such a great game. I'd love to play it again
IMAGE(http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/blogs/lists/city%20of%20heroes%20mmo.jpg)

City of Heroes/City of Villains alumni here.

It was my first MMO ever, and it was awesome.

Played on the Infinity server, first as part of the Simian Defence Force (in City of Heroes and City of Villains), then as part of Paragon City Search and Destroy (in City of Villains).

I remember for a while after the game came out, someone found on the Korean NCSoft website a standalone character generator. I had so much fun with that. To this day, I have yet to see an MMO with the same breadth and depth of costuming options.

Also, speaking of things left over from the Donation Drive.

looks at Rabbit

We are still waiting for your article good sir.

Hurray for Jeff Green!

00:01:52 Loot & Legends
00:07:32 Destiny
00:14:23 World of Warcraft
00:18:07 Satellite Reign
00:25:29 Alpha Bear
00:31:30 Cryptic Crossword
00:39:48 Guild of Dungeoneering
00:41:57 Hearthstone
00:48:37 Walking Simulators & Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
01:13:39 Your Emails

I would give almost anything for City of Heroes to come back. I'll never forget my thrill when I first was able to fly. Awesome!

Coolbeans wrote:

I would give almost anything for City of Heroes to come back. I'll never forget my thrill when I first was able to fly. Awesome!

For me it was superjump.

I'm squarely in the experimental theater / PS4 Venn diagram sweet spot! I guess I should play EGTR.

Eleima wrote:

I really do thinking that the people who are criticizing being rather vitriolic about the Digital Environmental Theatre genre need to loosen up and let people play these games if they're having fun with it. I didn't enjoy Dear Esther, but you don't see me going on a vicious rant on social media.

This! Exactly this about any genre, thank you.

City of Heroes here as well. The love.

One quick nitpick - Sleep No More is based on Macbeth, not Hamlet.

Spoiler:

I'm one of those jerks who have seen it multiple times. That mask hurts my nose after awhile.

I played CoH for years but never managed to fully level up a single character. It was too much fun coming up with new alt superheroes, picking their powers and tweaking their outfits! It was like a game in itself. My main was a mind/fire Dom though, I got pretty far with her. Wonderful game and I miss it.

Also, for some reason the level of the audio seemed pretty low. I normally listen during my train commute and I really had to crank the volume this week :odd:

Coolbeans wrote:

I would give almost anything for City of Heroes to come back. I'll never forget my thrill when I first was able to fly. Awesome!

I think I saw a link in the CoH thread on this site about some people negotiating with NCsoft for the rights to the game so they can revive it.

I seem to recall the people looking to perform the revival were asking for patients as the nuances of this negotiation in Korea are tricky.

Odd illustration of cultural differences in this episode. The detailed explanation of cryptic crosswords was strange to listen to. They are completely ubiquitous here, almost every newspaper has them.

I can't do them at all. I'm generally not patient enough for them, but my grandmother always used to do them.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Odd illustration of cultural differences in this episode. The detailed explanation of cryptic crosswords was strange to listen to. They are completely ubiquitous here, almost every newspaper has them.

I can't do them at all. I'm generally not patient enough for them, but my grandmother always used to do them.

I was thinking the same thing. All the while Julian was describing it, all I could think was "gosh, that sounds like a British crossword."

And I've never even been to Europe.

With respect to Cryptic Crosswords, Fraser and I were fairly good friends when we were both in boarding at Upper Canada College. In grades 7 and 8, he was already into word puzzle creation and the seeds were clearly there for what he would become.

Thus I have to say I laughed when you mentioned the letter to the Globe and Mail, and his eventual becoming the new Globe's Cryptic Crossword creator.

Quite literally my first thought, years after I had last spoken with him, when some years ago I saw his byline on the Globe's Cryptic Crossword was "Finally, he has achieved his destiny."

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Odd illustration of cultural differences in this episode. The detailed explanation of cryptic crosswords was strange to listen to. They are completely ubiquitous here, almost every newspaper has them.

I can't do them at all. I'm generally not patient enough for them, but my grandmother always used to do them.

Yup. As an Aussie, I was also surprised that the hosts were discussing them as if they were not commonly known. Rabbit and David described them pretty well though.

My grandpa introduced me to them when I was 7, without even explaining the difference from regular crosswords! Needless to say I didn't get into them until years later. Now me and my wife love 'em and part of her birthday present every year is my renewal of her subscription to a cryptic crossword magazine. She has far outpaced me.

I was sad when Section 8 Prejudice went bye-bye. Never really got to enjoy unlocking the jamming beacon. Or the final unlocks for that matter.

SarielsBaby wrote:

Digital Environmental Theater (DET) is better than Walking Simulator (WS)

agreed.

Picked up Guild of Dungeoneering on a bit of a lark (it was 10% off). Really like it so far. It is cute, simple, and styleish - a nice little "I have 10 minutes, what do I play?" game.

Well, I'm way behind in my podcast listening, so don't know if anyone will see this. I'm a big fan of Cryptic Crosswords. They've been a feature in Games Magazine and its sister publications for many, many years, so readily available in the US for at least fans of pencil/paper puzzles. It's quite surprising Rabbit has never heard of them since I would have guessed that he would have picked up a Games Magazine at some point or even was subscriber. Nice to hear about the app.

drphil wrote:

Well, I'm way behind in my podcast listening, so don't know if anyone will see this. I'm a big fan of Cryptic Crosswords. They've been a feature in Games Magazine and its sister publications for many, many years, so readily available in the US for at least fans of pencil/paper puzzles. It's quite surprising Rabbit has never heard of them since I would have guessed that he would have picked up a Games Magazine at some point or even was subscriber. Nice to hear about the app.

Every time I hear about Rabbit meeting other people now, it seems cryptics show up, just on a table in the background with a handful of people puzzling over them.

The Times has very recently started doing a Crossword in Latin.

Finally!