GWJ Conference Call Episode 662

Cadence of Hyrule, Watch Dogs 2, Euclidia, Mystic Vale, Our Highlights of E3, Your Emails and More!

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This week Julian, Allen, Shawn and guest David Heron talk E3 stuff!

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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Comments

So I'm totally downloading Euclidea, thanks for that!
Crypt of the NecroDancer was AWESOME. I love it, I've played through with multiple characters. Shawn actually only mentioned the mode with the Bard, which is easy mode, where enemies move when you move. In truth, NecroDancer is like DDR in the sense that you have to move to the beat. It gets harder, also with different characters, Cadence, Aria, Dove, the Monk (try, just TRY not to pick up gold, it's so - freakin' - hard).
As a big NecroDancer fan, I've been hesitating because I've never been a big Zelda fan (just didn't grow up with it, never owned Nintendo consoles, that's all). But if Julian says it's a better game... I just might be tempted. Very tempted.

I have never gotten past the second or third level of NecroDancer. I appreciate what it is, but the pieces never seem to fall together for me.

00:07:06 Fallout 76
00:11:58 Roller Champions
00:16:31 Euclidia (mobile)
00:21:38 Cadence of Hyrule
00:32:19 Watch Dogs 2
00:37:42 Perchang
00:39:46 Slay the Spire
00:40:33 Mystic Vale
00:43:29 Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop)
00:51:48 E3 Highlights
01:43.22 Your Emails

I liked Necrodancer, but not enough to drop $25 on a spin-off. Maybe if I could reliably make it to a boss in the original, I’d reconsider, but I already have enough games I’m bad at.

Regarding Fallout 76: since when are people all about the mainline story in Fallout games? The impression I always got from listening to podcasts— like this one, in fact— was that the appeal of the Bethesda-style RPGS (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc) was to ignore the story as soon as the game allowed it and strike off into the open world to do some exploring. Virtually every critical piece I’ve ever read on any modern Fallout game complains that the story is blah, but the exploration and side-stuff is top-notch.

Now Bethesda releases a game with what is, basically, all exploration and side-stuff and everyone says that Bethesda is missing the point of Fallout. If that’s so, it’s only because the player base has been lying about what they want from a Fallout game for over a decade. Bethesda’s mistake is that they listened.

For my part, my wife and I are enjoying Fallout 76, and have a couple hundred hours in it at this point. The battle Royale mode is garbage, but that’s not Fallout 76’s fault because Battle Royale modes in general are garbage.

Regarding Fallout 76: since when are people all about the mainline story in Fallout games? The impression I always got from listening to podcasts— like this one, in fact— was that the appeal of the Bethesda-style RPGS (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc) was to ignore the story as soon as the game allowed it and strike off into the open world to do some exploring. Virtually every critical piece I’ve ever read on any modern Fallout game complains that the story is blah, but the exploration and side-stuff is top-notch.

"Side stuff" IS story, though. Exploration is environmental story telling to some extent. To me, Fallout 76 is a hodgepodge of shallow and empty "stories" who don't have much to say beyond giving you a loose reason to go from A to B. Same goes for the different environments.

Now if you like entering buildings, picking stuff up and generally poking around Fallout 76 seems pretty good. I think it's off-base to suggest the reason F76 didn't land for so many people is because they were misunderstanding their own experiences or "lying" about what they like. That's a wild assertion to make.

I'm a self admitted fan boy of Ubisoft products. I devour like 85% of their output each year, and they have become my goto AAA publisher.

That said, i was surprised, and not sure if i agree with their move to Stadia. I was hoping they'd continue to stay neutral on the cloud platform front. I'm not able to see the upside yet of them doing this. I'm hoping that this doesn't become an either/or issue like xbox and playstation.

Certis wrote:
Regarding Fallout 76: since when are people all about the mainline story in Fallout games? The impression I always got from listening to podcasts— like this one, in fact— was that the appeal of the Bethesda-style RPGS (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc) was to ignore the story as soon as the game allowed it and strike off into the open world to do some exploring. Virtually every critical piece I’ve ever read on any modern Fallout game complains that the story is blah, but the exploration and side-stuff is top-notch.

