Monster Hunter World, Zwift, The Red Strings Club, Tesla Vs. Edison Duel, Gloomhaven, Bringing Beginners Into Multiplayer Games, Your Emails and More!
This week Julian, Amanda, Shawn and David Heron talk about bringing new players into established multiplayer games.
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.
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00:01:42 Monster Hunter World
00:19:28 Arena of Valor (mobile)
00:25:13 Zwift (bike trainer)
00:31:32 The Red Strings Club
00:35:17 Gloomhaven (boardgame)
00:37:35 Tesla Vs. Edison Duel (boardgame)
00:41:05 Bringing Beginners Into Multiplayer Games
00:55:00 Your Emails
Just want to pop in here and say that The Division is indeed fantastic. They've patched and DLC'd the living daylights out of it. So much content. Even if all you did was do the ~ 30+ hour PvE storyline it's well worth your money.
Also, 90% of it is not PVP. In fact, you have to go out and actively find PVP content (the Dark Zone and a portion of the DLC).
Re the email about games and hunger mechanics. Given Shawn said that fasting gave him a giddy, trippy feeling, I have a simple solution: just use the "drunk" effects many games deploy when you drink booze: the blurry vision, unfocused reticule, etc etc. Maybe add in a strength/damage resistance boost. Done. Next!
Defunk'd Bloggue
Bluesky: @lancecalhoon.bsky.social
Monster Hunter newb here. I'm a convert. MHW is great! If I had to describe it in terms of other genres, I'd say it has Diablo 3's loot play loop, but with crafting incorporated as a main mechanic instead of tacked on afterwards. Pair that with Dark Souls combat. That's MHW. Maybe put in some 90s era obtuseness and opacity. It really can do with more documentation and better data presentation.
The new bowgun mechanics are solidly 3rd person shooting. So 3rd person shooter combat with that looting play loop and crafting.
The new arenas are truly a evolution of the formula, IMO. This is what MH should have always been, but the hardware was never up to it until this year. It's not precisely open world. It's a hunting arena. Big enough to work. Not big enough to be tedious. Just right. The transition between large hunting arenas are very acceptable because that's about the limit of when you would want to fast travel anyway.
MH gets an undeserved rap for being too complex and difficult. It's not. It has that complexity if thats your jam, but most of it is unnecessary for a 30 hour playthrough and MHW introduces all of it very gradually. It's not until well past your first few hunts that they even introduce eating meals at the Canteen (which provides mission buffs).
The wide variety of weapon selection also meets most gaming sensibilities today. You want Souls like? Get your Great Sword on. Not into that? Get a Sword and Shield. You're almost never locked into an animation longer than what might be expected for a typical fighting game, and protection from physical hits is just a button away. It's more forgiving than Zelda combat! Light Bowgun doesn't even lock you into an attack animation. Firing is discrete and instant. You can nearly always dodge out unless you're stunned or you're locked in a long reload animation.
And if that's still not enough, just make sure you're online and fire off an SOS flare. There's usually no shortage of eager Japanese MH players eager to show off their end-game gear.
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
One thing I've found helpful when getting into Multiplayer games is to look up 'Beginners tips' videos. You can avoid mistakes you would otherwise have to spend time learning during matches. You can also look up what makes a good beginner class or character. Watching videos of other players can also help to see how they approach things.
Devising strategies to overcome the initial failures while learning a multiplayer game is good. Someone once told me that their creative writing class teacher would ask them to collect rejection letters over the summer. They had to aim for ten rejection letters or something like that. That was a very smart way to take the sting out of inevitable rejections.
I only played one match of Rainbow Six: Siege PvP even though I really wanted to get into it. We were the defending team and we all died alarmingly quickly with barely a glimpse of the attackers. The last thing I saw was our last team mate boarding up a window that had already been breached. I remember thinking that the time for boarding up windows has probably passed.
I hope you like thrill rides - Luis Serra, Resident Evil 4 Remake
Uncharted 4 Multiplayer: Half Nelson
Ah dang, I introed a Graham Rowat reading but forgot to tell Jonathan about it! My fault! We'll run it next week.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
Did this episode get uploaded to Google Play? I'm not seeing it listed.
I see it in the Google Play list ok. They just have the RSS feed registered, we don't 'upload' it individually.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
I'm interested to hear Elysium's thoughts on Gloomhaven, I was surprised he bought it as he doesn't talk about boardgames much.
