GWJ Conference Call Episode 557

8bitdo, Everspace, Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire, Oink Games, The Ideal Opponents, Your Emails and More!

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This week Shawn, Julian, Allen and Amanda are talking about their ideal multiplayer opponents!

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00:01:20 8bitdo controller
00:03:42 Everspace
00:08:24 Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire
00:10:46 Overwatch
00:11:38 What Remains of Edith Finch
00:12:31 Oink Games (card games)
00:15:53 The Ideal Opponents
00:31:34 Your Emails

In regards to the "moments that made you start playing a game differently" question...

For Dishonored (the first one) I held a "low chaos" rating all the way until the final mission. I played in a stealthy, methodical style, and would even frequently reload to from quicksaves to replay sequences that I had gotten through mostly unscathed but felt I could have handled in a more elegant/efficient way. I tried to avoid killing most city watch guards and others who I reasoned were just average guys doing their jobs unless I was forced to take them out. And I believe I chose the non-lethal option for eliminating all of the assassination targets up until the final mission (although you could argue for some of them the lethal option would have been the more merciful/humane one).

All of that to say in the final mission I had penetrated into the lighthouse fortress and was about to ascend up to the top where the conspirators were gathered, and even then I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to deal with the people who had betrayed me. It seemed obvious I would probably have to kill them, but how to go about it? Take them out stealthily without them even knowing I was there? Walk out and confront them to see what what they had to say for themselves? For some reason it occurred to me to equip the Heart and see if it had any unique dialogue to go with that place.

And it did. Specifically, it described the conspirators kidnapping Emily, and how she had screamed my name as they took her away.

The guys from Penny Arcade have on several occasions discussed in blog posts or podcasts "dad moments" in video games and how getting older and having a spouse and kids changes your perspective on things. Although I'm married, I don't have any kids of my own yet. But let me tell you, when the Heart finished that line about Emily crying out for me, I had a serious "dad moment." My screen took on a mysterious red tint I am sure was not coded by Arkane Studios and in that moment all indecision was gone and I knew every one of the conspirators I found at the top of that lighthouse was going to die. They were going to die quick enough that there would be no time for pitifully inadequate words of self-justification, but not so quick that they wouldn't be able to look into my eyes as the end came and know why.

Thus resolved, it was rather a disappointment to find that only one of the conspirators was even still alive to receive me after they had turned on each other. But the unique assassination animation for Havelock, where he tries to shoot you and you twist his arm and turn his pistol back on him, suited my mood and intentions pretty perfectly.

(Edit: According to the Dishonored wiki, this is actually not a unique Heart line for this mission, it's simply carried over from the previous one. I never knew this until now. Apparently I never thought to listen to the Heart in the previous mission, so it was purely serendipitous happenstance that I heard that line when I did for it to affect me so much.)

One other thing to add on a different topic from the podcast (sorry if double posting is frowned upon here, I'm new): I have a pair of the 8BitDo NES30 controllers myself, use them for my Retropie, and I highly recommend them. On the newest builds of Retropie the pairing and connectivity works pretty painlessly without needing to do any command line fuzting around at all. The only issue I've encountered is with the hotkey combinations for save states.

I am planning on getting a couple of the NES30 "Pro" model with the more ergonomic shape and dual thumbsticks to use as well depending on the game I want to play.

Another excellent show, well done all.

I almost ordered an 8Bitdo until I saw the press release about the SNES inspired controller they are planning to release.

With multiplayer gaming, I drifted away from that some time ago, which saddens me as I used to play games online all of the time. Like Shawn my life has changed and with it my gaming habits. Multiplayer games are now board games and pen and paper RPGs, video and computer games are all single player experiences now.

I fell out of multiplayer online because when multiplayer gaming first starting becoming big for online consoles (after Halo 2 it seemed) people were either lambasting me because I was 1) not good enough or 2) taking the game too serious.

I'm right with you on the middle ground. Opponents, keep quiet unless I know you. Teammates, be encouraging and helpful while not taking it too seriously that I feel threatened if I screw up.

I'm enjoying Star Trek VR right now because I feel like most people are enjoying it and taking it just serious enough to not yell at each other but still get stuff done. I would like to find a group of like-minded individuals to play online games with, and that's just something that's hard to come by when a lot of my friends have dropped out of gaming as they have gotten older into their thirties.