"Side stuff" IS story, though. Exploration is environmental story telling to some extent. To me, Fallout 76 is a hodgepodge of shallow and empty "stories" who don't have much to say beyond giving you a loose reason to go from A to B. Same goes for the different environments.

Now if you like entering buildings, picking stuff up and generally poking around Fallout 76 seems pretty good. I think it's off-base to suggest the reason F76 didn't land for so many people is because they were misunderstanding their own experiences or "lying" about what they like. That's a wild assertion to make.

We can agree to disagree on whether the environmental storytelling is good or bad in 76. I think it’s well done, but everyone’s mileage varies.

Regarding the “lying” claim, I’ll cop to using language that’s too strong, but I think this illustrates the point that Bethesda appears to have learned a perfectly reasonable lesson from the comments and reviews of all of the previous Fallout games. I find it difficult to fault them for hearing a bunch of reviews that were in some cases literally saying “ignore the bad story and explore the world” to mean that people were ignoring the story to explore the world.

As I said, “lying” was perhaps too strong a term. Perhaps a better one would be “unclear” or “unintentionally misrepresenting,” because that was my experience with watching the response to this and previous fallout games, and I’m not entirely unique in the world.

I'm a little sad they didnt walk about Outer Wilds this time. I picked it up two weeks ago after shawn's recommendation and loved every second it. Hopefully he brings it up next time.

BeardesGeodude wrote:

I'm a little sad they didnt walk about Outer Wilds this time. I picked it up two weeks ago after shawn's recommendation and loved every second it. Hopefully he brings it up next time.

I think Shawn said something to the same effect, but I don't know how you talk about it without spoiling the crap out of it.

By a strange coincidence considering its mention on the show, I spent inordinate amounts of time playing Watch Dogs 2 this weekend (like at least 6 to 8 hours both days).

I'm going to have to check out Mystic Vale, I'm a sucker for good card games.

And I want you guys to know that I got three likes on my 'Overwatch and Rocket League are not fun' post.

Papageno wrote:

By a strange coincidence considering its mention on the show, I spent inordinate amounts of time playing Watch Dogs 2 this weekend (like at least 6 to 8 hours both days).

Yeah, Legion got me to buy and play WD2 and I like it, which is unexpectedly odd for me and modern Ubi.

David Heron's comments on Watch Dog Legion were spot on. Will the procedurally generated folks be interesting or just a means to an end? I think there's going to be a little of Bethesda's "make your own fun" aspect to it.

Will there be too much churn of members? How often will you be dying and the permadeath matter? Every 15 minutes? Every hour? Every ten hours? Etc.

Much, much more game footage, interviews, streams, etc. are coming down the pike in the coming months. Hopefully our answers will be answered before launch.

Lowlight wrote:

I have never gotten past the second or third level of NecroDancer. I appreciate what it is, but the pieces never seem to fall together for me.

I'm having the exact same problem. I haven't given up yet, but it's just not clicking for me. How weird to appreciate just about everything about a game, but still struggle to enjoy playing it.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Certis wrote:
Regarding Fallout 76: since when are people all about the mainline story in Fallout games? The impression I always got from listening to podcasts— like this one, in fact— was that the appeal of the Bethesda-style RPGS (Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc) was to ignore the story as soon as the game allowed it and strike off into the open world to do some exploring. Virtually every critical piece I’ve ever read on any modern Fallout game complains that the story is blah, but the exploration and side-stuff is top-notch.

"Side stuff" IS story, though. Exploration is environmental story telling to some extent. To me, Fallout 76 is a hodgepodge of shallow and empty "stories" who don't have much to say beyond giving you a loose reason to go from A to B. Same goes for the different environments.

Now if you like entering buildings, picking stuff up and generally poking around Fallout 76 seems pretty good. I think it's off-base to suggest the reason F76 didn't land for so many people is because they were misunderstanding their own experiences or "lying" about what they like. That's a wild assertion to make.

We can agree to disagree on whether the environmental storytelling is good or bad in 76. I think it’s well done, but everyone’s mileage varies.

Regarding the “lying” claim, I’ll cop to using language that’s too strong, but I think this illustrates the point that Bethesda appears to have learned a perfectly reasonable lesson from the comments and reviews of all of the previous Fallout games. I find it difficult to fault them for hearing a bunch of reviews that were in some cases literally saying “ignore the bad story and explore the world” to mean that people were ignoring the story to explore the world.