Also I have come to accept that Amoebic and I just have totally opposite tastes in games. Every game she loves that I have tried I just bounce of it! Still nice to hear about them and to have variety on the conference call. You hear people often say 'find reviewers who taste matches yours' and I've never really found that but I just realized during this episode I found the opposite.
Omg I love that song starting at around 41:05. Need more of that! What is it?
The fact that Monster Hunter World (or any Monster Hunter game) isn’t coming to the Switch has me feeling grumpy about listening to all these Johnny-Come-Latelies talking about how they like the game now that it’s “accessible.” I liked it before it was accessible.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to ride my fixed-gear bicycle to the store to pick up some skunky beer.
Jonman Wrote:
Yes, you can cancel Darksiders, but only by using your Sony Golds. Which, while pretty good, aren't a patch on Zelda.
I'm A Steam Curator!
With my fiancée we really love Monster Hunter World : we take turns and try to understand how to best hunt those huge beasts. It is really challenging but it gets wayyy better once you start to figure out how and when monsters move and attack (attack patterns), then it starts getting real addictive. I recommend it strongly ! Hit me up on Xbox One X if you find me around, I'm always eager to help
The sleeper must awaken, sooo... Anyone up for pizzas ?
Xbox One X = Peha75
PS4 = Peha751
Steam = peha_75
Shawn, when choosing an NFL team to support you said you couldn't pick the Vikings. Obviously, Sean (a Packers fan) supports that decision, but I'm curious for your reasons.
To be clear, I'm not trolling, looking to start a debate or ignite a flame war. As a Vikings fan, it caught my attention and wanted to learn a little more. Care to offer some insight?
Thanks.
"Think about what you put out into the world; make it a better place."
-- Jeff Cannata --
I honestly don't even remember saying it, so I was probably joking around? I think I liked the Vikings the most back in the Culpepper era.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
Late to the party, but I'm surprised that, during the "stuff that video games can't really reproduce well", you people thought of hunger, getting shot, running, crouching, but not sex. Seriously, that's really one of the most ludicrously represented things in games. Most of the time it's either cringe inducing or just laughable. Most of the time.
As for city team names, I'm gonna go with... the Paris Guillotines.
Woof. I know you're joking but it does occur to me though, what's the local view of that era Eleima? Would Guillotines be something Paris could hang with as a kind of team name or would it be a major scandal?
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
That's... an interesting question, and not one I'm really sure I have a definite answer for. Team names aren't really a thing here, at least not in the traditional North American way. Names exist, but they're mostly tied to the home city: "Olympique Lyonnais", "Paris Saint Germain", that kind of thing. Sometimes the team's name is just the city, "Saint Etienne". Or one of the flag's colors: "les bleus" (which goes for soccer and rugby). I'm not huge on sports in general, so maybe I'm forgetting some nicknames. For instance, in handball, the male team has had several nicknames over the years, depending on the batch of players: "les bronzés" (the tanned ones), "les experts", "les barjots" (the whackos).
As for the guillotine... I'm just not sure. The French Revolution is a part of French history, and while it was a bloody and frightful time, I suppose it's regarded as a growing pain on the path to our current system, a republic. You'd be hard-pressed to find people that would like the absolute monarchy to come back. Then again, capital punishment is considered a barbaric thing here. So there's a chance it wouldn't be very popular.
The Parisian Dandies. You're welcome.
I wish you guys would stop encouraging him.
EvilHomer3k wrote:You are an evil, evil person.
Baron Of Hell wrote:YOU VILLAIN!
Nope. Being a dandy has taken a derogatory conotation in French.
It did come to mind, but I really felt like I'm always beating the same drum. This really is a subject that rubs me the wrong way for many reasons, so to keep the tone of the conversation light, I withheld my reservations despite how the subject chafes with a lot of people whenever the subject arises.
In the future, I'll try to be more firm with my convictions and face these challenges head-on.
Un bon mot ne prouve rien (A witty saying proves nothing). - Voltaire
No harm, no foul, Amoebic. I just really thought it was pertinent, especially since a Goodjer has a signature with “the Konami Code taught me everything I know about sex”
Wow a spammer just copy/pastes a comment from this very same thread and posts it as their own? Audacious.
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...