Hum... What do I want in a multiplayer opponent? For them not to use gender slurs! Seems pretty obvious, you would think, but experience shows that it's not always a given. Shawn touched on this when he mentioned racial slurs and Amanda said as much later on, but good grief, there are some really nasty people out there. My
Granted, my experience might be colored because I'm not stateside, and don't get the opportunity to play with GWJ as often as I'd like. But there's definitely a positive happy hugfest vibe to goodjers, and that's something that's real awesome.

The last email was an interesting perspective. At some point, we've gotta admit and accept that we just can't play it all, as much as we would like to. Lately, I've bene logging about 11-12 hours of gaming a week (1 or 2 hours in the evening, as Allen said). And that's a LOT, when you factor in that I have a 55hr work week and two young children to juggle (let's be honest, I'm probably not getting enough sleep). Podcast are awesome, because I can get work done and still listen, so gosh, thank goodness for podcast, and thank goodjness for the GWJCC. Keep it up, gang.

Yea, in a given week it's not at all uncommon for me to spend more time listening to a gaming podcast than actually playing games. It’s a nice way to keep up with the hobby when free time is so limited.

What do I want from multiplayer opponents? AI.

It always makes me sad when "multiplayer" means "competitive". I'm exclusively interested in co-operative experiences, but I find they're often not included in the "multiplayer" description.

Multiplayer is something I generally avoid. I'm just disinclined to worry about 'practising' something that's supposed to be a way for me to unwind. I have recently started playing Heroes of the Storm quite a lot and I'm finding Quick Matches ideal 90% of the time. Everyone just gets down, does their job and moves on. Sometimes games go badly and someone whines in chat, but I just mute them.

This kind of ties into the question about all the games you don't get to play. I used to occasionally fall for the latest MP du jour, but I've gotten wise enough to know that no matter how much fun people are having with the new hotness the odds of me having a game with anyone I'm interested in chatting with are so low it's pointless. And without company they're mostly unmitigated hell. I like listening to people's experiences without getting any inclination to play. Same with Souls-likes. I like to hear stories of people's experiences without developing any curiosity to try myself. (I think) 5 hours of the original Dark Souls was a life time's worth of that experience for me.

As for settings that are off putting. I also took a bit of umbrage about the Witcher comment, but to be fair it takes a good long while to dig through the tropes to find where it subverts and undermines them. For someone who doesn't like anything with Elves and Dwarves it's still a hard sell.

The only settings I don't like are modern settings for military games. Being Western Imperialist forces murdering hordes of Brown people is not my bag. Battlefield Hardline and The Division are both a hard no.

I found the 4X and CK2 comments interesting. CK2 is one of the few games of its type that's really resonated with me, partly because the focus on the dynasty and characters means I get to look a bit more closely at what is otherwise a large, impersonal setting. CK2 has just enough personality for me to find a hook where EU4 lacks this.

I just had an experience where the game story changed how I played. Normally in Bethesda games I'm willing to leave a wounded companion in a down state while I run away, heal up and come back to finish the fight. But while replaying Fallout 4 Dogmeat was badly injured by a Deathclaw. I couldn't stand to see him crawling and whimpering so I rushed in instead.

Zudz wrote:

What do I want from multiplayer opponents? AI.

It always makes me sad when "multiplayer" means "competitive". I'm exclusively interested in co-operative experiences, but I find they're often not included in the "multiplayer" description.

Thus far, Andromeda multi is co-op-only.

I'll check it out when I get around to Andromeda. I'm of the Guybrush Threepwood philosophy, so I'm still waiting for a sale.

Zudz wrote:

What do I want from multiplayer opponents? AI.

Can I hit the like button twice?

I loved playing Crazy Taxi in the local movie theater arcade while waiting for a movie to start, so I looked up Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire. While it was entertaining, it's definitely not to my taste - however, I found that the original Crazy Taxi game IS available for iOS! So yeah, I've been playing that on and off and it's a wonderful bit of throwback for the low low price of ignoring annoying ads every so often.

Great show guys

Oink games, oink games, buy any play some oink games.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/TTPc8F6.jpg)

Does anyone know this podcast that Amanda was on ? Is it Middle of Nowhere with Chris Cobb ?
Would like to listen to that episode...