As I said, “lying” was perhaps too strong a term. Perhaps a better one would be “unclear” or “unintentionally misrepresenting,” because that was my experience with watching the response to this and previous fallout games, and I’m not entirely unique in the world.

The 'lying' was being done by Bethesda. They set expectations and then failed to meet or even try to meet them. It was also done by players who insist that Bethesda actually listened and changed their ways.

I'm a fan of self driving stories and 76 definitely requires you to work for it, but it is there. I think that the biggest complaint comes down to that it lacks the personality of the previous games because of this.

Demiurge wrote:
Lowlight wrote:

I have never gotten past the second or third level of NecroDancer. I appreciate what it is, but the pieces never seem to fall together for me.

I'm having the exact same problem. I haven't given up yet, but it's just not clicking for me. How weird to appreciate just about everything about a game, but still struggle to enjoy playing it.

I found the platform I played it on really played a huge part of my enjoyment of it. I first bought it on Steam, and it just didn't click. Really liked the music and concept, but I made no headway. Then they released it on iOS, and I double dipped. Zero regrets. Beat the game with multiple characters (not all though, I think I'm stuck on Aria, where there's a zero tolerance for missed beats, too tricky for me in the fourth zone). Swipping on the iPad or iPhone really made a difference for me, and then I went back to Steam and played a whole bunch there too. Just my two cents.

I really enjoy 76 as well. It’s disappointing to hear people chime in on the overall game when they’ve only played for a couple hours. I also find it strange that people complained so much about the lack of NPCs. You’re getting the same storytelling from robots and audio tapes. Sure, the tapes aren’t interactive but the story is still there. Overall it just seems like most people have already decided what they think of the game, which mostly seems to be make fun of it.

Docsamson wrote:

I really enjoy 76 as well. It’s disappointing to hear people chime in on the overall game when they’ve only played for a couple hours. I also find it strange that people complained so much about the lack of NPCs. You’re getting the same storytelling from robots and audio tapes. Sure, the tapes aren’t interactive but the story is still there. Overall it just seems like most people have already decided what they think of the game, which mostly seems to be make fun of it.

I think the idea of the vocal minority being the primary source of discontent is misleading. I have over 30 hours into it, and i have friends who have over 100. We're very critical of the game. We came back to play the BR part of the game and when done with that we tried to jump back into the regular game and it didn't work... The game is still a buggy mess.

Again, tapes and lore is more like lore dispensaries and not quite the same as fleshed out NPCs.

Not quite the same sure, but still lore. I haven’t had nearly as many issues with bugs as I’ve heard others have had. And again, I think it’s a vocal minority who are screaming about the game being broken and unplayable when it’s clearly not. Buggy sure, but all Bethesda games have been. It’s not broken, and I have no issues ignoring what bugs I do find.

Can someone point out to me where the discussion about the Cyberpunk non-controversy is being had? From what I’m seeing on Twitter it seems like a lot of people are chalking it up to white guys telling people to be offended again.

Edit: never mind. Found the forum link in the show notes. Looks like dumpster fire argument hell. No thanks.

Docsamson wrote:

Can someone point out to me where the discussion about the Cyberpunk non-controversy is being had? From what I’m seeing on Twitter it seems like a lot of people are chalking it up to white guys telling people to be offended again.

Edit: never mind. Found the forum link in the show notes. Looks like dumpster fire argument hell. No thanks.

Funny you should mention that...

There seems to be a pattern of people defaulting to giving white dudes credit for repeating things they heard from marginalized voices who raise concerns about content (again), thereby erasing those marginalized voices from the process (again).

TL:DR: Forest for the trees. It's not about the poster, it's about the infrastructure behind it. And here there be trashfires all the way down.

So since you seem to have done more research on it than I have, maybe you can enlighten me. From my, admittedly brief, tour on Twitter trying to figure out what happened, I’m not seeing an outcry from anyone in the Trans community. In fact, it seems like most people are saying: don’t tell me what to be offended about. It also appears that Cyberpunk is including a huge array of options for their character creator, including making a trans character. Am I to take that as a bad thing?

TLDR: PM me if you’re so inclined.